Whispers at Midnight (20 page)

“I beg your pardon,” she said.

“Forgive me, miss,” he said, removing his
spectacles and polishing them with a handkerchief. “My eyesight is
not what it once was. I mistook you for someone else.”

Amanda was beginning to have an odd feeling
that something was not quite right. She knew she had seen the chess
set not more than an hour ago. Gardner had seen it too. But now the
table by the window held a crystal bowl with a large chip broken
out of the edge. It was dusty, as were most of the other items in
the shop.

“The chess set,” Amanda said hurriedly. “You
had a chess set in the window. We were here only an hour ago and
saw it. Perhaps you heard us knocking.” She had not given up the
idea that this man or someone else had been inside and refused to
open the door.

“There was a chess set,” the man said
hesitantly. “Sold, I think.”

Sold. Was it likely the set had been sold
only minutes before they arrived? How strange, because the pattern
the board had left in the dust indicated that it must have sat on
that table for weeks, perhaps even months, without attracting much
interest.

“But you must know,” Amanda said,
crestfallen. “We saw it here today. You couldn’t have forgotten so
quickly.”

The man seemed agitated. “You have missed my
meaning. The set was sold some time ago. Just picked up today. Not
more than half an hour before you came.”

“Do you know who bought the set?” Gardner
cut in.

“That I don’t,” the man said. “Maybe you’d
like a crystal bowl instead. This is a fine piece. He lifted the
dusty bowl and held it out to Amanda.

She shook her head.

“No. I’m not interested in a bowl. Only the
chess set. Do you remember when you acquired it?”

“I don’t remember, but I do keep a record of
what I buy. There’ll be a date entered when it was purchased. If
you want to wait, I can look it up.”

“Please, do,” Amanda said politely.

He shuffled away through the curtain. Amanda
thought she heard muffled voices coming from the back room, but it
was possible the old man was murmuring to himself. He returned in a
few moments.

“Was purchased one month ago to the day,” he
said.

“Do your records also show who sold the set
to you?” Gardner said.

“I thought you’d be asking that. A Miss
Fairfax brought the set in. Said it was an eyesore and she was
pleased to be rid of it.”

Amanda was too surprised to speak for a
moment. Her eyes met Gardner’s and she saw the amazement there as
well.

“That’s impossible,” Amanda sputtered. “I am
Miss Fairfax.”

The man put a hand to the rim of his
spectacles and peered intently at Amanda.

“Oh, so it is you, Miss Fairfax. You look
rather different with your hair done that way.”

Amanda responded hotly, “We have not met
before, sir.”

“But you were here last month when you sold
me the chess set.”

“Last month I was on board a ship which
sailed from London.”

“Well, I don’t know about that. I only know
a woman who called herself Miss Fairfax brought the chess set in
and sold it to me.”

The shopkeeper had no more answers for their
questions. He insisted he did not know who had bought the chess set
and that it had been both purchased and picked up while he was out
and only his helper was in the shop. And since the man could
neither read nor write, he hadn’t taken the purchaser’s name. They
asked to see the helper but were told he had left on a journey of
several days.

“It appears, Gardner,” Amanda said as the
wheels of the carriage rolled them out of Williamsburg, “that
someone might have been pilfering items from Wicklow and selling
them outright.”

“I fear you have hit upon a truth. Someone
who is clever enough to have used your name.”

“Not only that. To impersonate me. The man
actually mistook me for that person. I wonder who could have
schemed so carefully.”

“I think the answer to that must be one of
the servants. Mother was demanding. She was always replacing her
personal maid. Seems half the women in the area worked for her at
one time or another. Some undoubtedly bore hard feelings toward
her.”

“You think one of those women might have
stolen things from the house?”

“I think that is the only explanation. With
Gussie’s hearing as it is, it would be easy enough for someone to
gain entry to the house without her being aware of it.” He paused.
“And there are many who know Gussie’s condition and were aware the
house was otherwise unoccupied. You must check your inventory,” he
added. “Our petty thief may have taken more things.”

