My Lady Caroline

by Jill Jones

  Alison paid the taxi driver and squared her shoulders before entering the estate agent’s office. She would return to Dewhurst Manor before the day was out, and if Mr. Ryder didn’t like it, he would just have to get over it. She would return, even if she had to resort to the old golden rule—the one with the gold makes the rules. She’d invoked it often during her lifetime when she particularly wanted her way because, simply put, bribes worked.

  The bell tinkled loudly as she pulled the door open and shut it again firmly behind her, startling the woman behind the front desk.

  “May I see Ms. Useppi again?” Alison requested politely, although the more she considered the earlier brush-off, the more irritated she became.

  “Uh, do you have an appointment, Miss…?”

  But before Alison could answer the receptionist, the agent, tall and fashionably dressed, strode out of her private office and came down the hall toward Alison. “Miss Cunningham?”

  Alison was thrown off guard that the woman knew her name, for they hadn’t even gotten that far in their first encounter. “Yes. How did you know my name?”

  “Mr. Ryder rang me up. Said I could expect you. Please, step into my office.”

  Alison followed Gina Useppi into a cramped, paper-laden office, her suspicions of the pair increasing. “Why would he do that?”

  “I suppose, Miss Cunningham, because we have a close working relationship when it comes to Dewhurst Manor. I have promised to protect the property from…curious unqualified buyers, you see, a service Mr. Ryder and his colleagues greatly appreciate.”

  “And I take it you consider me in that category?” Alison said, carefully concealing her rage.

  “Well, frankly, you don’t exactly look…”

  “A Mercedes dealer once made that mistake, Ms. Useppi,” Alison interrupted. “Cost him the sale of a bright red little SLS AMG. And I made sure that when I purchased the car from his rival, I drove it into his lot and suggested that next time, he shouldn’t judge the proverbial book by the cover.” Alison couldn’t believe she was behaving in such a manner, but when arrogant sales people like the Mercedes dealer punched her buttons, she’d found she could be a real bitch.

  Like she was being now.

  “I see,” Gina Useppi replied without evident emotion, studying Alison at length. “What interests you so much in Dewhurst, Miss Cunningham? I mean, you do seem young to be considering such a property.”

  Alison took a deep breath. There was no reason to antagonize this woman. In fact, she might be helpful down the line. So she decided to take off her bitch hat and remove the rather large chip from her shoulder. It was, she thought, pleased with herself, an exercise in growing up. She looked directly into Gina’s black eyes. “Yes, I am young, Ms. Useppi. But I am also very, well, let’s just say I’ve come into a rather large inheritance. I am looking for a real estate investment, and I believe Dewhurst Manor might be it.”

  “Dewhurst an investment?”

  Alison heard the incredulity in Gina’s voice. “Well…yes.”

  The estate agent drummed her pencil lead absently on the desk, and Alison could almost see her thoughts colliding with one another. She must be wondering if she has a live one on her hands, or some kind of nut case, Alison thought, suppressing a grin. She wasn’t going to make it easy on the woman. She simply waited to see what she said next.

  “Dewhurst Manor is a very large estate, Miss Cunningham,” she said at last. “The asking price is five hundred thousand pounds. Depending upon what you want to do with it, the renovations will likely run in about the same range. And there is the matter of back taxes. Perhaps before we go further, we should determine if that amount, or somewhere close to it, is…within your means.”

  Alison wasn’t sure exactly what the amount Gina estimated translated to in American dollars. Almost a million, she guessed. Maybe more, depending on the current exchange rate.

  But not four million.

  Yes, it was within her means, although it was still a large sum for her to put out on her very first venture. But she wasn’t going to let this uncompromising agent intimidate her. For a moment, in spite of her own irritation, she fleetingly admired the woman’s determination to qualify her buyer.

  “I can write you a check for a good faith deposit, if that would help,” Alison replied without hesitation. “Say one or two percent of the price. Or,” she added in an offhand manner, gazing out the window, “I could make it a personal check, made out to you, for a thousand pounds, just for showing me the place. I might not even like Dewhurst Manor, but either way, you can keep the money.”

