Lord Melvedere's Ghost (20 page)

“
See if you can reach the holes,” he whispered, watching Cecily
stretch onto the very tips of her toes.

“
I can’t reach,” Cecily whispered, disappointed. She wanted to
see what he had seen.

“
Can you reach one of the holes? Here try this.” He guided her
hand upward and dislodged one of the strips of material before
quickly disappearing into the library. One glance was all it took
and he reappeared in the passage with a sigh of disgust. He
wondered if the painting in the study was the same and knew that he
didn’t need to go in there and check to know that it
was.

“
God in heaven,” he growled, helping Cecily down from the
brick. “Let’s go.” His blood began to boil and he looked down at
his fingers. Unsurprisingly, there was little dust on them, meaning
that the painting had been disturbed recently. Someone had been
overhearing conversations in the library for some time. But who?
Why? What were they listening for?

“
Is it the painting?” Cecily sensed rather than saw his brisk
nod as he stalked ahead of her. He was bristling with anger and, as
a result, the tension within the passage increased with each step
they took. They followed the passage to the right, around the far
wall of the library, but it ran to a dead end. Doubling back, they
made their way to the small flight of circular stairs that took
them alongside the servant’s stairs up to the next
floor.

Upstairs, the passages didn’t appear to be so extensive. They
first turned left and took the right turn at the end of the
corridor.

Jamie’s
temper rose with each doorway they opened. As he suspected, every
guest room in the west wing had a secret doorway into the passage,
and that included Cecily’s bedroom.

She
gasped as the doorway into her room swung silently inward, and they
were suddenly standing beside the fireplace, staring at her bed.
She glanced at the far corner of the room where she had seen
Jamie’s father disappear last night and shuddered. Had he been
trying to warn her that there was another way in and out of her
room?

Jamie
studied the doorway carefully. He didn’t say anything to her for
fear of frightening her further, but it was evident from the dust
that hers was the only guest room to have been accessed using the
passage for quite some considerable time.

Driven
by the need to find answers, Jamie drew her back out into the
passage and they retraced their steps, all the way around the back
of the house to the east wing.

His
suite of rooms included a walk-in dressing room, a large bedroom, a
closet and a sitting room. It ran the entire length of the east
wing of the house and was his personal space. He was coldly furious
by the time they approached the last door on the corridor running
along the back of the house. This too had been disturbed
recently.

He
opened the door, and his eyes grew cold at the sight of his
bedroom.

“
Come on,” he muttered, drawing Cecily ahead of him into the
room. Moving to the bell pull, he tugged on it several times before
grabbing hold of Cecily’s hand. He drew her through the suite of
rooms into the sitting room. It was about the only room in the
house, alongside the morning room, dining room and sitting room,
that were unaffected by the passages. Although they hadn’t checked
to see if there were any other passages upstairs, another flight of
stairs weren’t evident right now, and he had more important things
to think about.

Locking
the door to the sitting room behind him, he brushed the dust off
his fingers and tried to rein in his temper. He was livid, not only
for his own inability to protect Cecily, but for the abilities of
his unseen enemy.

“
What do we do now?” Cecily sighed, brushing dust off her
breeches and pulling cobwebs out of her hair.

“
Sit here for a minute,” Jamie replied quietly, shaking his
head like a dog and sneezing at the dust. “We will talk about it
when the tea things have arrived.”

“
Won’t the servants think it strange that you want tea for two
in the middle of the afternoon?” Cecily asked with a frown. The
servants already had a poor enough opinion of her without Jamie
filling them with idle gossip by entertaining her in his
bedroom.

“
I am not having tea,” Jamie sighed, moving to the door in the
bedroom when Warren arrived to answer his summons.

“
They go further than I realised,” Cecily declared softly when
Jamie had returned and taken a seat beside the fire. She could
think of nothing else to say, and Jamie had yet to
speak.

“
I didn’t even realise they existed.”

“
I think they were built when the house was built,” Cecily
sighed. “I don’t know much about architecture you understand, but
it looks to me that the passages have been built with the
house.”

“
I agree. They are something my father must have known about,
so why didn’t he tell me? Why did anyone feel the need to keep them
a secret?”

Cecily
shook her head, wishing she had answers for him. Despite her
success in the passage, she felt woefully inadequate against the
weight of so many unanswered questions. It was just all so very
confusing. She had no idea where to begin.

It was
so very tempting to tell him about the sight of his father, but
Jamie was a practical man. He was one of life’s thinkers, who
preferred to plot logically rather than believe in highly illogical
nonsense of ghosts and things.

Tea
arrived without much ceremony, and was carried in by Jamie who had
dismissed Warren’s slightly quizzical look at his unusual demand
for tea. They tucked into the cake hungrily and allowed the
companionable silence to settle around them before Jamie poured
himself a liberal shot of brandy from the decanter next to his
chair.

Cecily
was lost in the quandary of whether she had seen the ghost of
Jamie’s dad in the passage, or whether it was her wayward
imagination. Jamie was lost on just how quickly he might be able to
seduce Cecily.

It was
clear that whoever was using the passages had been to his room, and
Cecily’s, and as such, she wasn’t safe even in her own bed at
night. All of the guest rooms were in the west wing of the house.
The lady of the house’s quarters had been converted into guest
rooms and a sitting room shortly after the demise of his mother,
but still there had been no mention of any secret passages being
found. It pointed to the fact that his father knew they were there,
and had instructed the workmen to ignore them.

