Timeless Christmas Romance: Historical Romance Holiday Collection

by Laurel O'Donnell

  CHAPTER THREE

  You’re finally here, thank the Lord. Come, we must save him! A hand gripped Edwina’s wrist. Come now!

  She started awake to the sound of a drawn-out wail. Save him? Save whom? She sat up, heart thumping, and threw back the bed curtains, but the dim light of the banked coals showed no one lurking in the room. She must have been dreaming—of someone grabbing her and tugging her out of bed. She massaged her wrist, which hurt as if someone had truly gripped her there.

  The wind soughed outside her window. Ah, was that what she’d heard, not someone wailing? How stupid―she had allowed herself to be affected by that ridiculous ghost story. She closed the curtains, lay back in bed, and shut her eyes. She was just dropping off when the creak of a floorboard jerked her wide awake.

  She sat up and parted the bed curtains again. No one was in her room, so the sound must have come from the passageway. Whoever would be wandering about at this time of night? She listened hard. Soft footsteps, barely audible, reached her ears. Stocking feet, not shoes or boots.

  It was none of her business. She should go back to sleep.

  On the other hand, perhaps one of the children was ill, and she really had been wakened by a moan. She should at least make certain all was well. She got out of bed, tied her hair away from her face, tiptoed to the door, and cautiously opened it. To her surprise, the corridor wasn’t dark, as when Richard had first brought her upstairs. Someone had lit candles in the wall sconces. She glanced left and right…

  A slender figure in a white nightdress, carrying a lantern, was just crossing into the opposite wing—the unused one. Unused because it took too much upkeep, Edwina supposed, for the ghost tale was just that—a tale. And that white figure was no ghost, but Lizzie, judging by her long, fair hair. Why would she venture there in the middle of the night?

  Edwina hastened down the passageway after her, reaching the unused wing just in time to see the girl disappear through a doorway to the left. She followed, but what she saw in the doorway gave her pause. The dim light from the passageway showed that the room before her was a picture gallery with tall, intricately glazed windows its entire length. Lizzie walked—no, almost glided, so graceful was she—to the end of the gallery, sailed around a pianoforte that stood there, and flowed back, facing straight ahead, the lantern held aloft, and turned again, giving no sign that she had seen her governess.

  Edwina put her hands on her hips, about to speak, when a hand clapped over her mouth. Another clamped her by the waist and dragged her into the passageway. She struggled, jabbing her captor with an elbow, but he squeezed tighter, her derriere pressed against his groin, and spoke in her ear. “I shall remove my hand from your mouth if you promise not to say a word.”

  She nodded, and Richard uncovered her mouth. Slowly, he set her on her feet, but not before she realized that he was aroused. She shivered, suddenly and disconcertingly aware of the heat of his hand, of his large body close behind hers, of her nakedness under the nightdress.

  He hustled her down the passage, away from the picture gallery. “I’ll take care of her. Go back to bed.”

  Must he always be so peremptory? She fumed, controlling her temper, and then realized what was going on. “She’s sleepwalking?”

  “Yes. She does so almost nightly.”

  “Is that why you have the candles burning in the sconces?” He was fully dressed, she realized. He must have stayed awake to keep watch over his daughter, for it was dangerous to waken sleepwalkers.

  “Yes, for I fear she will tumble down the stairs. I cannot tell what she sees and doesn’t see. Her eyes are open, but she doesn’t notice me or others—as she didn’t notice you.” His voice was impatient. Aroused or not, clearly he wanted to be rid of Edwina.

  “But—but perhaps that’s why the myth of the ghost persists! Any villager may see her walking and assume she’s the ghost.”

  “Nothing will stop them from believing in the ghost,” Richard said. “Go back to bed.”

  “But why encourage them?” she persisted. “Surely if you explain, you will be able to hire more servants, and―”

  “I shall explain nothing to the villagers, and nor shall you,” Richard said, “or you may be sure that I shall dismiss you.”

  Her annoyance at his repeated threats was ousted by a more distressing emotion. “Is it perhaps that you cannot afford to hire any servants?”

