Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
I was there the first time the master caught sight of the woman who would destroy him.
I had just left the kitchens, where I had paused to reassure myself that Ermintrude had preparations for the meal well under control. I was heading for the front hall to check on the footman, for Martin was quite young and had never had to greet so many people in one evening before. I didn't need to pick my way through the muddy yard to inquire on the situation at the stables, for Dawson was wholly reliable; he would be able to handle the onslaught of coaches and teams. On my way to the foyer, I could not resist pausing at the discreet servants' entrance to the ballroom and taking a moment to observe the celebration under way.
It was a marvelous sight, all whirling color and dancing candlelight, and for a moment my heart swelled with pride. At last, Grey Moraine was resuming its place as the finest manor home within fifty miles, the social center of County Banlow. Oh, the balls we had had when the old master was young and healthy!
The summer hunts, the winter holidays! The house would be full to bursting with elegant ladies and witty men. Nothing in these parts had been prized more than an invitation to spend a week at Grey Moraine.
Nothing had made me happier than the announcement that the new master was planning his first grand entertainment.
He had arrived at Grey Moraine six or seven months previously and instantly won the hearts of all the servants who had served his uncle so faithfully for many years. A few of the elderly grooms and cooks were pensioned off, and quite generously too, but everyone else was kept on. He had almost no staff of his own to bring along, for he had been a soldier before Grey Moraine unexpectedly fell into his hands. Therefore, the only servants to accompany him were a well-mannered valet and an elderly groom who cared about nothing except earning a place near horses. Both were properly deferential to those of us who had served at the mansion for so long. One could hardly have expected a transition to go more smoothly.
And then the news that the master wanted to have a ball! Throw open those wide, carved doors, fill the great expanse of the ballroom with flowers, trail rose petals and candelabra down the sweeping stairway that led out to the side gardens. The cook and the butler and I were in transports. Ermintrude had menus made up before the end of the day, and Harlan had immediately toured the wine cellar to see what else we might need to stock. Such a bustle of cleaning and cooking and festooning as you have never seen while we prepared the house for its first major event in more than fifteen years.
And then she walked in the door, and with a single smile laid out the brief and disastrous course that the master's life would take.
Martin announced her as Lady Charis. I had a moment to get a good look at her face—she had small, sculpted features, absolutely pure white skin, and enormous dark blue eyes—before she sank into a graceful curtsey. Her dress was the same shade as her eyes and it seemed to spread around her as she dipped low and straightened, so that she almost appeared to be a water nymph rising from the sea. The guests standing near enough to see her began murmuring to each other, their faces alive with interest and admiration. I could easily guess what they were saying. But she's so beautiful! Who is she, do you know? Look at that girl's face! I haven't seen her in County Banlow before. Who is this lovely creature?
The master, who had been standing a good twenty yards away, abruptly broke off his conversation with Debrett Horton and made his way through the crowd to greet the new arrival. "I am Duncan Baler, owner of Grey Moraine," he introduced himself, taking her small hand and bowing over it very low. She might have been the queen herself, to judge by his obeisance. "Welcome to my house! I am very glad to have you here."
A faint color washed over her white cheeks. You would have thought she was both embarrassed and exhilarated at the attention of a rich and attractive lord. And yet Duncan Baler, despite his many fine attributes, was actually not a handsome man. His face was a bit sallow, though good-natured and honest; the skin was weathered from his years of soldiering. He bore more traces of his military past in his upright bearing and air of physicality, and his broad shoulders were not easily confined to the polite dimensions of a dress jacket. He wore his brown hair shorter than the current fashion and did not bother with some of the sartorial excesses practiced by other young men of the time.
But he was master of Grey Moraine and had inherited, besides the property, quite a sizable fortune. Any young lady with the slightest interest in making her way in society would have acquainted herself with both those facts.
"Lord Duncan," she said, and her voice was rich and deep, "I hope you forgive my forwardness in arriving at your home without an invitation."
I practically gasped at her words, for that was bold indeed. Lady Charis was beautiful, and every line of her face and body bespoke generations of exquisite breeding. But such an action shouted, Adventuress!
The master smiled down at her. I could not be sure, but it appeared as if he squeezed her hands, which he still held. They were so small they were lost between his big ones. "I can only be grateful that you were brave enough to do so!" he replied. "How did you hear of such an insignificant event as my ball?"
The people nearest him laughed a little at that, and Lady Charis smiled back. "I have been traveling from Lefton to Manningham," she said, naming two cities separated by at least three hundred miles. Any journey between the two of them would take a traveler through County Banlow. They were each decently sized towns—not that I would know from firsthand observation, since I had never left County Banlow—and both were respectable destinations. Yet neither was a seat of high fashion, and it was unlikely that many of our other guests had spent much time in either.
In fact, no one in this gathering could be expected to know her.
"I stopped at the Red Owl Inn last night to break my journey," she continued. "There, the talk was of nothing but your grand ball! The first one to be held at Grey Moraine in more than a decade! I admit to an ungovernable curiosity. Even in Lefton, we have heard of Grey Moraine. I simply had to come and see it for myself." she made a quarter turn to bestow her smile on all the nobles gathered near enough to overhear. "I hoped that the presence of an army of witnesses would dissuade you from throwing me back out in the night. I will be very quiet. You will hardly notice I'm here. I would just like to peek in a few corners and gaze at a few marble statues. Then I will be on my way."
"You will do no such thing!" the master declared, tucking her little hand in his arm and drawing her deeper into the room. As if connected to him by ropes and tethers, the small crowd of revelers stepped right after him. "You will dance with me. And perhaps you will dance with a few other fellows. And then you will dance with me some more. Dinner will be provided at midnight, and I will be delighted if you sit beside me to eat. Then more dancing—until dawn. Perhaps past dawn, if the musicians can still feel their fingers to keep playing. Won't you stay for it all?"
"If you're sure," she said.
"I'm certain," he replied.
Just then, the musicians, who had seized this opportunity to refresh themselves with wine, took their chairs again and offered up a waltz. Smiling even more broadly, the master drew Lady Charis into the figures with him, and soon the whole ballroom was once again a spinning mosaic of color and beauty. I ducked back through the doorway and hurried down the hall toward the front door to check on Martin as I had originally intended.
All the while, the sounds of violins and flutes and cymbals accompanied me, rhythmic and lighthearted. I imagined their bright music could be heard from the highest room of the mansion or the farthest dark corner of the garden. But over their crescendo and beat I heard another sound, one that chilled my skin and squeezed my heart: the whispering, ghostly laughter of the wind.
The guardians of the earth will nurture your crops and sustain your fortifications, if you respect the land and show them honor. The nymphs of the water will soothe your hot blood if you burn with fever; every healer keeps a shrine to the living rivers somewhere in her house. But the sprites of the air are capricious and willful and full of jealousy. Invite them into your life at your peril. They will exact a penance you may not be prepared to pay.
Someone, I thought, had invoked the demons of the air tonight, for there had never been such a lovely autumn evening. The dancing had paused long enough to allow guests to crowd around the buffet and pile their plates with delicacies. Some people sat at the informal tables; others wandered through the ballroom and the nearby salons, admiring the portraits on the walls and the tastefully arranged furniture. Young couples stood so close they might still be in the embrace of the waltz. Matrons gathered in far corners of the room and whispered about their friends, while their husbands retreated to the master's library and engaged in friendly gambling. I wished the musicians would not linger so long over their meals, though I understood that they needed to recruit their strength for the second half of the night. But I preferred it when all of the guests of the house were gathered more or less in one space. I felt uneasy when anyone could be anywhere engaged in unobserved activity.
The master himself was nowhere to be found.
Neither was Lady Charis.
I stood again at the servants' entrance to the ballroom and sent my glance to every corner. Not there. I had just been at the front door, checking with Harlan, and I was reasonably sure he would have mentioned it if the master had gone outside that way, perhaps to smoke a pipe and enjoy the warm night. A quick visit to the library confirmed that he was not among the men laying absurd bets and laughing very loudly.
He must be in the garden.
Perhaps it was not my place to follow him. Perhaps that seems too presumptuous for a housekeeper, a mere servant, even one who has served Grey Moraine for as long as I have. But I tell you this: Grey Moraine belongs to me every bit as much as it belongs to the Balers, who have held it for a hundred years, or the Fittledons, who owned the property for three centuries. I have poured my life into its wood and stone. I know every passageway; I can recite for you the contents of every room. Without glancing at the engraved register hanging at the front door, I could name for you every individual who spent even a day as master of the house. I love Grey Moraine more than anything I have truly owned. My worst fear would be to have something or someone harm it.
And so I went sneaking into the garden, gliding along on cloth-soled shoes and sticking closely to the shadows. It did not take me long to find my quarry. They were pacing very slowly along the circular path that led all the way around the formal gardens. A few widely spaced torches showed them the way but left many convenient passages of darkness to traverse. I could catch a glimpse of other couples similarly engaged in making the circuit in as laggardly a fashion as possible. The night could not have been more suited to romance. The air was almost as warm as summer, and the late roses in the garden sent up a voluptuous scent. Overhead, a full moon made a yellow and languid shape against the spattered stars.
The wind was so still that every word carried.
"Your house is beautiful, milord," Lady Charis was saying in her husky voice. "Despite its exceptional elegance, it has an air of warmth and welcome."
"I am glad to learn that it seems inviting to you," the master replied gallantly. "But alas, I cannot take credit for any of its amenities."
"Why is that?"
"I inherited it less than a year ago, and I have made very few changes. Much of what you see stands as it did during my uncle's day."
"Your uncle had no sons? That must have been a disappointment to him."
"In fact, he had two sons. My cousin Ronald died when we were boys, but my cousin Ralph seemed reasonably healthy, and he was engaged to marry a girl from Kingston. I had no expectation at all of inheriting. To tell you the truth, I've only been here a few times in my life. My father and his brother had not been on the best of terms, so we visited here rarely. And once I joined the army—" The master shrugged, or I imagined he did. It was difficult to see clearly, and I had to carefully mind my steps as I pushed through the scrubby undergrowth that lay outside the hedges that lined the walkway. But I was determined to hear as much of the conversation as I could, so I persevered. "I was out of the country for much of the last five years. And not much interested in visiting elderly uncles when I was back."
Lady Charis laughed softly. "So you were a soldier. Live hard, fight hard, love hard."
There was a smile in his voice. "Something like that."
"I take it an unfortunate accident befell your cousin—Ralph, was it?"
"Yes. My uncle had been ill for quite some time. His death was expected. Ralph was spending more and more time here, consulting with his father and taking over some of the management of the land. The very day my uncle died, Ralph was thrown from his horse as he came back from a morning ride. Broke his neck." The master shook his head. "Terrible thing."
It had been a terrible day. Dawson had urged Lord Ralph to take a gentler horse on his morning ride, for the rawboned young stallion was still not easy with a bridle and Dawson himself had trouble getting the horse to behave. Lord Ralph, let me just say, had always been hotheaded and a touch too sure of himself, and it had taken someone with consummate skill to direct him. Dawson, though a most excellent man with horses, was sometimes impatient with men, and he had not quite possessed the knack of handling the young master. Lord Ralph had ridden out on the stallion, and the stallion had returned alone two hours later.
Of course, searchers went out immediately. It never occurred to any of us that anything worse could have happened than a bad fall and a broken leg, or perhaps a concussion. I was just as glad I had not been among the party that found Lord Ralph's broken body lying beside a hazard that had apparently been too high to jump.
What chaos! What consternation! The old master dead just three hours when the new one followed him out of the world! Fortunately, the estate agent was already present, for he had been going over the will with Lord Ralph. He knew who the next heir was and how to get in touch with him immediately.
I later had the melancholy thought that this agent would also know whom to notify if Lord Duncan were to suddenly fall ill.
To my dying day, I will be just a little ashamed of myself that my first emotion, upon hearing the news of Lord Ralph's death, was not grief. In truth, I was a little relieved. Although I had loved the old master deeply, I had never cared much for either of his sons. All my hopes had been pinned on Lord Ralph's betrothed, the calm and clear-sighted woman who was destined to be the new mistress of Grey Moraine—and mother to the next heir. The property could survive one or two indifferent owners, I had always thought. It was the next generation that truly mattered.
"Where were you when the news reached you about your change of estate?" Lady Charis inquired.
I could hear the grin in my master's voice. "In a gambling club in Kingston. I had just lost my last gold coin and risen from the table, thinking, 'Well, what shall I pawn tomorrow?' That's when this very sober young man came up to me and said, 'If you're Duncan Baler, you must come with me right now to the law offices of Keller and Kait.' I thought maybe an old arrest warrant had caught up with me—"
"You did not!" Lady Charis said with a laugh. "You don't strike me as the type who's ever been in trouble with the law."
"True enough," he admitted. "Except for the occasional run of bad luck gambling, I've been a steady sort my whole life. What I really thought was that there had been some trouble with my commission check. I'd sold out of the army just the week before, and it had taken a while for the money to arrive."
"You'd left the army just the week before?" she repeated. "It was as if you'd known, somehow, that your life was about to change."
He laughed. "I wanted it to change, that's for certain. The army was good to me, but I found myself losing the restlessness that had pushed me so much when I was younger. I'm almost forty. Time to settle down. I didn't have any specific plans, but I thought I might buy a small property. I might invest my funds. I wanted to look around, pick a spot, and settle in." He stepped into a circle of light thrown by one of the torches and made a broad gesture with both hands. "I certainly didn't expect that this would be where I would come to rest."
She stepped beside him into the light, and once again I had a chance to compare them. You could have hardly found two people more dissimilar. Lady Charis was so small, so delicate, that the master—never too concerned about elegance of dress—looked as rough as a laborer beside her. She had to be nearly twenty years his junior, with skin so flawless that his own seemed pockmarked and coarse by comparison. And there was a glow to her, a radiance that was almost visible, fueled by something more than youth, I thought. Excitement, perhaps. Intensity. Desire.
What did the Lady Charis want so much that yearning toward it lit her from within like a candle behind a leaded glass window?
Against that glow, Duncan Baler looked stolid, ordinary, exceptionally plain. But Lady Charis smiled at him as if he were the most beautiful man she'd ever laid eyes on.
"I think it's marvelous that Grey Moraine has come into your possession," she said, her voice very low. "Everyone speaks of you so highly. You will be a wonderful master." she turned away from him and began slowly pacing forward on the path again, casting him a provocative look over one shoulder. "Though one wonders if Grey Moraine might become even more magnificent once you've installed a mistress."
He caught up with her in two strides. "I have given no thought at all to taking a wife!" he exclaimed.
Her laugh pealed out. "Well, you are the only one! All the talk tonight has been of you and whom you might choose to be your bride." She gestured toward the house. "You must know that all the unmarried girls of County Banlow dressed in their finest clothes and offered you their most practiced smiles tonight! Everyone hopes to catch your attention and be considered for the highest honor in the region—that of mistress of Grey Moraine."
"Dreadful news! This is positively the last ball I shall ever plan! I will not be able to enjoy a single dance, knowing how I'm being sized up as a matrimonial prospect."
"All you need do is choose a wife," Lady Chads replied, amused. "Then all the speculation will end, and you can hold as many dances and dinners as you wish."