  “That will certainly not be necessary,” the agent sniffed, and Alison knew she had insulted the woman. Well, turn about, she thought.

  “You’ll show me the place then?”

  Gina scowled at being outmaneuvered. “Well, I suppose there’d be no harm in it, as long as we don’t disturb Mr. Ryder.”

  “I would think,” Alison commented dryly, “that if he seriously wants to sell his house, he’d be happy to allow a prospective buyer to examine it.”

  “His house?” Gina gave a short laugh and pushed her chair away from the desk. “Oh, it’s not his house, dear. Dewhurst Manor belongs to the bank. Coutt’s, in London. Mr. Ryder is friends with the bankers, and they have in fact, hired him to appraise the contents. The furniture isn’t included in the price of the place, by the way. Mr. Ryder has convinced the bankers they’ll recover a large portion of their losses by liquidating the contents of the house. It is an enormous job, and one reason I’ve promised to…show the place only to…qualified prospects. ”

  Alison was stunned. That arrogant jerk! He was nothing more than hired help! “The way he was acting, I thought he lived there,” she remarked with a smirk.

  “Oh, he does. At least at the moment. You see, he has rooms and rooms full of furniture and Victorian bric-a-brac to appraise, and he generously consented to doing the work on site rather than have all the pieces hauled into a warehouse where they might be damaged or stolen. He has taken up residence at Dewhurst Manor temporarily, although it must be a considerable inconvenience for him.” Gina picked up the phone and dialed a number.

  Inconvenience? Alison thought it sounded a little too convenient. What if he was a thief or something? Nobody was there to watch over his shoulder. He could make off with anything he wanted and no one would know the difference. But she kept her opinion to herself. “Why would it be an inconvenience for him to stay there while he worked?”

  “You’ll see,” Gina said, then spoke into the phone. “Mr. Ryder? Gina Useppi here. I’m bringing a client over in a few minutes. I promise we’ll not disturb you. Thanks.” She replaced the receiver and stood up, going for her heavy sweater. “The place is enormous and not well heated. It hasn’t had a good cleaning in years. But the main inconvenience is that hardly anyone is willing to come to work there.”

  “Why not?”

  Gina paused, then looked at Alison. “If you are sincere about buying the place, I guess it’s only fair to let you know that most of the locals consider the place to be…well…haunted.”

  Jeremy hung up the phone, irritated that Gina hadn’t been able to get rid of the American woman. Was, in fact, bringing her back.

  This afternoon.

  Damn!

  Well, he’d try to make himself invisible, taking his appraisal chores to the most obscure room he could find. He didn’t want to see the woman again. Even though she was a virtual stranger, she had that same disturbing erotic attraction for him as the dream-creature, the allure which left him feeling vulnerable and out of control. It wasn’t a position he liked to be in when it came to women.

  Surely it wouldn’t take long to dampen her enthusiasm for Dewhurst Manor. The place was a dreary, run-down monstrosity. He couldn’t imagine what Alison Cunningham, or anyone else for that matter, would want with it. He, and only he, knew about the one remarkable treasure hidden on the premises.

  Jeremy picked up his bag of tools�
��a yellow legal pad and calculator—and prepared to head back to close up the cellar before starting his search in the wing of bedrooms at the back of the house. Surely he could make himself unobtrusive, if not invisible, in that maze.

  As he closed the door to the master suite behind him, he thought he heard a muffled noise coming from the Great Hall. Were they here already? He hurried along the corridor to the stairway, then paused a moment, listening, not wanting to accidentally encounter the pair.

  The sound seemed louder, but he knew intuitively it wasn’t Gina or the American woman. But it did sound like a woman—a woman’s laughter, or rather a light girlish giggle. He considered for an instant the stories he’d heard about the place being haunted. Maybe he was hearing the resident ghost. Poppycock. His ears were playing tricks on him, the same as his libido had been doing lately. Maybe he needed a thorough physical when he finished here. He made a mental note to set an appointment with his doctor first thing when he got back to London.

