The Ghost and Jacob Moorhead (6 page)

Did too
, said a soft voice near Jacob’s ear.
Jenna
’
s the coward
.

Jacob swung quickly toward the voice, inadvertently forcing the footman hovering near his ear back a step. The footman, quick on his feet, managed to recover and didn’t spill a single lamb chop from the gravy-covered platter, even though the food slid around a bit.

“Sir?” asked the footman, wondering what had caused Jacob to turn in that quick way.

There is nothing there
.
Nothing
,
thought Jacob. “What?” He realized what he’d done and felt heat in his neck. “Nothing. Nothing at all,” he repeated a trifle grimly. The voice he’d heard sounded very like his granduncle’s, but that must be nonsense.
Surely it is nonsense
.
There are no such things as ghosts
.
On the other hand
,
if I am going mad
… “What did you say, Cousin Mary? I was woolgathering.” He stared at his plate on which the footman had deposited two chops drowned in sauce. He grimaced and pushed it away.

“What I said was that I wonder if Jenna would have wed him even if he asked.”

Did ask
, the voice said again.

This time Jacob avoided turning his head—but prickles ran up his spine and lifted the hair at the back of his neck. The untouched chops were replaced by a filet of fish, once again hidden under a thick sauce. Jacob frowned. “Cousin, do you think you could convince the chef I don’t care for heavy sauces and would much prefer my meats
au naturel
?”

“I’ll talk to him tomorrow,” she said. “He has a good touch with flavor but, I agree, the sauces are a bit heavy, smothering rather than adding to the enjoyment of the meat or fish. I think,” she added after a moment’s thought, “I will suggest they be served separately so one may take only as much as one wishes.”

Jacob used his knife to uncover his fish. Once there was only a bit of sauce he discovered he agreed with his cousin. The flavor was excellent. He said so. The meal continued, their conversation rather desultory, and Jacob realized the covers were about to be removed and the port placed on the table. Waving it away, he stood. “I’ve some paperwork to see to in the office,” he lied. “I’ve everything to learn, you know, about estate management.”
That
wasn’t a lie. “I doubt I’ll see you again this evening, Cousin, so I’ll say good night now.”

Jacob had already spent much of the afternoon in his granduncle’s well-appointed office at the back of the house where he’d begun perusing account books and other material he’d found in orderly files, a first step toward learning the business of the estate. But now,
pretending
to go there, he
actually
found a secondary set of stairs and headed for the third floor, two above the family’s bedrooms, where, among the secondary guestrooms, Mary had found a suite that satisfied her.

An odd choice
,
surely
, thought Jacob.
Unless she has a reason for wanting privacy
?

Across from her suite was a linen closet. Jacob entered it, pulled a pile of neatly folded blankets from a shelf, put them on the floor and settled himself to wait for…well, for what he feared would come about.

He hoped he was wrong.

Chapter Four

“Really, Aunt Mary, you know I cannot join the family at meals.”

“Definitely not,” said Jenna from her bed.

“The both of you can and will. And you, Jenna, know why.” Mary stared at Mrs. Jennings, daring her to deny the relationship between herself and Mary’s father.

I would like it if you
’
d agree
, whispered a voice in Jenna’s ear.
I
’
d very much like it if Verity and Jacob fell in love but they must have time together
,
have the opportunity
—

From where she stood on the far side of the bed, her back rigid with determination, Verity interrupted the words she couldn’t hear. “My grandfather wanted nothing to do with me. I want nothing to do with—”

Jenna lifted her hand and Verity’s voice stopped very nearly in the middle of a word. “I have changed my mind,” said Jenna.

“Why?” asked her outraged niece.

“For several very good reasons.” Jenna’s mouth closed in a tight line.

“I won’t.”

“I think you will,” said Jenna and then sighed. “And so will I. When I’m better and am able to be up and around.”

“
Why
?”

“Why? Because I like Mary and she has convinced me I must retire. She has asked that I be her guest here. I have decided I’d like that.”

“Retire?” repeated Verity. She drew in a deep breath and stiffened her spine. “Then I shall take your position. I know I’m young, but I was well trained and Emma—”

“
And nonsense
. You are my father’s granddaughter and you must act like it.”

“I’m
not
. He disinherited my father. Daddy was no longer his son. That means I’m not his granddaughter.”

“Verity, he regrets that very much,” said Jenna.

Besides
,
I re
-
inherited him
.

“Besides,” she continued, “your father was reinstated.”

“How would you know that?”

Jenna bit her lip. “I…just do. Believe me, Verity. His lordship regrets it.”

“You said he
regrets
it.
Twice
.” She stared at her aunt.

“Did I?” A rosy tint had Jenna looking healthier for a moment until the flush faded. “Slip of the tongue?”

“Was it?” asked Mary.

“Why would you even ask?” asked Jenna, not looking at either of her guests.

