by Jill Jones
“Then I take it you’re staying in England?” Jeremy dared not push her one way or the other, but he was hoping she’d decided to continue with her original plans. She sat down beside him on the bed.
“Yes. I think I’m staying.”
He kissed her gently and ran his hand beneath the sweatshirt, discovering that she wore nothing under it. “I’m glad. Now get out of here before you start something I can’t stop.”
Half an hour later, Jeremy made his way to the back of Dewhurst Manor and found Alison just finishing the plates she was preparing.
“Not bad, do you think? I found some cold roast beef and fresh baked bread and a potato salad. Even came across some dill pickles.”
“Are you craving dill pickles already?” Jeremy laughed and came to stand behind Alison, pulling her gently into his arms, the oddest thought occurring to him.
“What are you talking about?” she asked.
“Aren’t women who are pregnant always wanting something like that?”
“What makes you think I’m pregnant?”
“I…well, we didn’t use anything to prevent that condition this afternoon. In fact, we haven’t ever, unless you are on the pill or something.”
He felt her back straighten slightly. “No. I’m not on the pill. I…haven’t had the need to be.” Her voice quavered slightly, and she sounded uncertain.
“Would it be so bad if you were pregnant?” Jeremy murmured, suddenly and surprisingly intrigued with the idea.
Alison turned to face him. “Only if you weren’t there to be the daddy.” She looked up at him, her face no longer childlike, her eyes searching his anxiously.
“Where else would I be?” He smiled and kissed her. “Alison, I know we haven’t known each other long, and the kitchen isn’t exactly the most romantic place to talk about this, but I…”
His words were interrupted by the sound of a loud, keening wail that came from somewhere in the front of the house.
“Caro!” Jeremy grabbed Alison’s hand and headed toward the Great Hall.
As they entered the immense and gloomy room, Alison saw the figure clearly. The ghost of Lady Caroline was seated at the desk by the window, head bent over what it was reading. It was crying softly now, and holding itself as it occasionally rocked back and forth.
Spread out in front of it were the memoirs.
“So it was you who took them!” Alison exclaimed, stunned.
“They are mine, are they not?” the ghost replied, not looking up.
“Yes,” Alison said softly, feeling a great sense of relief that Hawthorne had not, after all, ended up with the papers. She squeezed Jeremy’s hand. “Of course.”
Alison sank into a nearby armchair, watching in fascination as the ghost made its way through the papers Caroline had copied so long ago. Jeremy took a seat by Alison’s side on the arm of the chair and put his hand on her shoulder. For a long while, they watched in silence as the ghostly figure read, first from one stand, and then the other. It emitted an occasional sob, several short exclamations, and every so often, a loud wail. At last it turned and looked at Alison with large, sad eyes.
“There are two copies.”
“Yes, we know,” Alison replied, surprised that the ghost seemed not to have remembered making a second copy.
“And they are not the same.”
Alison nodded again, but didn’t reply.
“Which is the real one, the one he wrote?” it cried pitifully.
“Don’t you know?” Alison asked.
The ghost returned to its examination. After an extended silence, it heaved a spectral sigh. “Yes. I know. I know which one he wrote, for it describes me wrongfully and cruelly,” it cried, its tone changing from grief to anger. “I never thought he really felt that way about me, but treated me as he did because he was under the influence of my mother-in-law, who hated me, and Lady Oxford, whom I once called friend but later traitor.”
It wrung its tiny hands as it continued. “But I see now it wasn’t as I thought. He played a cruel and cunning game with me. What I took for love was to him only a conquest.” Another wail pierced the evening shadows.
A few moments later, the phantom regained its poise and spoke in a quiet voice. “And yet, that is not quite the truth either, for here it says in part that he did love me.” Now it gave a gentle laugh. “No wonder I went mad,” it said ruefully, “what with his pledges of love on one hand and his dastardly schemes against me on the other. In my madness, I must have made the second copy, to portray to the world the way I thought he truly felt. But now, reading them both, I…I cannot tell.” Its voice faltered. “I cannot tell which is the truth anymore.”
Alison remembered Ashley T. Stone’s comment that neither Byron nor Caroline could tell the difference between the truth and a lie. It would seem that was still the case, at least where the ghost was concerned.
“He loved me,” it moaned at last. “That is the truth of it. I know he loved me. But he would not…he could not let himself love me.”
“Jeremy has friends in London who will read the truth in the memoirs,” Alison said gently. “We’ll bring your story to the world.”
The ghost whirled around in its chair and looked at Alison as if she had said some terrible thing. “No! These memoirs prove nothing,” it insisted. “It was all a dream, a terrible nightmare. And it was a lie. He was a lie. We were a lie.”
The shade hung its head and buried its face in its hands, sobbing wildly. “I have waited all these years,” it cried in anguish, “for nothing. I was a fool for Byron then, and I have been a fool for him ever since. He never loved me! It says so here. I thought he loved me, but he never did!”
The ghost’s contradiction was totally irrational, but Alison was beginning to see clearly that irrationality must have been part of Caroline’s original makeup. Her heart swelled with pity for the poor creature, but she was at a loss as to how to help it.
