The Ghost and Jacob Moorhead (10 page)

“Leave you
alone
?”

“Take the strongbox,” said the opium-eater, ignoring the slave’s words, “and anything else of value. You will travel north. I know you will not fail our king.” He breathed rather heavily for a moment and continued. “You have been a good slave.” He handed over the envelope, “This is your freedom. Once you’ve escorted the lady prisoner to the king…then join your family. Be happy.”

The slave fell to his knees. “My…freedom?” The words were on a breath of sound. A quick look up saw that his master was deep in that odd sleep that was neither restful nor deep.
He knew of my family
?

The slave’s eyes widened. Slaves were not allowed a family…and his master had ignored it? Tears ran down his face. He vowed he’d capture the woman, take her to the king…and he and his family and his children’s families would honor his master’s generosity down the generations.

He backed silently from the room and hurried to his own. There, because it never did to take anything for granted, he opened the envelope and read the words the heavy cream-laid paper held. It was indeed his freedom and, carefully, he hid it away where he’d not lose it. Then he did what was needed to close the rooms. Once done with that, he ordered a post chaise, packed, took a final look at his master who lay as one dead already, and, reluctantly obeying his last orders, locked the door and left for the last time.

* * * * *

Jacob found Verity in her aunt’s office talking to Reading, giving orders for the staff for those days she and Mary would be gone. He leaned against the wall nearby and listened. When she finished, the butler nodded. He turned toward Jacob with an inquiring glance, which resulted in a shake of the head, and left.

Verity, sensing his presence, swung around. “You.”

Jacob sighed. “I didn’t mean to startle you. I don’t think I was particularly silent when I arrived. But I didn’t wish to interrupt so I waited.”

Her lips compressed but she turned away without saying any of the things on the tip of her tongue. “What can I do for you?” she asked, turning back.

“I wished to tell you I’ve sent a message to a friend who lives just this side of York. He will expect you, Mary, Mary’s maid and Rube sometime tomorrow. He’ll put you up for the days you are gone. It will be safer than a hotel.” When Verity opened her mouth, he feared she meant to object so quickly added, “Rube agrees.”

“I was merely going to say that that was a good thought,” she said with obviously false meekness.

He chuckled. “Were you indeed? I am properly rolled up and must withdraw in disarray, must I not?” But he didn’t. “I’ve also hired outriders who will attend you whenever you are in the coach. From here to Lord Ranald’s estate and back, and each time you go into York they will protect you.”

“And Prince Rube?”

“He too will watch over you, but you must remember that his interest is primarily in Cousin Mary’s safety. The men I’ve hired will watch out for the both of you.”

“I cannot believe the prince would allow any disaster to befall me,” said Verity.

Jacob smiled a rather cynical smile. “If he was forced to make a choice between saving Mary and saving you, my dear, who do you think he’d choose to save?”

She didn’t hesitate. “Mary.”

“
My
interest is in saving you, my dear, so cease arguing, will you?”

She glared and he laughed.

Jacob sobered. “I wonder if it was the desire to protect or the endearment that brought on that scowl,” he murmured just loudly enough she could not avoid hearing. Before she could respond, he jumped to another topic. “Money. You will need funds for any of those little things you might wish to purchase or which must be purchased for Jenna-mine. Do not allow her to talk you into dipping into her savings, Verity,” he added in a warning tone as he dropped a bulging purse onto the desk.

Verity stared at it.

“It won’t bite,” he said softly.

“I cannot allow you to give me money,” she said, pride stiffening both her spine and putting steel into her voice.

“You can allow me to pay the wages you’ve earned,” he countered. She glanced up and his gaze caught and held her. “You will admit you have earned it, will you not?”

“Not
that
much.” She flicked the purse with one finger.

“I know she is your aunt and you love her, Verity, but I also know how you
slaved
to nurse her back to health. She is a person very dear to me as well and I would show my appreciation for all your hard work. One cannot put a price on such things. What is in that purse is very little compared to what I
feel
I owe you.”

