My Lady Caroline

by Jill Jones

  “Thanks,” she mumbled uncertainly. She still carried the candelabra. If he tried to harm her, she could at least defend herself. But she didn’t think he planned her any harm. Instead, he seemed strangely protective of her. She pulled his sweater closer about her and caught the scent of a masculine aftershave or cologne, and suddenly, surprisingly, she welcomed his protection.

  Together they made their way silently by flashlight through the reception rooms and into the back hall, where Alison quickly recognized the room where she had flown in her earlier rage. She felt his hand at the small of her back, guiding her safely through the midnight dark, and found it strangely reassuring. When they reached the door to her room, she turned to face him.

  “Thank you, Mr. Ryder,” she murmured, looking up into his dark eyes. He kept the light directed toward the floor, and its beam cast eerie shadows across his face, but she could see clearly that he still had many unanswered questions.

  “Please call me Jeremy,” he said for the second time that day.

  The clock chimed twelve. He said nothing more, but made no move to leave her. They stood as if entranced. Then, to her amazement, he brushed his fingers lightly through her sleep-tousled hair and let his hand come to rest at the back of her neck. Her heart stood still as she watched his head lower and she felt his lips touch hers.

  Instead of pulling away and fleeing in panic as she expected she would do if he tried anything, Alison surprised herself and leaned into his embrace, taking pleasure and comfort in the warmth of his arms. She opened her lips and felt his kiss shift from gentle to searching, and her body trembled. Frightened and aroused at the same time, she finally forced herself away. “Please,” she said shakily. “I…I must go now.”

  “Yes,” he answered, his voice husky. “I think that would be best. Good night.”

  Alison shut the door behind her and leaned against it, aghast at what she’d just done. She’d kissed Jeremy Ryder, a virtual stranger, a man with whom she was distinctly at odds. And yet, it had felt so right…

  From somewhere in the night, Alison thought she heard a ripple of sprightly laughter.

  Chapter Eleven

  Much, much later, Jeremy lay wide-eyed upon the bed in the master suite, contemplating the incredible chain of events that had taken place in the past twenty-four hours. Who was this hoyden who had shown up on his doorstep like a whirlwind, demanding possession of this house and the very bed he slept in? Who flaunted her wealth and refused to allow him even to buy her tea? Who one moment tried to act the sophisticate and the next emptied feather pillows over his head? Who wandered around in the dark, barefoot and scantily clad, and talked to herself in the most irrational manner?

  And who, it would seem, had inexplicably taken over his senses?

  Jeremy had no answers for these and a hundred other questions that raced through his mind in the pre-dawn darkness. All he knew was that when he’d collided with Alison Cunningham in the Great Hall, he’d felt a physical shock charge through him, an almost electric desire that left him tingling still. And only a short time ago, he did what he’d wanted to do from the start, he’d run his hands through her hair and brought her lips to his. Jeremy groaned and rolled over, recalling the way Alison’s supple body had felt next to his, and unbidden, that electric desire recharged itself.

  This is crazy, Jeremy muttered, switching on the bedside lamp and going for a shot of cognac to help him get to sleep. He didn’t get this way over women. Not once in his life had he felt this…force, this unnamable power before which he found himself helpless. Alison Cunningham had cast some kind of a spell over him, an enchantment that left him dazed and out-of-control.

  He didn’t like it. And he certainly didn’t understand it. What was it about her that he found so compelling? Her looks? Certainly that. She was sexy in a fresh-faced, gamine sort of way. Her body reminded him of a sprite or fairy-like creature, a lovely form he’d seen illustrated in some precious antique lithograph. But he’d known hundreds of beautiful women. What made her beauty so appealingly different?

  Aside from her appearance, there was something else about her that called to him—a look of quiet desperation in her large eyes, an unspoken need to defend her actions, a naiveté that made him want to hold her in his arms and reassure her. Reassure her? About what? He had no idea what she was really like. What made him think she needed reassurance, from him or anyone else?

