The Ghost and Jacob Moorhead (11 page)

But, as he dismounted, a groan took him by surprise and he felt heat in his ears when his head groom cast him an odd look.

A bath
, he thought.
That long tub and lots of hot water
…
that will help even if George does disapprove
.

George disapproved, but he added the herbs Jenna ordered and replaced the cooling water with more hot as time passed and, once Jacob finally removed himself from his soak, he gruffly told his master to lay down on his front. Hands well oiled, he gave Jacob a good rubdown, starting at his shoulders and working down to his feet.

“If I’d known you were skilled in this way,” mumbled Jacob partway through it, “I’d have demanded you give me a rubdown at least once a week just on general principle.” Half asleep already, he yawned, turned his head the other way and didn’t hear when George suggested he turn over.

George shrugged and moved away. He stared at the tub and thought of the buckets and buckets of water that must be returned downstairs. For a moment he looked longingly at the window, wishing he dared simply open it and toss out bucketful after bucketful. Then, accepting it would not do, he found a couple of footmen and, quietly, the three of them emptied the bath, wiped it dry and returned it to the closet where it was stored until someone wished it.

And while he did that, Jacob, in that half awake, half dreaming state of the totally relaxed, wondered if a bathing room might be installed at High Moor and if so, just where to put it and how much would it cost… He recalled reading about Roman baths, somehow heated and large enough more than one could bathe at the same time. Such luxury that would be, he mused. And he wondered what Verity’s thoughts were concerning the healthfulness of frequent bathing. And his mind wandered to the delights of bathing with her…and then he did sleep and did dream.

But they were dreams he’d tell no one. Never.
Much
too erotic for discussion, even with one’s most intimate cronies.
Especially
with one’s cronies, given they involved Verity…

* * * * *

Melissa stared idly out the window of the ancient post chaise. In the end Lord Everston had refused his carriage and given her barely enough funds to hire transport north, but had forgotten, didn’t know or didn’t care that women were taken advantage of, that what might have done for him was inadequate for her. This decrepit vehicle and a pair were all she could hire at the last posthouse. The only thing available…or all they would give her.

She hated traveling without an escort. She ground her teeth, but softly. She’d broken the corner off a back tooth only a week ago when angry and didn’t wish to do anything of the sort again. Her tongue found the rough spot. Again. Now, having thought of it, she’d not be able to stop herself and her tongue would soon be raw.

Blast the skinflint who sent her on this endless journey into the wilds of the north, where heaven only knew what awaited her! The new Lord Everston would suffer for his miserly ways. She’d find a means. Somehow he’d pay for his treatment of her…

A loud crack, a swearword she’d never before heard and—

Her hands flew up but she couldn’t save herself. She fell forward and to the side. For a moment, half stunned, she lay there, her face pressed into the musty-smelling cushions forming the corner. Her bonnet was pushed back, the bow under her chin choking her. Turning, she leaned against what should have been the seat behind the horses plodding along the badly rutted road. She tugged at the ribbons. Another moment and she drew in a deep breath, straightened her bonnet—swearing still more viciously when she found the brim broken—and then, with effort, cracked open the door beside her. A hedge held it mostly closed so she glanced up the awkward slant to the other door.

Outside she heard the driver’s deep country voice making soothing noises to the pair drawing the carriage. A stamped hoof, more caressing words…
But
, thought Melissa,
not a single thought for his passenger
. She yelled for his immediate aid. The voice stilled and then approached.

“Ye not dead then, madam?” The upper door opened and fell back and his grizzled head appeared. “Ah. Good. Ye were not hurt. Give me your hands then,” he said in the slow placid tones that had soothed any tendency his horses might have had to panic.

Melissa was not about to panic but she was angry and growing angrier by the minute. “Where are we? What happened?”

“Axle snapped in that rut, ye ken.” He thrust his chin toward the deep groove. “We be miles yet from the next inn.”

“And?”

“And?” he asked, frowning.

“What do you mean to do?”

He blinked. “Do.”

She stamped her foot. “I am stranded in the middle of nowhere.
Do
something.”

He chewed on his lip, the frown deepening. “Happen, I could put you up on old Sorry’s back and lead you to the next inn?”

“
Happen
you could, but not only does it sound uncomfortable, it sounds as if you are not completely certain that sorry creature would carry me.”

“Sorry’s the animal’s
name
,” said the coachman, reproachfully.

“I am not
sorry
to hear it.
Sorry
appears to be fittingly named.” She crossed her arms and glared.

Realizing the woman would not be soothed so easily as his horses, the driver looked around, noticed a chimney with a wisp of smoke drifting up into the windless sky. The house itself was hidden by a rise of ground and a spinney. He pointed. “Mayhap they’ve a gig I could borrow to drive you to the inn?”

“Mayhap they do.”

He didn’t move.

“And,” she added waspishly, “
mayhap
you could go ask before it becomes too dark to do anything at all.”

The driver gave a start, looked around and, sliding into the shallow ditch and up the other side, he forced a way through the hedge. Before Melissa could think to ask him to restore her inside the coach where she’d be protected from the rather nasty wind and, incidentally, hidden from anyone who happened to drive by, he was gone.

She had struggled back into her broken carriage. Now she leaned toward the window for a look at the man descending from the chaise that pulled up before her own wretched vehicle. Her eyes widened and her lower lip curled in between her small pearly teeth. “Lester…” she whispered. “It is
Lester
…”

The driver, who had returned and told her help was on the way, had managed to set the carriage up so that it no longer leaned at such a very odd angle. It wobbled, however, when the gentleman opened her door. He stared. Then, a bitter laugh escaping him, he shook his head. “You,” he said.