"There's an idea," he said, his voice thoughtful. "Perhaps I should place an ad in the county newspaper. 'Wanted: Sensible woman who knows how to run a household. Must be able to communicate with servants and understand a budget. Also desirable are skills related to planning grand entertainments for large country mansion.' That might net me some reasonable candidates, don't you think?"
"Quite a few!" she answered with a laugh. "But perhaps you have left out a number of important qualifications."
"I can't think what."
As they passed through another circle of torchlight, she gave him a second glittering sideways smile. "Don't you care if she is beautiful? If she is accomplished? If she inspires in you feelings of great passion?"
Though his answering smile was so much less incandescent than hers, I much preferred it for its sincerity and genuine warmth. "Ah, I am hardly the sort of man to inspire feelings of great passion in women," he said. "I don't expect to be lucky enough to find a woman who both wakens my heart and burns to marry me."
She came to a dead halt. "Why, Duncan Baler!" she said. "What a very sad thing to say! And completely untrue. There might be a hundred women who would love you with their whole hearts."
"I only need one," he replied.
"Then you should most definitely look for her," Lady Charis declared. "No pretending you aren't good enough to find someone who will marry you for love."
"And how long will you be staying at the Red Owl Inn?" he wanted to know. "So that I can tell you of my progress in my various courtships, of course."
She laughed again, but there was an undercurrent of sadness in the sound. "Oh, I must be on my way in the morning."
"No!" the master exclaimed, and he sounded truly perturbed. "I had thought you would remain in the area a week at least."
"Did you? And why?"
"Well—because—because I wanted you to, I suppose."
"I am expected in Manningham," she said. "I must not be tardy."
"Expected by whom?" he asked.
The question seemed to catch her off guard, and for a moment she fumbled in her response. "Well, my—my—I have an aunt there, and several cousins. They are all most eager to see me."
Even I caught the echo of wistfulness in her voice, and the master fairly pounced on it. "It is obvious that you are speaking an untruth," he said, but his voice was very gentle. "May I be permitted to ask why you are really traveling to Manningham, and why you do not wish to go?"
She tried to keep a brave little smile on her face, but it was clear the effort was beyond her. "My aunt has only my best interests at heart," she said at last.
"That is hardly an answer at all," he protested. "Who is this aunt, and what does she want you to do that seems so oppressive to you? And why were you required to leave Lefton, if you didn't want to go?"
She resumed her pacing, even more slowly, and her story came out while she was in one of the dark spaces between torches. I had to creep along very quietly so as not to be overheard while she spoke in such a low voice.
"My parents died last year, leaving behind more debts than money to cover them," she said at last. "I have scraped by for a while, but it is clear to me I must change my situation. My aunt—my father's sister—has friends who are in need of a governess. I am in need of funds. The arrangement suits us all."
"It suits nobody!" the master exclaimed. "For someone as beautiful and vital as you to be hidden away in someone's attic, teaching vile and thoughtless children—"
That made her laugh. "You have no reason to suppose they are vile and thoughtless."
"All children are. It goes without saying. It would be madness to condemn someone like you to such a life."
She hesitated and said, in an even softer voice, "The other options seem even more insupportable."
"What options?" he demanded. "Surely you don't think—you wouldn't—I know there are men out there who might make clandestine offers—"
"No, no, I would die before I sank to such a level!" she returned with heat. "But my aunt—my other aunt, my mother's sister—she believes I would do better to marry my way into a comfortable existence. Oh, and she has picked out just the groom for me! Never mind that he's seventy, and hideous, and that at least one of his three wives died under circumstances that had all of Lefton talking! He is quite wealthy, you see. That is all that merits her attention." Lady Charis's voice grew hard. "I would rather earn my way in the world, no matter how hard the work, than sell myself in such a way."
The master was silent for so long that Lady Charis was moved to speak again. "I've disgusted you," she said, and she sounded close to tears. "I'm sorry, I didn't think—let me go back to the house. I'll call for my coach."
I saw her lift her skirts with both hands, but the master stopped her by touching her wrist. "No. Disgusted me? Impossible. You have made me think about how different life is for a man without prospects and a woman without prospects. A matter of months ago, I was not so differently situated than you, but I knew there were several possibilities open to me. Even if I had left the army without a coin to my name, I'd have been able to find work of some kind, and I wouldn't have railed too much against my lot. I wouldn't have been forced to decide between choices that were degrading or merely disagreeable. I would have been able to make my way through the world with some degree of happiness."
"You seem to be singularly blessed with a happy spirit," she murmured. "I imagine you would have been happy no matter what your circumstances."
"But I cannot bear to see you go off so soon to such a dreary existence," he answered. "How quickly are they expecting you in Manningham? And answer truthfully."
She shook her head. "There was no set date. I am obliged to present myself before the month is out, but I had hoped to enter into an employment contract as soon as possible. My funds are nearly gone, and I have wasted enough time as it is."
"But stay just another few days," the master said in a wheedling tone. "Your life will be filled so soon with such drudgery! Give yourself a week of pure, uncontested indulgence. I will arrange for bountiful dinners and pleasant carriage rides and perhaps an expedition to a ruined abbey not far from here. Your aunt need not know," he said, speaking over her when she attempted to protest. "We will send her a message saying that your coach lost a wheel and the yokels in this backward county could not make you a new one with any dispatch. She might be aggrieved, but you won't care. You will be very penitent when you arrive, and she will be forced to forgive you."
Lady Charis laughed, but she instantly sobered. "You paint the most tempting picture," she said, laying a hand upon his arm. "It is a very sweet offer, and I have not had many of those in recent days. But I cannot accept. I will be on my way to Manningham in the morning."
"And I say you will not," he said, smiling down at her. "And I think I am more stubborn than you are."
"You would be surprised at how determined I can be."
"Ah, my lady, I am a soldier. I am used to winning, no matter how steep the odds against me. I say you shall stay three more days before you head on to Manningham, and that the memory of those days will sustain you all your life."
Who can really blame her, then, for remaining at the Red Owl Inn for another day, and another day after that, and still another day? The master was ingenious in the stratagems he used to keep her from leaving. I believe he himself went to the inn that first morning and ordered the removal of the wheel from her battered travel coach. Another day he paid the head groom of the inn to say that there were no horses available for hire; she could not depart. The third day—oh, I forget. Perhaps the cook was bribed to burn the breakfast or the housekeeper was induced to mislay some clothes. In any case, some small trouble arose that forced the guest to cancel her plans for leaving.
Certainly someone who had desperately wanted to travel on would have found ways to overcome these setbacks, but it was very clear that Lady Charis infinitely preferred to stay. Her laughter could be heard from every corner of the house in the days that followed—from the dining hall, where the master gathered the younger nobles of the neighborhood for teas and breakfasts; from the gardens, where the master escorted her on long, aimless walks; from the stables, where he led her as they set out on yet another ride around the countryside.
Naturally, he made sure she got her fill of the most spectacular feature offered by Grey Moraine. The house was built on a rugged terrace that overlooked a jagged, tumbling chasm of stone, but most views of the house did not show you that prospect. Indeed, the front and the sides of the mansion overlooked sloping lawns and manicured gardens. But Grey Moraine itself, when viewed from the road as you first approached, was a turreted three-story structure silhouetted against empty sky. Behind it was nothing but air and canyon.
I myself showed Lady Charis to the observatory that forms the upper level of the house. From the front windows, of course, you can see the gardens, the trees, the drive, and the lawns. From the back windows, you see a panorama that makes you gasp—a two-thousand-foot plunge into a steep and virtually inaccessible gorge. The whole back wall of this room is nothing but windows, so that the view seems to go on and on. At sunset, the smoky rock is washed with pink and gold, but at any other time of day, Grey Moraine is a slash of icy menace, beautiful and stark.
Some people refuse to stand too near those windows, as if afraid some hungry spirit of the mountain will suck them to the edge and over the sills. Or perhaps the more weak—minded ones fear that they will be somehow induced to fling themselves through the glass to go tumbling to their deaths. The old master used to joke that he would never invite anyone into the observatory unless he was absolutely convinced the other fellow meant him no harm. Myself, I am neither dizzied by great heights nor worried about the spite of the earth gods, but I find the observatory an unsettling place to be. The sky seems too close there, the air too thin. I am much happier when I can lay my palm flat against the ground.
Lady Charis was not at all unnerved by the signature view of Grey Moraine. She did take a sharp breath the moment she stepped into the room, but she instantly crossed all the way to the window and pressed her nose, and then her hands, flat against the pane. For a moment, I saw her breath spread fog across the glass.
"Duncan," she said in a voice of deep awe. I instantly noticed that she was addressing him by his name without his title. "It's utterly magnificent."
"My favorite room in the house," he said.
She didn't even turn to look back at him, just kept staring out at the harsh and fantastical landscape. "Has anyone ever climbed down this mountainside?"
"Not successfully," he said. "One or two have tried. And there's a story about a worker who fell to his death when the house was being built. Another tale about a woman who jumped through the window at night, killing herself, of course. But any old house will have tales like that, if it's been around as long as Grey Moraine."
She finally turned to face him, leaning her spine against the window. Her ease with the chasm behind her made me shiver a little. I tried not to turn my back on that view for any length of time. "Are there ghosts?" she asked with a smile. "The spirits of unhappy people who have died at Grey Moraine?"
"I don't know. Nettie, are there ghosts?" the master said, turning to me.
I had my hand on the door and was just about to leave (though perhaps you will say I should have exited before this; I confess I had tarried a moment to witness Lady Charis's reaction to the observatory). I glanced at him as I made my answer. "There have not been ghosts at Grey Moraine for many years now," I said. "Legend has it that the wife of Lord Walter—the third of the Fittledons, that would be—roamed the hallways for a hundred years, crying for her baby who was lost in a fire. And the daughter of the fifth Fittledon was said to have died of a broken heart when her lover spurned her to marry another. She was often to be seen drifting around the gardens, tearing the petals off of roses. Even now when it's a bad season for roses, the gardeners will say that Lady Lacey has been at the bushes again. But it has been years now since either of them was seen here."
"I am disappointed!" Lady Charis cried gaily. "Grey Moraine seems exactly the sort of house that would harbor all manner of wraiths and phantoms. Perhaps you merely have not lived here long enough to grow acquainted with them."
The master smiled at me. "She has been here as long as I can remember," he said fondly. "Nettie, when did you first go into service at Grey Moraine?"
"So long ago even I sometimes forget," I said with a light laugh. "I even remember your uncle's father, that's how long it's been."
He spread his hands and gave Lady Charis a rueful look. "So you see? If Nettie cannot remember ghosts, then surely none of them walk these halls."
He nodded to dismiss me, and I quickly stepped back out into the hall. Thinking, I didn't say I couldn't remember any ghosts. I said there had not been any seen here for quite some time.
I have no idea what conversation passed between Lady Charis and the master while they stood together in the observatory, gazing out on that dramatic view. I can only guess what they talked of on that slow, pretty ride to the broken abbey five miles north of the house. They had no private conversation over dinner that night, for the master had once again invited a handful of local scions in to provide ready laughter and lighthearted banter. Everyone stayed late, and it was the master who drove the visitor back to the Red Owl Inn.
He was up quite early the following day to fetch her one more time. I had overheard her protesting mightily the night before as he wrapped her in her cloak and escorted her to the door. "Positively not!" she was saying in answer to some question that I had missed. "Not one more day! I will stay through tomorrow, for I would dearly love to see the church at Clermist, but the morning after that I will be on my way, and nothing you can say will dissuade me."
"I'll think of something," he had promised as he shepherded her out into the night. "Have a little faith in me."
"And you have a little faith in me! I stand by my word."
"As do I, milady," he replied. "As do I."
For myself, I was hoping that this really would be the last day we would see Lady Charis, with her blue eyes, her pale skin, and her hint of melancholy. The master was altogether too taken with her—a penniless girl setting out to make her way in the world! not at all the sort of woman he should be wooing, no matter how carelessly—and I wanted her gone. I wanted him to settle in at Grey Moraine, realize what a grave and momentous responsibility he had inherited, find himself a well-bred woman of gentle disposition, and quickly begin to produce happy and attractive children. Who wouldn't enjoy a life like that? Why couldn't he pursue it immediately? I didn't want him wasting any more time with shallow and unsuitable women who might turn his mind from its proper direction.
You can imagine my dismay, then, when the master came back from Clermist that evening with the news that he had married Lady Charis in the ancient little church that was the small town's only claim to distinction.
I sometimes think it would have been easier on me if I had ever been able to hate Lady Charis. Ermintrude did, as did Harlan; with them she was capricious and difficult, impossible to please one moment, singing their praises the next. Young Martin, on the other hand, adored her, and if she smiled at him or thanked him or actually called him by name, he was in blushing transports for the whole of the day. The rest of the staff was evenly split between absolute worship and fierce dislike, which made for some spirited arguments in the servants' quarters during the first few months of the master's married life.
As for myself, I was mostly puzzled and wary. Despite her inconsistent behavior with every other member of the household, she never treated me with anything less than careful courtesy, which occasionally modulated into teasing warmth. I can't say I was convinced she actually liked me, but I think she respected me—for my age, perhaps, or my long years of service, or the accumulated wisdom these two factors had combined to give me.
And I, though I did not respect her, found myself occasionally liking the new mistress. Or—no—that's not the right word. I found myself protective of her. I found myself feeling compassion. Why would a lovely young woman who had just married the richest and kindest man in three counties require a moment's compassion, you might ask? I'm not sure I could explain it myself. I think it was because, from time to time, despite the quite spectacular change in her fortune, I still caught that hint of wistfulness on Lady Charis's face.
It was easy to miss, of course, between her fits of temper and her childish petulance and her erratic and unreasonable demands. It was possible to dismiss because of its sheer ludicrousness. But Lady Charis, Duncan Baler's storybook bride, carried a core of sadness around with her, and no excess of lavish dinners, aristocratic company, or spousal affection could dispel it.
The first month that they were married, the house was never still.
I had wished Grey Moraine would entertain again. Well, my wish was answered a hundredfold! Every noble who lived within a hundred-mile radius of Grey Moraine must needs be invited to a five-day hunting party or a weekend masquerade. Lady Charis and the other young ladies of the district wrote and performed an amateur theatrical, while the young men made up the audience and applauded loudly. There were four grand balls within as many weeks, and a day didn't go by without half a dozen ladies from the neighborhood dropping by to leave their calling cards in the morning or take tea in the afternoon.
One of these tea parties sticks in my mind as being peculiarly representative of this particular period.
Our visitors this afternoon were a Mrs. Horton and her daughters, Emmeline and Corabelle, who lived about ten miles away on a tidy property that was almost as prominent as Grey Moraine. Although Mr. Horton had no title, he was a wealthy and well-respected man who was considered a model landlord, if a little on the tight-fisted side. His son, a sober and rather dull young man, had married the year before in an event that had been the most talked-of wedding in the neighborhood until Lord Duncan eloped with Lady Charis.