  “No, certainly not,” he said, sounding goaded. “If you are worried about your own pay, you need not be. For the last time, Mrs. White, go back to bed.”

  “Very well,” she said, turning away, but she had gone only two steps when he said, “If I should decide to dismiss you in the morning, where will you go?”

  “With one day’s pay?” she asked. “Or not even that?”

  He shrugged, frowning. “One day’s pay.” In other words, a few measly pennies.

  “Unless the vicar needs a housekeeper―” Her desperate heart battered her chest.

  “He doesn’t,” said Richard. Oh, God, he was going to turn her into the street.

  It was so unfair that she didn’t care anymore. “Then I shall have to offer my services at the inn,” she hissed, “in whatever capacity the landlord wishes. He finds me pretty, so I have no doubt about how he will choose to use me.” She turned and hurried away before the tears came, but then whirled again. “You used to be a gentleman, Richard. I even believed I loved you at one time. But now… oh, now you will burn in hell for forcing a decent woman to become a whore.”

  “Wait, Edwina,’ he said, but she kept on going—she had to, or she would break down and sob before this monster. He followed and took her by one arm. “I shan’t dismiss you,” he said curtly. “It was a hypothetical question. I merely wished to know…”

  “How desperate I am?” She tugged her arm from his grasp. “Well, now that you realize the extent of my abasement, you can gloat all you like.” She shook her head, wondering once again why he should do so. Once, long ago, she’d thought him a kind and loving man.

  “I’m not gloating, damn it,” he said. “Come with me.” He stalked past her down the passageway, further away from his sleepwalking daughter.

  “What about Lizzie?”

  “She’ll be fine.” He stopped at the door to his bedchamber. “Wait here.”

  She did, shivering and watching the dimly-lit passage for signs of Lizzie. As long as the girl stayed away from the staircase, she would be safe.

  “Here.” Edwina started as Richard came out of the bedchamber and pressed something into her hand. “An advance on your wages, yours to keep whether you leave now or later. Good night.”

  ~ * ~

  Richard watched as she stumbled down the passageway, the money clutched in her hand as if her life depended on it—which perhaps it did.

  She had loved him once? A strange notion of love that was. They’d been set to elope. He wasn’t a rich man like Harold White, but he’d had enough to support a wife in comfort, if not the first style of elegance. But just as he’d been leaving for their rendezvous, he’d been arrested by the bailiffs for debt. By the time he’d managed to prove that the debt in question wasn’t his, she was married to Harold White. At first he’d wondered if he’d got her with child and she’d married White out of desperation, but when no baby was born in due course, he knew that wasn’t the case. Harold White’s fortune—far larger than what she would inherit from her father—had weighed more with her than love.

  Oh, what did it matter? She needed his help now, and he’d given it. He couldn’t help but see the irony in the current situation, but he wasn’t the sort to gloat over another’s misfortune. Nevertheless, something about her stripped him of his customary civility, leaving a man as wounded now as when he had lost her years ago.

  What happened next was in her hands. He didn’t want her here, but nor could he quite bring himself to dismiss her. Hopefully, she would decide to leave in the morning. He returned to the portrait gallery, where Lizzie still glided grac
efully back and forth.

  “That’s enough, love,” he whispered from the doorway. “But you’ll have to keep it up all the way to your bedchamber, in case Mrs. White is peeking from her doorway.”

  Lizzie grinned. “I did well, didn’t I, Papa? I didn’t give myself away by even a blink of an eye.”

  “You did marvelously, sweetheart, and if those new treasure hunters are on the watch, you may have convinced them as well. Off to bed with you now.”

  He saw her to her bedchamber, the consummate little actress, and finally went to his own cold bed. It was no surprise, he supposed, that holding Edwina so closely against him had awakened his libido. He’d had to force himself to let go. Apart from the fact that Edwina detested him, one didn’t tup the governess.

  She had lost weight since he’d seen her last, and that scraped-back hair, although it accentuated her erect carriage, also made her look the slightest bit gaunt. Undernourished. Evidently, she’d had a difficult time as a widow.

