Moonlight And Mistletoe

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

H ester led the way into the kitchen. Somehow the warmth of the range, the homely gleam of pewter and brass and the scrubbed simplicity of the long table were a comfort. What her neighbours would think of her entertaining an earl there she could only imagine.

Guy tossed the roses on the fire and watched them sombrely as they crackled and burned. ‘What happened when Sir Lewis called? Was he alone at any time, Ackland?’

‘No, my lord.’ Jethro shifted his arm in its sling and concentrated. ‘He came to the front door and knocked. I answered it and he said he had a book he had forgotten to give you this morning. I thanked him and said that Miss Hester was not at home. When I told him that he looked very serious and said that surely you would have returned by that time.’

‘Then I came out of the front room,’ Miss Prudhome chimed in. ‘And I invited him in for tea, which he accepted. So I rang for Susan…’

‘You were all in the front room by this point?’

‘Yes.’ Jethro closed his eyes the better to picture the scene. ‘I stepped in to clear the tea table, which Miss Prudhome had been using for her sewing things. Susan came in to ask what Miss Prudhome required.’

‘And I was sitting by the hearth with Sir Lewis opposite,’ Maria finished.

‘Not long,’ Hester observed. ‘But I suppose long enough for someone to come in through the secret way and hide in the dining room. From there they could go upstairs as soon as Jethro and Susan went back to the kitchen.’

‘And that would explain why he brought the book to you,’ Guy added. Hester smiled at him, enjoying the bittersweet sensation of shared thoughts, of watching him thinking and reasoning and joining her mind with his in this puzzle. ‘I had asked for the books-the only reason not to take it to the Old Manor would be to distract the household here.’

‘And if he knew about the footman in the kitchen he would know he could not get in at night. He must be getting desperate,’ Hester added.

‘I’ll give him desperate,’ Susan muttered.

‘We need to catch him red-handed,’ Miss Prudhome announced, her face grim. Beside her Jethro picked up the vegetable paring knife and ran a thumb thoughtfully down the blade.

‘Well, unless we sit here all day and night, that may be easier said than done.’ Hester smiled at her bloodthirsty allies. ‘I think you are going to have to withdraw your footman from the kitchen at night and give the ghost a clear run, my lord.’

Guy fought down his instinctive retort that, on the contrary, he would also install a groom with a blunderbuss in the hallway and told himself to stop thinking with his heart and instead to apply his head. Miss Hester Lattimer was turning both his resolve and his intellect head over heels. She was right- another trap was the only way of resolving this, but somehow it had to be contrived without putting her in danger. An idea was stirring at the back of his mind.

Susan gave the burning roses a vicious poke and set the kettle down on the range with a thump while, without speaking, Miss Prudhome began to gather up the teapot and caddy and measure out tea. Guy suppressed a smile. The automatic reaction of the household to any emergency appeared to be to put the kettle on.

The desire to smile faded as he looked at Hester. She had cast off her outer clothes and was sitting speaking quietly with Jethro about his shoulder. Any casual visitor would have noticed nothing amiss, but to his eyes there were clear signs of strain.

The delicate skin under her eyes looked bruised and almost fragile, her natural grace held something of a braced alertness now and her hands were clasped, the long, elegant fingers more eloquent in their rigid stillness than if she had been twisting them in anguish.

Since that moment of revelation, when they had sat in the darkened front room waiting for the ghost, he had wrestled with his feelings for her. Desire, of course. Affection, admiration, and frequently exasperation-all those certainly. But this new, unsettling feeling, this awareness of her and what she was thinking, the spark of understanding when their eyes met, this desire to tell her his thoughts and his hopes without reservation-this was something else. This, he was coming to realise, was love.

Was it possible that Hester felt it too? She fought what she quite frankly admitted was a physical attraction, she was outspoken enough to inform him she would not accept a carte blanche-but then she was a gently bred young lady with undoubtedly firm moral principles.