Accompanying Mrs. Horton and her daughters were the vicar's wife, Mrs. Dolnat, and two elderly maiden sisters who were of the highest respectability, Leonie and Therese Jacard. While the company was certainly not as exciting as some of the groups that had gathered at Grey Moraine in recent days, you would have thought Lady Charis's very favorite friends had come to call. She practically sparkled with delight when the carriages arrived at the door and Martin showed the six visitors to the parlor.
"Nettie, please bring us refreshments," she said as she welcomed the women into the room. "Come in, come in, sit down! I have been so impatient to have all of you over to see me! You were here for the ball, of course, but no one can ever talk properly over the music."
I spent much of the next two hours carrying trays of tea and plates of sweets between the kitchen and the parlor. Normally, of course, one of the serving girls would handle such a task, but one was down with a cold and another had twisted her ankle. And I was curious. I was always willing to wait on the young mistress if it meant I might overhear some of her conversation. In fact, I might confess here that I hovered just outside the doorway for much of the afternoon—to be near at hand if Lady Charis had need of me, but also to listen to anything she might have to say.
Most of the conversation was quite ordinary, consisting of gossip about the unfortunate neighbors who weren't present this afternoon, commentary on fashions that had been on display the week before, supposition about who might be about to marry whom, and news about friends and family members who were absent.
The Misses Jacard were pleased to announce that their brother, his wife, and his children would be coming to visit over the winter holidays. "We shall entertain, of course," Therese said. "Just a small dinner or two. Of course, all of you will be invited, but we don't have the space to invite everybody."
This was said in a regretful tone, as if implying that Therese Jacard truly wished to open her home to the whole neighborhood, but in fact everyone accepted it in the spirit in which it was truly intended—that is, that only a small fraction of the people living in County Banlow were good enough to be invited into the Jacard household, and most of them were already sitting in the room.
"Oh, we will be entertaining as well over the holidays!" Mrs. Horton said. "David will be bringing the family, and Stephen will be home on leave."
"Stephen," Corabelle said with a little sigh, and then laughed. Everyone else laughed with her. Stephen was her cousin, though removed by a marriage or two; he had been raised by the Hortons when his own parents died young. He was a soldier by profession, a good-looking young man with a somewhat roguish disposition. It was no secret that Corabelle had nursed an affection for him most of her life.
"I quite look forward to seeing Stephen again," said Leonie Jacard. "He vanished so abruptly last spring when he was home on leave. I didn't get a chance to say good-bye."
Mrs. Horton wore a pained look. "Truth to tell, I was just as glad to see him go back to the regiment! The last time he was home—well. Let us say I was not always pleased by his behavior. He's very high-spirited."
"Oh, Mother, every girl in three counties flirts with him!" Emmeline exclaimed. "You can hardly expect him to refrain from flirting back! Even Father would misbehave given some of Stephen's incentives."
Mrs. Horton gave her daughter an icy stare. "I hardly think so."
"But surely—he's such a delightful young man—surely he did nothing too awfully terrible," the vicar's wife said. Her tone of voice implied that she was so good-hearted she could hardly bear to believe anyone capable of sin, but I knew better. She was an inveterate gossip and really wanted to hear of grave transgressions.
Emmeline leaned back in her chair. "Well, I myself caught him kissing one of the cook's assistants in the kitchen, but I think there was something worse," she said in a spiteful voice. Emmeline was not nearly as pretty as her younger sister, and my guess was that Stephen did not pay her as much attention, hence her eagerness to tell stories that reflected badly on him. "Because he was supposed to stay another whole week, and then one night there was this dreadful row with Father, and the next day he was gone."
"Kissing servant girls was quite enough incentive for your father to send him away," Mrs. Horton said firmly. "But I'm sure another six months in the army have curbed his wildness somewhat."
"I hope not," Corabelle said. "At any rate, I cannot wait to see him again."
"Well! All of you with such exciting visitors scheduled to arrive!" Lady Charis said. "We shall have to plan something very special."
"Perhaps you can have a winter ball at Grey Moraine," Corabelle suggested. "Everyone dressed in white, like snowflakes."
"How very boring," her sister drawled.
"Emmeline. That's unkind," her mother reproved.
Lady Charis laughed. "I shall think of something," she promised. "We would want it to be very grand."
Talk turned next to food and fashion. Lady Charis was organizing a dinner to be held in a couple of weeks, a much smaller affair than some of her recent diversions, but quite elegant; she planned to order desserts from a famous bakery in Kingston. I noticed—I am not sure why—how often Lady Charis specifically asked Mrs. Horton's opinion about details of this event and other matters. Mrs. Horton is not my favorite of the neighborhood ladies, but she has superb taste and impeccable manners, and I found myself heartened that Lady Charis would turn to someone so obviously equipped to guide her through some of the tangles of society. The new mistress is young, but she is willing to learn, I told myself. That must be a good sign.
A few days later, Lady Charis sent out invitations for the small dinner party. No one from the Horton family was included on her list.
I first became aware of the omission when the vicar's wife dropped by Grey Moraine two days after the invitations were sent. Lady Charis and the master had left an hour previously to spend the afternoon in the nearby town that held the Red Owl, a few taverns, some shops, and very little else. The day was sunny and breezy, not too chilly, and both of them had looked forward to the excursion. Harlan sent for me when Mrs. Dolnat made it clear she wanted to leave a message.
"So awkward—but so important," the vicar's wife said when I met her in the parlor. "It seems that Lady Charis's invitation to the Horton household has somehow gone astray. Mrs. Horton is too proud to speak up herself, but I knew Lady Charis would want to rectify the situation immediately. I can't bear to think of those sweet girls being left out of such an exciting event."
In fact, it was clear she was thinking of such a thing with relish. Her dark eyes snapped with hope and venom, as if she expected me to share a particularly tasty piece of news. But all I said was, "Thank you so much, Mrs. Dolnat. I will certainly make sure Lady Charis is informed."
The master and his bride returned from their expedition laughing and happy, and they headed straight for the observatory, where they liked to spend some time together every day. "Nettie—be a dear and bring us something to drink," the mistress called out to me as they swept up the stairs arm in arm. "Preferably something sweet. I'm parched."
"Something alcoholic!" the master added over his shoulder. "And something to eat as well."
So I made up a tray of lemonade and champagne, added a few pastries, and carried it upstairs. They had flung themselves onto a low settee that sat against one wall and were sprawled on it with all the appearance of people who had exhausted themselves in pursuit of pleasure. Late-afternoon sun sent gold washing through the great windows and across the wood floor and lent the room a burnished glow.
"What in the world did you do today to tire yourselves so completely?" I asked in amusement.
"We walked the length and breadth of that silly little street you people call a town," Lady Charis said. "And then Duncan thought it might be a good idea to stroll down some path that he said led to a very pleasing prospect—those were his exact words! A very pleasing prospect! But he didn't mention how you had to clamber down boulders and across fallen trees and get your skirt all muddy before you came upon this little hillock where you could stand and gaze at a few knobby mountains that he considered a spectacular view!"
He was laughing. "I don't recall that I had a lady companion the last time I made that exploration," he admitted. "And it's probably been five years since I attempted it myself. But I still think it's quite a lovely scene. And you would agree with me if the effort of getting there hadn't upset your delicate disposition."
"I shall borrow Martin's boots next time you offer to take me on any expedition," she replied. "Nettie, you angel, you've brought me lemonade! Do pour me a glass."
It was as I was handing the master his champagne that he asked if anyone had come to the house while they were gone. "Yes, milord, the vicar's wife dropped by with a message for Lady Charis."
She had the glass pressed against her mouth, but I swear I saw her lips curve into a smile against the rim. "Indeed?" she asked. "And she wanted to tell me what?"
"It appears that you inadvertently neglected to send an invitation to the Hortons for the dinner next week."
"Oh, there's a disaster in the making! Overlooking Sarah Horton!" the master exclaimed. "Even I know how highly she is regarded in this county, and I have resided here scarcely longer than you have."
Lady Charis rested her glass on a nearby side table. "It was not inadvertent," she said.
The master and I were both surprised, but only he said so. He sat up more straightly on the settee. "What? You mean to leave her out deliberately?"
"I do."
He looked bewildered but not particularly upset. Myself, I was closer to dumbfounded. If there was an arbiter of taste in County Banlow, it was Sarah Horton. She was strict, proper, at times harsh, and always on the arrogant side of civil. But no one wielded more social power than she did. "But why?" he asked.
Lady Charis considered. "I do not like her."
He gave a short laugh. "There are plenty of people I dislike in the world, and a good number of them live in County Banlow, but I treat them decently when I have to deal with them at all," he said. "It might not be worth the shock and outcry that will ensue if you shun her."
Lady Charis tilted her head and regarded him with those wide blue eyes. "Are you telling me I must invite her?"
He shrugged. "It is your party. It is your house as much as it is mine, and you should not have to entertain anyone you dislike. But if I were you, I would consider carefully before opening up such a breach."
She hesitated a moment and then said, "I will think about it."
That seemed to satisfy him, but it left me feeling even more uneasy. I could almost read her mind. He believed that her soft answer meant she was truly chastened, and that she would behave properly; he would not ask her again to amend her decision. And absent a direct instruction from him, she would not amend it.
"Lady Charis is mad," I said to Ermintrude as soon as I was downstairs. It is a measure of how disturbed I was that I chose Ermintrude as my confidant, for in general I find the cook over-emotional and a little silly. "Or perhaps she's only cruel."
"She is probably both," was Ermintrude's instant response. She kissed her fingertips and laid them briefly against her heart. It was the gesture we country folk used to turn aside the mischief of the air demons, though it could also be employed to ward off the onset of general disasters.
"But I didn't think she was stupid," I added and I told her the story, which left her baffled as it left me.
"What possible reason could she have for making an enemy of someone so powerful?" Ermintrude demanded. "This will cause turmoil for months to come, mark my words."
"Or even longer," I agreed.
For those who enjoyed that sort of thing, the news that Lady Charis had excluded Sarah Horton from the party at Grey Moraine was a delicious scandal. The house buzzed with the news, as even the footmen and the housemaids understood what the insult implied, and any time I went to town during the next week, I heard it discussed. Whenever I happened to encounter servants from the Horton household, they turned their heads away and refused to acknowledge me, leaving me no choice but to ignore them in turn. What a ridiculous situation! How petty! How strange!
Why were we in it?
I worked closely with Lady Charis to plan the party, helping her decide how to arrange sprays of dried flowers around the dining room and the order in which to serve some of the more elaborate dishes. We were sitting together in her little study the morning before the dinner when she abruptly said to me, "You think I made a mistake, don't you?"
I pretended not to know what she was talking about. "With the marzipan? No, indeed, I think it is just what is needed to finish the meal."
She waved a hand impatiently. "In excluding Sarah Horton from my little event."
I gave her a direct look. A servant should not be too honest with her employer, or so they say, but I have found that there are times it pays to be forthright. As long as one is tactful, of course. "I think you have humiliated her. And that you set out to do so on purpose."
Her smile was very faint. "Why would I want to do that, I wonder?"
"I suppose you have a reason that seems very good to you."
"I do," she said. "Though I do not propose to share it."
"If it is not too presumptuous, I would ask if you intend to go on ostracizing her, or if you will be content to humiliate her just this once."
Lady Charis pulled on one of her dark curls, winding it around her finger as she appeared to consider the matter. "I am nobody," she said at last. "A parvenu bride with no social connections. Surely no one will care too much that I choose to exclude one person from one dinner at my house."
"You are married to the richest man in the county," I said, though surely she needed no reminding. "You have set yourself up to be a leader of local fashion. Already some of the other girls are copying your mannerisms and your styles of dress. Where you lead, others could surely follow. Do I think that your mistreatment of Sarah Horton will lead to her exclusion from the other houses in the district? I do not. Do I think it will cause ongoing speculation spiced with enough ill will to hurt her standing in the community? I do."
"And her daughters?" Lady Charis asked. "Will they suffer as well?"
"Inevitably. Again, I believe the Hortons' social credit is so great that they will easily survive, but they will be looked at askance. They will be whispered about."
Lady Charis was silent a moment. I sat forward. "It is not too late," I said. "You cannot expect them to accept an invitation now to tomorrow's affair. But this can be remedied. Just single them out in some highly public fashion. Invite the Hortons, and the Hortons only, on some enjoyable outing. Show them extreme attention. This can all be smoothed over."
She gave me that deep and mischievous smile that I had already learned to distrust. "Oh, no, Nettie. You misunderstand. I want them to suffer. All of them. And their brothers and cousins and fathers and uncles as well, if that is possible. A little thing like being left out of a meal can hardly be enough to truly harm them, but it is the only thing I can think of to do at the moment."
I gave her a grave stare. She had taken the end of her lock of hair and was idly brushing it across her face as if applying rouge to her cheekbones. She looked as pretty and dainty as a particularly angelic child. "Might I ask why?" I said.
She debated. "They are cruel," she said at last.
"Not that I ever heard," I felt obliged to answer.
"Perhaps I know something about them that you don't."
I phrased my next words very carefully. "I was unaware that you had been in the district long enough to have formed any impression at all of the Hortons."
She smiled. "Even in Lefton, we have heard of the Hortons," she said.
I was even more careful with my next sentence. "She is unlikely to meekly accept being disgraced in such a way, particularly by someone so young and so new to County Banlow."
The smile remained on her face. "I know. But it really scarcely matters what she does to me later, as long as she is unhappy now."
What could I possibly say in reply to that? I merely nodded. "After the marzipan," I said. "Should we consider more wine?"
The dinner, not surprisingly, was a resounding success, the more so because all the people who were invited to sit down at the table spent much of their energy mocking those who were not. Not the master, of course—he and one or two of his cronies (thoughtfully included on Lady Charis's guest list) withdrew almost immediately to the library to smoke.
And not Lady Charis, I noticed. She said very little about anyone else, whether absent or present, though she listened intently to the gossip everyone else had to offer and laughed whenever something particularly cutting was said. She didn't even have any observations to make about Mrs. Horton or her daughters, though she almost purred any time someone else made a derogatory remark.
"But what of their sire?" she asked late in the evening, after two inebriated young men had spent twenty minutes mocking Emmeline's plump figure and Corabelle's nasal voice. "No one speaks of him."
One of her companions shrugged; the other shook his head. "He's a dull dog," the first one said. "Can name his ancestors back to the time of the first king, but he doesn't have much conversation."
"So the delightful Sarah married him for his lineage, not his charm," Lady Charis surmised.
The second young man snorted. "Only man in five counties whose blood was as pure as hers," he said. "And you can bet those two daughters won't be allowed to wed anyone who's not of the highest caliber." He sketched a bow and indicated his friend. "Certainly not mongrels such as the two of us are."
"But I quite like mongrels," she replied. "I much prefer them to truebloods."
And so the conversation went for much of the night—at least, the portions I was privileged to overhear when my duties took me near enough to listen.
The party itself did not send any new ripples through County Banlow society. Indeed, there was more discussion about the Hortons before the event than afterward, which I suspected was a disappointment to Lady Charis. Still, she seemed quite happy in the days immediately following the event, though whether buoyed up by malice or the afterglow of a good party I could not say. At any rate, we had a week or two that I would describe as absolutely serene, focusing on trivial domestic issues and the mere ordinary business of existing.
