The Christmas Knot (2 page)

“If it comes to that,” John said, “It may be unethical to bring her here in the first place.”

Richard’s children were far too grown up for their years—probably his fault; they hadn’t had much of a childhood since their mother’s death a few years earlier, and particularly not since they’d moved to the Grange. “Not at all. She has come of her own free will and may leave of it.”

The pony trap pulled around to the side door of the right wing, which was as far from the rubble as possible. Sir Richard set down his pencil and stood. “Lizzie, light some candles to make the place a little more welcoming, and stay here.”

He left the children, who might or might not obey him, and strode toward the side door. He’d put that atrocious advertisement in the Times after a number of useless females had come and gone. He needed someone with a stout heart who was willing to believe in ghosts but didn’t fear them. Instead they all pooh-poohed the notion that the Grange was haunted but left a few days later, babbling about voices crying at them in the dark.

There must be one courageous, slightly superstitious woman left in England. He knew better than to expect the ideal governess, but his motherless children needed a more refined feminine influence than Mrs. Cropper, the cook.

He opened the door just as Joseph helped the woman down from the pony trap. “Another new governess, Sir Richard,” he mumbled, plunking a valise on the paving stones.

Richard rooted in his pocket for a coin, but then the woman turned, and he froze.

The lady stood as utterly still as he, the color draining from her face.

CHAPTER TWO

R
ichard
Ballister
?

Edwina could do nothing but stare, aghast. Richard looked as appalled as she felt. She gazed about her hopelessly, shivering in the gathering dusk. If she returned to the inn, if she…

Richard recovered himself and handed the waiting man a coin. “Thank you, Joseph. Any other newcomers today?”

“Aye, Sir Richard, two from Manchester way.”

“Good thing it’s about to rain,” Richard said. The fools wouldn’t try digging for treasure in the midst of a storm. “Off you go before it starts to pour.” He grabbed Edwina’s valise and with a curt motion of the head, indicated that she should follow him indoors.

She hesitated. Death from exposure to the elements—for the first fat drops had already begun to fall—or from mortification?

“For God’s sake, Edwina, come indoors before I have to drag you.”

A wave of nostalgia rolled over her. Typical, no-nonsense Richard Ballister—one thing she had always loved about him. She didn’t love him anymore—that went without saying; one couldn’t love a liar and a jilt—but a few good memories lingered amongst the utterly miserable ones.

She went inside, and he slammed the door behind her. Before she could move, he loomed over her, large and threatening, trapping her between himself and the door, and another shudder of memory went through her. He hadn’t changed much: tall and darkly handsome, with a sensual curl of the lips and half-hooded, appraising eyes.

Why must desire rear its foolish head at such a time?

“What the devil are you doing here?” he said.

Desire and nostalgia dissipated at once. “Perhaps you should have identified yourself in that advertisement, if you didn’t want an unpleasant surprise,” she snapped. “Believe me, if I’d known you were my prospective employer, I wouldn’t have come.”

“Wise of you,” he drawled.

She wanted to hit him. “If you had any consideration at all, you would have arranged for the governess to apply to an agent in London, rather than spend her every last farthing traveling to the middle of nowhere.” To find the one man she loathed most in the entire world.

“Every last farthing?” He rolled his eyes.

“Not quite,” she retorted, spitting with fury. He retreated a few inches. Good. “I have a ha’penny in my reticule.”

“You can’t possibly be down to your last ha’penny,” he scoffed. “Your husband is a very rich man. I ask again—why in God’s name are you here?”

“My husband is dead,” she said flatly. “Didn’t you advertise for a widow?”

“My condolences,” he said unpleasantly. “But that doesn’t make you a governess, Edwina. Surely you can find some worthy charity or other to occupy your time. Succoring the flower girls in Covent Garden or some such.”

Oh, how she
longed
to hit him. “My husband died penniless. Therefore I am penniless, too.”

