The Ghost and Miss Demure (6 page)

“You shouldn’t laugh at the truth,” he complained. “It’s an art, you know. Telling the truth and also turning the useless and hideous into tourist attractions. I belong to a very select guild of skilled craftsmen. We have only three members,
and I’m the only one currently working in the States. I’m as rare as an original Holbein. Surely you’ve heard of my triumph at Lesser Warwick Hall? It contains the most complete display of modern Mediterranean fish skeletons in the United Kingdom, don’t you know?”

Karo let herself smile at his claim and slightly exaggerated accent. She was feeling more cheerful now that she knew she wasn’t to be fired, and as an added fillip that she probably didn’t deserve, it seemed that she was going to be working for a man with a sense of humor. As a contrast to F. Christian, the gods of ironic situations couldn’t have done better. Perhaps life was worth living for one more day.

“Okay. But let me get this off of my chest. At the very least I have to apologize for just wandering in and making myself at home in the library. I don’t know what to say except that I’m sorry.”

“Pure mashed potatoes! I’m glad you did come in. It shows excellent sense that you knew to get out of the rain. Truly, you could have knocked all night and I wouldn’t have heard you up in the garret. That room was designed to be…private.”

“But I chased you out of your bed, too,” she said, being thorough in her contrition. “You probably had to sleep in the dungeon, with rack and thumbscrews and giant rats.”

Tristam gave her an odd look, then laughed silently. “Sorry, no traditional dungeon. Too much groundwater, I expect. And please, say no more,” he finally added, refusing to let her apologize further. “Doctor Monroe agreed that you
were wandering around in a daze because of the lightning strike. He says that you may feel some disorientation for the next few days. So, you can hardly blame yourself for anything that happened last night. And I certainly don’t blame you for not liking Vellacourt’s horror. It would take a certain type of person to appreciate this place’s dubious charm. It will be the greatest of feats if we can turn it into something tasteful, and for this I’ll need your help.”

She had to ask, even though he was being extremely polite. “Um…did anything else happen last night while I was wandering in a daze?” Tristam cleared his throat, and Karo braced herself with another swallow of coffee. “Give it to me straight. What else did I do?”

Tristam stared at her, looking entirely too thoughtful for her peace of mind. “Do you remember seeing the man in the library?”

“Well, sort of. I remember thinking that there
was
a man in the library. He was wearing a period costume.” She frowned at her cup, trying to recall exactly what she had seen. Everything was very faraway and dreamlike. She remembered feeling like her skin was going to catch fire even when the rest of her was chilled to the bone. “His eyes were gold like yours. I think.”

“Don’t worry about it, Karo. Doctor Monroe says that it’s quite normal to hallucinate after a bad shock. And the good news is that you aren’t hurt physically.” He leaned forward and stretched his long, lean arms across the table until he was nearly touching her. She could feel the magnetic pull
and had to clamp her hands firmly to the table to keep them from crawling his way. She was restored to her wits; there was no excuse for bad behavior this morning.

“Ah. That’s good,” she said.

“Here, have a doughnut. They are a bit stale but I think still edible. The sugar will give you energy. The carpenter swears by them.”

“How old are they?” she asked suspiciously, considering taking one simply to keep her hands busy.

“Old, but the date on the box says they’re good for another month. And they don’t even need refrigeration! American food is amazing.”

“Hm. I think I’ll pass. I make it a rule never to eat anything that mold won’t consume.”

“That’s probably sensible, especially around here.” He paused, then said, “I moved your car into the carriage house. We’ve had some flooding out on the road and I didn’t want to risk anything happening to it if the creek overran its banks.”

“Thank you. You were able to move the tree then?”

Again, he stared at her.

“Someone must have gotten there ahead of me, because the road was clear when I went down this morning. Maybe it got washed away.” Her host leaned back in his chair and Karo’s pulse settled back to its normal pace. “By the way, your muffler and back bumper are missing.”

“Hm? Oh, I know. I lost them yesterday. I should have gone back for them but I was afraid to stop. That battery has been known to take long breaks between uses.” Karo drank some more coffee and
tried to recall exactly what had happened to her out by the gate, but it was all rather fuzzy and undetailed. She couldn’t swear positively that there had actually been a tree in the road.