Of those days, only one really stands out in my memory. The master had gone to town in the afternoon to run some errand that escapes me now. He had planned to be home early enough to join Lady Charis for the rare quiet dinner that would feature no guests at the table. The weather had been cold enough that frost had greeted us several mornings in a row. This particular day had been frigid and dreary from the very moment of dawn, overcast, gray, and intermittently filled with rain. Lady Charis had spent the entire day inside the house, and most of that time in the observatory.
I went up just about sunset to see if there was anything special she wanted for the dinner table. She was sitting quietly on one of the sofas, a book open on her lap though she did not appear to be reading. A smile lit her face as I opened the door, but it faded somewhat as she realized it was only I.
"Oh! I thought you might be Duncan," she said. "Surely he's home by now?"
"I don't think so, milady," I replied. "I was merely coming to inquire if you had any instructions about dinner."
She waved an impatient hand. "No—anything Ermintrude wishes to prepare is fine with me. But you say Duncan has not returned yet? What could be keeping him?"
"He might have met a friend in town and stopped at one of the taverns for an hour," I said.
"I suppose," she said and glanced toward the window. The last of the sunlight illuminated the sleety, pelting rain that was even now hitting the glass. She shivered. "Dreadful weather to be traveling in."
"The master was a soldier for a long time," I said. "He's traveled in worse."
"Still, I don't like it that he is yet on the road. I expected him back an hour ago."
For a moment, I was reminded of the day Lord Ralph had died. He, too, had headed out on a routine ride in which nothing should have gone amiss, and he, too, had failed to return when he was expected. I felt a stir of uneasiness, which I tried to quell. "I'm sure he'll be at the door soon with some excellent reason for his tardiness," I said. "Shall I bring you some wine while you wait for him?"
"No," she said, and she laid aside her book and stood up. "I'll come downstairs where I will hear him when he arrives."
Her perturbation quickly communicated itself to the staff. Both Harlan and Martin hovered in the front hallway for the next hour, opening the front door every few minutes to peer through the curtain of rain. Ermintrude set dinner back and whispered devotions under her breath. I didn't know if she was praying to the spirits of the air to leave off their usual malevolence and allow the master to pass unharmed, or if she was invoking the guardians of the earth to shield him with their own bodies as he wended his way from town. I didn't ask; I prefer not to engage in conversations about religion with anyone, Ermintrude in particular.
Lady Charis paced up and down the length of the parlor, the room nearest to the foyer, and every ten minutes or so stepped through the door to inquire if anyone had spotted Lord Duncan. I pretended to be about my ordinary work, but in truth I found many excuses to pass through the hallway, hoping to be within call as soon as there was news.
Finally, nearly two hours past sunset, Martin opened the door and let out a great shout of relief. "There he is! I see him! The master's home!"
I happened to be in the parlor, urging the mistress to take a glass of wine. She sagged briefly against the wall and then instantly straightened, her face tinted with anger. "Well! At last he deigns to come home! I must ask him what he was about to make all of us worry so."
She strode into the hall and I could not help but follow, but both of us were thunderstruck to see the master when he stepped through the door. He was absolutely drenched, and his feet and lower legs were coated in mud. He had no coat, his hat was missing, and his hands and face were red from the assault of the weather.
"Duncan! What has happened to you? Come immediately to the fire!" Lady Charis exclaimed, instantly seeming to forget her ire in a surge of concern. "My dear, you look like you walked all the way back from town."
With Martin's help, he was peeling off his boots in an effort to avoid tracking mud throughout the house. The efficient Harlan had already hurried off to find a dry coat to wrap him in. I had to think the man might have caught his death of a chill.
But he laughed in complete unconcern. "I did!" he said. "How could I have forgotten that the way was mostly uphill? Took me almost three hours, though I thought I could make it in two."
"But—but why?" Lady Charis demanded, bewildered. "Didn't you ride a horse to town? Did he throw a shoe?"
Harlan was back with a towel and a smoking jacket, and the master accepted both gratefully. "No, the horse is fine as far as I know," he said, wiping his face and then shrugging into the coat. "I gave him away. There's a fire in the parlor, you say? Let's warm up a bit and then ask for dinner."
He put out his arm to escort his wife into the next room, quite a parade of us behind him. No power in this world could have prevented me from following him to hear the rest of the story, and Harlan and Martin were right behind me. It didn't seem to occur to any of us that we had no right to listen.
The master pulled up a footstool right before the flames, extended his stockinged feet, and sighed in contentment. Lady Charis settled' on the edge of a nearby wingback chair and prompted, "Your horse? You gave him away?"
The master nodded. "I was just mounting so I could ride on home when I encountered a man in front of the pub. His own horse was lame, covered with lather—all done in. The man was sort of talking to her the way you talk to your horse—'Come on, girl, you can go on a little more, I know you can.' I paused to tell him he could probably rent a mount from Sawyer, the tavern-keeper, you know, but he turned to me and said, 'I can't pay a cent for a new beast. I can't even afford to buy a night's lodging and hope she's recovered enough to go on in the morning. I must be on my way tonight. I'll walk if I have to.' So naturally I asked where he was off to in such a hurry, and he told me his daughter had fallen ill. She was not expected to make it through the night. She and her mother live in a little cottage up near Crossholt—what do you think, Harlan, thirty-five miles from here?"
"More like forty, milord," said the butler.
"So I said, 'Well, you can take my horse, then,'" the master resumed, but before he could say another word, Charis interrupted.
"You believed him? This—this desperate stranger? He could have been a criminal! A thief! Riding away from pursuers! He could have been a swindler just trying to find a credulous fool!"
The master shrugged. "Both thoughts crossed my mind," he admitted. "But, yes, I chose to believe him. I handed him the reins of my horse and took charge of his own, which I engaged to board in Sawyer's barn until this man was able to return my own animal to me. I gave him my coat, too, since he had so far to go," he added as an afterthought. "He thanked me at least fifty times and then took off." The master wriggled his toes and smiled. Clearly his feet were warming up. "I left his horse with Sawyer's hostler and set off for home. I must say, by the time the first hour passed, I was cold enough and wet enough and tired enough that I was beginning to rue my impulsive actions, but now that I'm in front of the fire in my own house, I'm rather pleased I helped the man out."
"Duncan," Lady Charis said, her voice very calm. "You realize you'll never see your horse again."
He shrugged. "And if I don't, I don't. Never gamble what you can't afford to lose. I have five more horses in the stable—yes, and the funds to buy a dozen more if I want them. My bet was that this stranger was an honest man, and if he's not, then no real harm done to me. I'd rather think I helped a liar than that I hurried past a man in need."
I glanced at Lady Charis, to see what retort she might have to make now, and found a most peculiar expression on her face. She had put a hand to her throat, as if to shield it from a draft; her lips were parted as if she were having trouble drawing in enough air. She no longer looked angry—indeed, I thought she appeared confused more than anything. As if she had stepped into a familiar room in her house and found it crammed with furniture she'd never seen before. As if she had found herself married to a man who turned out to be completely different from the person she had believed he was.
"That was—I suppose your behavior was exceedingly kind," she said in a halting voice. "Not one person in a hundred would have been so generous. Not one person in a thousand."
"And that's the saddest part of the tale, if true!" he replied. "I like to think any man will be kind if given the chance. Any woman, too."
"One would like to think it, perhaps," Lady Charis said, seeming to recover some of her usual asperity, "but one would probably be wrong."
The master hauled himself to his feet and gave himself a little shake as if to resettle all his clothes. He grinned at the servants still clustered by the door. "Martin, perhaps you would be so good as to find me a dry pair of shoes. Nettie, could you let Ermintrude know that we're ready for our dinner now? And Harlan—the best bottle of port in the cellar. I think I need a little extra help tonight to warm my bones."
Winter had barely settled in when some of our neighbors began entertaining for the holidays. Mrs. Horton announced she was holding a small dinner party, to which the Balers were pointedly not invited. The vicar's wife was quite gleeful when she brought the news to Grey Moraine, though she pretended to be shocked that such a long-standing member of the community could behave in such a petty fashion. Lady Charis received the information with weary boredom, but the instant Mrs. Dolnat was out the door, she jumped to her feet and laughed in delight.
"What fun!" she exclaimed to me as I gathered up the tea things I had brought in for her and her guest.
I gave her a baffled look. "To be excluded from a social engagement?"
"To create such consternation! You watch, there will be a procession of visitors up the drive over the next few days, as every other young lady invited to the Hortons' dinner drops by to debate with me whether she should attend. They won't come right out and ask, of course, but what they'll want to know is if, by accepting Sarah's invitation, they will be forfeiting any chance to be invited to Grey Moraine again."
Not for the first time in my life, I found myself glad that I had not been born noble and ambitious. Such machinations gave me a headache. "What will you tell them?"
"Oh, I shall be very warm and affectionate. 'My dears, don't fret at all! I couldn't possibly expect you to pass up such an opportunity. You will always be welcome at Grey Moraine. Don't worry about it another moment!' The delicious thing is," she said, spreading her arms and twirling around like a schoolgirl, "they won't know if I mean it or not! They'll be in agony, trying to decide whom to offend—Sarah Horton, who has dominated County Banlow society for thirty years, or the fashionable and wealthy Chans Baler, who is so interesting—but so capricious."
I couldn't help but smile at that. "So you call yourself capricious."
She laughed lightly. "I imagine everyone does, yourself included."
I bowed my head a little and assumed a meek expression. "I would not presume to comment so about my employers."
"Dear Nettie," she cooed. "So loyal—and so discreet."
It might have been a barb; it might have been sincere. I merely bowed my head again as I turned toward the door with the tea tray in my hand. "Always loyal to the masters of Grey Moraine," I said. "Till my dying day."
She was right, as it turned out. A dozen of the younger folk of the county made their way to the mansion in the next few days, trying to get a feel for how she would react if they attended Sarah Horton's dinner. I later heard that three of the people who had received what would ordinarily be extremely prized invitations had found excuses for turning them down, which caused another ripple of scandal throughout the neighborhood. And Lady Charis didn't immediately make it clear how she intended to react, for—after more than two months of almost constant entertainment—she passed a good two weeks without scheduling, or attending, any major events.
In truth, she might not have planned it that way. She had taken a cold or some ailment that left her tired and listless, and she spent those two weeks sleeping late and huddling in the observatory, sipping hot drinks. She was fretful but somewhat pathetic, and even Ermintrude softened toward her, trying to tempt her flagging appetite with savory broths and crusty breads. The master coddled her, of course, reading aloud to her in the evenings and bringing back treats for her if he had been out during the day—ribbons and buttons from the shops in town, perhaps, or an armload of holly he had found on a bush alongside the road. But unfortunately, business called him away for three days during this period, and then she really moped.
Oddly enough, the one thing that seemed to cheer her the most was hearing stories about past owners of Grey Moraine. I brought her the three hand-bound volumes of personal family history that had been compiled by the old master's grandfather, and she spent a great deal of time leafing through their pages, utterly absorbed. They included sketches of the house at various points during its construction and renovation, copies of wills and tax statements, letters between owners and their heirs, copies of marriage certificates, and a number of pen-and-ink drawings of past masters and mistresses of the estate.
"Now, who is this?" she would ask me, pointing to some cameo portrait, and I would tell her all the additional tales that had been handed down about each owner through the generations. She was surprisingly good at keeping track of which Fittledon was which, and she had no trouble at all with the Balers.
"We'll have to have someone in to sketch your picture soon," I remarked one rainy afternoon as we sat together in the observatory. "Yes, and the master's as well. And of course we'll need to commission both portraits to be done in oil."
She rather self-consciously brushed back a lock of her black hair. "I've never sat for a picture before," she said.
"I'm sure any artist would be glad to have you as his subject."
She laughed a little. "What will future generations think of me, I wonder?" she said. "When they look at my picture. Will they say, 'Isn't she beautiful? But such a cold expression!' Or will they say something kinder?"
As was so often the case, I had to work hard to phrase my answer politely. "Perhaps what they say about you will be influenced by what they know of your behavior during the time you serve as mistress of Grey Moraine."
"You mean, if I am a good woman, they will find me more attractive?" she replied dryly. "That might be how it works as you are viewed through the lens of history, but while you are actually existing, people seem to only notice you for your looks."
"Your ladyship has nothing to worry about on that score, then," I said.
"Yes," she said a bit moodily, "I cannot help but know that I am considered very attractive."
The instant she said the words, there was a flare of lightning, followed seconds later by a growl of thunder. The lightning made me jump; the openness of the observatory always made it seem as though the room itself were at the epicenter of any storm. My nervousness made Lady Charis laugh.
"Nettie! Why, you're as edgy as a colt! It's just a little rain."
"I don't like rough weather," I admitted. I kissed the middle three fingers on my right hand, then pressed them to the center of my chest.
"What's that?" she demanded. "I've seen you do that before—yes, and Ermintrude, as well. What's that for?"
It had been a habitual and unthinking gesture. I was a little embarrassed that she had caught me out. "Folk superstition," I said. "A ward against wicked spirits."
She sat up straighter on the sofa, more animated than I had seen her in the past two days. "What wicked spirits?" she said. "Tell me about them."
I did not like to talk about the elementals, for they were drawn to the sounds of their own names and seemed to cluster closer whenever you spoke about them. Particularly the sprites of the air. And yet her face was so bright with curiosity that I knew it would do no good to try to fob her off with vague explanations.
"Fancy folk tend to have fancy gods," I said, "but country people believe in more intimate deities. Farmers who have worked the land all their lives will tell you that guardians of the earth reside in the soil. Those guardians have their hands outstretched to catch every seed as it's planted, and they tend every blade of grass, every stalk of corn, with the care humans might give each living infant. Soldiers and townsfolk also pray to the guardians of the earth, for these spirits can watch over places—keep walls strong, prevent foundations from crumbling. Some believe that certain sites have acquired their own guardians who take human shape and watch over their particular spots for centuries."
"And these guardians are always benign?"
"Usually," I said. "But if they are angered by thoughtless abuse of the land, they can rise up to destroy roads and fields and whole mountain ranges, if they choose."
"Very impressive," Lady Charis said.
"The water nymphs are more mercurial, for they have the changeability of a wild brook," I continued. "They can shower you with gifts or they can leave you desolate and abandoned. Young girls pray to the water spirits, because they are believed to have power over emotions. They may persuade a man to fall in love with you, but they may easily turn his love into another channel. They are thought to have some affinity with the blood that moves through your body, and if they are moved to do so, they can cure you of fever or any other illness. So it is believed."
"But this is so appealing!" Lady Charis said. "Although just a little quaint."
"It is the spirits of the air who are the most powerful and the most dangerous," I went on. As I spoke, I glanced at the windows, which overlooked a hard, steady rain. An ordinary storm, or the air demons expressing their rage over something? Hard to know. "Even the other elementals fear them, just a little. Like the wind, they can go anywhere. They can be soft as a whisper of breath, or as noisy as a thundering gale. Unlike the other elementals, they have no fondness for men. They envy us our position—lords of the living world—and they constantly scheme to bring about our downfall. They harm us in small ways, if they can, which is one reason I am so afraid of storms! I know the air demons would like to rattle the glass right out of these casements and come rushing straight into this room to torment us. But the air demons are also responsible for most of the great miseries that have been inflicted on men."