His
thoughts turned to Cecily, who once again looked smudged, dirty,
and so adorable that he wanted to replace the teacup at her lips
with his lips. The feel of her held flush against him in the
passage, and the all too innocent way she had accepted his help,
was emblazoned on his mind. His body and soul reached out to her,
demanding nothing less than her. She had yet to understand the
importance of her presence in his house, but she would. He would
see to it.

Right
now that left him with another problem. He had intended to allow
Cecily to reside in and around the Melvedere estate to allow her
the time to get used to being around his home as well as in his
life. Now that he knew he couldn’t protect her, he had to push
things along a little. She didn’t know it yet, but she didn’t have
the freedom to make her own mind up on her future. He had to take
matters into his own hands, and that meant protecting her in every
way possible.

That
posed yet another problem.

Cecily.

Although
she had willingly allowed him to hold her, and had returned his
kisses with an innocent enthusiasm that had nearly unmanned him,
she was a very strong minded young woman. She was a woman who, for
the first time in her life, had to make a decision on her future.
Having been under the totalitarian rule of her father for her
entire life, would she agree to any man deciding her future for
her? More importantly, would she forgive Jamie afterwards when he
took that decision out of her hands?

“
What do we do now?” Cecily asked when she could stand the
silence no longer.

“
Say nothing to anyone. I am going to do a search of those
passages, and especially that secret room, later tonight when
everyone is in bed. I know it is going to be difficult, but try and
pretend that nothing has happened. Right now, I think we need to
clean up and change for dinner.”

CHAPTER TEN

As far
as Jamie was concerned, Cecily was his, and he was going to move
heaven and earth to keep her safe. He could see no reason to hide
his intention of taking her to wife. The sooner the staff
understood that she was not his mistress and never would be, and
would instead be the lady of the house, the sooner any wayward
gossip would stop.

Yes,
theirs was a slightly unconventional courtship in that one usually
didn’t move one’s intended into their future home without a ring on
her finger, but this was what happened when working with the Star
Elite. Luckily, her arrival at Melvedere had been shrouded in
secrecy, and his staff had been warned with serious consequences if
they breeched his privacy and discussed anything that went on in
the house.

He knew
the staff very well. They had been working for his father for many
years before Jamie took over. Mrs Nantwich and Warren had both
watched Jamie grow up. He would trust them with his life and knew
they would not allow any of the staff to run rife with nefarious
gossip.

Still,
there was the redoubtable Miss Emstridge to take into
consideration. Although he could vaguely recall his father
mentioning that he had taken on someone to catalogue the library,
Jamie couldn’t remember the finer details and had yet been able to
find the time, or interest, in locating his father’s old papers
relating to the woman. He made a note to send word to his man of
business and find out how much he was paying the woman but, until
he could find any more information on her, he had to keep an eye on
her, for Cecily’s sake if not his own.

He
waited in the sitting room for Cecily to appear and tried hard not
to pace up and down before the fire. He felt edgy and restless,
feelings that were altogether unfamiliar to him. He didn’t like it
but wondered if this was what being in love was like. As though if
you sat down you immediately wanted to get back up again, and if
you began to pace, you were constantly keeping one eye on the time,
knowing that life wouldn’t settle back down again until that one
person; the one who held your world steady, reappeared in your
life.

“
That’s a fierce frown,” Cecily declared, closing the door
behind her. He looked positively forbidding with one booted foot on
the fender of the hearth and an elbow propped on the mantle. She
wondered if she would have to pry his jacket away from the fire the
way she did with Basil when he turned toward her.

Jamie
stared. His jaw dropped. Gone was the dirty and grubby urchin who
had followed him around the passages, clinging to his shirt and a
candle. In her place was a stunningly beautiful young woman whose
graceful elegance positively radiated from the top of her glossy
dark head, to the very tips of the rose coloured shoes he could see
peeking out from beneath what had to be one of the most stunning
gowns he had ever seen. Although very pale in colour, the delicate
pink accentuated the faint blush in her cheeks. He couldn’t ever
remember the blue of her eyes being that startling in clarity
before, and wondered why or how he had missed it.

Giving
himself a mental shake, he pushed away from the hearth and moved
toward her, picking up a goblet of wine from the table. He had only
half filled it because he was fairly certain that she had not had
much of the stuff while living with her father, and he didn’t want
her accusing him of taking advantage while she was inebriated.
Although he was going to do everything within his power to get her
to accept him, he was not so callously calculating as to take
advantage of her while she was drunk. He wanted her to remember
their first night together and, hopefully, spend many more nights
with him in the future.

“
I thought it might be nice to eat in here tonight,” Jamie
smiled, handing her the goblet and escorting her to the table that
was sitting before the fire.

The
small round table was laid with the finest crockery and cutlery she
had ever seen. The silverware positively gleamed in the
candle-light and embraced beautifully decorated porcelain plates.
Taking a sip of her wine, Cecily nervously took a seat.

“
What about Jonathan and Miss Emstridge?” Cecily gulped, unable
to think of anything else to say.

“
Jonathan is off out and about, and Miss Emstridge is eating in
her room tonight.” In reality Jamie had absolutely no idea if Miss
Emstridge ever ate in the formal dining room, or was waiting for an
invitation to join them but, while he was in residence, an
invitation to dine with him and Cecily would not be forthcoming.
Miss Emstridge was staff, albeit not a servant, but she was still
staff nonetheless and, as such, he was not going to allow her to
dine with him. He may be prepared to ignore the dictates of society
when it suited him, but he wasn’t altogether a complete novice when
it came to asserting his rights as the man of the house.