The Ghost and Jacob Moorhead (24 page)

“I talked to his youngest brother. He had to contrive and connive to come with his brothers. Now
he
dreams of going with you when you go somewhere new.”

Mary sobered instantly, her head shaking from side to side. “Oh dear, it will not do, will it? One son…perhaps we can arrange for Rube to continue with me…but
two
? I doubt it very much.”

Jacob joined them. “Will they never cease their arguing?”

“I hope so,” said Mary, smiling.

“I didn’t know Rube could be so loud, so angry. Your grandfather, Verity, doesn’t like it. Neither does Jenna.”

Mary got a look on her face that had Verity asking, “What is it? What have you thought of?”

“That they must stop it, must they not? They are upsetting…the servants, are they not?” Her most mischievous grin appeared. “The time has come.” She nodded once sharply then winked and, turning on her heel, marched back into the house.

Jacob, hands on hips, stared after her. “The time has come?” he asked.

“She told me,” said Verity, “that once they calmed down, she had a suggestion. I think she means to make it now.”

“What suggestion?”

Verity sobered then looked a trifle surprised at her ignorance. “She…didn’t say.”

Jacob laughed, offered his arm and they strolled off, talking of other things. One was a problem Jacob had with a tenant. He discussed it with her, asking her advice.

“It is really the wife, isn’t it?” asked Verity after a moment. “She isn’t happy. Do you know why?”

“She is a complainer,” said Jacob dismissively.

“But has she something about which she has a right to complain?”

He frowned. After a moment he asked, “Such as?”

“The house on that particular farm… Does it need work perhaps?”

Jacob stared at her a moment then shook his head. “Verity, I’m a mere man. I haven’t a notion what might need doing. Will you come with me to see?”

“I’d be happy to if you do not think it interfering of me,” she responded a trifle diffidently.

“Interfere? But Verity, it is the sort of thing I hope you’ll do for the rest of your life,” he responded.

The words were stated so calmly that, for a moment, she didn’t respond. “
Don
’
t
…”

“Don’t hope that you will learn to love me as I’ve learned to love you? Don’t hope that you’ll wed me, live with me, have children with me? Don’t long to hold you? To laugh with you? To suffer with you when you suffer?”

Verity stopped. He continued on a step or two before turning and staring at her, his head tipped in a querying angle.

“Love…” she whispered. “You
love
me?”

“You don’t know?” He shook his head, a slow smile spreading across his face. “My dear, I think I fell in love with you that very first day when, looking like the veriest tweeny, you ordered me, quite in the manner of a grand duchess, to shush! You’ve no notion at all how beautiful you were in your anger at me and your fear for Jenna. None at all.”

“And…it isn’t just…you aren’t asking merely because… I mean, it is that you want to please my grandfather who wants us wed, is it not?”

He blinked. Then grinned. “I’d forgotten that. Will it help my cause that he wants us wed?”

She shook her head. “No. Love—”

“
I love you
,” he said, interrupting.

He stared deeply into her eyes and, believing, she moved into the arms he opened to receive her.

Chapter Sixteen

So another wedding was planned and carried through. Another day of joy and good company and good food and, of course, Rube’s bemused brothers, unused to English ways, observing and questioning and—to a degree, joining in. And then, the wedding guests leaving once again, they were all alone, especially Verity and Jacob who seemed to exist in something of a fog or, in their minds, lived in a fairyland of love and happiness.

“Well, Mel?” Jenna lay back against her pillows, her blankets turned down under her arms. She looked tired.

I knew they should wed
.

“Don’t sound so smug. Everyone knew it. It just took them awhile to discover it for themselves.”

Not Jacob
.
He knew very soon he wished to make Verity his wife
.
It was my granddaughter who could not accept it was the right thing to do
.

Jenna sighed. “I’m glad it is all settled.”

But it isn
’
t
.

Her expression became more alert. “What do you mean?”

You must give Jacob the letter
.

“Letter?” Jenna’s eyes widened. “Oh yes. The
letter
.” She reached for the covers, moving her legs as if she’d rise then and there to fetch the thing.

Not now
.
For one thing
,
the lovebirds have retired
. Jenna saw the sly knowing look and knew he’d add,
Again
. Which he did.

Jenna laughed and the ghostly features grimaced. “You’re just jealous that they can and we can’t,” she teased.

The attenuated figure nodded.
Very true
.
But there is another reason you must just lie back and relax and rest
.
You really aren
’
t well
,
are you
,
my Jenna
?

“I have never regained my strength as I’d wish,” she admitted.