Verity bit her lip. She felt the sincerity in that and it was true there were things she needed to buy. “You…are too good,” she said, taking the purse and putting it into a side pocket sewn into her skirt. “I will keep an accounting for you.”

“You’ll do no such thing,” he retorted.

“Now
you
scowl. Why?”

“You would insult me.”

“Because I assume you wish to know how your money is spent?”

“Because you do not accept that it is
your
money to do with as
you
wish.”

“I could give it to the first beggar I see?” she asked pertly, using her tart tongue to cover the embarrassment she felt.

“If you will,” he said, his tone disinterested. “It is yours.”

She’d not meant to insult him. Why she’d made the stupid comment at all she couldn’t tell. “Don’t be angry. I didn’t mean…” Her voice trailed off.

“You did, but I will assume that is an apology and accept it. Can you be ready to depart soon after dawn tomorrow?”

The possibility for an argument hovered briefly and then she once again turned aside. “Yes,” she said. “I’ve only to pack a bandbox for so few days.”

“At least two boxes,” he said in a tone denoting either surprise or warning or, perhaps, both. “You’ll need evening gowns, for instance. Ranald’s mother, Lady Scott, prefers to dine more formally than we do here.”

Verity cast him a quick glance. “Her ladyship will find what I own out-of-date and very likely too Continental for her taste.”

“Mary will explain if explanation is necessary. You’ll ignore any hints she finds you an oddity, giving her a blank stare of incomprehension.”

Verity couldn’t keep back the snort of laughter his tone evoked. “Oh yes. High-nosed and without understanding. Perhaps I could pretend I speak very little English and use Italian instead.”

“Not the Italian I’ve heard from you!”

She blinked, realized that most of what she’d said in his presence had involved swearwords. No gently bred lady should know such words, let alone voice them. She raised a hand to cover her mouth, her eyes twinkling. “You think not?” she asked when she could control herself.

“Perhaps it would not matter,” he retorted. “After all, Lady Scott is unlikely to know what it is you’ve said.”

“Some words translate fairly easily.”

“Some do. You’ll avoid those?”

“I’ll do my best,” she said, straight-faced.

“Maybe, after all, you’d better speak English. I’ve rarely heard you swear in English.” He settled one hip on the desk and half turned toward her. “Verity, on a more sober note, it will not do to set up Lady Scott’s back. She can do a great deal for you. Because you will be with Lady Mary and under her protection and because you are Mary’s brother’s daughter, she will have a kindness for you. Everyone who knew him liked your father. They were sorry when my granduncle disinherited him and pleased when he was reinstated. They were
not
pleased that he and his family didn’t return to take up residence here.”

“How do you know all this?”

“I may not have visited this area for half a decade or more, but there are old friends from around and about who spend the spring season in London. I have kept in touch.”

“Jacob…”

“Yes?” Jacob hid his surprise at the use of his name—not that he would object. He much preferred it to Mr. Moorhead on her tongue.

She hesitated and then rushed on. “Jacob, do you dislike giving up all your pleasures in London and coming here?”

“I only wish,” he said, “that I’d given them up sooner and not taken so long returning. I am not quite certain why I got out of the habit.” He frowned. Then shook his head. Then sighed. “Whatever it was, I cannot change the past.” He looked at her. “Did I tell you today that you are looking very well?”

She blinked. “No.”

“Well, you are. I think you’ve accepted that Jenna-mine is recovering nicely and have stopped fretting about her. Rest and lack of worry have done much to bring back your looks and improve your temper.” He flashed a quick grin.

“Oohh…” she growled.

He adopted an innocent look. “Or perhaps I was wrong about the temper?”

She laughed. “You are enough to make a saint angry. I really don’t know why it is but you rouse my temper more easily than anyone else I can think of. Except my sister perhaps. But…”

That sadness he hated seeing in her eyes returned.

“She is no longer alive so I guess you do hold that place of distinction.”

“I am glad you were not with them on that disastrous journey, Verity.”