"What miseries? How inflicted?" she demanded.
"They make bargains with men," I said flatly. "They offer great power to individuals who will effect great destruction. If an obscure king suddenly commands the resources to invade his neighbors, it is because he has sold his service to the spirits of the air. They bestow upon him the money and skill and charisma to become a leader—and in return they specify a sacrifice that he must give them when they so demand."
She appeared fascinated, though still slightly skeptical. "What kind of sacrifice?"
I shrugged. "They might require him to slaughter an entire town and torch its buildings, for they love nothing so much as pure annihilation. They might push him to such excesses that he bankrupts his own country and every territory he has annexed, leaving whole lands and untold generations wretched, disorganized, and poor." I shrugged again. "But more often they work in smaller ways, through ordinary people, causing mischief instead of true sorrow."
"Give me some examples."
"They always make some kind of offer to a dissatisfied mortal," I said, adding hastily, "at least according to the stories. Say a man is poor and wants wealth. They will promise him gold, and they will deliver it. But once he is a rich man, they will require him to destroy the good men around him. Perhaps he uses his money to outbid an honest merchant and drive him out of business and send all his dependents begging in the streets. Perhaps his new funds will go to support a political uprising that will bring down a steady government. The spirits of the air flourish in chaos, no matter how it is brought about."
"They do sound most unlovable," she said. Her voice was steady, but I thought she was probably mocking me. It is hard for most sophisticated people to believe tales of the elementals. They are so convinced that they make every decision of their own volition, uninfluenced by forces not immediately visible to their eyes.
I leaned forward, determined to finish my tale now that I had started. The rain had slackened a little, but the windows were still wet, and the sky visible from every prospect was a louring gray. "The demons of the air particularly love to make pacts with young women, and they can take a variety of pleasing shapes," I said. "There's many a girl who thought she was invoking the water spirits as she prayed to have a young man fall in love with her, only to learn later, to her rue, that she had made a deal with a wind demon instead. She got her wish—she got her husband—but the cost was much steeper than she was prepared to pay."
"Oh, now, you must tell me what kind of price was exacted."
"Most often," I said, "the demons steal the soul of her first child."
Lady Charis merely stared at me out of her enormous blue eyes.
"While it is still in her womb," I continued slowly, "they suck out its human essence. In its place they leave the spirit of one of their own—a soul of greed and vapor. It comes into this world as any human child, and is raised as human, and goes through life like any mortal man or woman, with all the advantages its inheritance can give it. And yet all this time it is an air elemental, bent on havoc and destruction, and everywhere it goes it brings grief to men."
Lady Charis seemed to recover from a moment of stupefaction. "Why is it I have never met any of these changeling children walking about in the world? There must be hundreds of them, judging by the number of girls I know who would be willing to make any covenant to get the men they want!"
"There are," I said grimly. "And you no doubt have encountered a dozen of their offspring in your lifetime. Think of the men you know who behave cruelly or irrationally, who mistreat their wives and subordinates. They are the children of the wind, masquerading as humans. Think of the most spiteful woman you have ever encountered, who terrorizes her servants and loves to spread hurtful gossip."
"The vicar's wife," she said with a smile.
That actually surprised a smile out of me in return. "I wouldn't doubt it," I agreed, "she, too, could be an air demon, walking among us as a child of man."
"Well, it is a most interesting philosophy!" Lady Charis said with a little laugh. "But I think your elementals might find themselves balked in many instances. What if the newly rich man refuses to sow dissent among his fellow merchants? What if the new bride never conceives a child that the demons can alter to their own specifications? What if the humans accept the largesse bestowed upon them but refuse to uphold their part of the bargain? The pretty girl is still married to the man she loves. The king has still conquered half the world. What can your demons do then?"
I shuddered a little. How many foolish mortals had thought they could outsmart the elementals? Had any of them ever succeeded? Not in any of the tales I had heard. "The humans who fail to honor their pacts die most dramatic deaths," I said. "That is another thing that the countrymen believe. A man who flings himself from a bridge into a river was pushed into the water by the wind. A woman who stumbles down the stairs and breaks her neck was tripped by a sprite of the air. There are tales of men who begin gasping for breath—choking, as if unseen hands are strangling them—when no one is near enough to touch them. You do not make a bargain with the wind and fail to honor it. Which is why it is best not to make such a bargain at all."
"No! I quite see that!" Lady Charis said, drawing a deep breath. She let it out on a laugh that, to my ears, sounded a little shaky. "Nettie, I must commend you. What a storyteller! You have shocked me from my megrims, I think—though you have left me in a state of terror, which may not be much better!"
I bowed my head in a subservient manner. "I only told the tales because you asked, milady."
"Yes, and I am most intrigued by all you have related. I presume Ermintrude feels as you do—and Harlan, and Martin, and all the servants?"
"Ermintrude certainly," I said. "Though she believes the spirits of the air can be moved to kindness now and then, if you supplicate hard enough and resist their blandishments. She will petition them to protect travelers on the road, or at least refrain from offering them harm. I confess, I have never seen any signs of their benevolence myself, but perhaps I have not lived long enough. Someday I may be surprised."
"Live long enough, and all of us are surprised," she said, rising to her feet. "Well. Let me go downstairs and see what Ermintrude has found to tempt me for dinner."
Shortly after that conversation, Lady Charis seemed to shake off her unaccustomed malaise. Perhaps the sickness passed—or perhaps she was energized by the social events that clustered thick and fast during these weeks of the winter holidays.
First the Misses Jacard held a set of dinners to celebrate the visit of their brother and his family. Two dinners, they said, because they had so many friends the house wouldn't hold them all for a single event; but everyone knew this was their way of appeasing both Sarah Horton and Charis Baler, while keeping them separate by inviting them to different meals.
"A masterstroke," Lady Charis said to me when she heard the news. "I own, I did not expect those two old dowds to come up with such a clever scheme! I must reward them in some fashion."
Then the vicar's wife had an intimate breakfast in the morning and a small dinner in the evening; again, the guest lists bore no crossover. A few bolder matrons of the district simply invited both the feuding factions to the same functions, and the stories I heard about those events told of the complicated choreography the other guests performed to keep Lady Charis segregated from Mrs. Horton even when they were in the same room.
It was not to be expected that Mrs. Horton would invite the Balers to her house for any of the entertainments she devised when her son and her nephew were in town, nor that Lady Charis would include any of the Hortons at the sumptuous banquets she planned during that same period of time.
What was even less expected was that Stephen Horton would come to Grey Moraine to pay a visit to his aunt's social enemy. And yet he did.
He arrived on a day that was exceptionally sunny, though very cold. Snow that had fallen three days previously still lingered in the shadows and outlined the black tree branches, though the walks were mostly cleared and travel was relatively easy. I had been upstairs when the sound of horses' hooves caught my attention, and I peered from one of the second-story windows to see who had arrived. All I could tell was that the visitor was a dark-haired man wearing a scarlet uniform and riding a spirited black horse. Just the set of his shoulders was enough to tell me he was a personable rogue; I didn't even have to catch sight of his face.
I instantly thought of business I had in the foyer and hurried downstairs just as Martin was showing the guest to the parlor. He might have been young, but Martin was a quick study, and he instantly knew that anyone with the surname Horton might cause consternation at Grey Moraine these days. He looked relieved to see me, since Harlan was nowhere in sight.
"Nettie," he whispered. "Here's Captain Horton come to call, but milord is out to the Chesney place. I told the captain the master won't be back for another couple of hours. He said, 'Then is Lady Charis home to visitors?' What should I do? Should I tell milady? Or simply show him the door?"
"I'll tell her for you," I said. "In the meantime, do offer our visitor some refreshment, whether or not she chooses to see him."
He nodded gratefully and hurried away, while I went back upstairs to find the mistress in the observatory. I was curious to see what reaction she might have to Stephen Horton's arrival. Would she be angry that he dared to visit Grey Moraine despite the fact that she had made it clear she despised his relatives? Would she be offended at his presumption? Impressed by his determination? Won over by his recklessness?
I shall never forget her expression when I gave her the news. She was standing by the bank of windows, and her porcelain face was limned with afternoon gold. She should have looked goddesslike, the clean lines of her face and body sculpted as if in marble, but instead she looked soft, wondering, astonished, and hopeful as a child offered a treat she had never dared to hope for.
"Captain Horton has come to see me?" she said, and her sweet voice matched her sweet expression. "Really he has? Oh, show him up, Nettie, do!" She patted her ringlets. "Is my hair mussed? Do I have any smudges on my face?"
She was vain of her appearance, as any young lady might be, but her eagerness to appear to her best advantage was extraordinary for the circumstances. I said, in a somewhat repressive voice, "Indeed, you look perfectly presentable for entertaining visitors. I will bring the captain up."
You will think badly of me, perhaps, when I say that I planted myself firmly on the other side of the door once I had shown Captain Horton to the observatory and procured refreshments. That Lady Charis had a fondness for Captain Horton had been impossible to overlook, and I thought it was my duty as a loyal servant of the house to discover just how far that affection extended and whether the young man returned it. I have some practice in listening at keyholes, and the observatory is particularly resonant. I am fairly sure I heard every word.
To my relief, none of those words was incriminating. In fact, had I not witnessed Lady Charis's smile and blush a few moments ago, I would have said the two had no history together at all.
"Captain Horton!" she greeted him, her voice friendly enough but not particularly warm. "I am so sorry my husband is not here to meet with you. It is very good of you to come calling."
"I heard from many sources the romantic tale of Duncan Baler and his fetching young wife," the captain replied. His voice was playful, but I imagined that was its natural tone; during my surreptitious study of him as we climbed up the stairs, I had come to the conclusion that this was a man constitutionally incapable of refraining from flirtation. "I determined to come see you for myself at the earliest opportunity."
"And here you see me!" she replied. "I hope the gossip presented me with tolerable accuracy. Please, sit."
"Oh, you just want me to say how woefully inadequate the descriptions of you were!" he said with a laugh. "But I won't say it. I don't know you well enough to begin showering you with fulsome compliments."
She laughed. "I don't know you at all, but somehow I get the sense that you have made a career out of showering young women with outrageous compliments and that you will find it hard to desist just because I am a stranger! Before too many minutes have gone by, you will be admiring the color of my eyes or the grace of my carriage. I think I know your type, Captain."
He sounded both rueful and amused. "What a low opinion you have of me! And so soon! What can I do to make you believe I am a sincere and worthy man?"
"You may first tell me what prompted you to come calling at Grey Moraine," she said. "You must be aware that a certain coldness exists between your aunt and me. Surely she would not be happy to learn you were idling away your afternoon with me."
"I am my own man, not bound to abide by my aunt's likes and dislikes," he replied. "I did not get a chance to meet the new master of Grey Moraine last time I was home, and you know we army men like to gather together and exchange tales of the soldiering life." His tone changed; he was clearly grinning. "And then, you know, I was consumed by curiosity to meet you! The very fact of my aunt's displeasure made it imperative I introduce myself as soon as possible. Everyone in the household expects me to behave in a contrary fashion. I swear they'd be disappointed if I didn't come see you."
"Hmmm—a thin enough explanation, but I suppose I will accept it, since I was very bored until you knocked on my door," she said. "But if you're to stay longer than ten minutes you must earn the privilege by being entertaining! Tell me what you have discovered about our friends and neighbors during your sojourn home. I like a juicy tidbit as much as the next woman."
"Well, the Jacards are incredibly smug and pretentious—but you know that already if you've spent five minutes in their company," he said. "Their brother is a good fifteen years older than I am, so I have never encountered him much, but I was forced to endure a whole evening with him two days ago, politely discussing foreign policy, of which I know nothing, and banking exchange rates, about which I do not care at all. His oldest daughter is as uninteresting as her aunts, but the young one hinted at a certain wildness of spirit. If he doesn't pay attention, she will commit an indiscretion. She has that air."
"Oh, I cannot imagine a Jacard doing anything that puts her beyond the pale! The stuffiest people imaginable."
He laughed. "You would be surprised at the secrets hidden behind some of the most respectable doorways in County Banlow," he said. "People you would never suspect of a moment's wrongdoing! Completely guilty."
"Let me think. Whom do I consider absolutely blameless? The vicar, surely."
Captain Horton made a rude noise. "Addicted to the bottle. I was told once that he never gives a sermon that he's completely sober."
"Mrs. Milsap?"
"Eloped with a fortune hunter when she was a very young girl. Her father and her uncle caught them at the border. Two days later she was married off to old Milsap—which turned out to be an excellent arrangement for both of them, as far as I can tell."
"Mrs. Milsap? I don't believe you."
"True, on my honor."
"What about—I know. Your uncle. Debrett Horton."
"Ahhhh," the captain said. I imagined him leaning back in his chair and stretching his legs out in front of him. "Had a liaison with a village girl that resulted in the birth of a bastard daughter twenty-some years ago."
"No! That is an out-and-out fabrication."
"I swear! Truth! No one knows it, and if you ever tell anyone I said so, I'll deny it with my last breath."
"But—what happened to the girl? Was she sent away?"
"Not at first. She was raised not far from here by some severe but respectable matron who was paid a pretty sum to care for her. She was sent away last year, I believe, though I couldn't tell you where. I suppose she's a young woman now."
"This is such a remarkable story! Does she know her parentage? Does she have any claim upon the Hortons at all?"
Captain Debrett made that noise again. "You've met my Aunt Sarah—and, if the rumors are true, you despise her—so you can guess the answer to that question. The girl knows who her father is, and I think Uncle Debrett would have acknowledged her in some fashion except that Aunt Sarah absolutely forbade it. As far as I know, Emmeline and Corabelle aren't even aware of the young woman's existence. Wouldn't want to sully their ears with such scandalous talk, you know. Wouldn't want to tarnish their image of their father."
"How did you come to hear of her, then, if her existence is such a secret?"
"David told me—Debrett's son, you know. He's not quite as much a prig as his father, but be was only told because he's the heir, of course, and apparently there is some small sum of money that goes to the girl every year. Enough to keep her from starving, at any rate. And if something were to happen to Debrett, well, David would be expected to continue the payments. He was practically dumbstruck the night he repeated the story to me. Debrett Horton, of all people! It's still hard to credit."
"And did David ever introduce himself to his—well, I suppose she would be his half-sister, wouldn't she?"
"No, but I did," Captain Horton said.
"Really? Why?"
I pictured a careless shrug of those scarlet-clad shoulders. "Because I was curious. And because I like women. And because I myself have suffered just a little at the hands of Debrett Horton and his haughty wife."
"What was she like?"
"Oh, an odd little creature! She had something of the look of Emmeline about her face—not especially pretty—but much livelier than either of her sisters. Very nervous—hardly would sit still for a moment—and rather intense. Asked me all sorts of questions about the household. About my uncle. About her sisters. And then asked me what she should do with her life. Go to Kingston and try to make her way? Take a position as a lady's companion? Confront her father in some public fashion and force him to make better provision for her? She had a lot of ideas, and a great deal of energy, but she lacked purpose and a plan. I couldn't tell if she was angry or hopeful or wretched or determined to make her life better. All of those things at once, I suppose."
"So what advice did you give her? Though may I say right now that you do not strike me as the sort of man who could offer wise counsel to anyone."
