Patricia Rice
Authors: This Magic Moment
Copyright © 2013, 2004 by Patricia Rice
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Cover Image © The Blonde Woman, Comerre, Leon Francois (1850-1916)/Galerie Nataf, Paris, France/The Bridgeman Art Library
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Originally published in 2004 by Signet, an imprint of New American Library, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
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Northumberland, 1743
“Beware of the deep hole under the boards, Christina! It’s cold and dark.”
Christina Malcolm Childe, nine-year-old daughter of the Marquess of Hampton, hesitated on the verge of leaping to the top of a stack of old bricks and boards. She could hear her sisters and cousins running through the woods near her grandmother’s home in a game of hide-and-seek—a game she fully intended to win by climbing into the oak tree above the old boards.
Seeking the source of the warning cry, she located an aura forming over the stack of bricks. Though she’d seen them often enough, auras had never spoken to her before. “Who are you?” she called in fascination, before feeling a trifle foolish talking to an indistinct rainbow of color.
To her utter amazement, the aura did what no other had ever done—brightened into visibility. She stared at the simply-dressed little girl sitting upon the old boards. She could see the outline of trees through the girl’s transparent clothing.
“Who are you?” Christina repeated softly, more afraid she’d scare the apparition away than fearing her manifestation.
“Beware!” the girl cried anxiously before fading away.
Stunned, Christina stood there a while longer, watching as the colors faded more slowly than the form.
When even the aura was gone, she raced back down the wooded path with a shriek of exhilaration, shouting “Mama!” at the top of her lungs.
Hermione, marchioness of Hampton, appeared immediately. Plump from the birth of her latest daughter, she still glided with speed across the grass at any call from her children, trailing scarves and hat ribbons in her wake.
Her straw hat flew off her head and tumbled into the bushes as Christina ran into her arms. “There now, child, what’s the matter? Have you skinned your knee again?”
“I saw a ghost, Mama!” Christina shouted excitedly. “Come see. Maybe she’ll return. She says there is a big hole in the woods!”
Unquestioningly, Hermione shouted at the bevy of nursemaids attempting to keep up with the running, laughing children. Ordering them to gather the girls out of harm’s way, she took Christina’s hand. “Show me where, dear.”
Several of the girls escaped the maids to run after Christina, but Hermione shooed them off.
Worried at that action from her laughing mother who always had time to hug a child, Christina clung to her hand. “It’s just a ghost, Mama,” she tried to reassure her. “I know they’re there. I see their auras all the time. I’ve just never seen a whole ghost before. Or
talked
to one,” she added with the irrepressible excitement of discovery.
“Spirits appear for a reason, dear. Show me where you saw her.”
Puzzled that her mother seemed afraid when she’d always taught them that spirits were harmless, Christina tried to remember the path she’d taken. Old rabbit paths weren’t easy to follow, but she’d crashed through the shrubbery just recently, so she could find the broken twigs. She liked playing in the woods and never got lost.
“In here, Mama. See, that’s where I wiggled between the tree trunks.” She popped between the two slender trees and past the thicket of briars to stand in the overgrown clearing she’d roamed earlier. The bricks and boards really were the only place where a tree wasn’t. She hadn’t explored her grandmother’s woods since she was a little girl. She hated to reveal her new hiding place and hoped the others hadn’t followed.
Christina turned expectantly to her mother, then realized the marchioness couldn’t pop between tree trunks and briars as she could. “It’s all right, Mama. The ghost isn’t here anymore.”
“That’s an old well, Christina,” Hermione called worriedly from behind the thicket of brush. “The boards could fall in, and we would never see you again. Come along out of there. I’ll have someone fill it up before you get hurt.”
“I want to stay and see if the ghost returns, Mama. May I, please? She’s just about my age, and she knew my name. I’ve never seen a ghost before. Maybe she wants to play.”
Hermione set her plump mouth in a grim line that Christina recognized much too well, since her antics tended to bring them to her mother’s lips far more often than that of any of her sisters.
“Come along out of there, dear. That was most likely your great-great-great-aunt Iona. She’s given her warning, so you won’t be seeing her again. You may read about her in the library, if you wish.”
Christina didn’t wish. She’d rather talk to a ghost than read about one. “Why can’t I see her again?” she asked, rebelliously digging in her heels. She was dying to know about an Aunt Iona who appeared as a ghost, but more than that, she wanted to talk to an apparition again.