“What do you want us to do?” she asked in a hushed voice.
But the ghost did not reply. Instead, an icy wind shrieked through the Great Hall, whipping tapestries and curtains violently. The ghost itself shifted its shape into a ball of fiery light which spun about the desk like a gyroscope, scattering the sheets of paper that it had been reading only moments before. Around and around it swirled, encircling the memoirs, gathering them into its energy.
Alison’s eyes grew large, and she clung to Jeremy’s arm as she watched, horrified, as the ghost shone brighter and brighter as its energy coalesced into a ball of flame.
“My God!” Jeremy uttered. “She’s going to set the place on fire.
The both jumped us, confounded at the incredible scene that was playing out before their eyes. “Call the fire department!” Alison cried out, just before an ear-splitting explosion rocked the room. Jeremy pulled her to the floor and covered her with his own body. She heard the sound of shattering glass and felt the air being sucked out of the room in a sharp draft.
Jeremy jumped up and pulled her to her feet, and together they ran to the window. The ball of flame had shot high overhead. It reached an apex and began to fall, when suddenly it burst into thousands of fiery shards, sparkling down on upon the quiet countryside in an incredible fireworks display.
“Holy moly!” Kit yelled, running into the house with Kate at his heels. “Did you see that?”
Alison was quaking all over. “Yes,” she managed as she felt Jeremy’s arm slip around her waist, giving her much-needed support. “Yes, we saw it all.” Then she turned and smiled sadly up at Jeremy. “I just hope Ashley T. Stone was watching.”
But I have lived, and have not lived in vain:
My mind may lose its force, my blood its fire,
And my frame perish even in conquering pain;
But there is that within me which shall tire
Torture and Time, and breathe when I expire;
Something unearthly, which they deem not of,
Like the remembered tone of a mute lyre,
Shall on their softened spirits sink, and move
In hearts all rocky now the lute remorse of Love.
—Lady Caroline Lamb
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The drone of lawn-mowing equipment, sounding like so many giant locusts feeding on the grounds of Dewhurst Manor, awakened Alison one morning almost three months after she and Jeremy had witnessed Caro’s grand finale. At least, they surmised it was her finale, for the ghost had not been seen nor heard from since. She’d taken the memoirs with her, for not one shred of paper had been found anywhere in the house or the surrounding countryside. Jeremy believed the papers had burned in the intense heat of the energy the ghost had generated.
It’s just as well,” Alison had told him, knowing he was deeply distressed at the loss. “Like Ashley Stone told me, we didn’t have them when we came here, so what does it matter that we don’t have them now?”
“But the historical and literary value they might have had,” he had protested, but stopped when he caught Alison’s warning look.
“Not to mention their value in pounds sterling,” she’d commented dryly. “No, Caro found what she needed to put an end to her torment. Hopefully, she’s gone on now to a much-needed rest.”
Jeremy had at last agreed, having learned from the change in Alison’s life the value of letting go of old anger and pain. He’d learned he could let go of other things as well, such as the profit he would have made if he’d sold the letter he’d found in the antique desk, the one in which Caroline Lamb had indicated that Byron’s memoirs were at Dewhurst. It had value as an historic artifact, but bringing it to the public eye might cause some to accuse Alison of planting it to create publicity for her new enterprise. The memoirs no longer existed, so it didn’t matter anyway, and Jeremy tucked the little letter away safely in his own private collection.
“What a glorious day!” Alison exclaimed, stretching as she gazed out into the courtyard off their bedroom, where roses bloomed in profusion in the cool late summer morning. The fountain had been cleaned and repaired and now trickled merrily in the center of the flagstone patio. From beyond the surrounding wall, she could smell the sweetness of the newly-mown lawn that stretched from the wall down to the river. The sky was a rosy pink without a hint of a cloud.
Jeremy came up behind her and encircled her with his arms. “What else would you expect for our wedding day?”
Alison turned and nestled against him. “You take a chance when you plan a garden party in England, you know.”
“I also know that everything you have touched lately seems to have come out a success.” He kissed the top of her head, and Alison reveled in both the warmth of his touch and the praise that he never failed to give her.
It still seemed a miracle to her that her life could have changed so much, and so wonderfully, in the short time since her parents had died, and she felt it a shame that it took their tragedy to set her on the right track.
She wished her father could have known Jeremy. Even though he wasn’t from one of the families they had always thought she would marry into, Alison believed Charles Cunningham would have approved of Jeremy, with all his business savvy and experience. She didn’t know if her mother would have felt the same, for all those phony society reasons, but she guessed that if Elizabeth Cunningham had been the recipient of one of Jeremy’s sexy smiles just once, she would have fallen under his spell.
Alison had thought about her parents a lot over the summer. She’d also thought about the ghost. She was not a religious person, not sure about heaven and hell. But was there, she wondered frequently, a spirit world where her parents now dwelt and from which they could see what was happening in her life? Did Mary, the medium in the Florida spiritualist community, actually talk to the spirits on “the other side”? Again, she had no idea, but having encountered the ghost of Lady Caroline made her believe that it was possible.