He laughed again. "A most incisive insight! I forget what I told her, but I don't know that she would have taken my advice in any case. I did visit her a number of times last spring, and then one day she was gone. My uncle claimed not to be responsible for her removal from the county, but I have to wonder if he or my aunt decided they did not like her living so close after all. I have no idea where she's gone off to. I wish I could discover if she's well, at least. Maybe David can tell me where the money is being sent these days."
"That's very commendable of you," Lady Charis said. "To care so much for a penniless bastard girl."
The smile was back in his voice. "As I said. I like women."
"Captain Horton!" she exclaimed, mock reproof in her tone. "Am I to understand that you flirted with this girl? Unsuitable by every measure—class, situation, and ties of blood!"
"Ah, well, I might have offered her a compliment or two—of the type I've been most conscientiously not offering to you, since you warned me against excessive flattery," he added. "I hope you've noticed how good I've been."
She seemed to instantly accept the change in topic. Indeed, I thought perhaps she was tired of hearing Stephen Horton talk about another woman, however pitiful and nameless that girl might be. "I never said I didn't like excessive flattery, only that I didn't like insincere flattery," she replied. "I quite like being given a compliment as long as the other person means it."
"Well, I'm entirely truthful when I tell you this has been the most enjoyable half hour I've spent since I returned to County Banlow," he answered.
"So I am more amusing than Therese Jacard and Vicar Dolnat," she said gravely. "Yes, I think even someone as suspicious as I am can believe praise as tepid as that."
"In fact, I have enjoyed our conversation so much that I hope you will be willing to repeat it during the all-too-brief remaining duration of my stay," he said. "Would you go riding with me some day? I hope your husband can accompany us, of course."
"You must come in the morning if you want to include Duncan on any outings," she said. "He spends the last half of most days attending to estate matters and visiting with tenants."
"But I am a soldier on leave!" he exclaimed. "I never rise before noon! I am making up for all the sleep I have missed during my recent months in the barracks. Will you come riding with me even if your husband is not present to chaperone?"
There was a short silence. I held my breath. The correct response, of course, would be No. Or even, Bring one of your cousins along and we shall all ride together. Certainly both Lady Charis and Captain Horton knew that they should not court gossip—or even worse trouble—by planning unsupervised excursions throughout the countryside. "I would be happy to," she said at last. "When would you like to go?"
"Tomorrow," was the prompt reply. "I shall be by shortly after lunch."
I could hear the smile in her husky voice. "I shall be dressed for riding."
For the next week, Captain Horton and Lady Charis were constantly in each other's company. Two of those days, they were out late enough that the master had returned to the house before they did, and each time, the captain was invited to join them for dinner. If the master disliked the easy intimacy that had sprung up so quickly between his bride and the dashing young soldier, he showed no evidence of it. Judging by what portions of the conversation I was able to overhear as I helped the kitchen girls serve the meals, Lord Duncan was genial to the new guest, happy to swap stories of officers and enlisted men they both knew, and completely innocent of suspicion.
I cannot admit to any such sanguine attitude myself. I eavesdropped shamelessly whenever they were together in the house, and I watched from the windows the whole time they were gone, ceaselessly imagining conversations and indiscretions. They returned one day, laughing and windblown. Had her hair been disordered by the breeze or by his careless hand? Had her lips been reddened by the cold air or by a passionate kiss? I could not ask, and I could not know, but uncertainty and anxiety drove me to several sleepless nights.
I most certainly was not the only person to notice their sudden friendship. Through roundabout channels of servants' gossip, I learned that Sarah Horton had pitched a rare fit one afternoon, demanding that Stephen Horton never cross the threshold at Grey Moraine again, and the vicar's wife made a point of dropping by one morning to gently warn Lady Charis against being "too particular" in her attentions to the handsome soldier. "For you know how people like to talk, my dear," she said in her honeyed voice. "Surely you do not want to cause any additional ill will between you and Sarah Horton? Or any uncertainty about your own sterling character? And you so newly a bride!"
But the friendship, or whatever it was, was of very brief duration, for suddenly, the captain was gone. His leave over, he had headed back to his regiment. I had no way of knowing if he and Lady Charis had exchanged soulful good-byes that final day while they were outside the house and off the property, but I could not help thinking that they had. For a day or two after he left, she was mopey again, but simultaneously restless. She moved through the house like an unsettled spirit. You never knew where you might find her, listlessly staring out the windows and seeming to watch for shadow men to come riding up on shadow horses.
Her mood changed quickly enough when the master told her he wanted to invite company to visit.
"I believe I should have young Callum and his wife to stay with us a week or two," he announced over breakfast shortly after the holidays. The world was in the grip of grimmest winter, the darkest time of year, and the weather had been particularly cold the past few days. The master didn't seem to notice such things, but Lady Charis was constantly draping herself in shawls and robes, and she looked a little woebegone. Or perhaps she was still missing the captain.
"Who's Callum?" she asked without much interest.
"The son of my second cousin. I checked with the estate agent and I was right—he's my closest male relative." As Lady Charis still looked blank, he added, "My heir."
That did make her sit up straight in her chair and assume an expression of alarm. I noticed, because I happened to be in the dining room at that moment, ladling out soup. "Your heir! But, Duncan—our children will be your heirs."
"And I hope we have a dozen," he said warmly. "But Ralph's unexpected demise makes me realize how quickly the world can change, and a man must look the future squarely in the face. Who knows? I could be thrown from my horse tomorrow, just like Ralph, or go down with a fever, and then Callum would have to step up in a hurry, just as I did. I'm not sure he's ever seen Grey Moraine. I'd like him to have some kind of idea what he might be in for, if the circumstance ever arises."
"And once he does see Grey Moraine, he'll be tempted to ensure you do meet an untimely death!" she exclaimed. "Who wouldn't want this place the instant he laid eyes on it? He'll push you down the steps for certain!"
At that, the master laughed. "I sincerely doubt it. But in case he turns out to be the covetous type, I'll be constantly on my guard."
"Duncan, I wish you would think about this for a few days."
"I have thought about it," he said, his voice very gentle but quite unyielding. "I believe I will invite them to come at their earliest convenience."
In fact, Callum and Letitia Donaldson found it convenient to arrive ten short days later. I confess, I was prepared to dislike them as much as Lady Charis was, for the Donaldson line was so remote from the Baler heritage that I could not consider them truly worthy of the property. I was sure they must be ill-bred upstarts, encroaching and crass. But in fact, I lost my heart to both of them at first sight.
He was perhaps thirty, fresh-faced and smiling, a rather slight man with medium-brown hair and a boyish expression. She was as fair as Lady Charis was dark, a blond fairy princess of a girl, delicate and sweet-faced and shy. They might not have come from the highest echelons of society, but their manners were flawless.
They were also expecting their first child. Letitia was one of those women who looked even more radiant when they were pregnant, and it was clear she was unbearably excited about the child who would be born in about two months.
"Just wait till you're expecting a child of your own," she said to Lady Charis over tea one afternoon. The master was taking Callum around to meet the tenants and ride the entire perimeter of the property, so the women were left to entertain each other. "The whole world looks different! Everything seems like a miracle. I saw a baby turtle the other day, so awkward and so marvelous, and it made me cry. A turtle! And yet it seemed like a divine creature."
It was hard for me to tell exactly how Lady Charis viewed these potential usurpers of her place. She had greeted them with perfectly pitched civility and performed excellently as a hostess, though she had never exhibited the playful side that showed her to her best advantage; she seemed always on her guard around them. But this comment caught her by surprise, I could tell. I dawdled a while over the tea things to hear her response.
"Indeed, I hope to have children, and quite soon," she said slowly. She brushed her hand very lightly over her stomach, an almost unconscious gesture that I had sometimes seen women make in the early stages of their pregnancies. I narrowed my eyes? Could she be with child? If so, she had not mentioned it to anyone, and not even the sharp-eyed Ermintrude had suspected. "That will cut Callum out of the succession, of course."
Letitia laughed merrily. "I cannot even picture it—Callum as master of Grey Moraine!" she replied. "We have the most adorable little place near the property where Callum grew up. It looks like a cottage, only a very large one, and I love it so much that I almost can't stand the thought of moving to the main estate once Callum's mother has passed on."
Lady Charis thought that over. "So his father is dead, and Callum owns the family property, but he has elected not to move you into it?"
Letitia gave her a smile brimful with mischief. "We could hardly displace his mother, you see—well, she simply wouldn't move! she's told him so already—and Callum absolutely refuses to live under the same roof with her. She is—I do try to love her, but she is very commanding. And very loud. It is much more peaceful in the cottage. Callum administers the estate, of course, but everyone is much happier with the current arrangement."
Clearly the heir and his bride were not the type of people who would scheme to do away with the current master of Grey Moraine so that they could take up residence in his place. I saw the same thought pass through Lady Charis's mind, and then she offered Letitia her first true smile since the couple's arrival.
"More tea?" she asked, lifting the teapot. "Nettie, could you see if Ermintrude has made any of those cherry pastries that I love so much? I'm sure Letitia would enjoy them as well."
So, after all, the visit with the presumptive heir went extremely well, and the two couples parted with many expressions of affection and promises to visit again in the future. "You let us know when that baby is born," the master said, handing Letitia up into her carriage. "Boy or girl, you send us word."
Lady Charis had kissed Letitia on the cheek, and she did the same to Callum. "Travel safely," she said. "Let us hear from you soon."
The two of them stood in the drive, waving good-bye until the carriage was out of sight, and then arm in arm they promenaded back into the house. It wasn't until that night, as master and mistress shared a quiet dinner, that I realized Lady Charis was still troubled by the very existence of the Donaldson family.
"We'll have to go visit them next," the master was saying as I brought in a pie and prepared to serve it. "After the baby is born, perhaps. Once spring has come. We'll take a few days and make a long, slow journey to their property. That part of the country is very pretty, I understand."
With one hand, Lady Charis toyed with her fork. With her other, under the table, she stroked her belly again. I felt myself grow tense—with anticipation or a kind of dread, even I couldn't have said—and I thought, She's going to tell him she's pregnant. But all she said was, "Yes, I would be delighted to see them again. I quite liked them."
He laughed. "You say that in such a mournful way! Do you mean it? Or do you just think that is what I want to hear?"
I put a piece of pie in front of her, and she hesitated before answering. Obviously she did not want to have this conversation while I was in the room. I hastily served the master as well and exited through the door to the kitchen. And then I stood very quietly on the other side of the door and listened.
"No, I truly did like them, which is saying a great deal, as I expected to despise them," she said at last. "But I can't help wondering why you wanted—why you think—what your reason was for having them here. That's all."
"I thought I told you my reason. It seemed bad policy for me to inherit Grey Moraine without having the slightest idea of how much responsibility that entailed. I wouldn't want the next heir to face the same situation."
"Would you have any reason—any particular reason—for thinking you could not have an heir of your own body?"
"No, none at all," he said, sounding surprised. "You, at least, are quite youthful, and I'm pretty sturdy despite my relatively advanced age." He laughed.
"I just thought—if you were intending—I mean, if you didn't view me as the kind of woman who would be a good mother—"
Now he finally seemed to understand that she was truly agitated. "Why, Charis! Whatever can you be thinking? Of course I expect you to be a splendid mother! And I hope you will have the opportunity to be one very soon. Why would you say such a thing? Why would it cross your mind?"
She seemed to answer with some difficulty. "I know that while—while Captain Horton was in town, there was some gossip—unfounded accusations!—because of the amount of time I spent with him. People can say such cruel and terrible things. And I thought—I wondered—he was barely back with his regiment before you invited Callum to the house, and I thought—was there a reason—did you think—"
I heard the rustle of clothing; surely he had jumped up and circled the table so he could draw her into his arms. "Charis," he said, his voice even more gentle. "My dear. I was glad you enjoyed the captain's visit. It didn't occur to me to think there was anything untoward in your behavior. I have not been thinking of how I could rid myself of my wife and perhaps find someone more pleasing to put in her place."
There was a strange gulping sort of sob, and I realized that Lady Charis must be weeping unrestrainedly. "No—but then I—and you said—if you were to die! Callum would be master here and I would be all alone! You gone, and me full of despair, and where would I go? I liked them so much—Duncan, I did!—but what would become of me then? I never thought—I never thought about it—and then—and then, there they were, and you were showing him the house, and I—I—I could not bear it if something were to happen to you!"
The next few moments were empty of conversation, though he made soft soothing noises and she continued to cry. I wondered if he had swept her into his arms and then dropped into her chair, holding her on his lap, or if they stood beside the table, tightly embraced, she with her face buried in his jacket. It took a little while for her to grow calmer, but eventually her sobs quieted and he spoke in a crooning voice.
"There, are you better? Nothing so terrible has happened. Nothing terrible is going to happen. Charis, my darling, don't you know how much I love you? I have already made provision for you. I do not expect to die soon—no, no! let's see no more tears!—but if I do, you will be taken care of. Callum will assume the management of Grey Moraine, it is true, but there has been money set aside for you. You shall never go hungry. You shall never be forced to seek a post as a governess, or marry some horrid old man, merely to put food on your table. You will be able to live quite comfortably—though not if you spend every cent on new clothing the very first year I am gone—"
The words made her laugh, as they were clearly Meant to, though even her laugh was bordered with tears. "Well, I would have to buy some new clothing, since I don't have a single black dress, and of course I would be in deep mourning," she answered in a somewhat ragged voice. "I hope you have made allowance for that in your will."
"I shall write my lawyer tomorrow and insist on a codicil," he promised. "Are you feeling sufficiently reassured to sit down and eat your pie now? It looks particularly good this evening."
"Yes, I believe I can finish the meal with no more histrionics," she said, and I heard the sound of chairs moving back and forth across the flooring. There was a period of silence, as I imagined they tasted and appreciated their dessert, and I turned to head back to the kitchen. The sound of her voice stopped me before I had taken a step.
"Duncan," she said, very low and very serious.
"Yes, my dear?"
"You are so good to me."
"It is easy to be good to you. I love you very much."
"You have made me much happier than I ever expected to be," she said.
"That is exactly how I feel about you," he replied.
She didn't answer, but I had the strangest impression that she wanted to—that she was having to struggle mightily not to make some kind of reply that she knew he would dislike. I couldn't guess what it might be, and, in any case, she didn't utter it. I loitered a while longer, but they exchanged no more words, and I eventually quit the area and went back to the kitchen to sample my own piece of Ermintrude's excellent pie.
There followed a period that I can only describe as idyllic. During this time, Lady Charis showed no disposition to entertain. She did not plan extravagant dinner parties or crowded dances; she often pretended not to be home when company came to call; and she turned down virtually every invitation that came her way. When Sarah Horton planned a very fancy dress ball and pointedly did not invite the Balers, Lady Charis didn't even seem to notice. The vicar's wife came to commiserate with her over the indignity of being excluded, and Lady Charis said, "Oh! She's having a party? I do hope it's fun." Mrs. Dolnat left extremely disappointed.
She spent every possible moment with the master during those two months it took for winter to unfold into spring. She rode with him when he went to see his tenants; she sat in on meetings he had with his agent. When he traveled to Kingston on business, she accompanied him. In short, she gave every appearance of being a woman who had fallen madly in love with her husband—and I truly believe that, during this period, she had.