  Jeremy reached for the glass and the bottle of cognac. It wasn’t, he was certain, a need to reassure her that had led him to kiss her as they stood together in the darkness of the old manor house. It was something quite different altogether, something biological that he seemed to have little control over. He had fought the overwhelming urge, that powerful dynamic force that had driven him to taste those full, inviting lips.

  Fought it, and lost.

  And where, he wondered almost morosely, do we go from here?

  Absently, he started to pour a dram of the cognac into the glass. And then he stopped and stared at the bottle. It was empty! Not so much as a drop remained. Jeremy scratched his head. Had he consumed a full bottle of cognac over the course of the evening? He didn’t think so. In fact, he recalled he’d had only a single shot before going on his midnight search of the wine cellar.

  A single shot.

  And now the bottle was empty.

  “You act like you’ve been drinking,” Alison had accused her invisible adversary who’d sat at the harpsichord.

  It was obvious to Jeremy that somebody had been drinking. But who? Had Alison crept up to his room, and finding him gone, helped herself to the rest of his cognac? Maybe she was wandering around Dewhurst Manor under the influence. It would explain her bizarre behavior.

  And yet, Jeremy knew she hadn’t been drinking. He could have tasted it in her kiss.

  That left only one explanation. It must have been the ghost. Ashley T. Stone had insisted that the ghost who supposedly roamed the halls of the gloomy country estate was none other than Caroline Lamb. And Caro’s favorite drink was cognac. Jeremy replaced the bottle and glass on the table with a mocking laugh. Right, old boy. It was Caroline’s ghost who nipped your liquor.

  And Santa Claus is alive and well at the North Pole…

  “My remaining in town and seeing you thus is sacrificing the last chance I have left. I expose myself to every eye, to every unkind observation. You think me weak and selfish; you think I do not struggle to withstand my own feelings, but indeed it is exacting more than human nature can bear, & when I went out last night, which was of itself an effort, & when I heard your name announced, the moment after I saw nothing more, but seemed in a dream…Lady Cahir said, ‘You are ill; shall we go away?’ which I was very glad to accept, but we could not get through, and so I fear it caus’d you pain to see me intrude again.”

  Lady Caroline to Lord Byron

  I have written that I oft found it difficult to know the difference between Love and Hate, & during this, the Summer of my Greatest Confusion, I both loved & hated Caroline. As odious as I found her behavior, still I was enchanted by her spritely manner & found myself longing for a return to our early days together. It was an impossibility, of course, but when I entered a room & saw her from afar, with those large, ethereal eyes & slender, supple body, I ached for what could never be. She tormented me, Body & Spirit, night and day, until the only relief I found was in copious amounts of red wine.

  I contemplated returning permanently to the Continent, but at that time, I thrived upon the Adoration of London Society. So I fled instead, temporarily, until Caroline regained her reason, to the Byron ancestral home, that ghost-infested mountain of gloom, Newstead Abbey. With me came Capt. George Byron, my cousin & heir to the title, & my good friend Hobhouse, all three of us bent on spending the next fortnight in a delirium of sensuality, myself with the hope of putting all thoughts of Caroline Lamb from my mind.

  I had apparently developed something of a reputation for my peculiar taste in entertainment during an earli
er escapade at the Abbey in which my friends & I dressed up as monks & drank claret and champagne from the skull-cup & jested around the house in our friar’s garments. So I laughed when I learned that some of the less brave maidservants (& manservants as well) had disappeared upon hearing of our arrival at Newstead this time!

  We did nothing to discourage that reputation; rather we built upon it. Nine days we spent in revelry, nine days of wine & good jest—& other things I won’t set down here, as they are not pertinent to my story. What is relevant is that when I returned to London, I learned that Caroline had also returned from her too-short stay at Brocket Hall, a stay designed by her family, especially Lady Melbourne, to cool her ardor toward me. But I was met at my doorstep by a page with a letter from her, insisting she must see me again.