“She was the last Malcolm to see spirits,” Hermione answered. “And she was lost in these woods when she was about your age. It’s quite possible that old well is where she died. If so, she has stayed here to warn you, and now that she’s completed her task, she’ll return to where she belongs. It’s up to you to act on her warning. Come away now.”
Eyes widening as she comprehended that ghosts were
real
dead people, Christina followed her mother out of the woods, casting glances over her shoulder in hopes of seeing her Aunt Iona again. Poor little girl, dying here all alone.
Christina wanted to weep at the thought that Iona had no one to play with while waiting so carefully to warn others. She hoped the little girl had gone home to her mother now that she’d done her duty, but Christina really wished she could have talked to her longer.
Just think of all the fascinating things a ghost could tell her! Her imagination could scarcely take in all the possibilities. Had it hurt to fall down the well? Had Iona been scared? Wouldn’t she like to hear about her family? Did she have other secret hiding places like Christina did?
“Why can’t I see more ghosts, Mama?” she asked, desperate to know how she could speak to the other auras she often saw about their home.
Hermione hesitated, threw a glance back at the woods, then shook her head. “I don’t know, dear. Perhaps they come out only when you need them. Study the auras you see, and heed their warnings when they speak.”
Christina didn’t see the danger of a bunch of old bricks and boards. But talking to ghosts would be exciting. She would always have friends then, and that would be a lovely gift indeed.
London, March 1755
“It’s all written ’ere in the mortgage, Your Grace, signed by your late father—may his soul rest in peace—in his own hand.” Heavily bewigged, garbed in an opulent blue satin coat with gold braiding and a waistcoat that could not button over his rich belly, Carthage waved a thick document like a sword.
The document was more dangerous than a sword if the merchant did not lie. Harrison Winston Somerset Beaufort Winchester, Duke of Sommersville, until recently styled Lord Harry, gripped his elegant walking stick behind the tails of his London-tailored coat and gritted his teeth as Carthage continued his speech.
“Yer father said I’m to take the estate in trade for the money ’e owes if ’e don’t come up with the blunt by Michaelmas next,” Carthage proclaimed.
Aristocratically handsome in the English manner of fair coloring, square jaw, and sturdy though not excessive height, the new duke gazed out at the soot-covered stones of the town house across the square, impatiently listening to the spiel of a man he scarcely knew. To all present the duke looked a man of leisure, a city gentleman of taste and refinement without a care in the world.
Inside, he boiled with fury, like Vesuvius prepared to erupt.
“Sommersville is
entailed
,” he said coldly, not bothering to engage the eye of the merchant rattling his faradiddle behind him. He knew Carthage owned an estate in the neighborhood of Sommersville. He could not imagine why the man thought to take advantage of the newness of Harry’s role as duke to perpetrate this obvious fraud. “The estate cannot be sold. You have no legal right to make this claim.”
In truth, he knew nothing about law or rights. He simply knew that his father’s estate had passed through generations of Winchesters dating back to the Conqueror’s time, growing from an inconsequential barony to fifteen thousand acres of imposing ducal estates. He might not be the son raised to estate duties, but by Jove, he wouldn’t be the son who lost the whole damned property his ancestors had spent generations accumulating.
Could
dukes
keep
their
title
if
they
had
no
estate?
he wondered irrelevantly. He’d never possessed any inclination for the title, given that it would mean losing his father, older brother, and his brother’s progeny to gain it.
But that was exactly what had happened. At least, his brother had no progeny to lose. Harry almost wished Edward had an infant son to inherit. He would fare far better as legal executor than as owner of fifteen thousand prime acres of Sussex. Mortgaged acres, evidently.
The late duke might have been eccentric, but Harry had loved his father and knew he wasn’t a wastrel who would gamble away his livelihood. Or hadn’t been, last he’d seen of him. Maybe he should have visited Sussex more often. His father refused to come to London, and Harry kept promising to visit yet seldom did. They had their differences, as any family had, but he refused to believe his father had gone completely mad.
He stifled a yawning pit of regret beneath anger.
He wished the old man could be here now to explain this tomfoolery. And if his older brother could just walk through that wall and punch Carthage in the beak for his presumptuousness, he’d never taunt Edward again for his mulish preference for rural life.
As it was, he’d never taunt his brother again, unless he talked to his grave. Given the family predilections, he might be reduced to that soon. Losing brother and father in the same fatal accident was enough to drive a man to seeking lost souls.
But Harry had an image to uphold if he meant to keep his position in politics, so he wouldn’t be talking to graves anytime soon.
“Your Grace.”
Harry ignored the unctuous voice of the solicitor Carthage had brought with him in favor of gazing at the house across the square.