She looked up quickly, saw that he meant it and nodded. “Most of the time I too am glad. At others…I feel guilty.”

“It would have changed nothing for you too to have died.”

“No, but somehow, being alive when they are not…”

He nodded. “You feel guilty. Don’t. I am certain they would not want it.”

She nodded again.

When he was certain she’d say nothing, he straightened away from the desk and headed for the door. Just before he exited, he turned. “I’ll miss you while you are gone,” he said.

Before she could respond to that, one way or another, he disappeared. Verity didn’t like admitting it but she knew she’d miss him too. And it was so wrong. She should not be feeling…what she was feeling. There was no future in it. She sighed, looked down at the list she’d made and seeing that her packing was all that remained, she requested that a footman fetch a small trunk or two large bandboxes and then went to her room.

Chapter Eight

The carriage pulled away from the front door and Verity, sitting on the edge of her seat, looked back for so long as she could see Jacob standing there, watching them, his face expressionless.
Why
, she wondered,
do I care what he thinks of me
?
Why do I persist in stupid dreams of what might be when I know they cannot be
? “What, Aunt Mary? I was in a fog, wondering if Aunt Jenna would be all right, whether I
should
leave her…”

“Or if you should leave Jacob?”

Verity heard a smile in her aunt’s voice. “That too. I cannot believe he’ll manage to fill the conditions of the will if someone isn’t there to keep an eye on him. From all I’ve heard of him, he’s proved himself too wild, too heedless, too sunk in all forms of depravity, to ever be satisfied with the life of a country squire. Someone should watch him, see he behaves himself.”

“I won’t say you are wrong, except in the notion that he was sunk beyond reform. He spent many long vacations here and loved every moment of them. You didn’t know him then of course and I was only home on one occasion, but I remember how happy he was, how good a companion, with the ability to jolly even my father from the grumps. I think the rot set in when he went up to Oxford. Then when he went down and was on the town…well, some things, which, as a green lad he’d enjoyed, grew into no more than bad habits. Very bad habits,” added Mary, her voice dry. “But
merely
habits. I think returning to High Moor Hall has jerked him from the…the
rut
in which he was stuck. Like finally turning a wheel that rolls along straight ahead even when you wish it to turn into a new lane and the horse is forced to drag it around.”

“Habit.”

Mary cast her a roguish look. “Like your very bad habit of thinking yourself less than adequate to take your proper place in society?”

Verity turned to stare out the window. “I do not think that is habit, Aunt Mary. Beyond the fact my mother was never accepted, there is also the fact of my very odd upbringing. I have not been schooled for a place among the
ton
. It is not habit, Aunt, but truth.”

“I have never found you lacking in proper polite forms or speaking in a manner that would be looked down upon. Those are the main bases for judging if someone is or is not of the
ton
.”

“I cannot draw to save me. I do not sing or play the pianoforte…”

“You cannot say you do not speak Italian, I think, and that is a skill many are taught but few actually learn well.”

“
And
,” Verity glared at her aunt, “although I speak three languages fluently and two more with some difficulty, I have no other talents proper to a young lady who would be introduced to society.”

“You are into your twenties, Verity. Your introduction would not be the same as that of a young girl barely out of the schoolroom. You would not be put on display, your talents held up to be judged. But enough of this. Time will prove me right and you wrong. Tell me instead, what sort of housekeeper you think would be proper for the Hall?”

They passed the time discussing that and various other housewifely topics, the steady sound of trotting hooves and the occasional glimpse of an outrider passing the window on one side of the coach or the other, kept them occupied until it was time to stop to rest the horses and, only incidentally, themselves. Rube stayed near Mary even when she strolled down the path behind the inn to the
convenience
set at the end of the garden.

Verity, observing this, realized for the first time just how seriously Rube took his self-imposed guardianship of her aunt. She wondered if it was actually necessary. It had, they both said, been some time since there had been an assault on Mary’s person. The tortured animals,
the messages
, as Rube called them, appeared from time to time, but no actual danger to Mary had occurred for months if not years. She wondered that her aunt could bear to have the man so close to her at all times, wondered if she didn’t yearn for privacy, time to herself when she need not be observed or confined by the affectionate care the foreign prince lavished on her.