Though she couldn’t pinpoint why, the
explanation did not satisfy Amanda. Tossing her head back with an
air of authority, she spoke up abruptly.

“I think the culprit may be more than a
petty thief.” She was remembering the dreams that might not have
been dreams, and the woman in the bedroom, as well as the elusive
chess set. “Other things have happened that are equally as
strange.”

Amanda related the stories of the whispering
and the blood and reminded him of the woman she had seen in the
window the first time he visited her at Wicklow. She had wanted to
believe those things had not happened. It would be much easier to
accept that she had imagined them all. But now she was again
swamped by doubts. It was possible someone wanted her to leave and
meant to effect that end by frightening her away. Anyone could be
responsible for the odd occurrences, even Gardner himself.

She thought his eyes looked as if a curtain
had fallen over them. And that was the worst thing about what was
happening: it made her doubt everyone. Even if the person had shown
nothing but kindness, as Gardner had.

“Dear Amanda,” he said in a slow, gentle
way. “You are putting things together that are not related.
Nightmares are not so unusual at Wicklow.”

“They are unusual for me,” she insisted. She
had told him of those occurrences too. He was looking at her
reassuringly, but still Amanda couldn’t help wondering if the
darkness in his eyes was all due to concern for her. It troubled
her too that Ryne had said almost the same words about her
nightmares.

“That odious statue,” he went on, “that bird
appearing out of nowhere and chanting like a wizard. Wicklow was
meant to bedevil people. It was built to satisfy some fetish
Grandfather Jubal had to shock his visitors. He reveled in it.”

Her eyes rested on him. She could almost
think Gardner did not care for Wicklow. But of course he was only
trying to explain away what she had told him.

“I am not bedeviled by Wicklow. I love the
house and its strangeness. But I begin to believe someone may not
be pleased that I am there.”

“Who could not be pleased?”

“Ryne, for one. Or someone who is angered at
losing the opportunity to pilfer more items from the house. I don’t
know, really. It’s only a feeling. But there is one thing to be
sure of. I won’t be run out of Wicklow.”

Gardner spent the remainder of the journey
trying to convince Amanda she was letting her imagination become
too lively. He blamed himself for not giving her the opportunity to
rest since she had arrived.

“I have whisked you away to Williamsburg
twice in less than a week, when you should have been resting and
recovering from your voyage.” His voice was as tranquil and smooth
as thick, dark velvet. “You must forgive me, Amanda, for being
overzealous. And you must promise me you will do nothing for the
next few days but rest. I’m going to leave word with Gussie to see
that you do, and I will ride out every day to confirm that my
orders are being followed.”

She would have resented such firmness coming
from anyone else. But she was convinced Gardner was truly worried
about her. He would have stayed at Wicklow through the evening, but
Amanda knew he had appointments and that the Wellers would expect
him at dinner. After much debate, he agreed to return to the
city.

While Amanda went to her room for a few
minutes, he talked with Gussie and relayed his insistence that
Amanda rest for the next few days.

“I shall be back tomorrow,” he said, giving
Amanda a chaste kiss on the forehead.

“Come only if it does not interfere with
your business.” She laughed. “I would not like to be responsible
for your ruin.”

Gardner had done his best to alleviate her
misgivings. But he had failed. Her mind was in a furor once more.
She wanted to question Ryne again about the chess set. If he were
not responsible for its disappearance, it was possible he had
directed one of his lady friends to take it and, posing as her, to
sell it. Gardner might consider the matter a simple theft, but she
believed the deed to have been initiated by a remarkably clever
mind. And that she did not credit to a disgruntled maid.

She was not sure why she supposed Ryne to be
at the stable. But in any event it was time she saw Groom. If he
had been at Wicklow all along, he might be able to tell if anyone
other than Ryne or Gardner had visited the house in the last few
months, though the stable’s being some distance from the house
would prove to be a disadvantage for any regular observation.