He was finally rewarded with the familiar sight of a golden-haired sylph dashing down the front steps, lifting her full skirt to reveal slim legs garbed in men’s boots and what looked suspiciously like the glitter of a buckle below the knee of a pair of breeches. Knowing the wretch, he supposed she did it apurpose to mock him. Instead of waving at his window, she checked over her shoulder to be certain no one followed—as someone certainly should have—then danced down the street to where a cart and horse waited.
His betrothed, Lady Christina Malcolm Childe—beautiful and cheerful as a sunny day, undisciplined as the worst-mannered street urchin. He couldn’t help smiling every time he looked at her.
He allowed the smile to play on his face as he turned to face Carthage, his solicitor, and Jack—his estate steward, distant cousin, and the closest he had to a father now. “I have other business to see to, gentlemen. Jack, have the family solicitor look into this, will you? I’m certain he’ll be able to straighten out these good fellows.”
As the younger son raised for politics, Harry was very good at polished diplomacy. He simply wasn’t familiar with his father’s holdings. He didn’t even know the name of the family solicitor, unless it was the fellow who sent his allowance.
Despite his unparalleled ignorance, Harry quirked his eyebrows imperiously at his company and waited for them to depart.
Instead of leaving, Carthage crossed his arms, and his black-clad solicitor dared to approach the desk. Jack nervously crushed his battered leather tricorne, not speaking a word to gainsay them. Of middling height, wiry build, and balding pate, Jack was a veritable encyclopedia of all things rural, but he was out of his element in the city.
“Your Grace,” the solicitor continued. “If you will but hear us out, we can make this matter plain. Your brother never signed the entailment.”
What?
Harry wanted to shout, but of course, he couldn’t. Dukes didn’t shout. They couldn’t have temper tantrums either. They raised cool eyebrows, nodded regally at those below them—which was almost everyone—and went about their business. As he should go about his. Not that he had a clue what business to go about since he’d never had any.
“I beg your pardon,” Harry said with the aristocratic hauteur of his betters. “The estates have been entailed since the twelfth century. I doubt that my brother had much to do with it.”
“That’s just it, my… Your Grace,” the solicitor said eagerly. “Each heir accepts the entailment with his signature upon attaining his majority. Your brother didn’t sign it.”
Cold sweat slid down Harry’s spine, but he smiled negligently and swung his walking stick with the cool aplomb of a man without a worry in the world. Politics taught a fellow that. “Edward would have done nothing to endanger Sommersville,” he said confidently. “If you will only consult with my solicitor, you will see that all is in proper order.”
“It ain’t, Your Grace,” Carthage intruded. “Me and your brother talked it over. He didn’t sign it apurpose. He knew the old man was bankruptin’ the place and that he’d need the blunt to live on. We had an agreement, me and him. We would build homes for toffs like me. It’s an ideal situation…”
“Jack!” Harry roared, finally losing his patience at the enormous folly and presumption of the man. “Show these gentlemen out at once, and don’t dare to let them in my presence again.”
Striding across the study, Harry threw open the door, prepared to call for his butler and footmen if necessary.
Apologetically, Jack bowed and gestured for their guests to depart. A footman magically appeared to escort them away. Harry knew the servants had been listening at the door again, but he could scarce blame them. Since his father never used it, he had always occupied his father’s London town home. The place had been hell and chaos since the news of the double deaths of the duke and the marquess.
Jack closed the door behind their uninvited guests. Despite his kinship to one of the great families of the kingdom, Harry’s cousin wore his gray hair clubbed in a black ribbon and sported the coarse cloth of country clothes. With solemn expression, he forced Harry into staying instead of running off to follow Christina. “It’s time you face facts, lad.”
Jack had called him “lad” since he’d been in shortcoats. Harry couldn’t pull rank on him now. In truth, he was desperate for Jack’s sage advice. His cousin had handled the family estates since before Edward’s birth. Jack would never have come up to London if it hadn’t been a matter of dire emergency.
With a sigh, Harry sank into his desk chair and swiveled it back and forth. “Can’t you face them for me, Jack? I know nothing of tenant rent or pence per acre or what crop we should seed this spring. Tell me what agricultural bill would most likely help us, and I’ll stand up before all Parliament and argue them into it, but don’t make me count sheep.”
“You’re bankrupt, Harry. You won’t have sheep to count if something isn’t done soon. Carthage has it right. If you can’t pay off that piece of paper of his, you’ll lose everything.”
