The Ghost and Jacob Moorhead (21 page)

“
What
do you wonder?” asked the eldest, a sharp note making one of the fore-rider’s wince.

“Did it never occur to you that Rube volunteered to guard Lady Mary’s life with just a touch more alacrity than was completely complimentary to our father?”

The eldest scowled. Then one side of his mouth turned up in a rather lopsided smile. “You would say he craved adventure?” he asked.

“Adventure… Yes, that is what I mean,” responded the middle brother, self- preservation making him repress his real thoughts.

The youngest gave his elders a sharp look but, a wise youth, kept his mouth shut as well. Young as he’d been, he too recalled how Rube had stared, when he thought no one watching, at Lady Mary. And he guessed at how his eldest brother, their father’s heir would gibe at the notion that Rube had fallen in love with a foreign woman. Not at all the sort of thing one gossiped about. Not with such proud men as their father or eldest brother! The boy, for he was little more, wistfully wished he’d Rube’s opportunities. Adventure might not have been Rube’s reasons for leaving but it had been Ali’s when he’d begged and pleaded—and finally resorted to his indulgent mother for aid—to join his brothers in their journey to find Rube.

* * * * *

Lester McAllen searched high and low and finally found Melissa in the last place he looked. “Well, of course it is the last place I will look,” he muttered as he stared at the lady’s red slippers, which were all he could see. He smiled at the sight of them. Red slippers had been her thing from her earliest years. Even as little more than a babe, she’d insisted her shoes be red—and it seemed that even when in deep mourning she could not resist them.

The rest of Melissa was hidden by a high-backed overstuffed chair, her feet in their slightly worn slippers set upon a stool before it. Lester glanced around the library.
Yes
.
As I thought
,
this is the library
.
But my Melissa is reading
? His brows lowered from the high arches they’d acquired at seeing her here where least expected. Another thought crossed his mind.
Ah
.
But it will be a novel
,
of course
. He moved forward on silent feet until he was just behind the chair and could look over it and down onto the book in her lap.
A play
? He read a few lines and nodded.

“Did you see
Love
’
s Labor
’
s Lost
last winter when it was at Drury Lane?” he asked and then smiled when, startled, Melissa almost tossed the book off her lap and onto the floor. She craned her neck and looked up at him, her face reddening. Those brows arched again. “Why do you seem embarrassed? There is nothing wrong, surely, in reading a book?”

She sighed, closed the tome in which she’d found the play and stared straight ahead. “I was not merely reading it,” she said.

After a moment, he nodded. “You were memorizing one of the roles?”

She nodded.

“Well, I see nothing that is not admirable in that either.” He came around the chair, pushed her feet a little to the side and sat on the ottoman. “Do you memorize poetry as well?”

She nodded again, biting her lip and, as he seated himself in front of her, looked at him from under her lashes.

“Why do you hesitate to admit it?” he asked.

“My father thought such things nonsense.” She grimaced. “My husband forbade me to waste my time that way,
but there was nothing else to do
,” she finished on something close to a wail.

“I would not forbid it. In fact, on a cold winter evening with a cozy fire before us, I’d think it a wonderful occupation for the both of us.”

Melissa froze. Then her gaze switched to meet his. After a long moment, in a very small voice, she asked, “Lester?”

He smiled a tight little smile. “We may never return to what we had, Melissa, but I see no reason at all why we cannot learn all over again to…” He hesitated, reluctant to mention
love
. Then he did. “Love each other.”

She turned those huge eyes away and stared out the window toward which she’d turned the chair. “I am not a very nice person, Lester,” she said in a small voice. “I have done…things I regret. Things I’d not have done if…” She closed her mouth and turned her head away, her eyes closing.

“If,” he finished for her, “we’d somehow managed to find the courage, either or both of us, to marry each other in the first place. I too have done things I regret, Melissa. I think, when I was in India, for instance, I very nearly committed a far greater sin than yours. I think that without really admitting it, I tried to commit suicide.”

She turned, her eyes wide, her mouth open.

He nodded. “We have Lady Mary to thank that I came to my senses, came home and have spent the past few years bringing my inheritance back to what it should be.”

“Lady Mary?”

“She is a very wise woman, Melissa. She told me some home truths I didn’t wish to hear—but still another bout of illness put me in my bed for long enough that I had nothing to do but think over what she’d said to me. When I was well enough, I put my life there in order and came home.” He tipped his head a trifle, looking more than a little thoughtful and then grinned. “I think perhaps receiving word I’d inherited a rundown estate that needed me might have added just enough to the scales that, along with Mary’s words, I came to my senses.”