  And then he heard a sound he recognized as being definitely of this world, the crunch of tires on the pebble drive. Blast! They were here already. There was no time now to get to the cellar or to hurry across the Great Hall to the rear wing, unless he wanted to crawl down the exposed upper gallery on hands and knees so they wouldn’t see him, and his dignity would not allow him to do that. He couldn’t go back to his room either. Gina was sure to show the master suite as part of the tour.

  Feeling quite the fool, Jeremy opted for a ridiculously Shakespearean hiding place…he slipped behind the heavy Arras tapestry at the end of the corridor, a corner that was without electric lights, enshrouded in shadow. He prayed that Gina would show this part of the house first so he could wait out the rest of their visit in the comfort of his quarters.

  And he also hoped they wouldn’t notice the unexplained pair of feet that was bound to be visible beneath the bottom edge of the tapestry. He heard the front door open, and the sound of feminine voices.

  “This is as far as I got,” he heard Alison say, “before Mr. Ryder…uh…intercepted me. I really hadn’t meant to trespass, you know. But I had come so far to see this place, and when you wouldn’t show it to me…”

  “I apologize for that sincerely,” Gina interrupted. “If nothing else comes of this, I will at least have learned your lesson about the red Mercedes.”

  What the hell was she talking about? Jeremy wondered, alarmed that they sounded so…so chummy.

  “Oh, wow! This is so cool!” Alison’s voice carried clear and young through the fabric of the tapestry, and Jeremy winced. Cool? He’d never heard a place like Dewhurst Manor described as…cool. “It looks like it must be haunted,” she continued enthusiastically. “Who do you suppose the lucky ghost is?”

  Lucky ghost? Wasn’t that an oxymoron?

  Then Gina’s deep mature voice set her straight. “Now, don’t take that haunted house story too seriously. It’s been tossed around for a long time now, but no one has actually seen the ghost. No one except old Ashley T. Stone.”

  “Who’s Ashley T. Stone?”

  Gina laughed, a throaty sound that ended in a wheezing cough. “Too many cigarettes,” she apologized before continuing. “Oh, he’s a local character. He’s lived around here all his life. Must be ninety-something by now, if he’s not a hundred. He seemed like an old man when I was just a little girl.” Another raspy laugh. “It was Ashley who got the story started in the 1930s about this place being haunted. Claims he saw the ghost, right here in the Great Hall, sitting in a chair, a young woman holding her arms tightly around herself, and crying and crying. I can tell you, it’s played havoc with the place’s perceived value.”

  “You mean people believed him, even though nobody else has seen her? The ghost, I mean.”

  “Oh, he’s not the only one who claims to have seen her, but he’s the only one I tend to believe. The rest, well, who knows? It makes for a good story, you know what I mean? Let’s move along into the receiving rooms, and I’ll fill you in. See those panels? Hand-carved. These rooms were added in the seventeenth century…”

  From his hiding place, Jeremy could no longer hear their conversation, but his interest was piqued by Gina’s story. A young woman, crying and crying? Lady Caroline Lamb, weeping for her lost love? Of course, the idea was ludicrous. But it was even more ludicrous that he was cloaked here behind this curtain like some kind of thief in the night.

  Throwing off the heavy tapestry in self-contempt, he strode to the stairwell again and made his way into the Great Hall. From there, he could hear Gina and Alison Cunningham moving from the receiving rooms into the dining hall, still discussing the ghostly aspects of the property. Just as well, Gina, he encouraged silently. Maybe a good scare will send her scurrying back to wherever she came from, and she’ll leave me in peace.

  Taking his tool bag to a window sill, he brought out a polishing cloth, a ruler and a magnifying glass. With a flourish, he threw back the white shroud that protected a large piece of furniture in one corner of the drawing room, revealing a magnificent harpsichord. With a low whistle, Jeremy ran his fingers lightly across the keyboard and would have tested the instrument except he did not want to attract the women’s attention. He knew from the woodwork, however, that it was a period piece, likely from the late eighteenth century. It might have been crafted around the same time as the old desk that now stood in Jeremy’s London townhouse.