Guy Westrope had never before considered making a declaration of marriage. He considered it now, sitting at the scrubbed kitchen table, a mug of tea in his hand and the love of his life seated opposite briskly persuading her adolescent butler that balancing hot oil on top of half-open doors or sawing halfway through stair treads were not stratagems likely to succeed. It was not, he readily admitted, the sort of environment in which earls normally contemplated marriage. Which, he supposed, only went to show that it must, indeed, he love he was feeling.

‘Why are you smiling, my lord?’ Hester had finally convinced Jethro that his schemes were likely to be more dangerous to the household than to any intruder and was regarding Guy like an alert robin, head on one side, brown eyes twinkling. The strain and fatigue were gone, or, at least, well under control. Once more admiration for her courage gripped him and the desire to pulverise Lewis Nugent hardened into a hard knot of fury.

‘I was enjoying Ackland’s imagination.’ Now, even if he could get her alone, was not the time for protestations of love. Her eyes said quite plainly that she did not believe him and that she suspected him of something, if only of teasing her.

‘I think…’ Hester said slowly, sipping her tea, ‘I think we have been too much on the defensive. If something of value is hidden here, then we can find it as well as the Nugents. Where, my lord, do you think it could be?’

Guy found himself transfixed by that intelligent brown gaze once more. ‘I have no idea, Miss Lattimer.’

‘No, my lord, that will not wash.’ She put down the mug firmly. ‘You know something about this house you have not told me, else why would you wish to buy it?’

Guy was conscious of four pairs of eyes fixed intently on him and was thankful for years of card playing and the ability to maintain a straight face. ‘I know who used to live here after it was built, that is all. I have no more knowledge of treasure or hiding places than you, I swear it. And before you ask me, I cannot tell you who that occupant was.’ And as soon as he could speak to Georgiana and secure her consent to tell Hester everything, the happier he would be.

‘Then we will search,’ Hester announced with determination. ‘Starting on Monday, from attics to scullery. A least we have no cellars to worry about.’

‘I will help if I can,’ Guy offered, ‘but tomorrow I must go back to London to escort my sister Lady Broome who is set on visiting me-chiefly to convince me to accompany her and her family to Broome Hall in Essex for Christmas, which she knows I have not the slightest intention of doing!’

Georgy would have at last two other aims in mind, of that he was sure. One was to distract him from what she considered his dangerous obsession with the Moon House and its possibilities for family scandal and the other was doubtless to introduce him to yet another ‘suitable’ young lady. Miss Lattimer, he was only too well aware, she would regard as anything but suitable-no title, no ‘family’, no wealth.

He rose with a word of farewell and was not surprised when Hester followed him through into the front hail with a word to Jethro to stay where he was.

‘I will send over a footman again tonight. No-’ he held up a hand when she opened her mouth to protest ‘-if you do not let him into the kitchen then he will have to sit outside the back door all night and I am sure you would not inflict that on him in this weather.’

Hester glared at him, then let her mouth relax into a reluctant smile. ‘Very well, thank you, Guy. But we are never going to trap the ghost this way.’

‘You may be right, but I have an idea. What is it your intention to do at Christmas? Will you visit relatives?’

‘I have none,’ Hester admitted simply. ‘We will stay here and have a quiet holiday, I expect. I had not given it much thought.’

‘I think you should have an evening party-say, on the twenty-second. Carols and buttered rum punch-a conversable evening around the fire with all your new friends and neighbours, including, of course, the Nugents. And I think there should also be some seasonal story telling. Do you not agree?’

‘Ghost stories?’ Hester asked, trying to read Guy’s face as he nodded. ‘Have you a plan?’

‘I think I have.’ He smiled wickedly. ‘A lot depends on the Nugents accepting. Goodbye, Hester, and take care of yourself.’ He paused, looking down at her, and Hester fought back the impulse to stand on tiptoe and press her lips to his. ‘Take care,’ he repeated and was gone.

Hester went back into the kitchen, counting on her fingers. ‘Do you realise it is only twelve days to Christmas? It has just crept up on me this year and we haven’t made any preparations for it at all!’

The others looked up from their various tasks and Hester could see the thought of the holiday was a welcome diversion from the other preoccupations they had been wrestling with.