“My father,” said Melissa while staring out the window and avoiding his eyes, “is looking for another marriage for me.”

“You mean he wishes to sell you all over again?” Lester chuckled. “Well, he can’t, can he?”

She turned those huge eyes on him.

“Not if you wed me and come live with me and teach me how to enjoy parties and dancing and all those things I’ve avoided since returning to England.”

“Me…” She touched her breast lightly. “I can teach
you
something? Oh, Lester, what a clanker! You shouldn’t fib, you know.”

“I don’t think I did.”

“But it is always you who teaches me.”

“That is because there is much I know that you do not. It is when you know and I do not that you teach me.” He smiled.

“Social things? I do love society, you know,” she said with a wistful sound to it.

He frowned ever-so slightly. “Can you love the
local
society, Melissa? We can spend a month or so each year in London during the season, perhaps attend part of the autumn little season but, frankly, I do not care for London. It is dirty and far too many of the
ton
have no interests beyond seeing and being seen.”

“Was that my interest too?” she muttered but then shook her head. “No. I was so lonely, Lester. I wanted—I
needed
people around me. I
needed
, wanted…wanted…”

“Go on,” he urged when she didn’t.

“Oh, it is so stupid, Lester. You will think me the merest babe.”

“Tell me,” he said softly.

She drew in a deep breath. “I wanted someone to
love
me. Anyone. Just to love…
me
.”

He stared at her, thinking of the home in which she’d been reared, thinking of the husband she’d been forced to wed, thinking of all the gossip he’d heard of her escapades while still married to that ancient… He sighed. “Yes. I think we all wish for someone to love us, Melissa. Perhaps we can agree to love each other?”

This time it was he who caught and held her gaze.

Melissa blushed rosily but she smiled and nodded. “I…would like that,” she said.

“Then,” he said, rising to his feet, “I think I will take a little ride into York.”

Her smile faded. “Right now?”

“Right now. I believe I will have a little conversation with his Grace, the archbishop.”

She frowned.

“My dear,” he said, grinning, “if I can convince him we must wed on the instant then I may purchase a license and we can go talk to the local vicar and spend perhaps fifteen minutes or twenty in the church—and when we come back, we can move my things into your room.” He wiggled his eyebrows in a suggestive fashion. “We can lock the door for a time?”

She stared and then a smile slowly stretched her tightly compressed lips. She covered them with a hand and, despite herself, a giggle escaped her. “Oh yes. For quite a time perhaps!”

“I will be off then.” He rose to his feet, bent over her and softly, tenderly, his lips found hers.

“Later, my dear,” he said. Resolutely, he turned away before he discovered he could not…

Chapter Fourteen

“Verity?” Jacob came into the little office where his cousin bent over the household account books. “Is that something you must do on the instant?” he continued when she looked up.

She looked down, looked up, studied his expression, noted the coaxing look and smiled. “Not at all. It is just that I am attempting to discover where I misplaced a thruppence and I cannot for the life of me discover it.”

“Why do you not ignore it?”

She looked astounded that he could suggest such a thing.

“Well?”

“And then ignore another and another and eventually it adds up to pounds rather than pence?”

He chuckled. “Do you lose thruppence all that often and then spend hours searching to find it?” he asked.

She smiled, shaking her head. “Actually, this is the first.”

Jacob took a small purse from his pocket, opened it and dug through the contents. “Aha,” he said as, between finger and thumb, he lifted something from it. He laid it on the account book. “There. Now you have found your thruppence, so close the book.”

“You are incorrigible,” she scolded.

“No, it is merely that I wish for your company for a time.” He held out a hand. “Come?”

She hesitated. Then, knowing she wanted to be with him, she shut the book on the coin and rose to her feet. “I’ll need my bonnet and—” She broke off abruptly as a hand came around the corner of the open doorway. In it was bonnet and pelisse.

Jacob took them and approached Verity. He laid down the bonnet and held the pelisse for her to thrust her arms into the armholes. Then he turned her and, much as you’d do for a child, buttoned her up. Done, he handed her the bonnet. “You are glaring,” he said, his head tipped to one side.

“You were so sure of me you asked a maid to retrieve my outdoor things?”

“No, I merely hoped. If you’d insisted you could not come just now, I’d have sent her back to your room. You’d never have known she’d retrieved them for me.” He held out his hand. She hesitated then slipped her fingers around his palm and felt the rough warmth of his gentle grip. He placed her fingers on his arm and led her down the hall and out the nearest door. They were just in time to see Lester, riding, approach from the stables. Jacob called to him and caught his attention.