  With that wildly curly hair and those slender curves, those wide blue eyes and rosy lips, she belonged in a man’s bed. He’d only had her once—up against a garden wall—but she’d shown a passion to equal his in their brief, hot coupling.

  He sighed. He hadn’t had a woman since the death of his wife, Mary, which probably explained his reaction to Edwina now. He hadn’t been in love with Mary and she’d known it, which made their marriage difficult, but she’d been a good mother, utterly devoted to her children. He was damned glad she hadn’t lived to see him become Ballister of Ballister Grange.

  ~ * ~

  When Edwina woke the next morning, her first thought was to dig under her pillow and make sure she hadn’t dreamed it. Richard Ballister had given her fifty pounds—a fortune to her now, although far less than her pin money as Harold White’s wife.

  What in heaven’s name had come over him?

  Another thought: he wasn’t impoverished, if he could hand her fifty pounds as if it meant nothing. So why didn’t he want to dispel the myth of the ghost and hire some servants? And why, again, wasn’t she to discuss the story with his children? If he didn’t want them to believe it, wouldn’t he use any means possible to prove that it was sheer nonsense?

  He hadn’t forbidden her to discuss anything with Mrs. Cropper. It seemed the expense of working candles was not a concern, so she would ask for some mending to occupy her in the evenings—and if she happened to enjoy a comfortable gossip with the woman at the same time, who was to know?

  She got out of bed, washed her face and hands in the frigid water in the pitcher on the washstand, and dressed quickly. She opened her curtains to look out on the damp dawn. The rain had finally stopped, and pockets of pale blue pierced the clouds. Her window faced the front of the house, with a view of walkways and an extensive garden. Mostly it was a sorry, overgrown sight, much of it wintry brown and decaying, but the green of the holly hedge and its bright berries struck a cheerful note, and there was rosemary as well… Oh! She hadn’t noticed yesterday, but from above one saw the patterns. If she wasn’t mistaken, what she saw before her was an old-fashioned knot garden—a rare delight nowadays. The garden was made up of four squares, in which boxwood, rosemary, hyssop and yew wove around and over one another in complicated patterns.

  Such gardens required constant care. Freddy, the gardener she’d met at the inn, had probably tended it until the supposed ghost had frightened him away. This was an old, well-maintained garden, judging by the age of some of the plants. People had occupied the Grange for two centuries in spite of the legend of the ghost—so what had happened recently to cause such chaos?

  Richard came into view, striding around the house past the ruined tower, a slate in one hand and chalk in the other. He seemed to be counting or measuring something. John appeared with a ball of string. Yes, they were indeed measuring, for John stood in one spot whilst Richard unrolled the string to another spot and tied a knot. They moved along and measured again and again until they reached the front door.

  Richard looked up suddenly and saw her. He turned unsmilingly away, saying something to John, who raised his eyes and waved a greeting. Evidently, whatever generous impulse Richard had succumbed to last night hadn’t led him to become cordial this morning—but at least he didn’t encourage his children to be rude as well. It was almost as if he was two different people—the kind, considerate father and the harsh man who disdained her.

  She made her way to the kitchen, where Mrs. Cropper was rolling out pastry amid more delicious aromas, while a scrawny maid scrubbed pots and pans. “Sausages? And fresh bread?”

  “Aye, Mrs. White. Soon they’ll be coming in to their breakfasts, and who doesn’t like sausage and fresh-baked bread?”

  “I know I do,” Edwina said. She smiled at the scullery maid, who had turned to stare.

  “That’s Nell from the village,” Mrs. Cropper said, and the maid bobbed a curtsey. “She comes in days to give me a hand, but she doesn’t stay after dark.”

  Edwina seated herself at the deal table. It seemed ages since she’d had enough good, wholesome food. Her relatives had fed her grudgingly, and dining alone in her room at the homes of her employers meant she only got what the kitchen deigned to serve her, and no more. “I saw Sir Richard and John outdoors. They were measuring something on the house.”

  “Aye, it’s to do with finding the treasure, ma’am,” the cook said. “Will you have some coffee?” Without waiting for an answer, she poured a cup and set it in front of Edwina with a loaf of sugar and a pitcher of cream.