The bleakness that had come over Harry ever since the first creditor had appeared on his doorstep replaced the moment of hope he’d experienced at sight of Christina. He’d never owed a farthing he couldn’t pay the next day. He didn’t know how it had come to this.
“My father had an income of over fifty thousand pounds per annum, Jack,” he protested. “He could have built Rome and London and had blunt left to spend. Where did it all go?”
Jack held out his big palms in a helpless gesture. “He frittered it away building that monstrosity he called home. He didn’t care much about the land after your mother died. You know that.”
“But Edward did! He lived for counting sheep. Couldn’t he have taken things in hand?”
“Lately, he caught the building bug just like your father. He wanted to build fancy new cottages and move the village out of sight. He spent more time talking to architects and landscapers than to his own tenants. Money has to be managed to grow, and no one’s managed yours in many a year. We haven’t seen fifty thousand in a long time.”
To Harry, even half of fifty thousand was a sum so enormous that he couldn’t imagine spending it in a lifetime, much less a year. Even living in the expensive town house, he’d carefully managed his two thousand pound allowance to cover his living expenses with sufficient left over to invest. His parliamentary duties for his father’s pocket borough were light but offered opportunities for investment and earning a little extra. He lived quite comfortably on his income.
He didn’t see how his father and brother could have spent fifty thousand in the entire course of their lives. They didn’t come up to London or have wives or daughters to eat up the income with gowns and new furniture and entertaining. Harry couldn’t remember the last time his father had entertained.
“I’ll go to Sommersville and take a look at the books,” Harry agreed wearily. “They must have snugged it away somewhere.”
“I keep the books, Harry,” Jack reminded him. “There’s nothing to snug away and debts higher than a mountain waiting to be paid. We need cash just to buy seed and plant the fields this spring. There’s none will lend us a tuppence until your father’s debts have been paid.”
“I’ll talk to our creditors,” Harry said desperately. “Maybe they can be made to wait another year. Surely, once the rents are paid in the fall—”
Jack shook his head. “We need to show them cash up front. The dowry your betrothed brings will hold them off until the fall. You need to set a date and marry, Harry.”
Marry!
The new duke collapsed in his chair and swung around to gaze out the floor-length window. Christina was nowhere in sight: happy Christina, blithe Christina, addlepated, mischievous witch Christina.
A
duchess?
***
April 1755
“Lord Harry has made an appointment to see your father this afternoon,” Cousin Lucinda announced excitedly, entering Christina’s bedchamber without knocking.
“The Most Noble the Duke of Sommersville, you mean.” Christina plopped down on the edge of the bed and began to pry off her boots. “Or His Grace, the Duke of Sommersville.” She dropped the boot on the faded carpet and pried off the other. Then she shimmied out of her half brother’s breeches and stockings. “I expect he’s come to cry off.”
“Christina!” Shocked—not by her cousin’s breeches but by her assertion—Lucinda tucked the outlandish clothes into their usual place in the bottom of the armoire. “He cannot do that. You have been betrothed for
ages
.”
With the ease of expertise, Christina untied the old skirt that hid her breeches. She’d spent these past weeks exploring inside London’s inner city walls looking for the ghost of Hans Holbein, the artist Lucinda most admired. It was much easier—and less conspicuous—to skulk about disguised in boy’s clothing.
“Sinda, my dear, do you remember when all London whispered in astonishment after you painted the portrait of the earl’s daughter in her casket—before the child died?”
Lucinda clasped her fingers and looked nervous. “I thought they’d ride me out of town on a rail. I want my work to be recognized, but not in such a fashion. I don’t mean to do these things,” she murmured, “but if anyone notices this latest…”
“You really should quit doing portraits and work anonymously,” Christina chided her. “One of these days, there will be no one about to rescue you from these muddles. I’m sure I can get you out of this one if I could only speak with Holbein’s ghost. He persuaded society that his artistic fantasies were fashionable and not dangerous.”
“I’m not
dangerous
,” Sinda insisted. “I didn’t even know Lord Pelham. I couldn’t know he would die. I just painted what I saw in my head.”
“You see people die before they do. That’s dangerous. I found Holbein’s grave in St. Andrews, but his ghost doesn’t haunt it,” Christina offered. “If I only knew which house he died in, it might help. If he could draw all those macabre pictures of people dying and be celebrated for it, I don’t know why you can’t.”
“Because he was a man and not a Malcolm,” Lucinda said with a touch more acid than was her usual habit. “Besides, even if you found Holbein’s ghost, he’d speak German. You have too much imagination for your own good. I thank you for your efforts, but what has any of this to do with Harry?”