Spring brought Captain Horton home on another visit, but this time he found his reception at Grey Moraine much cooler. No more long, flirtatious conversations upstairs in the observatory with Lady Charis; no more unsupervised rides through the gentle countryside. The captain seemed at first a little regretful, and then philosophical. He did return twice for dinner, but didn't sit too long at the table. No one encouraged him to do so.
Spring also brought the news that Letitia Donaldson had borne a baby boy, and the master and mistress drove off for a visit that lasted nearly two weeks. When they returned, he seemed quite jolly, extolling the joys of parenthood, but she seemed very pensive. At first I thought the travel itself had worn her out, but in the days immediately following their return, she grew even quieter, almost melancholy. She looked pale, I thought, so I wondered if she might have picked up some kind of ailment on the road. But, no, her appetite was still good, and she looked quite healthy, and so—
And then I knew. She was pregnant, after all. The full skirts hid the changes in her figure, but the contours of her face had altered; the sheen of her hair was more lustrous. She must be three or four months along, I thought, far enough to be sure. Far enough to be ready to tell her husband the joyous news.
But she did not tell him and she did not tell him. Duncan Baler was not a man who tried hard to keep his emotions to himself. If he had known his wife was pregnant, every person within fifty miles would have been privy to his excitement.
Which meant that she did not think the pregnancy a cause for joy. But why? Why? The only possibilities that presented themselves to me were too awful to contemplate, and of those, infidelity was the least abhorrent. I found myself obsessed with watching her, trying to gauge her mood, trying to guess what she might do next. I eavesdropped on conversations she had with anyone, from Ermintrude to Mrs. Dolnat, so it should not be surprising that, one spring evening, I overheard the entirety of her discussion with the master that took place outside in the garden.
Lady Charis was sitting on a small stone bench that was situated beneath a spreading oak and faced the gardens just now shyly coming into green. Despite the season, it was cool outside, particularly with night drawing on. I had followed her into the garden, but did not plan to spy on her for any length of time until I heard the master's footsteps coming down the walk. Then I hid myself behind the convenient tree and listened to what they had to say, peering out from time to time to get a glimpse of how they stood or sat.
The master greeted her with some surprise. "What in the world are you doing sitting outside on a day as cold as this?" he exclaimed, leaning over her. "You'll freeze!"
She shook her head. "I wanted to be in the last of the sunshine."
He took hold of her hands. "Your fingers are ice! Come inside this very instant." He tried to tug her to her feet, but she resisted.
"Another minute or two," she said. "I find it easier to think when I'm not in the house."
He dropped down beside her, wrapping one arm around her shoulders and covering her folded hands with his free one. "And what do you need to think about that requires open vistas and chilly sunlight? Which, I might point out, you could see just as well from the observatory."
"I'm just—sometimes I think—do you ever wonder why life has turned out the way it has?"
"Do you mean something in particular?"
"Well—you, for instance. Inheriting this house, when you had no such expectation. If your uncle had died a year or two later, Ralph would have been married, might even have had a son, and that boy would have inherited instead of you. What combination of events and circumstances conspired to make you the master of Grey Moraine?"
"It's unfathomable. And completely outside my power to control," he said in a comfortable voice. "So I don't waste my time worrying over such things."
"But I do" she said in an intense voice. "If you were not master at Grey Moraine, I never would have met you that night when I was passing through the town. I might have met Ralph instead, perhaps, and he might have politely showed me the house, and I would have been on my way the next morning. And I would be a governess and you would be dicing in some establishment, and we never would have known each other! Never would have married! Is that the way our lives were supposed to turn out—would have, except for an accident of fate? Is it right that we have had so much happiness because of the misfortune that befell your cousin? Should we not have to pay for that happiness with some misfortune of our own?"
"Why, Charis," he said in the soft, gentle voice that he had used the night she wept over Callum's visit. "What dark thoughts are in your head! It is true that a random confluence of unforeseen events has brought us to the place we are now, but that is true for everyone who draws breath! Who can predict where their lives will take them? If my mother had not chuckled at a terrible joke someone else told her, my father might not have turned his head to see who was laughing, and they would not have met, and I would never have been born. How far back do you want to trace the impossibilities of coincidence? Things happen, good and bad, and some we can influence and some we cannot. But we do not have to pay for good fortune. Suffering is not the automatic cost for joy. Who ever told you that?"
"No one told me. It is just something I have always believed. There must be a balance in the scales—and mine are tipped so far over to one side that I feel—I think—sometimes I can't sleep at night, dreading what might come next."
"Charis," he said again, hugging her more tightly to his body. "And all this fear and anticipatory dread because you have married me? I cannot think such a commodity can carry a very steep tax. It is not such a marvelous reward."
She had turned her face into his shoulder and now she giggled against his jacket, but even so I could tell that she was on the verge of tears. "Well, it seems like a marvelous reward to me," she said, her voice muffled against his sleeve. "It came so close to not happening! I almost did not have the courage to come to your house that night, uninvited. And think if I had not! Our paths never would have crossed."
"Don't be so sure of that," he said. "You fret about the randomness of fate. Well, I subscribe more to the theory that there is a destiny that guides our decisions. If you had not come to my house that night, I am very sure I would have ridden into town that morning, and caught sight of you at the Red Owl. Perhaps your carriage really would have lost a wheel, and you would have been standing hopelessly in the courtyard at the inn. And I would have swung down from the saddle and said, 'Madam, you look most distressed. What might I do to aid you?'"
"You would not have," she said. "You would have ridden on by."
"And if, by fell mischance, I failed to see you that morning, I most assuredly would have encountered you in Manningham," he went on. "I have a friend in that city. I visit him all the time! I would have spied you on the street some day and instantly demanded to be introduced."
She lifted her head and regarded him suspiciously. "You have no friends in Manningham," she accused.
"I do, I assure you! Dozens."
"You have never once been to visit them in all the time I've known you."
"They're very dull."
"Then you would not have gone to see them, and you would not have noticed me walking down the streets!"
He lifted one of her cold little hands to his mouth and kissed it. "I would have," he said firmly. "They are dull, but life without you at Grey Moraine would have been duller still, and I would have been seeking entertainment and social interaction in every city where I have the slightest acquaintance. I would have been looking for you, don't you see? Not even knowing I was on a search. I would have found you, no matter where you lived or what you might have been doing."
Her face was very forlorn as she stared straight at him out of those drowned blue eyes. "But what if I didn't look the way I do now?" she said. "What if I had been homely, and drab, and poor? You never would have noticed me then."
"I would have," he averred. "You think I love you for your looks?"
"I think my face is what everybody notices first," she said. "And sometimes they don't see beyond it. What if I looked like Emmeline Horton? You would not have given me a second glance."
"Emmeline is a very attractive girl," he said, but it was clear he was struggling to bring Emmeline's face into focus.
"She's not," Lady Charis said dryly. "If one of the footmen didn't announce her every time she set foot in your house, I don't believe you'd remember who she was from one visit to the next."
The master laughed. "It is true, I must confess, that I much prefer your face to hers," he said. "But your face isn't what I fell in love with. Your face isn't what I married. It is your heart that moved me so much. I think, even if it had come in a much plainer package, your heart is what I would have noticed first."
Now she turned her head away, as if she couldn't bear to look at him any more, but she covered up the action by resting her cheek against his shoulder. "My heart is much less beautiful than my face," she said in a soft voice. "It is spiteful and ambitious and full of jealousy. And very small, I think. Not nearly as generous as yours."
He lifted a hand to stroke her silky black hair. "Your heart? Oh, it is a timid little mouse of a heart," he said. "It wants to come prancing out and take part in the banquet, but it's been scared back into its little cubbyhole too many times by fearsome mean cats and great stomping rat-catchers. Your heart was designed for joy, but your life was not, and so your heart learned to cower, and scheme, and make do." He kissed the side of her head. "My job is to coax that scared little heart out of hiding."
Now she lifted her head again and drew back so she could stare at him. Astonishment had dried her eyes, and they were huge pools of wonder in her face. "How long have you believed that?"
He kissed the tip of her nose. "Since the day I met you."
"And you married me anyway?"
"That's why I married you."
"I don't know what to call you that would be more insulting, or more truthful," she said. "A romantic or a fool."
He laughed a little. "A man in love," he said. "So I'm a little of both."
She shook her head ever so slightly. "You leave me speechless."
He kissed her nose again. "Good. So does this put your fears at rest? Make you stop worrying about what price the universe will exact for your happiness?"
Her headshake grew more emphatic. "It makes me even more afraid," she said. "The costs are even higher than I thought."
"What costs?" he said. "What levy will be assessed?"
She freed her hands from his grasp so she could lay them on his shoulders, and she leaned so close her nose almost touched his. "I think you will break my heart," she said, very low. "And I know I will break yours. I am so afraid, Duncan, that you will be sorry you loved me."
"No," he said, so instantly that his word slurred over hers. "Not if Grey Moraine comes crashing in on my head, brick by brick. Not if every man I meet shuns me, every woman despises me, and the world itself comes to an end."
She loosed a long sad sigh and settled back into his arms. I had the sense that she was draping herself across him, not so much to absorb his strength and heat, but to shield him with her own body from any assault that might come at him from unexpected sources. "Oh, my dear," she said in a voice that shook, "if only it were no worse than that."
Three days later, the master woke me sometime after midnight with a furious pounding on my door. "Nettie! Nettie! Help me, please!"
I slipped on a robe, picked up a candle, and flung open the door. He was fully dressed, but in clothes he might have picked up from the floor where he had discarded them upon retiring for the night, and he too held a candle. "Milord! What's wrong?"
"Do you know where Lady Charis is? She's not in her room and I cannot find her anywhere in the house."
"Did you check the observatory? She spends much of her time there."
"I glanced in, but the room was dark. And she's not in the parlor, or the library, or the kitchen—or anywhere. The doors are locked from the inside or I would be afraid she had gone outside." He actually shivered. "And on such a night."
For a spring storm was lashing the house, pellets of rain skittering against the glass and gusts of wind howling around the corners. "Let's check the observatory again," I said, picking up the skirts of my nightdress. "And work our way down."
But once we attained the top floor of the mansion, we learned we did not need to search any farther. Both of us stepped deep enough into the wide room to send our candlelight to the far wall—and both of us could see Lady Charis curled up on the sofa that faced the largest bank of windows. She made a small, dense shape against the fabric, and she did not move or speak when we entered, but the feeble light showed us her eyes wide open and fixed on the view before her. It was spectacular. Lightning writhed across the limitless sky, throwing the rocky chasm into stark relief, and then everything fell to darkness. Another shock of lightning, another sudden ghostly glimpse into the void. Then darkness again.
The master rushed to her side, hastily set down his candle, and put his arms around her. "Chads! My dear! I woke up and couldn't find you, and I grew so worried! What are you doing up here? Are you ill?"
She looked up at him a moment in silence. His face was so close to hers that she did not have to stretch very far to kiss him briefly on the mouth. She unclasped one of her hands, tightly wrapped around her ankles, to lay a palm across his cheek. "Duncan," she said.
He dropped down beside her on the sofa. "What's wrong? Only tell me, and I'll take care of it."
Her laugh was soft as a breath. "You can't take care of it," she said.
"Tell me," he pleaded.
I was standing close to the door, hoping they would forget my presence, but she looked straight over at me. "Nettie knows," she said.
I almost dropped my candle. "What do I know?" I asked fearfully. Oh, I did, I did, but surely I was wrong—
Lady Charis came to her feet with a single graceful movement. The master made as if to rise as well, but she extended a hand, palm outward, as if to hold him in place. He settled back. "Let me speak," she said. "Do not interrupt me." She glanced at me again. "You may stay and listen if you like. Perhaps you will be able to explain to him later the things that I find difficult to say now."
"What things?" he asked in a choked voice. "Why difficult?"
The lightning cracked again, illuminating the saddest of smiles on her lovely face. "I made a bad bargain," she said. "I asked the elementals for a favor, which they granted, and now it is time for me to pay. And I find, suddenly and to my horror, that the price is too steep. So I am going to refuse. And I believe that means I am going to die."
The master did jump to his feet at that. "No! Who would harm you? You are safe as long as I am by your side."
She reached out a hand again and gently pushed him back to his seat. "You cannot fight the wind," she said. "You cannot outwit the storm. I made a bargain with the gods of the air, and there is no reasoning with them."
"What bargain?" he whispered.
She looked at me and I answered for her. "She asked them to make her beautiful—so beautiful you could not help but fall in love with her."
"See?" she responded. "I told you Nettie knows."
"But—but you are beautiful. I do love you."
She shook her head. "I am an ordinary girl. Very plain. Not very accomplished. My hair is a lifeless brown and my eyes are a muddy gray. I blush when I talk to strangers and I am clumsy when I walk. Nothing like the face, the figure, the woman you see before you."
"But you—then how did you—they changed you? Is such a thing possible?"
She nodded. "As you see."
It was clear he was having trouble crediting what he heard. "I don't understand."
She spoke slowly and deliberately. "I assumed a shape that I thought you would like, and I made up a story that I thought would move you," she said. "I came to your house the night of your ball determined to pique your interest. Every word I said, every gesture I made, was calculated to make you want me. If you had not followed me to the inn the next morning, I would have found some reason to stay. But you tumbled so quickly that you made everything easy for me." She caught her breath. "So easy. You did not resist at all."
He was sitting straighter on the sofa now, but obediently he stayed in place. "How did you know me?" he asked now. "Where had you encountered me, that you would want to come to Grey Moraine and ensnare me?"
The word ensnare made her flinch, but she answered calmly. "I have lived near this town all my life. Your uncle might have passed me in the street dozens of times, and never noticed me. Indeed, when you first came to take possession of Grey Moraine, you stopped at one of the taverns for a drink. You bumped into me as I was walking past, and you excused yourself very politely. I liked you for that. I asked somebody who you were. And from that day forward I became obsessed with meeting you again. In a different guise. In a shape you would not be able to overlook."
"I did not mean to overlook you at that very first meeting," he said.
She smiled again. "Anyone would have. Everyone did."
"I told you once that I would have found you no matter where you lived and what your appearance," he said. "And I believe, had you given me more time, I would have. What was so awful about your life that you felt you had to take such drastic measures to catch my attention?"
Once more she glanced in my direction. "Nettie might have guessed this, too," she said.
I nodded, my throat so choked that at first I could not speak. "Only because you seemed to despise Sarah Horton so deeply, and for no other reason that makes any sense."
"Sarah Horton? What's she to you?" the master asked, bewildered.
"My father's wife," Lady Charis replied.
There was a moment of stunned silence while he tried to absorb that. I thought it might make more sense to him more quickly if I explained. "Lady Charis is Mr. Horton's illegitimate daughter, or so I have surmised," I said.
"Yes," she replied.