  Edwina thanked her and nipped off a few lumps of sugar—another much missed luxury—and dropped them into the steaming, aromatic brew. “Sir Richard hopes to find the ruby necklace?”

  “How else is he to get rid of them treasure seekers? It’s a miracle not more of the house has tumbled down, what with them digging in the cellars, and without so much as a by your leave, too! I tell you, ma’am, while the house was empty between one Sir Richard and the next, I was overrun with them. And not only foreigners like the Yorkshire men what got what was coming to them, but local boys as well, all mad to find the treasure.”

  Edwina poured cream in the coffee and stirred. “Yes, Joseph told me about his brother when he drove me here yesterday.”

  Mrs. Cropper snorted. “That Jemmy and his friends. But it wasn’t them what tried to poison Felix.” She jerked her chin in the direction of the dog, who thumped his tail in acknowledgement. “Dunno who did that.”

  Edwina stared. “Oh, how horrid! Poor Felix.”

  “Aye, but I nursed him back to health. And me alone in the house, unable to stop them, and even fearing for my life,” Mrs. Cropper said. “I was that happy, ma’am, when Sir Richard and the children got here. The lady ghost did a fine job of taking over for Felix and scared most of the fools away, but a ghost does not make good company, ma’am, make no mistake.”

  “I suppose not,” Edwina said weakly, although she would have preferred to chastise Mrs. Cropper for being superstitious. “How long were you here alone?”

  “All of six months, ma’am, for Sir Richard was away in foreign parts. He wasn’t meant to inherit, you see, for old Sir Richard had three fine sons. The death of the eldest was sad but no surprise, but―” She clamped her lips shut as Richard and John came through the door.

  All three sons of old Sir Richard had died? How tragic, but it was the only way for Richard—a cousin, Edwina assumed―to inherit. But why would the death of the eldest be no surprise? He might have had a chronic ailment, she supposed, but why shouldn’t Mrs. Cropper discuss the tragedy? Her eyes were round and wide, as if she feared Sir Richard’s wrath.

  Edwina did her best to deflect it. “What were you measuring out there?”

  “We’re looking for hiding places, Mrs. White,” John said, his cheeks red with the cold. “For the treasure.” He rolled up the ball of string.

  “Ah, such as priest’s holes, you mean? Places where the internal rooms don’t quite match the exte
rior walls?”

  “Precisely.” Richard set his chalk and slate at the end of the deal table. John put the ball of string beside it. “We’re going through the house bit by bit. We’ve already checked in all the obvious places.”

  “The treasure seekers thought the lady must have hidden it in the keep,” John said, “but since that fell down, we know it wasn’t there. Which makes sense, when you think about it.”

  “Fortunately for us, none of the treasure hunters seem to have thought much at all,” Richard said, “or an entire wing of the house might have tumbled down by now, too.”

  Edwina tsked. “What a waste of time. It’s far more likely that―”

  “That the lover absconded with it,” Richard completed, and that sardonic look descended again. “As you said last night, but kindly keep that opinion to yourself. Lizzie may as well enjoy being a romantic while she’s young and doesn’t know any better. Besides that, I think she’s right. Why would the ghost be so keen to guard the treasure if it isn’t here?”

  With difficulty, Edwina stifled a retort, but she had her own counter-question: Why was Richard so ridiculously adamant about the existence of the ghost? It seemed less and less like a game, but he was far too educated and intelligent to actually believe in such a phenomenon.

  “Logically, she would have hidden it in her bedchamber or dressing room, or more likely, her husband took it from the dead lover and hid it elsewhere in the house,” Richard said.

  “Why would he do that?” Edwina demanded. “She couldn’t get to it from her prison. In fact, why keep her chained in a tower if he already knew where it was and had it safely hidden away?

  “Revenge,” John said, his eyes fierce for such a child. “He was an evil man.”

  Edwina glanced at Richard, whose expression was so like his son’s that she shivered. He wiped the dark look from his face, replacing it with a bland one—as far as he was capable of blandness. There was something powerful about Richard Ballister which simply couldn’t be concealed.