“Autos. What are we to do with them?” he said agreeably, though she was willing to bet that his car had no such idiosyncratic behaviors.

“You did say last night that you knew my father?” she asked, needing to be reassured that she remembered something of yesterday besides her boss’s splendid hair and eyes.

“By repute. I enjoy World War One history and subscribe to some of the journals he writes for. Perhaps I’ll get lucky and he’ll decide to visit while you’re here. Does he still fly that old Feiseler Storch?”

“As often as Mom allows. You said that you were a closet airplane buff? Is that why you hired me?” she asked. She couldn’t help feeling a bit disappointed. “You wanted a good excuse to invite my dad out here?”

“How cynical! No, I hired you because I needed someone right away and you were the only remotely qualified applicant that would come anywhere near the place. I was getting desperate.” He laughed softly at her expression. “There! Now we’re even. I’ve just been appallingly rude to you, and I didn’t even mean it. Your resume is actually quite impressive.”

“I bent the truth a bit. Well…I omitted a few details.”

“That’s good. I’m afraid we will need to do a lot of creative lying about this place. Clearly I hired you because it was destiny. I was commanded by
angels. Your voice on the phone was a clarion call! Deep calling unto deep—”

“Talk about pure mashed potatoes!” Karo smiled back, not admitting that she had also had some thoughts about his voice, and then said: “I’ll get out of your room right away. I can do that much for you. You said that there is a guest cottage?”

“I did and there is, but I don’t think that you should move out there just yet.” He stopped smiling. “I want to keep an eye on you for a little while longer. You can move out tomorrow if you really want.”

The charming buffoon was gone, and the man who had replaced him looked to have formidable potential as a tyrant lordling. His voice was calm and unconsciously edged with a tone of authority. He had said last night that his family was all “Rule, Britannia” and the Union Jack. She believed him; only one born to the manor could be so exquisitely polite while being bossy.

“I can’t blame you for thinking that way,” she said, feeling color creep into her cheeks.

“Excellent sense.”

“But truly, I’m fine now.”

“Probably. But I’ll feel better if you stay in the main house for another day or two.” When Karo didn’t answer, he put down his mug and looked at her seriously. “You aren’t going to make me pull rank first thing, are you? Be sensible. Right now I’m sorting though the accumulation of junk—I mean, taking an inventory of the main house’s contents—and it is filthy work. You have a shower at the cottage, but it has no water pressure and it’s cold. Also, I can’t swear that I’ve killed all the mice
in the chimney who have spent the last thirty years building a palatial nest. And, flooding always brings out the snakes.” He added this last as a clincher.

Karo stared at Tristam English. He wasn’t anything like a curator ought to be. Maybe that was because he saw himself as more of a carnival shill than a dedicated academic. Whatever the case, if she was honest with herself, she would have to admit that she didn’t mind staying close to this charming, strange man while she sorted through the refuse of Belle Ange looking for treasures. It would be a lot more fun than her old job.

On the other hand, he might not be charming at all. It might just be that he possessed super pheromones that were throttling her higher brain functions; and everyone knew that idle brain waves were the devil’s playground. A little caution was in order. Quick pain apparently hadn’t been an efficient teacher the first time around, but the prolonged embarrassment she had suffered on the last job was fairly instructive.

“I’m not afraid of mice,” she said firmly, trying to read Tristam’s expression to see if he was hurt or offended by the show of strength. A thin skin would be a definite minus in their coming relationship.

“But you are sensible—at least, when you haven’t been struck by lightning? Or are you afraid of being alone with me, Karo? Do you worry that next time I might bite back?”

The very gentleness of the inquiry was a waving red cape before her wounded ego. Still feeling a bit of the recklessness that had caused her to
throw over her old job, she gave in to her baser impulses with a small laugh. “Okay, I’ll stay. Why not? I guess we can share. I never liked cold showers anyway,” she added, and then blushed at the way that sounded. Should she make it plain that they were sharing a house, not a bedroom? “I’ll help you fix up another room,” she added firmly.