  Setting about his work in earnest, Jeremy examined every inch of the harpsichord, making note of its condition, every flaw or bit of damage that was in evidence. He carefully searched the inside of the box and the seat as well, just in case, wondering how thick the sheaf of memoirs might be, and what size hiding place Lady Caroline would have needed. Surely she would have found a niche somewhere not quite so apparent as this musical instrument. Probably high up on a shelf somewhere, maybe in the library. Perhaps even between the covers of a book, making it appear as if it were just another volume on the shelves. The library at Dewhurst Manor was large, containing thousands of books. That search would take a while.

  Suddenly, he heard Gina’s voice again, growing louder as the women approached the Great Hall from another entrance to the rear wing. “So you see, it could make a wonderful inn. With all those bedrooms, you might possibly make a go of it. Perhaps you could turn it into a conference center. That’s what they did at Brocket Hall, you know. Lord and Lady Brocket still live on the estate, but the main house is used as an exclusive retreat for private parties and businesses. Who knows, you might even catch their overflow.”

  For God’s sake, Gina, Jeremy thought. Quit selling! But he knew that anyone as committed to a career as an estate agent as Gina Useppi would never deliberately try to lose a sale. He rolled his eyes and moved to a corner of the room where the women were unlikely to be able to see him as they moved from one end of the Great Hall to the other.

  “But wouldn’t the rumor that the place is haunted keep people from coming?” Alison asked.

  “You could possibly turn that to your advantage, I believe,” Gina replied, overcoming a familiar objection. “There is a tour of haunted houses in London. Perhaps you could get on the ghost circuit, you know, attract people who deliberately go out of their way to experience ghostly contact.”

  “I don’t know,” Alison replied, and Jeremy was pleased to hear the evident doubt in her voice. “I might end up with a lot of crazies…”

  “I suppose that’s a possibility,” Gina crooned in a voice that made it clear that she thought it unlikely. “Let’s go up to the master suite now.” The sound of their footsteps echoed on the stairwell, and Jeremy heard the sound of a door opening. “This is the master bedroom, where Mr. Ryder is staying at the moment, so you must excuse the mess.”

  Jeremy frowned. He didn’t think he’d left the room in much of a mess. But Alison didn’t seem to mind.

  “I love this!” she enthused. “Look how welcoming the fire is, a perfect place for reading a book on a rainy day.” She paused, an
d her next words made him wish he had straightened the room and put away certain items, including the books on Byron and Caroline Lamb. “Hmmm,” Alison remarked. “Interesting reading.” But she evidently thought there was nothing unusual in his choice of titles, for she quickly moved on. “From this window, the view is lovely,” she said. “It’s like looking out over an enchanted woodland or something.”

  “It is beautiful, isn’t it? Now that the rain has stopped and the sun is out. Oh, look,” Gina added, “a rainbow. Maybe…that’s a good sign.”

  Jeremy heard Alison give a delighted laugh, and he suppressed a groan. Give it up, Gina…

  Half an hour later, the tour complete, Gina and Alison returned to the front of the Great Hall. Jeremy had forced himself to keep to his task, working his way through the furnishings in the first receiving room, finding to his delight some priceless antiques and artwork. His friends at Coutt’s would be pleased. As would his friends at Sotheby’s. Again, he withdrew to remain out of sight, and he listened, appalled, as Gina went in for the kill.

  “So Miss Cunningham, what do you think? Isn’t it just perfect for your plans? I mean with the swimming pool and everything?”

  “I…think it could be,” the American woman replied with a surprising note of caution. “Of course, I’ll have to get in touch with my bank. How much do you need to hold it for me?”

  No. She wasn’t for real, was she? Jeremy looked about him in dismay. He’d just begun his search. He knew it would take days, even weeks maybe, to go over this place, unless he got lucky and Caroline hadn’t been as crafty as she had believed in selecting her hiding place. But he heard Gina’s purring reply.