The idea gave her great comfort, for she knew that if it were so, then both her father and mother knew that she had loved them in spite of her contrary behavior. She had come to the conclusion as well that, in their own way, they had loved her too.
She wasn’t sure what her father would think of her investment strategy concerning Dewhurst Manor, however, since likely it was not going to show a strong monetary return anytime soon. But Jeremy’s love and steadfast emotional support had taught her there are more important aspects to life than money.
Things like self-esteem and confidence.
It had been Kate who had given her the answer to her dilemma about what to do with Dewhurst Manor. Sticking to her rigid practice schedule in the pool at Dewhurst, Kate had made the British women’s swim team. When Alison saw the pride on the young swimmer’s face, she knew immediately what she wanted to do with the old manor house.
With Jeremy’s help and the support of the new director of her trust, her father’s old friend Benjamin Pierce, Alison had used some of the insurance money to endow a foundation that would support a sports training center at Dewhurst Manor, a world-class facility for young athletes, particularly in tennis, swimming, and track-and-field events. Already some of the grounds were being prepared for the special equipment that would be needed. Although she had not sought publicity, Alison Cunningham, the new Lady of Dewhurst, had been the talk of the London press for her philanthropic generosity.
Today, she would likely make the papers again, this time in the society section, which would carry a story about her wedding to Jeremy Ryder.
“The groom’s not supposed to see the bride on their wedding day, not until the ceremony,” she said, walking her fingers up his chest to his lips, where she playfully received his kisses on her fingertips.
“That would be a little difficult, since the groom has been sleeping with the bride all night.”
Allison giggled. “I suppose you have a point. At any rate, we should get downstairs. Our guests will be up and about soon, and I want to make sure everything is in order for this afternoon.
Jeremy watched Alison leave the room, thinking of how she had changed over the course of the summer. No longer was she the angry, sometimes clumsy, defiant, defensive girl he had met so unexpectedly at the front door of Dewhurst late in the spring. She was still stubborn, but no longer willful. She still got her way, but was no longer petulant about it. She was not afraid to ask for help, or to allow herself to receive it. In short, she had changed from an insecure, unhappy girl into a confident, loving woman.
But she wasn’t the only one who had changed, he thought with a grin as he stepped into the shower. Who would have guessed three months ago that he, Jeremy Ryder, the confirmed bachelor, would be getting ready to walk down the aisle? That he would not only be ready, but eager, to tie the knot?
He laughed, thinking of the day he’d taken Alison to meet Mrs. Fleming and had announced their engagement. It was the only time he had ever seen the woman lose her professional demeanor as her brows raised and her mouth dropped in pure astonishment. But she’d quickly recovered, and he had seen the look of sincere approval in her eyes
Jeremy was somewhat astonished himself at the ease with which he had broken his most inviolate rule never to get seriously involved with a woman. But with Alison, he hadn’t had a chance. Whether it had been Caro’s ghost who started the whole thing by visiting him in those erotic dreams, or finding Alison, the living image of the ghost, in his arms shortly thereafter, he didn’t know. But the spirit of Alison Cunningham somehow had infused his soul. It was as if she were a part of him now, a part that had been missing for all of his life.
A part that made him whole.
He could not imagine life now without her. As he dressed, he thought about his mother, and how devastated she had been when his father had left them. Had she loved the man as Jeremy now loved Alison, almost to the point of distraction? If she had, he understood now why she had spent the rest of her short life going from one man to another, trying to fill the void by searching for someone to make her whole again.
Jeremy straightened his tie and ran a brush through his thick, dark hair. Before leaving the sanctuary of the master suite, he glanced over his shoulder at the rumpled bedcovers and smiled, remembering the tender intimacy he had shared there with Alison and thinking of all the days to come. He knew he would never leave her, and he believed she would never leave him. He silently swore that if they had a family, their children would never suffer the pain each of them had experienced during their own childhoods.
Dewhurst Manor was alive again. Servants bustled to and fro settling wedding guests into the rooms in the rear wing that had lain in disuse for decades. Flowers arrived by the truckload, some ordered by Alison and Mrs. Beasley, who had taken on the wedding plans with gusto, others sent by well-wishers from around the world. Alison was particularly surprised and pleased by a huge, exquisite arrangement send by Lord and Lady Brocket, who expressed their regrets at being unable to attend.
In the kitchen, Kate was supervising a small army of chefs who were preparing the wedding feast. She personally had baked and decorated the tall wedding cake that stood like a baroque tower on the table in the dining room.
Alison hurried down the stairs, excited as a child at Christmas. She found Mrs. Beasley in her small apartment, going over a list of last-minute preparations. “Did she get here?” Alison asked breathlessly.
“Miss Carmione? Yes, Ma’am. Your driver picked her up early this morning. She’s in the yellow suite, as you requested.”
“Thanks. The place looks great, by the way. What’s left to do?”
The older woman smiled up at her in a grandmotherly sort of way, and Alison was struck once again by the lovely sense of family she had been able to enjoy vicariously through Mrs. Beasley and her two grandchildren. “All you have to do, ma’am, is be happy. I’ll handle the rest.”