  I had by this time exhausted all recourse that I could think of to end our affair with Grace and Dignity. I had plead poverty, invoked jealousy, written cruel and hateful letters, spurned her in public, & still she clung to me. When I looked upon that letter, I was filled with fury, & began to contemplate deeds more dreadful than I thought even I might conceive. I would be free of Caroline, no matter what I had to do to achieve it!

  The sun was high into the morning sky before Alison became aware of its warmth on her cheek. She opened her eyes and lay still for a long moment, trying to remember where she was. She could hear birds chirping outside the tall, arched window. The room had a musty, unused odor about it. It was chilly. She swung her feet to the floor, gradually recalling her whereabouts. She was in England, in a small town north of London, in a sixteenth century Tudor mansion she had just bought—probably for too much money.

  And she was in the company of two most disturbing guests—a mischievous ghost and an incredibly sexy man who kept emerging from the shadows and scaring the bejeezus out of her.

  Jeremy Ryder.

  Still exhausted from her long trip and the midnight ramblings around Dewhurst Manor, Alison allowed herself to fall back into bed. She pulled the sheets up to her chin. And only then did she allow herself to consider what had happened when Jeremy Ryder had made his latest appearance from out of nowhere. He’d kissed her!

  Surely that hadn’t really happened, she thought hopefully. Surely that had been a dream. But then she caught sight of a man’s cardigan hanging over a chair in her room, and Alison knew that the neither the sweater nor the kiss had been imaginary. In fact, it was so real she could still feel it upon her lips. Her heart skipped at the thought.

  Jeremy Ryder.

  Who was he? What had he been doing up at that hour of the night? Likely, Caroline’s “concert” had awakened him the same as it had her. But he’d been fully dressed. Maybe he’d thrown on those clothes in a hurry, but Alison sensed he hadn’t yet been to bed when he came into the parlor last night.

  Every ounce of common sense screamed at her not to trust the man. She’d seen the letter he’d tucked into one of his books, and Alison strongly suspected his real motive for being at Dewhurst Manor was not furniture appraisal, but rather to find the Byron memoirs. She wasn’t overly familiar with things such as valuable antiquities, but what Caro’s ghost had told her made sense. The memoirs would be worth a fortune.

  And ripe for the picking for a fortune-hunter like Jeremy Ryder.

  And yet, she couldn’t stop thinking about the gentle way he’d escorted her back to her room last night. He hadn’t behaved like the arrogant bastard he’d shown himself to be earlier in the evening, behavior that led Caro to take it upon herself to cover him with feathers. Alison grinned at the recollection of the look on his face.

  Then she sobered again, perplexed by the mixed signals the man had sent her way. What was he up to? Had he decided that since arrogance hadn’t driven her from his potential little gold mine at Dewhurst Manor, he’d try seduction? Was he just using her, as so many other men had tried to do, to get what he wanted in life? It made sense.

  Alison’s cheeks burned.

  “God, what an idiot I am,” she growled, throwing back the covers again and reaching for the pair of slacks she’d worn for too-many hours on her journey. She’d kill for a bath and clean clothes…where was her luggage?

  She left the room and made her way toward the Great Hall. At least it was sunny this morning, and the warm rays glinting through the window panes cheered the old room. Unfortunately, they did little to lift her spirits. Instead, she stood in the center of the room and gazed at her surroundings with deepening apprehension.

  What have I done?

  She was alone…well, almost, in a huge ancient house. Decay was everywhere. Paint peeled from walls. Mildew crept across the plaster. Windows were cracked. Most of the furniture was covered, and those covers were in turn covered with dust. There was no fire in the hearth to warm her, and no wood or other fire-building materials in evidence. She had only glanced cursorily into the kitchen and decided to take her carry-out dinner to her room instead. It had been obvious no one had been in, or cleaned, the kitchen in many months, perhaps even years. She’d been surprised to find linens on the bed and in the bath of the guest room where she’d spent the night.

  There was so much to do just to exist in this place. She realized now what Gina meant when she’d claimed Jeremy would be inconvenienced by staying here. The logistics were overwhelming. And Gina had also warned her she would have a tough time hiring help, thanks to the ghost tales that surrounded the place.