She swallowed. “Lester…” she whispered.

“Nemesis. One cannot escape nemesis, can one?” he asked, falsely pleasant.

Melissa’s lapse into old dreams of the might-have-beens abruptly vanished. Her nose rose ever-so slightly into the air.

“It would have to be you,” he said on a sigh.

“It wasn’t my fault.”

He didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “Was it not? A coward never thinks herself at fault,” he said and then sighed. “Well, come along. You cannot stay here. The nights are too cold.”

“You’d leave me here if they were not,” she said, half serious and half teasing. The shock had faded. How long was it since she’d last seen the man who had been her first and only love? A man who obviously no longer loved her…

Even so, her mind turned to how she might take advantage of this unexpected meeting.

“Yes,” he said, drawing her attention, her gaze meeting the cold look in his eyes for the first time. “Yes,” he repeated. “If it were warm enough, I might leave you as you left me. But it is too cold for such revenge, so come along. My dinner was about to be served and will be ruined if you dawdle as you are doing.” He held out an imperious hand and, again feeling shock, this time at his tone, Melissa set hers within it.

And felt a different sort of shock that pulled her gaze to meet his. Melissa relaxed slightly when she realized he’d felt it too.

* * * * *

Melissa, seated at the end of a long table, stared at the huge epergne that hid her host from view. She shifted to one side, peered around it… Still she could not see him. She cleared her throat. Instantly, a footman was at her side, pouring wine into her partially full glass. She murmured a thank-you, an absentminded courtesy, but one that did her no harm in the footman’s eyes. Suddenly making a decision, she rose to her feet. “I would sit down there,” she said to him and walked the length of the table until she reached the man toward whom her curiosity—to say nothing of the corner of her heart in which the memory of him lived—drove her.

She stared down at him, a half pleading, half defiant look.

His eyes narrowed and then, looking beyond her, he nodded. The footman moved her silver and glasses and pulled out the chair.

Melissa sat. “It was not my fault,” she said, catching and holding his gaze.

“Was it not? I have a great deal of trouble believing that, given the letter I received in your place.” He spoke in a cold voice, his eyes hooded.

“Letter… I wrote no letter.”

“No. Not a word. It was from your father and couched in such terms that, if a generation had not separated us, would have led to challenge and a duel.”

“I know of no letter. I was locked into my room. When food was brought me, John attended my maid. You remember my brother? He never liked me. He was always spying on me, carrying tales to my parents always couched in the worst possible light. John, no matter how I begged, would not help me.”

“You needn’t have married that man.”

“Need I not? I should have starved myself to death instead?”

“It would not have come to that.”

Melissa opened her mouth for another sharp retort and then closed it. “I was
seventeen
, Lester. I believed him when my father said I could stay there and rot if I did not do as commanded.”

“You still need not have wed the man. All you needed to do was refuse to say your vows. Nothing could have been done if you’d only stayed true and refused. But you didn’t…” He frowned. “Why do you stare so?”

“Refuse? Stand before a priest at an altar with the congregation staring at me and
refuse
?”

Lester tipped his head. “And only seventeen,” he muttered and nodded. “Yes…I see how that might have been difficult.”

“Impossible.”

His mouth firmed. “Oh no. Not impossible.”

“There was another solution,” said Melissa slowly, her eyes narrowed in turn. She lifted her wineglass and stared at it. “
You
might have come to the church.
You
might have objected, informing the priest there was a prior commitment, that I was not free to wed that monster.”

“Our decision to wed was informal, Melissa. I’d never obtained approval from your father. You were underage. You will recall that our only hope was to wait until you came of age…or to elope. You were too cowardly to elope even though you’d pretended to agree to it.”

“I was not. I
tried
. John suspected. He watched me. He caught me when I tried to escape the house secretly to come to you. He returned me to my father, told him what we planned—and how did he know that?” She frowned, trying to figure it out, but then shook her head and continued. “My father slapped me. Hard.” Her hand rose to her cheek in memory. “Then they locked me up.”

He stared at her. Gradually Lester relaxed and sat back in his chair, an elbow on the wooden arm, his wineglass cradled between fingers and thumb. “I have spent many years angry with you, Melissa. Angry with your father. Angry,” he said with just a touch of black humor, “with the world.”

“I was told you left the country. I was told you went to India.”

“I did.” He gestured around the richly appointed room. “And finally I came back…oh, not a nabob, but quite comfortably wealthy.”

She stared at him, her lip between her teeth. “I envy you,” she said softly.

He blinked. “Envy?”

“You are a man. You could go seek your fortune, find it, return to live the life you choose to live. I haven’t that freedom.”

“From all I’ve heard,” he said, the caustic note back, “you’ve led your life pretty freely.”

Melissa didn’t pretend to misunderstand him. Her spine stiffened. Her features took on a harshly rigid stoniness. “I was married to a hateful old man who, having got what he wanted, no longer cared if I lived or died—except when he wanted—” She broke that off, her face a mask of pain. Finally she took a deep breath. “And then he grew ill and it was worse. He beat me because he could not—” Again she stopped short of telling what she’d suffered at her husband’s hands. She turned her head away. And then, defiant, turned back. “So I found some pleasure, some
affection
such as it was, elsewhere. Why was that so bad of me?”

“You took vows, Melissa.”

“Not in my heart.” Her voice rose, became shrill. “In my heart I was screaming at God that I lied, that I didn’t mean it, that, forced to say the words, they couldn’t possibly count!”