“You are very thoughtful,” said Mary, as she held out her glass for more lemonade.

Verity shrugged. “I wonder how you bear it, that is all.”

“Bear it?”

“Being surrounded, always, by watchful men, constantly under surveillance, never ever simply alone to do as you wish.”

Mary smiled. “The alternative to what you call surveillance is worse.”

“Is it?”

Mary sobered. “You cannot know, Verity, and I hope you never find out. Believe me, I prefer to be watched rather than find myself in the hands of the madman who wishes me tortured and then dead.”

Verity frowned. “You are certain he still wishes it? So many years later?”

“It is getting on for three years. It could very well be another thirty, assuming he lives so long.” The serious expression faded and Mary grinned. “But another thirty and I am very likely to be dead of natural causes and then there would be no purpose in the madman pursuing his revenge.”

“But in the meantime you are cosseted and cared for and kept close.”

A sad look filled Mary’s blind-looking gaze into the corner of the room. “And unable to set off on another of my journeys into adventure.” She sighed. Then very obviously setting aside self-pity, she asked Verity if she meant to order new gowns while in York. “I know a very good modiste…or
did
. She may have retired by now.” She thought about it and shook her head. “No, it was not so very long ago and she was not at all elderly. I think we’ll find her still in business… But you frown?”

“I have clothes. There is nothing I need.”

“But there is. What you have is not only very Italianate but not at all up to the knocker, as they say. Perhaps a complete wardrobe—” She held up a hand when Verity opened her mouth to object. “And you will accept it as a gift from me. No, do not deny me the pleasure, Verity. I have no one on whom I may lavish gifts. Allow me the pleasure of seeing you gowned as you should be.”

Verity was left with nothing to say. Besides, somewhere in the back of her mind, a quiet little thought trickled into consciousness.
What would Jacob think
,
seeing me dressed as Mary would dress me
?

* * * * *

Jacob stared out the window at the rose garden where he’d once accosted Verity. He wished she were there again. Wished she were cutting flowers to replace those time had wilted, wished she were chatelaine of his home and heart…and wondered if there were any possibility she might come to love him as he was fast coming to love her… Not beautiful in any conventional way but nevertheless attractive. Intelligent. Loyal. Strong. Independent.

He grinned at that last. Her strong independence was something to be admired and, at the same time, regretted.

Then, his eyes widening, Jacob watched Jenna move out of the shrubbery where she’d obviously been taking mild exercise. He saw her laugh, turn a sparkling look to the side…and his heart paused in its beating. It was true then? The voice he heard
was
that of his granduncle? For a moment childish fears rocked him. Then, accepting, he opened the window, stepped over the sill and moved into the garden.

“Jenna-mine, may I join the two of you?”

Jenna blinked, cast a quick glance to the side and back to Jacob, and drew in a long breath. “He has told me you
hear
him.”

“I…hear…him—and you do too, do you not?
Which
,” Jacob added more briskly, “is something of a relief. I’ve wondered if I were losing my mind and in danger of inheriting a place in a bedlam rather than this estate.”

You think you can fill the conditions in order to inherit
?

Jacob twitched, stiffened and then relaxed. He chuckled a wry chuckle. “Recognizing that I hear a ghost speaking doesn’t make it any easier to accept it when it happens,” he said. “But to answer the question, I don’t know why not. At the moment, I see no reason for leaving the estate even for a day, let alone a week—although I suppose that may change as the year advances. I freely admit I had forgotten how much I love this place,” he finished with a sweep of his arm.

Jenna reached out toward him even as he jerked his hand back to his breast and clutched it, a shocked look in his face. “Cold, isn’t he?” she said with a smile. “They say cold as the grave, but no one tells us how bitterly cold that is. Our one regret is that we may not touch each other. Still, I am blessed that I have his company, am I not?”