  Her eye caught a welcome sight as her gaze wandered to the front entrance. Her bags were stacked neatly just inside the door. All seven of them. Somehow, she must have known she was coming to stay, for she’d brought anything and everything that she loved with her, including the medals she’d won during her years as a competitive swimmer in high school and college. Awards she’d never told her parents about, thinking they would belittle them. She regretted that now, but it was too late. At any rate, she was glad Dewhurst had a pool. She was eager to get back in shape.

  But at the moment, she was even more eager to unpack, clean up and change clothes. Maybe then she’d feel better and could tackle the next job at hand, getting some help on board.

  But to unpack all this was a major undertaking, one she didn’t want to tackle twice…once to move into the bedroom where she’d just spent the night, and again, hopefully soon, into the master suite when Jeremy Ryder gave up his claim to her permanent living quarters.

  As she stood trying to decide what to do, the chilly silence was shattered by the ring of a telephone. It rang again before Alison realized she didn’t know where the sound was coming from. She followed the ringing into one of the receiving rooms, but it stopped before she could answer the phone.

  She went to the windows and looked out across the stone terrace and down into what once must have been a meticulous English garden. Even with the neglect of years and a virtual forest of weeds covering the beds, the eye could still distinguish the symmetrical pathways and discern a graceful fountain here and there.

  What a beautiful place this must have been at one time, Alison thought, suddenly sad. She wondered what it had been like in the days when Caroline came to visit. Had it been well-kept? Was it filled with the laughter of guests enjoying their surroundings and the host’s hospitality? Or had it been run-down then too, home to an aging widower whose day was highlighted only by visits from his unpredictable neighbor from Brocket Hall?

  She walked to the harpsichord where Caroline’s ghost had produced its nocturnal performance. Had the ghost really been playing the music? Or had Alison, in her heavy slumber, only dreamt she heard the sound?

  No. The music had been real. And it had been Caro’s ghost who produced it. But how could she keep that fact from Jeremy? He’d said it was a nice trick. He must have believed she somehow manipulated the instrument to create the music. And she must allow him to go on believing that, because if he decided the ghost of Lady Caroline Lamb was in residence, he might foolishly try to conjure her up to help him find the letter. Even though Caro’s spir
it seemed to realize what might happen if her letter was found by the wrong party, Alison had read enough now about Caroline Lamb to believe that even her ghost could be swayed by a handsome face.

  She heard footsteps on the stairs and returned to the Great Hall in time to see that handsome face, and the stunning body that went with it, enter the room. This morning, there was nothing sinister about him. No dark turtleneck jersey, no cobwebs. No sudden entrance from the shadows. He was dressed in a light blue Oxford cloth shirt, jeans, and sneakers. His hair was freshly styled and he was clean-shaven. He looked, in fact, like your All-American Male. Except he wasn’t American. And his looks, Alison decided, were part of his deceit, designed to encourage her to trust him.

  And allow him to remain at Dewhurst Manor.

  His eyes remained inscrutable, enigmatic in their darkness. She could read nothing in them, other than possibly a loss of sleep.

  “Good morning, Mr. Ryder,” she said stiffly.

  “Good morning.” His reply was equally as formal. “Your bags were delivered about an hour ago. I didn’t know where you wanted them, so I had the driver leave them here.”

  Didn’t know where she wanted them? Was the man daft? She wanted them where they belonged. In the master suite. But she held her tongue. “I assume you paid the driver. How much do I owe you?”

  “Forty-five pounds. Not bad for such a large delivery, I’d say.”

  What was he insinuating by that remark? “I’ll write you a check immediately,” she snapped. “Tell me, Mr. Ryder, when do you plan to move out? I am anxious to get settled here. I have a lot of work ahead of me.”

  She saw his gaze travel the circumference of the room. “That’s putting it mildly,” he said, with a glint of humor in his eyes. “If you will pardon my rudeness, for I know it’s none of my business, but what in the name of God are you going to do with a place like this?”