She set out for the building. It, like
Wicklow, was made of red brick, but sat on the far side of the hill
below the house. There was a ragged path beside what had once been
an attractive boxwood maze but was now overgrown and showing the
long absence of a gardener. Amanda sighed as she stopped to pull a
handful of weeds from the fertile soil. Here was another spot that
needed attention if it were not soon to be beyond reclamation.

She hadn’t realized how near dusk it was nor
how desolate the grounds could seem with the light fading. But as
she walked along a gloomy avenue made by the high, tangled limbs of
oaks that lined the carriage approach to the stables, shadows fell
together on the ground and nearly enveloped her in darkness. She
was glad to escape into the last bright rays of evening that fell
on the clear patch of ground before the stable.

Above, a weather vane twisted reluctantly in
the thin breeze which came and passed on to the treetops, making
their murky parasol of green leaves shiver and rustle. Amanda
reached the wide double doors, which were large enough to
accommodate a carriage. They were shut. But a smaller door beside
them stood open a crack. From inside she heard a horse whinny as
she pushed against the rough wood and slipped silently through the
opening.

The stable was dark as a crypt but full of
sounds. She could see nothing in the darkness, but she could hear
horses snorting, stamping, and swishing their tails. Mingled with
their sounds she heard a man’s voice, speaking softly and gently in
a rhythmic crooning. She paused, bound for a moment by the hypnotic
quality of the sound, and then, not announcing herself lest it
stop, moved quietly toward the stall from which the sound seemed to
come.

“Sleep, Libelia . . . sleep, sweet
Libelia.”

She listened to the sweet chords of a
lullaby such as a parent might sing to a fretful child. It was a
simple song but a beautiful one. Amanda moved on, drawn by it and
wondering to whom the song was being sung.

It did not occur to her that she might be
intruding and ought to call out.

Just as her eyes became adjusted to the
darkness, something bumped heavily against her and then swung away.
Startled, she sidestepped, only to have the object bump against her
again. This time it became entangled in the ruffled trim on her
skirt.

Amanda flinched and pulled her gown free.
The object that had bumped her was tied to a long cord suspended
from the rafters supporting the hayloft.

The spinning cord brushed her arm, and she
caught hold of it, lifting it up as if she were drawing a bucket of
water from a well. Her hands found the object tied at the end. The
feel of it was repugnant. It was a cold, stiff mass of fur. She
knew, even before her eyes focused on it, that she was holding the
thing she feared most, a rat.

Unable to move or cry out for a moment,
Amanda threw the stiff little body out of her hands, and then,
horrified at the thought that soon it would swing back to her,
bolted wildly through the stable.

As she ran, her skirt caught on the edge of
a stall door. She heard the rending of the garment as she tumbled
to the straw-covered floor of the stable.

She was sobbing, struggling to her feet,
imagining she could hear the sound of rats scurrying out of the
darkness and coming at her. She clung to the wall, too weak to
move. Her head spun wildly and she knew in a moment she would faint
and be helpless there in the suffocating blackness of the
stable.

“Amanda. Where are you?” She heard someone
call her name and it gave her the strength not to crumple to the
floor.

“Here,” she answered hollowly.

A moment later she felt the strength of arms
sweeping her up and she was tenderly carried out of that horrid
black chamber.

Eyes like two stars in a dusky sky smiled
down at her. Arms gentle as they were strong nestled her head.

“Who put it there?” she asked, swallowing a
sob that had lodged in her throat. “Who?” Consciousness came back
in a rush tinged with anger. Now that she was out of the stable and
bathed in the fading blush of sunset, the rawness of her fears was
fading as well.

“Groom.” Ryne had carried her to a grassy
plot beneath an oak. There she lay with his arms wrapped about her
waist, her head resting upon his knees. She felt the cool softness
of the grass beneath her hand, and in contrast, the firm warmth of
Ryne’s body against her. He smelled of horseflesh and leather,
strongly masculine, but oddly she found the scent comforting.

“To frighten me?” Amanda tried to bring
herself upright but met with Ryne’s gentle resistance to keep her
in place. “I am terrified of rats.”