Mary looked from one to the other and smiled. As she’d told Jacob earlier that evening, she’d lived in a number of different societies and knew many that believed in ghosts. And she’d a notion of exactly why Verity asked. Verity’s father had told her the house in Italy in which they lived so cheaply was cheap because it was supposed to be haunted. She suspected, from something the then-sixteen-year-old Verity said at the time, that the chit knew that ghost very well indeed, perhaps talked with it.

Verity looked from Mary’s twinkling eyes to her aunt’s glower. Verity
had
talked to the ghost of the young girl who’d died there in the room Verity and her sister occupied, died tragically at about the age Verity was then. She remembered hearing her father telling Aunt Mary about their ghost in a joking disbelieving way. She sighed. “Is my grandfather’s ghost living with us?” she asked.

“Ghost?” asked Jenna, hiding her surprise. “You believe in
ghosts
?” In her ear her lover laughed softly.

“Yes.”

Jenna’s face lost all expression. “You
do
?”

“When you’ve lived with one for a couple of decades, you have to believe in them.”

“Nonsense.”

“
Not
. But I’ll not argue. If you’ve not experienced one then you don’t have the least notion.” She shrugged. “If you have—” Verity closed her mouth with a snap, said good night to both her aunts and left.

“Does Father talk to you?” asked Mary.

“You too?” demanded Jenna.

Mary shrugged. “I’ll never say anything is impossible. I’ve lived with too many different beliefs, experienced too many strange things, learned so very much is
true
that our scholars insist is
impossible
. If my father still exists in this plane of life…” She shut her mouth and looked into the far distance. Then sighed. “He never approved,” she said. She looked at Jenna. “Of my travels, you know?”

“No. He didn’t. He was very glad when you came home to stay.”

“Stay?” Mary sighed. “Oh, I hope not.”
But
, she thought,
I can
’
t travel again until my enemy and I come to
…
terms
.

“How can you want to leave the comfort of your own home?” asked Jenna, wishing to understand.

“How can I
not
wish it? There is so much of the world I’ve not yet seen. I think,” said Mary in a musing voice, “that I’ll go west next time. I’d like to see those wild Indians in our colonies—er, our old colonies? The new United States? Anyway, I want to learn how
they
live, talk to their healers.” She shrugged. “There is so much to
learn
, Jenna.”

Jenna shifted, uncomfortable with such talk. “I will never understand. You’ve learned a lot and seen a lot, I’m sure, but how you can bear the dirt and stink and awful food and the discomfort of travel…” She shook her head. “No, I’ll never understand.” She smiled. “But if it makes you happy then you do it.”

“But not just now.”

“No.” They meant different things but Jenna couldn’t know that. Her mind drifted to the possibility of a marriage between her niece and Jacob. “Do you think,” she asked, “that it is possible my niece and your cousin might come to an understanding?”

Mary cast Jenna a startled look. “You’d approve?”

Jenna smiled tightly. “Not really, but I worry about her. There is no question that she has the family’s blood in her and deserves that the family care for her, but you and I both know that idiot who inherited the title will do nothing.”

“Greedy old Mud? Not for her or for anyone else.” Mary’s mouth firmed and her eyes went hard. “That young man needs a lesson and I hope each and every one of my father’s young heirs manages to fulfill the will’s demands just so Mud gets not one groat of the estate beyond what is under entail.”

Jenna tried hard to hide a yawn.

“Oh dear, I’ve tired you. You must tell me to take myself off when I’ve overstayed my time,” scolded Mary. “So now I will go. Is there anything you need? Here, just let me remove those extra pillows.” She moved toward the bed. “And I’ll—”

Jenna shook her head, raising a hand to stop Mary. “Leave the pillows. I won’t sleep for a time but I’ll admit to feeling a trifle tired. So much to think about…”

“No need to think, Jenna. Just accept. Good night.” Mary grinned. And left.

* * * * *

“This is the most fun time I’ve had since the old geezer I married died,” said Lady Alice. Politely, she covered her mouth with her hand, not quite hiding a wide yawn. “Oh dear, I apologize,” she said when her jaw stopped cracking. “Just how late is it?”

Lady Merriweather looked over Lady Alice’s shoulder to the clock on the low mantel. “Gone eleven.” She found herself repressing a yawn as well and set down her cards. “I fear I must have gotten out of the habit of staying up to all hours,” she said. “Eleven is the prime of the evening, after all.”

“We’ve all gotten out of the habit,” murmured Lady Fredericka who was busily adding up scores. “Hm, did I do that correctly?” she muttered and lifted her pencil from the bottom of the column to the top to start over.

The other three watched her a trifle warily. They’d begun playing at a sensible hour directly after an early dinner, agreeing they’d all leave after an hour or two and make their separate ways home before others among the
ton
began to leave their homes for evening entertainments. Somehow, without their noticing, the light had faded and, also without disturbing them, a soft-footed servant had entered to light lamps, moving them to satisfy the needs of each player.