“Thanks. Herr Frankenstein and I are both grateful. Neither of us is a dab at handling the linens, though he is perhaps slightly better at it than I.”

“Wait a minute! Let’s not add any sins to my list. I may have implied that the grand entry looked a little like it had been decorated by Edgar Allan Poe on a cocktail of mescaline and acid, but I never said that you were a monster maker.”

Tristam laughed. “Certainly not. I was referring to the cat. A spoiled creature, an absolute black hole of neediness and gluttony.”

He jerked a thumb to the left. Karo looked over at the sideboard where he was pointing and found herself under observation. A large orange sphere reclining in a pedestal bowl had opened its emerald eyes and was yawning hugely, apparently unimpressed by the guest. The fat tail twitched once, and then the huge head laid itself back down to return to its interrupted nap.

“Spoiled, did you say?”

“Extremely. He’d like it especially if you allow him to share your bed. He was quite put out at being turned away from your door last evening. But we shall both be very glad to have your help with packing up most of Vellacourt’s so-called treasures. ’Stein keeps getting his tail caught in the
piles of deer antlers he persists in exploring for mice. They are everywhere! The last owner must have had a hunting mania, because the closets were stuffed full of them—antlers, not mice. Though, we have both. I can’t believe the junk that has accumulated.”

“Poor kitty,” Karo sympathized, though Frankenstein didn’t notice. “But you know, Tristam, it’s not all junk. I mean, some of this stuff is quite hideous, but it isn’t garbage.”

“I suppose it’s all in the eye of the beholder. My job is to preserve the history of Belle Ange as much as possible while making an attraction for the moneyed wanderers who come to Virginia. You’re the sop to the local historical society the house’s current owner belongs to, and your job is to keep me from burning any treasures when we torch the rubbish heap out back. Uh, those antlers aren’t at all historic, are they?”

“Not hardly, but those pyxis at the gates make a great start for the list of true treasures to attract tourists,” she told him with renewed fervor. “They’re what lured me out of the car yesterday.”

“Ah! Well, if you like the funeral urns, wait until you see the cemetery. Pure Southern Gothic, I assure you!” Tristam got up and prepared another cup of coffee with an efficiency that said he and the machine had reached an understanding. Leave it to a man to enjoy fiddling with all those gears and levers first thing in the morning.

“Are you feeling strong enough to take the grand tour?” he asked after a moment, flashing her another killer smile.

“Definitely,” she agreed.

“I warn you, this won’t be pretty. Better take your coffee with you.”

“Of course.” Karo stood up. “I’m anxious to see what we’ll be working on. There could be just about anything hiding in this house. A few good paintings or some furniture would go a long way to making Belle Ange a starred attraction in the Visitors Center’s catalogue of historic sites.”

“Then let us be up and doing while you still have some of that enthusiasm.”

“That’s probably best. ‘For by the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes.’ ” Karo wasn’t sure why she added this.

“You don’t know the half of it,” Tristam muttered.

After another moment, he asked, “You like our bard of Avon?”

“Of course. We’re not all literary heathens out here in the Colonies. Some of us are quite bookish. Of course, more often than not I was assigned to the role of a loyalist when they were passing out costumes at the reenactments where I last worked. I was sent out to die for the British at Yorktown—
twice.
And in one hundred degree heat!”

Tristam chuckled and began their tour. “Perhaps you aren’t a godless heathen, but Old Vellacourt certainly was. Well, he certainly wasn’t a God-fearing soul. Take a look around.” He waved a long-fingered hand at the hall into which they walked, and then around at the room at the end of it. “This is probably the best of the lot, and it is hardly what one would call early American normal. It would, in fact, have been banned in Boston.”

The room was huge, large enough to house the Lost Tribes of Israel. It was also determinedly and depressingly medieval—and completely inappropriate in its architecture. What had the space ever been used for? A ballroom?

“I see what you mean. We will have to hope that deficient light will hide the greatest um…oddities. If you mean to keep them.” Among the strange architectural features were a collection of shallow balconies, each perhaps eighteen inches deep, sprouting like mushrooms randomly on the walls. The lower ones were loaded with maces and morning stars. “How do you get to those?” she asked.