“I’m off to York,” said Lester when he’d walked his steed up to them. “Is there anything I can get for you while I’m there? An errand that needs running?”

“York? I can think of nothing,” said Jacob and looked down at Verity who, much to his surprise, nodded. “Verity? You need something?”

She smiled. “If it would not be too much trouble, could you call in at my mantua maker and ask if the green gown is finished? Only that one. Do not attempt to bring any others. It would be too much on horseback. If it is not finished then you needn’t worry about any of it.”

McAllen got the modiste’s address and said he’d be certain to ask. He set his spurs gently to his horse’s flanks and they were off around the house and down the drive heading for the lane.

“I wonder why he needs to go into York,” muttered Jacob, frowning.

“It would not have been at all polite to ask,” she said. But she too wondered. There had been something, a sort of suppressed excitement, about the man that had intrigued her. “You don’t suppose… But no, surely not…”

Jacob glanced down at her. “Surely not what?”

“Oh, it is too absurd a notion to even suggest it…”

“I like it when you are a little absurd. Tell me?”

She gave him an old-fashioned look but obliged him. “It is just that he and Mrs. Rumford have been getting along ever-so much better. The archbishop is at York Minster, is he not? And if he and she wished to wed at once?”

“Banns…”

“But this isn’t either’s parish. Isn’t it supposed to be in one’s own parish that the banns are read?”

“I believe it is… So if they wanted to marry, he’d need to collect a license, is that what you would say?”

She nodded, looking up at him, curious at what he’d say next.

He said nothing. In fact he merely tugged a bit at her arm and set off toward the roses in the walled winter garden. “Rube,” he said after they’d strolled silently from one side of the garden to the other, “is much improved, would you not agree?”

“Much. I caught him without his sling the other day, doing up the buttons on his coat and he laughed when I scolded. He insisted he’d not be able to use his arm at all if Mary had her way.”

“And he’s so much improved he is once again able to protect her.”

“You mean…instead of yourself?” she asked.

“Yes.”

When he said no more, she asked, “Why?”

He grinned, cast a quick sideways glance down at her and said, “I was thinking that perhaps I might take a quick ride into York…”

Verity stopped short and, perforce, so did Jacob. “What…are you suggesting?”

“That I too might buy a license…”

“Jacob…”

“Don’t.” He put his fingers over her lips to silence her. “Don’t say it.”

“But—”

“No. It is too soon. I should not have suggested such a thing. We will wait until you are as certain as I am.”

She stared at him. “Certain?”

“Verity, I thought you knew?”

“Thought I knew
what
?” she asked, more than a trifle exasperated.

“That I—”

She interrupted before he could finish. “That you want me in your bed? That you, like your granduncle, would like a live-in mistress?” She turned on her heel and strode away.

Stunned, he let her get some half a dozen paces down the path before catching up with her and swinging her around. “Never suggest such a thing ever again. Yes, I want you in my bed. I’ve made no secret of that, but that I would take you there as my mistress— You insult me, Verity,” he said more quietly.

She stared at him. “You would
marry
me?” she asked. “
Me
?”

“Of course I wish to marry you,” he said, but there was nothing loverlike in his tone. “Verity, why would you think otherwise?”

“Because you can’t.” She backed away and he let her go. “I am Aunt Jenna’s niece. I am not suitable.”

“You, you little idiot, are your grandfather’s son’s daughter. If anyone is unsuitable it is I. I am a younger son with no title and few prospects. Only this estate. You could do far better, Verity.”

Slowly she shook her head from side to side. Slowly she backed away, something dreadful in her expression. Then, on a sob, she turned, ran toward the gate.

“
Verity
.”

“No. Say no more. Please…”

And, like an idiot, Jacob obeyed. He glared after her—and then, his jaw clenched, a muscle rolling over and over along his jaw, he headed for the stables. “Mr. McAllen is not long gone, I think?” he asked.

“Perhaps…half an hour?” suggested Jacob’s head groom.

“Saddle…” In his distressed anger, he couldn’t think of the creature’s name. “Saddle the fastest horse in the stable.”

Waiting, Jacob paced and fumed.
How dare she suggest she
’
s not good enough for me
?
How dare she think I
’
d not want her for my wife
?
How
…

Even after he was in the saddle and galloping down the road, he fumed. He’d gone quite a few miles but, still preoccupied, barely noticed the little cart pulled by a dark-complexioned man turning off up a lane to still another farm…and just about then he saw Lester less than half a mile ahead of him.