One lamp had sputtered and gone out only moments before, drawing the intent women from their play. Melissa, holding the deck and dealing, had glanced around in sudden fright and dropped the rest of the cards. Flustered, she apologized. It was then Lady Alice had commented on the fun she’d had.

“I do hope we can do this again soon,” Alice continued. She eyed Lady Fredericka who was adding up the figures still again. “What is the bad news, my lady?”

“I surely cannot be doing this correctly,” said that lady, frowning at the paper she held up and out, staring at it at arm’s length.

“Let me,” said Melissa. “I’m very good with figures.”

Fredericka passed the paper across the table and Alice rose to stand just behind Melissa’s elbow, watching as, once again, the figures were totted up. “Oh my,” she murmured.

“Oh my, indeed,” said Melissa, frowning. “You did it correctly, Lady Freddy, um,
Fredericka
.” She looked up and across the table. “I apologize for using the name you dislike but, you see, I
do
like it, so I’ve difficulty remembering you do not. Lady Merriweather, you have won and won handsomely. Congratulations,” finished Melissa just a trifle acidly. She didn’t owe so much as the other two women but she did wonder just how she’d manage to pay the rather large sum. “I’m forced to write a chit, I fear. What I brought with me, in case I lost, was more the sort of thing one carries to an afternoon playing silver loo.”

Lady Alice, rather white, also wrote a vowel. Lady Fredericka, however, pulled a bulging purse from her reticule and, rather grimly, counted out a far larger sum than Melissa had ever thought to carry with her anywhere for any reason. She rather wondered how Freddy, as she persisted in thinking of the woman, could have so much to hand. She’d rather thought she recalled gossip that her ladyship was left in somewhat straitened circumstances… Not that it was any of her business, of course.

“I must leave,” said Lady Alice. “It is already overly late. My companion,” she said, forcing a jocularity she quite obviously didn’t feel, “has a nasty habit of writing long letters to my husband’s mother. The dowager never liked me. She loves hearing that I’ve done something to justify her belief her son married beneath himself and that I have no right to even the widow’s portion I was left, let alone to the townhouse which I’m to have for my life.”

Melissa wondered if the woman would regret saying so much if she recalled it at some later date. She herself would never mention her own unhappy position. Or her hopes for the future, as Alice had persisted in doing, revealing her dream of wedding a man she could love. Or at the very least, she’d gone on to say, one she could respect. And then she’d counted over the possibles on the marriage market, mostly widowers requiring women to manage their homes and, often, their nurseries. In one case, she’d spoken of a man with a daughter who must be brought out in the next season, poring over his family tree to see if he didn’t need a wife rather than depending on a relative to see to the matter.

And there was mention, of course, of Jacob Moorhead—the others giving her a quick look that she’d returned, she hoped, with bland incomprehension. That definitely was not a subject for discussion, her hopes of marriage to the only man who had ever in any way managed to rouse her senses—the only man excepting one other, that was, but she’d been so young then and he was lost to her…

The others were standing, speaking those things that meant imminent departure, and Melissa, coming to her senses, also rose. And yawned.

Lady Alice giggled. “It seems we are all out of practice for staying up late. Shall we make plans for our next meeting? Next week perhaps? At my house?” she suggested and then frowned. “Or no, perhaps not. My companion…” Her voice trailed off.

“We will meet at my house,” said Lady Fredericka firmly.

They left as a group, tripping down the steps and moving toward the hansom cab Lady Merriweather’s footman had called for them. “We will,” said Lady Fredericka softly so that only Melissa could hear, “meet at my house with no handy mirrors available for any of us to peer into.”

Melissa, about to follow Lady Alice into the cab, hesitated. Was Lady Freddy really suggesting that Lady Merriweather had
cheated
? She stepped back down onto the paving and turned to question her ladyship—and stared into the face of one of the
ton
’s stricter and surely the most judgmental of dowagers. “Lady Fisher–Stone,” said Melissa, dipping into a quick curtsey.

Lady Fredericka swung around. “Ah…my lady.” She too dropped a curtsey.

Lady Fisher–Stone glanced from the widows to the house from which they’d obviously come and back. She sniffed, her nose rising a notch, and, without a word, moved on and up the stairs to the adjoining house.

“That’s torn it,” muttered Lady Fredericka. “It will be all over town we’ve been carousing and heaven only knows what else.” She climbed into the cab. “You, my dear Lady Alice,” she said to the lady already ensconced in the forward-facing seat, “are very fortunate you were not seen.”

Melissa, wondering just how bad the gossip would run, followed Lady Fredericka, settled herself with her back to the horses and tapped the roof. The horse set forward to the first address. Melissa realized that somehow she’d been left to the last and gritted her teeth. On top of owing a large debt of honor to a woman who had cheated to earn it, she’d been left with paying the jarvey driving the cab.