‘Mrs Bunting asked me to help in decorating the church, Maria remarked.

‘I had best order a goose and I don’t know what else.’ Susan reached for a scrap of paper and a pencil and began to scratch a list. ‘Plum puddings.’

‘I’ll get Aston to cut more logs and the silver’ll need polishing,’ was Jethro’s contribution.

‘I think I will hold a party here,’ Hester announced. ‘On the twenty-second. Something quite informal… a supper party, probably. We must have the piano tuned and I will make a guest list.’

By the time the Moon House party trooped over to the church next morning, Hester had made her list and written her invitations. Fortunately her acquaintance was still not large, for, if everyone accepted, the front rooms would hardly hold the company.

Both Nugents could be glimpsed in their front pew and Hester timed her exit from the church to catch them as they shook Mr Bunting’s hand.

‘Miss Nugent! How do you go on? I was so sorry to hear about your tooth.’

The slender figure turned, a fine, dense veil shielding her face. ‘Miss Lattimer, good day. I am much better, thank you. Only rather sore still and the bruising has still not gone down.’

Her brother hovered protectively at her side and Hester turned her smile on him. ‘And Sir Lewis-thank you for delivering that other book. I have passed it on to his lordship, who is doubtless finding it most interesting.’ She fell in beside them as they made their way down the churchyard path to the lych-gate.

‘Has anything else strange happened recently?’ Miss Nugent’s voice seemed rather muffled, doubtless by the painful results of the extraction and Hester glanced at her just as a gust of wind caught the edge of her veil. There was a glimpse of her face before she snatched at the hem and had it under control again. The cheek revealed was quite definitely swollen and there was indeed a fading bruise-a bruise that showed clearly the marks of four knuckles.

Sarah Nugent was the ghost. Hester got both her face and voice under control and made a rapid decision.

‘Yes. Yes, something very worrying has happened,’ she confided, making her tone anxious. ‘May I tell you in confidence?’ They both nodded earnestly and Hester cast a rapid glance round before whispering, ‘Someone is getting into the house and leaving…dead roses.’

Sarah gave a little shriek of alarm, which, if she had not seen her bruised face, would have convinced Hester of her surprise. ‘Roses! I knew it-the curse. My dear Miss Lattimer, I beg you, reconsider and accept Lewis’s offer to buy back the Moon House before it is too late.’

‘I do not know.’ Hester hoped she was sounding undecided yet unnerved. ‘It is such a lovely house and yet, now I feel so uneasy there. Perhaps I am being over-imaginative. I am reluctant to make any decision before the Christmas season is over. Which reminds me…’ She took an invitation out of her reticule and handed it to Sarah. ‘I am having a small party on the twenty-second; just a sociable evening at home with supper and perhaps singing carols around the piano. I do hope you can come.’

There was a perceptible pause. What were they thinking? ‘That would be delightful, thank you, Miss Lattimer,’ Sarah said at last. ‘We had made no plans ourselves because of our sad loss, but an evening with friends would be most welcome.’

Sir Lewis took her hand and squeezed it. Hester repressed the urge to snatch it away and box his ears and instead gazed trustingly into his green eyes. If at any time you come to a decision to sell, Miss Lattimer, you have only to say.’

Hester watched them climb into their carriage and turned back grimly to distribute invitations to others of her acquaintance who were leaving the church. A gratifyingly large number expressed their immediate acceptance and Hester made her way back home, mentally writing lists and reviewing her wine cellar. As they reached the front gate she glanced across at the Old Manor standing red and forbidding across the lane.

Where was Guy now? He had not been gone a day and already she missed him with a dull ache. She wanted to talk to him, tell him about Sarah Nugent, confide that she had risked speaking about the roses. And more than that, she wanted to be held in his arms, feel the strength of him under tier hands, against her body. She wanted him to make love to her.

‘Miss Hester?’ It was Jethro, obviously wondering why she was standing on the front step with the door wide open letting the heat out. ‘Miss Hester, I was talking to one of the footmen from the Hall up in the church gallery and he says that every Christmas the Nugents used to have theatrical parties.’