He blinked, taking it in. She didn’t blame him for being surprised. At the time of her marriage, her late husband had indeed been wealthy. Richard’s lips curled into an evil smile. “Well, but you’ve got a ha’penny left, didn’t you say?” He threw his head back and laughed.

It wasn’t a choice after all—she would perish of both mortification
and
the cold and wet. She whirled and wrenched open the door. Rain lashed in, soaking her skirts. She grabbed her valise, which Richard had dropped—he was still laughing, the disgusting brute—and marched out into the downpour.

“Papa! Is our new governess leaving already?” asked a child’s voice.

“It’s probably all for the best,” said another child. “Only a madwoman would walk into that rain.”

A large hand grabbed Edwina by the arm and this time really did drag her inside. “My dear woman, do come in out of the wet,” Richard said in an almost civil tone. He slammed the door again as two children pelted down the passageway toward them. “Meet my children, Lizzie and John. Twins, this is Mrs. White.”

“Please don’t be afraid,” said the girl, a slender thing of perhaps ten years old with long, unkempt fair hair. “She’s not a dangerous ghost.”

“As long as you don’t go digging for her treasure.” The boy was about the same height as his twin sister but dark like his father, with a thoughtful, assessing gaze. It was his voice which had suggested Edwina must be mad.

“I’m not afraid of ghosts,” Edwina said, rain dripping from her bonnet onto her already sodden gown. “I don’t even believe in them.”

“You will,” Lizzie said with certainty.

“Unless you’re an exceptionally sound sleeper,” added John. “If you’re not, Mrs. Cropper will give you something to help you sleep. Won’t she, Papa?”

“You will stay, won’t you?” Lizzie pleaded. “I desperately need help with French. Do you play the pianoforte?”

“Yes, of course,” Edwina said.

“Oh, perfect—for I should love to learn to dance. I tried to get Papa to teach me, but he’s a dreadful dancer.”

Involuntarily, Edwina glanced at Sir Richard, who, when the waltz was first introduced to London, had danced her out the ballroom door, onto the terrace, and into the shrubbery.

Coldly, he raised his brows. She raised hers right back. If anyone should be ashamed, it was he, but the sneer on his hard, handsome face made it clear he disagreed.

“I don’t care for dancing,” John said. “But if you read Latin, it would mean less time wasted with the vicar, who’s an old bore.” His tone indicated little hope that she would know a language of which most females were ignorant.

Edwina began to shiver, whether from being soaked to the skin or from Richard’s stare she wasn’t sure, but she managed to smile at the boy. “I read Latin tolerably well.”

“Excellent,” John said, adding with sudden enthusiasm, “You’re very pretty, too. Don’t you think so, Papa?”

“I expect everyone finds Mrs. White to be pretty,” Richard said expressionlessly.

“You will stay, won’t you?” cried Lizzie.

“That depends on your father.” Edwina raised her eyes again to his harsh, saturnine face. She put up her chin—refusing to beg in so many words—but he must by now have realized her desperation.

“Very well,” he said.

Relief swept over her so strongly that she swayed—but pride bolstered her and she managed to hold herself upright, shivering even more now.

“At this point, anyone will do,” Richard added, then hesitated as if he meant to say something more, but didn’t. She wondered if he regretted such a rude remark in front of the children, who were more well-mannered than many she had encountered. He picked up the valise again, and now his voice turned flatly brisk. “You’ll catch your death of cold, Mrs. White. Come, I’ll show you to your bedchamber, where you can change into dry clothing.”

“No, Papa! It will be positively frigid in the spare bedchamber,” Lizzie said. “And damp, as there has been no fire there for three weeks.” Parenthetically, she added, “That’s when the second-to-last governess left. The last one didn’t even come all the way to the house.” She took Edwina’s hand. “The kitchen will be better. It’s warm, and the tub is there. A bath is just the thing after a drenching.”

“As Lizzie can testify from personal experience,” their father said. “John, go kindle a fire in the spare bedchamber, while we go to the kitchen.” The boy dashed off down the passageway, and Richard followed, leaving Edwina and Lizzie to take up the rear.