He nodded again.
Sea air
.
I think you might improve in good fresh sea breezes
.
Perhaps a bit of sea bathing
?

She cast him an old-fashioned look. “You are thinking of the cousin living in your house just off the Marine Parade in Brighton, are you not?”

He grinned.
Killing two birds with one stone
,
think you
? And then he sobered.
Thing is
,
Jenna
,
it isn
’
t your time yet and I don
’
t wish you to suffer as you are suffering
.
Sea air is beneficial
,
you know
.

She nodded. “But first the letter…”

Oh yes
.
And then perhaps we may all go on to Brighton together
.

“But Mary…”

Ah
.
Mary
.
I wonder if I should stick my finger into that pie
…

“But what can you do?”

His is a culture that listens to its ancestors
.
I
,
as you know well
,
am an ancestor
. He grinned.

“But can you communicate with any of them?”

Oh yes
.
The eldest is quite sensitive
.
He
’
s already aware of my existence
.
I merely need say what needs saying
.
Repeating it if he doesn
’
t immediately understand me
. He tipped his head in thoughtful manner.
Perhaps I will enter into one of the man
’
s dreams
.
That is their way
,
I believe
…

“And what will you say?”

That the two
,
Rube and Mary
,
are to wed and go off on their adventures
,
of course
.

“Will he understand you? He doesn’t speak English. Or at least he pretends he does not. I have sometimes suspected he knows more than he’ll say.”

Dreams are strange
.
He will understand
.

“But what of Rube’s father?”

That an ancestor insists will satisfy him
.

“You seem very certain…”

He grinned.
There are advantages to being dead
,
Jenna
.
I can learn all sorts of things I need to know
.
Just by asking
.

“Asking?”

He nodded.
Just by asking
.
How do you think I know it is not yet your time
?
How do you think I knew that Verity and Jacob should wed
?
How
… He made a movement as if to grab her hand with its raised finger but remembered in time that he would chill her to the point of pain.
Enough
?

“Quite enough.” She yawned. “Remind me tomorrow about the letter…” And she fell asleep in an instant.

The late earl settled himself at the end of her bed, leaning against nothing at all and watched his love as she slept deeply but not as restfully as he’d have liked. She’d still be tired when she woke in the morning…and there was no way he could help her. He hated that he could not help her.

* * * * *

“The letter. I forgot the letter,” fussed Jenna. She started to rise from her chair but, thinking her boiled egg would get cold if she left, settled back and picked up her spoon.

“Letter?” asked Verity, looking up from her tea and toast. She couldn’t find too much interest but wished to be polite. A long night of loving had left her feeling so good, so relaxed and at ease with the world, nothing but memories of the night just past and anticipation of that to come interested her at all. Still, her aunt seemed overly agitated and that
wasn
’
t
good. “Were you supposed to have written a letter and forgot?”

“No, no.” This time Jenna actually rose to her feet. “I must get the letter.”

Verity too pushed back from the table. “You tell me where it is and I’ll get it.”

Jenna thought of the slim bundle tied in red tape, each individual missive sealed with three splotches of red wax, each of three seals belonging to a different person. She reseated herself. “I’m being foolish, Verity. I’ll get it when next I’m upstairs.”

“It is important?”

“Well, yes, but not something needing instant attention. I should tell you,” she said, changing the subject, “that I am making plans to go to Brighton for a time. The sea air might help complete the cure all your good care has begun.”

Jacob, coming in and going straight to where Verity sat, leaned down and kissed the top of her head, bringing blushes to her cheeks. He smiled but then looked across the table at Jenna. “Brighton?
Alone
? I cannot like you traveling all that way alone.”

“Mary will soon return to her estate. I will travel that far with her. From there it is no more than a day’s journey to Brighton, I think.” She looked from her niece to Jacob. “On the other hand, perhaps—” She cut off what she was about the say, biting her lip and shaking her head. “No, until Jacob reads his letter, I cannot be certain…” She turned her attention back to her boiled egg and toast.

“Letter?” said Jacob.

“Ah. The letter,” said Verity and picked up her tea.

After breakfast we will all go and get the letter
, said a voice in Jacob’s ear.

As usual he was startled, jerked and this time spilled tea all down the front of him. He jumped up from the table. “Blast it, that’s hot.” He glared at nothing at all.

“Did you burn yourself badly?” asked Jenna, rising, her napkin clutched in her fist.

“No, no.” Jacob pulled his trousers away from his thighs. “Not badly but, if your old friend does not stop startling me when I’m at the table, I swear I’ll…” But then Jacob grinned. “No, I can’t do that, can I? He’s already dead.”