‘Did they, indeed?’ Hester stepped briskly inside and closed the door. ‘What else did he say?’

Jethro took her heavy cloak and gloves, favouring his right side where the muscles were still paining him. ‘That Sir Lewis was a good actor, but Miss Nugent was even better and that she organised everything and made up the plays and Sir Lewis just does what she says.’

Hester went into the sitting room, calling the others after her. ‘Miss Nugent is our ghost; I saw the bruises from Lord Buckland’s knuckles plain on her cheek under that veil. And if Sarah is such an accomplished actor, no wonder she has been able to spin all these tales about ghosts and a curse and appear so distressed.’

‘Shall we start to search the house?’ Jethro was already rolling up his sleeves, only to be interrupted by a scandalised cluck from Miss Prudhome.

‘Not on a Sunday, Jethro!’

‘His lordship has been travelling on a Sunday,’ he muttered mutinously.

‘We can discuss how we are going to search and where,’ Hester suggested placatingly. ‘And we can think about our Christmas plans. I cannot recall when I have been so behindhand with that.’

An hour later, nibbling the tip of her quill before the sitting room fire, Hester thought back to Christmases past. English Yuletides with her parents were a distant memory; fresher were the colourful, often chaotic celebrations in Portugal with roast ribs of beef acquired by dubious means, the mix of uniforms adding to the festive scene and the sun shining in a way it never did in England in December.

Then, two years ago, returning to England, bereaved, desolate, shivering in an English winter, her only sanctuary the house of an old friend of her father, invalided out of the army two years previously. The house where she expected to spend her first English Christmas for many years.

Hester had found the address in Mount Street and handed the gaunt, crippled man who lived there her father’s letter addressed to him. Colonel Sir John Norton had read it while she had watched him, shaken that a contemporary of her father’s should look so much older. Major Lattimer had referred to a shoulder wound that would have soon healed, but the man before her was suffering from far worse than that.

But shaken as she was by the appearance of her host, she was even more confused by the letter he handed to her which had been contained within his own.

…as we have spoken of before now if you find yourself alone you will have gone to my good friend John Norton… he and I agreed… make provision for you… best for you to marry him, for there is no one else I can send you to…

She had had to read the letter twice before she could take it in. Her father and his old friend had hatched a plot for her protection, which involved her marrying the colonel if her father was killed.

She had looked up, startled, and had met the kind, tired eyes that were watching her.

‘I was not such a wreck when he and I parted,’ he explained wryly. ‘An operation went wrong, I contracted a rheumatic fever that affected my heart. The quacks give me a year.’

‘I am so sorry.’ She had tried to smile bravely. ‘I cannot possibly impose on you, that is obvious. Perhaps you can suggest a respectable hotel-’

She had got no further. Sir John pointed out with a forcefulness, which left him breathless, that if she married him she would have a home, the protection of his name and would, very shortly, become a wealthy widow.

Hester had refused point blank and the battle between the mortally ill man and the homeless young woman had raged for two days before she had agreed to stay and he had agreed to respect her determination not to marry him.

She soon realised that, as well as being ill, he was lonely. His servants were adequate, but no substitute for family or friends, and his relatives, with whom he had had little contact or sympathy while he was in good health, saw no need to seek him out now. Hester settled into the role of companion-housekeeper within days and a strange, warm friendship grew up between the dying man and the bereaved girl.

When John had died she had felt bereaved all over again as though she had lost a second father. Facing the prospect of homelessness and genteel poverty on the small portion she had inherited, she had been touched and deeply grateful that at the reading of the will it transpired that the colonel had left her a respectable competence as well as his wine cellar. And with it the chance to remake her own life away from London.

Hester tossed down her quill and got to her feet to stare out of the window at the uncompromising red-brick wall on the other side of the road. Now, here in the Moon House, she was determined to build a future on what John and her father had given her. The past was behind her.

She turned back from the window with a shiver, the thin sunlight throwing her silhouette in front of her across the boards. It seemed like a warning, a reminder that what was behind you could cast a long shadow into the here and now.