A bath in the kitchen? In Edwina’s experience, the tub and water were brought to one’s bedchamber, and the kitchen sounded like far too public a place for such a private activity—but she would put up with anything to be clean again, never mind warm.

They emerged into a paneled Great Hall from which rose an elegant oak staircase. Plaster strapwork, dimly visible in the low light, decorated the ceiling, and its interwoven geometric design was echoed in the carved newel posts. The house, she judged, was over two hundred years old.

John was just disappearing down a passage to the right. “The first thing you must know about the Grange is to stay away from the left wing—the sinister one, as John calls it,” said Lizzie.

“Because it has partly collapsed?”

“Because of the ghost,” Richard said. “She tends to haunt that side of the house, which is why the treasure hunters have concentrated their efforts there. What collapsed was a far older keep which adjoined the house. It was the original building on this site.”

How dare he? thought Edwina. Richard not only despised her, he thought her a fool who believed ghost stories.

“The left wing is not dangerous yet,” Richard said.

Not yet? What was that supposed to mean? But Richard had already disappeared into a passageway under the stairs.

“I’ll air some sheets for your bed,” Lizzie said, hurrying in her father’s wake. “I don’t think they’ll be damp, but better safe than sorry.”

“Thank you,” Edwina said. Good heavens, Richard’s son and daughter were doing the work of chambermaids. Were they managing entirely without servants? Country people were notoriously superstitious, but surely…

Long before they reached the kitchen, delectable aromas assailed her nostrils. “That smells wonderful,” she said, and her stomach growled its agreement. She’d eaten nothing but dry bread and hard cheese for the past two days.

“Mrs. Cropper is a marvelous cook,” Lizzie said. At least this child wasn’t obliged to prepare meals as well. “Since the ghost walks the gallery and Mrs. Cropper sleeps next to the kitchen, she doesn’t mind staying at the Grange. Not only that, she’s been here practically since the Great Flood. Oh, Felix, no!”

A massive hound squeezed past Richard and bounded toward them, tongue lolling out. “Stop it, Felix!” cried Lizzie, fending him off. “Oh,
please
don’t be afraid of him. Once he knows you, he’s perfectly harmless, except for all the slobbering.”

Edwina stood her ground and firmly ordered the dog down. Surprisingly, he complied, licking her hand cheerfully. She wiped his saliva on her wet gown, scratched him behind the ears, and shot another glance at Richard, who could have controlled the animal if he’d possessed an ounce of consideration.

He was watching her reaction, damn him, with the same disdain as before. What in heaven’s name had she done to deserve this horrid treatment? He’d deceived and deflowered her twelve years earlier, so if anyone merited reproach and censure, it was he.

~ * ~

Who the devil did she think she was, putting that proud little nose in the air, raising those supercilious brows? Even soggy and bedraggled, a few golden curls matted against her forehead and cheeks, something about her tugged at Richard’s heart. As for those fierce, passionate blue eyes… Damn her, how dare she have the same effect on him as years ago, when instead of waiting for him, she’d married an old buzzard with nothing to recommend him but a fortune? Still proud despite her desperate circumstances, too. Would she really have walked away in the freezing cold rain?

She probably thought he’d capitulated because of the children, but he wasn’t an ogre. He wouldn’t strand the devil outdoors in this weather.

She wouldn’t stay long. If she didn’t believe in ghosts now, she would soon enough, and if Edwina possessed any courage, it was the fiery, short-lived kind, not the sort that endured through thick and thin. As for where she went next—that wasn’t his problem.

“A bath for the new governess,” he said, striding into the kitchen. “She looks like a drowned rat, but she’ll be quite presentable when clean and dry.”

Mrs. Cropper looked up from her pans and pots and gave him her largely toothless grin. “Oh, isn’t that wonderful news!” She said that every time a new governess arrived; a fount of optimism, was old Mrs. Cropper. She had remained in the house after the death of his uncle, the previous Sir Richard, pretending not to notice the treasure hunters at night, patiently waiting for him to arrive and take over.