“I…touched him?”

Jenna nodded. “It doesn’t hurt
him
, but you ache with the cold, do you not?”

Jacob looked at his hand, back at Jenna, “Ache? It should be frostbitten the way that felt.”

I will do my best to be elsewhere when you are near
.
Or far enough you need not worry you
’
ll touch me
.

“He has moved to the side and a bit behind me, if you cannot tell from his voice,” said Jenna. “Shall we continue my walk? I have exercised very nearly all I should for now, but I am determined that when my niece and Mary return, I’ll be back on my feet.”

“I am surprised to see you doing so much, Jenna-mine. The last I knew, you were still in your bed for most of the day.”

“So my niece and Mary believe. I have always thought that one recovers more quickly if one is up and about, so as soon as I dared I began taking a few steps beside the bed and later, I could pace back and forth. Now they are gone, I am not restricted to my room.”

“They refused you permission to leave it?” asked Jacob, smiling.

“They did and it seemed to disturb them so much that I gave into them. Or at least,” she said with a twinkle in her eye, “I pretended to do so.”

I no longer worry about you
,
my love
,
but I do worry about Mary
.
I have been around and about
.
There is a stranger staying in the old charcoal maker
’
s hut in the woods to the east
.

“A stranger?”

He is from the south
.

“A southern,” said Jenna in the local speech. “Why would such as he be staying in that hut? It is barely four walls and a roof, if I remember rightly. One unglazed window and a door warped almost beyond closing… Not a place one would choose to stay, I’d think.”

I will watch but I wonder if you
,
Jacob
,
should ride to meet the others when they return
.

“To warn them someone is near who should not be.” Jacob nodded. “Now if I can only guess just when they’ll return!” He cast a searching glance around but of course could not see the ghost. “I don’t suppose you could give me a clue as to when they’ll start home?”

I will do what I can
.
I have visited Lady Scott in the past
,
of course
,
so I think I may go there
.

“Oh dear…”

“What is it, Jenna? Have you done too much? Should I carry you back to your room?”

“What? Oh no, although I think we will return to the house now. It is that Mel, Lord Everston I mean, has disappeared.”

“You should continue to call him Mel as I suspect you have done for many years now. Now he is dead, surely the conventions do not apply?” teased Jacob and chuckled when Jenna blushed. “Perhaps he has gone to discover, if he can, when my cousins return.”

Jenna nodded. Suddenly, her love not there to cheer her, she reached for Jacob’s arm. “Perhaps,” she said, biting her lip, “I have overdone it a trifle?”

Jacob didn’t hesitate but swept her up in his arms and stalked off toward the house. “Where would you like to go, Jenna-mine? Up to your bed?”

“No, no,” she said, flustered. “You mustn’t carry me up steps. My old rooms perhaps?”

“Your old rooms are being turned out for the new housekeeper. I heard Mary order it before they left. Think of somewhere else.”

“The…sewing room perhaps? Across from the breakfast parlor,” she added, in case it was not a room with which he was familiar. “There is a comfortable chair in there in which I may rest.” She sighed at the necessity but knew she must, so didn’t complain when Jacob left her there.

Jacob returned outdoors. After a moment, he decided he should go chase the stranger away from the hut but before he could do more than head toward the stables for a horse, it occurred to him it might be better if the man stayed so they knew where to find him.

Besides, the cynical thought crossed his mind, let him suffer the crudities and discomforts of living in such a place. A just reward for anyone who spied on them.

Nevertheless, a ride seemed a good notion and Jacob rode out to where his land agent had informed him they meant to begin haying. He watched the men cutting the hay and piling it into a rick.
Perhaps
, he thought,
I
’
ll take a scythe in hand for a bit
,
see if I can learn to swing it properly
.

It was much later that afternoon when, tired and hungry, but perfectly content even knowing he’d ache in every muscle before the evening ended, Jacob returned to the house. He’d not only learned to handle a scythe but had spent the rest of the day alongside his men swinging it in the steady rhythm they taught him.