And the man pulling the cart, as preoccupied, ignored still another rider passing him. He was too far lost in dreams of owning a little cart filled with interesting things that could be pulled from village to village in his own country. After he returned home and was reunited with his wife and children, he’d have this strange new way of earning a living.

He had noticed smoke rising above a little ridge and, with effort, pulled his cart up the lane. It was well after noon and, as he tugged and pulled and puffed up the sharply climbing hill to the farm, he wondered if perhaps the farmer’s wife would offer him supper and a place to sleep. In a loft perhaps.

* * * * *

The elder of the trio of foreigners sighed as he saw, ahead of him, still another of the inns in which they’d been forced to put up since learning that Rube and Lady Mary had left her home along the Thames and traveled up the Great North Road. “What could have been in the letter that sent them north?” he grumbled, not for the first time. “Rube’s correspondence has always insisted they’d not leave her estate until she was safe, that he’d surrounded them with defenses against attack.”

“We will discover when we reach him,” soothed the middle brother. “I wish we’d not run out of spices. Tam is not the best of cooks but his food was far better than what we’ve had to put up with since.”

The youngest brother sighed and then colored when his eldest turned his head and stared at him. “It is an adventure,” he said, a trifle defensively. “One must put up with strange food and odd customs when on an adventure.”

“It is not an adventure. It is merely that we come to escort our brother home. Her enemy is dead. Lady Mary is safe. Rube is no longer needed here.”

“And he is needed at home?” asked the youngest with an innocence that, if either brother bothered to notice, was a trifle unbelievable.

The middle brother chuckled. “He is our father’s son. Of course he is needed at home.”

“
I
think we are here because
you
thought he’d not come if you merely wrote the good news,” said the youngest. “I am glad you did not. You grumble and grouse and complain and wish all was other than it is, but I am enjoying myself immensely. I think I will see if the cook at tonight’s inn can make that odd sweet, that— What is it called?
Spotted duck
? Isn’t that the thing called a pudding with dried fruit in it?” He dismounted and walked off toward the back of the inn. One of the two ensigns who rode in front gave orders for what was needed to the innkeeper while the other directed the fighting men who followed behind to care for the horses and unload the pack animals.

The elder scowled after his brother. “He should never have been allowed to come.”

“But you will have to admit he has made us laugh. That is good, is it not?”

The elder cast his brother a look of loathing and stalked off into the inn. The middle brother walked off quickly in the other direction. The eldest did
not
like it when someone laughed at him. Which that particular look had him wishing to do. No. The eldest wouldn’t like that. Not at all.

* * * * *

Verity wandered around the house, looking into this room, stopping in that, moving on almost immediately—nowhere finding that for which she looked.

But what do I seek
?

She looked around still another empty room and sighed.

This is nonsense
.
I
’
ve work to do
…

But she couldn’t think of a single duty unfulfilled. There was nothing that needed doing. She’d finished her book last evening. She had no embroidery with which to occupy herself, because it was another ladylike accomplishment she lacked. After only a handful of lessons, she’d thrown her first sampler away in disgust. She couldn’t paint watercolors. She’d never learned to play a musical instrument…

“I am
not
suitable. I have none of the—” She broke off. “Oh. You here?” Then she bit her lip, knowing she’d sounded more than a trifle rude.

Melissa had risen to her feet and looked over the back of her chair. “Yes.” She glowed, her eyes danced and she approached Verity with a light step. “Congratulate me!”

“Ah. Then it is true? Mr. McAllen
has
gone to York to buy a license?” asked Verity politely.

“How did you know?” asked Melissa, chagrined someone had guessed her news before she’d had a chance to enjoy the anticipation of telling it herself.

“He didn’t tell us that was what he meant to do, but when he said he was going into York and he looked very nearly as happy as you do, I guessed.”

“You…don’t look very happy for me.”

Verity, still obsessed with Jacob’s odd proposal, looked Melissa in the eye for the first time. “Oh. Oh dear, I’ve been very rude, have I not? I do wish you happy. I believe him to be a good man.”

“My first love…and now my last,” said Melissa with a certain hard edge to the assertion.

“You…you love him?” asked Verity, curious.

“I loved him. Long ago. But he has changed and so have I. I think I will love the man he is now, but,” she turned slightly as she spoke, “who can know what the future holds?” She swung back. “I can tell you this. I will be faithful to him as I was not to my first husband who was a beast. An
old
beast.” Her chin rose a notch as if she expected Verity would not believe her.

“I think you would be wise,” said Verity softly. “He is not a man who would allow his wife to stray, I think.”