The footman assigned to the breakfast room dropped the platter of chops he was preparing to set on the buffet. It clattered against the highly polished mahogany sideboard. Everyone looked at him, saw he’d turned white and was staring bug-eyed at Jacob.

Jacob looked at Jenna and shrugged. Jenna sighed. “Henry,” she scolded the footman, “it is true we’ve a ghost but he’ll not hurt you. He’ll also be gone very soon—at least I think he will?” She looked toward the wall, where, much as he might have done when alive, her dead lover stood, his arms crossed, one knee bent and that foot pressing against the paneling behind him. Occasionally the shoe or perhaps his shoulder would fade a trifle into the wall and he’d jerk back into the seemingly relaxed position. “You will go with me, will you not?” she asked softly. And smiled when he nodded. She turned back to the footman who was now staring at the empty space to which Jenna had been speaking. “He says he’ll go when I go, so you needn’t concern yourself, Henry. Just carry on as you’ve always done.”

The footman’s mouth formed the word. “Ghost?” he asked silently…and slowly, gracefully, slumped to the floor.

“Oh dear,” said Jenna.

“Oh dear indeed,” said Verity a trifle crossly. She watched Jacob deal with the fallen man. “He’ll tell the whole household and we’ll have maids leaving and gardeners certain they’ve seen my grandfather’s ghost and the grooms convinced that every time a horse so much as jerks its head one way or another it has sensed him and…” She sighed. “We’ll never keep decent help again.”

“I’m very sorry,” said Jenna. “Perhaps if you pay him a goodly sum, Jacob, and ask Mary to give him a position, he’ll go away without saying anything?”

The footman, still a trifle woozy, said, “You certain he won’t hurt anyone?”

“He didn’t when alive, why would he when dead?” asked Jacob.

“And Mrs. Jennings talks to him? Sees him?”

“Yes.”

The footman took in a big breath and, with Jacob’s help, struggled to his feet. “Then…then if the…
thing
…will stay away from me, I’ll forget the whole bit. Specially if it’s going away soon.” He got a determined look to his jaw but his eyes still drifted here and there as if searching for something terrible.

“He’ll go when I go and that will be soon now,” promised Jenna.

“Very well.” The footman turned to the sideboard, saw that one chop had shifted almost off the platter, took up the serving piece and pushed it back where it belonged. Then he covered the tray with a silver cover and, with only a few glances here and there, stood at the end of the board, available if anyone wanted anything.

When they’d finished eating, Jenna asked Jacob and Verity to come with her to her room where she took Jacob’s letter from the packet and tucked the rest back into her cherry-wood writing desk, a gift many years previously from her lover who wanted her to write him whenever he must be away from home.

Jacob turned the missive over and over. He looked at the seals. “That’s your grandfather’s,” he said, pointing to the middle one at which Verity peered. “I don’t recognize the other two.” He looked up, his expression asking Jenna for information.

“The one on the left is the Tomlinsons’ solicitor’s. The other is the local magistrate’s.”

“Lord Balderton’s? Will he remember it, assuming he’s required to say something?” asked Jacob, rather fearful of what might be in the letter, which was addressed to him in his dead lordship’s handwriting.

“You mean testify? He has a copy. Or rather,
his
solicitor has a copy. Your grandfather, Verity, made certain of that. Open it, Jacob. I’m certain it is nothing you’ll find objectionable.”

Jacob hesitated half a moment more and then, gently, being careful not to break them, pulled the seals loose from where they closed the flap. He opened the page flat and laid it on the oval table by the window and motioned Verity to his side.

I
’
ve no notion who you
’
ve wed
,
Jacob
,
said the letter after a few words of greeting,
but if you are reading this
,
you are married
.
I know you well and I know you
’
d not have done so if you hadn
’
t fallen deeply in love
.
Love is the cure for many ills
.
Those you suffered when you arrived here at High Moor will no longer affect you and you are
,
therefore
,
free of all restrictions as stated in my original will
.
You must take this letter and your marriage lines to our solicitor
—
it is very handy that we
’
ve the same one
,
is it not
?
He will arrange all so that you become heir to High Moor in all and every respect
.
You may come and go as you please
,
but I hope it will please you to spend large portions of each year here where you have always been happiest
.

The letter finished with a few conventional phrases and the bold unmistakable signature of the late earl. There was however a postscript.
I wish like anything I could see the heir to my title
’
s face when he is informed you
’
ve fulfilled all demands and are heir in fact of High Moor
!