"He has always refused to acknowledge her in any public fashion, mostly because Mrs. Horton will not allow it," I continued. I had to suppose Lady Charis was so grateful to be spared the necessity of making this explanation that she did not care how I had acquired my information. "His daughters do not even know of her existence, though his son and his nephew do." I was fairly certain that a light flirtation—or perhaps a full-fledged affair—with Mr. Horton's bastard child was what had gotten Captain Stephen Horton sent away in disgrace last year, but it didn't seem important to mention it. Charis had so clearly lost interest in the captain as she had gradually grown so much fonder of her husband.
"So you have lived—all this time—within the shadow of your father's grand life and not been invited to partake in any of its luxuries," the master said, slowly putting the pieces together. "And you thought, 'How can I punish him? How can I punish his family?' And you thought, 'If I were the mistress of Grey Moraine, I could practically rule the entire county!'"
"Everyone would bow to me, everyone would be eager to be my friend," she added. "I would be so powerful that my slightest word would see Sarah Horton and her daughters humiliated, and my father confused and embarrassed. Yes. That was one of my goals. But how to fulfill them? Everyone expected Ralph to inherit Grey Moraine, and he had a wife already picked out. 'I will have to move to another city, Lefton, perhaps,' I thought. 'I will have to find a husband elsewhere. I will find a way to persuade him to come to Grey Moraine, and I will do what damage I can during short visits.' Then suddenly Ralph was dead and you were here, and you had no wife in tow, and all at once everything seemed possible."
"How is it that no one recognized your name, if nothing else?" he asked. "If you have lived here all your life—"
"Oh, that was the easiest thing of all to change! I had always been called Cassie, which I hated. Charis was the name I chose for myself when I was a little girl, when I dreamed about the life I wanted. It means grace, and I was desperate for some of that." She shrugged. "Sometimes I think I spent my whole life trying to turn myself into the person I am now. And I took the only way I could find—by calling on the demons of the air."
"How did you summon them?" I asked a little fearfully. "What invocations did you use?"
She glanced my way. "I whispered my ambitions into the wind. I said, 'I will do anything you ask of me if you make me the mistress of Grey Moraine.' One day three of them appeared at my door. I didn't know exactly who or what they were—I had paid very little attention to the folk tales whispered in the village, for I was sure I was supposed to be above such foolishness. But suddenly there they were, promising me whatever I desired." She shrugged again. "I did not ask too many questions."
I had never actually spoken to anyone who had had a conversation with the air elementals. "How did they appear?" I asked.
"They looked like men, and yet they did not," she said. "Their hands, when they touched me, felt like dried autumn leaves swept up on a breeze. But when they pulled their hands away, my hair was black and my lips were red and my mirror showed me the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. There was a pile of gold on my mattress, enough to buy my way into my new life. I went to Lefton, after all. Purchased a wardrobe, hired a carriage, and rode back into town. I was here only a day or two before that first ball I attended at Grey Moraine."
She gave the master her full attention now as she continued speaking. "You realize, I was not thinking about you as I made my plans. I did not think how you might be hurt by any of this. You seemed like a kind enough man, and I liked that, but it wouldn't have mattered to me if you were cruel or ugly or old. I would have followed the same course. I would have made the same bargain. I did not expect that I would love you—or that you would love me. I was not prepared for the calamity I would bring to your life."
"It has been no calamity," he said.
She smiled sadly. "Oh, but it will be." He leapt to his feet again, no longer able to sit quietly. "Why?" he asked fearfully. "What happens next? Why are you so afraid of what happens next?"
She almost laughed. "You mean, if you don't throw me out into the storm?"
He stared. "How could you think that? Why would I do such a thing?"
And now she stared back at him. "Why would you not? I lied to you—I tricked you—I used you. You may decide to show me compassion, but you will find it hard to forgive me."
"I love you," he said. "I forgive everything."
That astonished Lady Charis—and me—so much that there was another moment of profound silence. Finally she said, her voice very low, "Even if that were possible, it hardly matters. You cannot shield me from their anger."
He stepped closer to her. "Perhaps I can. What form will it take? When will it manifest?"
"Very soon, I think," she whispered. Unthinkingly, with her right hand, she rubbed her belly.
"Spirits of the air, spare us all," I whispered, and quickly kissed my fingers and pressed them to my heart. For I knew it was just as bad as it could be.
The master whipped around to glare at me. "What? What's wrong?"
"I'm expecting a child," Lady Charis said calmly, and he spun around to gaze at her again. "That's what's wrong."
His face showed a complex surge of emotions—delight, fear, bewilderment. "But that's—! Charis, that's wonderful! When? How long have you known? Why didn't you tell me?"
She shook her head. "You don't understand. They want my baby. They will take him too—suck the essence right out of his body. Nothing you or I can do will stop them. Nettie, tell him."
"It's true," I said, my voice harsh to my own ears. "She has made a bargain with the wind. And the price is your child's soul. Even now the babe she carries in her womb might not be hers, but theirs—formed like a human, but demonic in his heart."
"I don't believe you," the master said flatly. "Country talk! Ignorant superstitions! You will see—we will have this baby, this beautiful child—and he will be completely ours, body, heart, and soul."
He reached for Charis, but she stepped back, quick and decisive. She flung her arms out wide, as if to fend him off, as if to fend off any man or creature who might pull too close, and tilted her face toward the window. Outside, thunder rattled the casements; lightning scrawled indecipherable warnings across the sky.
"You cannot have him!" she cried. "Do you hear me? You cannot have him! I renege upon my bargain! I deny the pact! I love him, and I will not bring him harm. I will not give you my husband, I will not give you my child, and I will not give you Grey Moraine!"
And then it was as if every storm that had ever blown across the county suddenly swirled down on top of Grey Moraine. Lightning flashed so brilliantly and so incessantly that the room was graphically illuminated and all our movements looked jerky and incomplete. Thunder bellowed through the canyon; the wind shrieked in hysterical fury.
One window shattered. I screamed, though you could not hear the sound over the roaring of the wind. A second window broke violently inward, then a third. Rain sluiced in past the jagged glass. Lady Charis was twirling about in a mad approximation of a dance, spun into a desperate pirouette by the buffeting of the storm. The master darted along beside her, trying to grab hold of her flailing arms, trying to pull her into a hard embrace, but first one gust and then another knocked her out of his reach. "Charis!" I heard him shout over the rushing, screeching gale. "Charis!"
"Duncan!" she answered, and she tried to catch hold of his hand, but something pummeled her so hard that she was pushed all the way across the room. She was so close to the windows now that another shove would send her over the fractured sill. "Duncan, I love you!"
"Let her stay with me!" he cried. "I accept the bargain on her behalf! Let her live!"
But the spirits of the air did not hear him, did not believe him, or were too angry to care. There was another great boom of thunder and the horizon lit up so vividly that the whole sky might have been one monstrous bonfire. I swear I saw two forms take shape from the swirling wind, one on either side of Lady Charis. They lifted her off the floor, guided her almost gently through one splintered pane of glass, and dropped her into the yawning black chasm that awaited outside Grey Moraine.
They never recovered a body. But then, no corpse had ever been retrieved from that unforgiving canyon. Search parties were sent at dawn, of course, at least as far down the slope as it was humanly possible to descend. But nothing was found of the ensorcelled mistress of Grey Moraine.
You can imagine the kind of talk that engulfed the village in the days and weeks to come. Well, perhaps you have heard some of it for yourself—it is the story every visitor is told upon first arriving in our little town. "How were the roads on your way in?" you might have been asked. "Do you find the Red Owl comfortable? Did you hear about the mistress of Grey Moraine? Killed herself one night, she did. Flung herself out of the window in the middle of a storm. Not a soul could tell you why."
I cared very little about such talk, even when it bordered on being true, even when the speaker whispered codas about the elementals and their power over men. All that mattered to me, in those following weeks, was making sure the master did not follow his wife over the windowsill and down the rocky cliffside.
Those first few days he moved through the house in an utter stupor, too dazed to eat or speak or sleep. Ermintrude and I conspired to put food before him, though he refused to sit down for a meal. Harlan would literally lead him upstairs at night and into his room, or otherwise he might never have sought his bed. He refused all visitors. He engaged in no activity. He did nothing, all day, any day, except grieve.
It was clear he had very little interest in living.
I began to spy on him, as I had spied on Lady Charis, surreptitiously checking on him any time I thought he had been alone too long. If he sat in his library for more than an hour, I found an excuse to come bustling in. If he paced around the gardens, his hands clasped behind his back and his head bent low, I crept along behind him. If he headed to the observatory, I picked up my sewing kit and followed him into the room, sitting down across from him as bold as you please. The windows had been repaired the very first day, but I was no fool. Glass is easy to break. A determined man could push himself through them with no effort at all.
During this time, half the neighborhood came to call, as was to be expected. Sarah Horton and the vicar's wife were particularly assiduous in their attentions, but the master never once agreed to see either of them. Men who could more properly be considered his friends also dropped by, and while the master sometimes spoke with them for a few moments in the library, none were encouraged to remain for long. In that first week or two, the only person Lord Duncan spent more than ten minutes with was his estate agent, who rode up one morning and remained until well past dinnertime, closeted with the master in his study. It was bitter to think the agent had cause to be redrawing the terms of the property.
Perhaps three weeks after Lady Charis's death, we had one of the most beautiful spring days that I could ever recall. The sun was warm, the air was sweet, and even gloomy Grey Moraine seemed to lighten with intimations of hope and promise. After the noon meal, I was glad to see the master step outside to enjoy the gardens, which were arrayed with a promiscuous tumble of flowers. I did not begin to grow concerned until I realized he had been outside for more than two hours, unaccompanied and unobserved. Quietly, with the stealth I had honed so finely in the past eight months, I tiptoed out through the kitchen door to begin an unobtrusive search for him.
I was making my way silently around the hedges that outlined the garden pathway when I first caught the sound of someone talking. Surprise froze me where I stood, and I tilted my head to listen more closely. That was the master's voice, no doubt about it, as energetic and laced with laughter as it had always been, and I smiled to hear it. He was speaking very rapidly, and in tones of great excitement, but I was not quite close enough to make out the words. It was not important to me that I know the topic of his conversation. I Was just deeply pleased that some friend or relative had broken through his hard shell of mourning and induced him to talk at all.
But who was the visitor?
The master did not give his guest much chance to speak, for the words spilled out of him in a passionate torrent, but now and then I caught a syllable, an exclamation, a laugh. I felt my brows pull together. A woman's voice? Which of our neighbor ladies could exercise such a beneficial effect on the heartbroken master of Grey Moraine? Or had Callum and his wife come calling while I was upstairs cleaning out closets? Was that Letitia charming Lord Duncan out of his grief?
No help for it; I must get closer. Moving with even more caution, I stole along until I was nearly opposite the bench where the master was sitting. A small break in the hedge allowed me to peer through, but I couldn't see much, for Lord Duncan and his guest had their backs to me. All I could tell was that she was plainly dressed and had unremarkable brown hair caught up in a severe bun. And that, from the part of her profile I could make out, she was smiling.
The master appeared to be telling her some story from his soldiering days. "I didn't want to travel all that way with a hole in my boots, but there was no time to be fitted for a new pair," he said. "So I found a farmer's son bringing produce to the market and I told him I'd give him five gold coins if he'd sell me his own brogues. Well, he bent down that very minute and stripped off the toughest, muddiest, ugliest pair of shoes you ever saw in your life. Fit me perfectly. Best pair of shoes I've ever owned, to tell you the truth. I think he must have made them himself."
She murmured an answer and he launched into another story, but I didn't pay attention to the words. I was still staring through the greenery, trying to identify his visitor. Who was she? A turn of her head briefly showed me her full face, which was teasingly familiar, if not particularly memorable. To my astonishment, I saw that she had laid one of her hands most familiarly on the master's knee.
Some consort of his from his army days? Not a proper person for him to be entertaining at Grey Moraine, perhaps, but for the moment I didn't care. Let him find his way back to the living first; then we would worry about ideal companions.
A cloud drifted over the sun and momentarily shadowed the whole garden. The young woman gave a start and came hurriedly to her feet.
"I must be gone," she said. "I have sat here too long already."
He was on his feet as well. "No—not so soon. Stay a while."
She shook her head. She was facing me now and I could not have been more amazed. Was this Emmeline Horton? Was she the woman with the power to make the master so happy? No—just someone who looked so much like Emmeline that she might have been a—
Even in my own mind, I could not complete the thought. I heard her say, "I must go. I will come back if I can."
And she pressed her hand against his heart, smiled one last time, and vanished.
The master sank down to the bench and rested his face in his hands.
As for myself, I dropped to the ground and stared sightlessly before me. The visitor had looked so much like Emmeline Horton that she might have been a sister. A poor, badly dressed, shy, and disregarded sister.
It seemed that Grey Moraine was once again home to a ghost.
In the days that followed, the master grew visibly happier. He walked through the house with a jauntier step, sometimes whistling as he went. He ate every scrap of the fine meals Ermintrude prepared; he commended Martin on his new mustache. Now and then, he agreed to see callers. Twice he went into town.
But most of the time he kept assignations with the spirit of his dead wife, till it was hard to say which of them haunted certain rooms of the house more. She did not come every day, but the hope of her arrival brought color back to the master's face and eagerness to his stricken eyes. It was no surprise that they spent a great deal of time in the observatory, or that I spent a corresponding number of hours outside that door, catching what I could of their conversation. They could be found a little less often in the parlor, in the library, or in the garden. I followed them to all their trysts.
For ghosts are tricky, even the ones that seem benevolent. They are creatures of the air, after all, though not under the strict control of the elementals. They do what they please, and they often mean no harm, but many of them have forgotten what will hurt a human, and they are careless. It would be through no laxity on my part that the wraith of Charis Baler brought harm to the master.
The rest of the household reacted with various degrees of uneasiness to her presence among us. Ermintrude was constantly kissing her fingers and whispering prayers, and I suspect she warded her kitchen with some kind of dried herbal mixture designed to hold the supernatural at bay. Martin and the underhousemaids claimed they often saw her walking the halls in the very early hours of the morning. Harlan told me privately that he had glimpsed her clearly only three or four times, but he had felt her presence often enough, and every time it made him shiver. Dawson, the head groom, confessed that he had not seen her at all, but that whenever the horses grew fractious, he could tell she was nearby.
Somehow, the news made its way through the neighborhood; everybody knew of the new ghost at Grey Moraine. I heard whispers whenever I went to town, and young girls were always talking to each other behind their hands when I glanced in their direction. More and more often, I was aware that townspeople caught sight of me and then blessed themselves, kissing their fingers and pressing the tips against their hearts. Harlan and Ermintrude reported the same behavior.
Then the stories started to circulate. Don't ride past Grey Moraine at night. The spirits of the dead will rise up and snatch you from your saddle.… I heard of a man who was thrown from his horse and disappeared! The horse came back to the stable, panting and covered with sweat, but the man was never seen again.… They say if you kneel at the edge of the property and weep, a woman's hand will appear under your chin and catch your tears… If you stand too close to the canyon on the night the moon is full, you can hear a woman's voice crying, "Save me, save me, I'm falling!" …
Country talk. Credulous fools. And yet Grey Moraine did harbor a ghost, and the master became stranger by the day, and all of us realized our household had become very odd indeed.
Ermintrude couldn't take it very long. She quit by the end of summer, and both of housemaids with her. There was so little cooking to do that I assumed this chore myself, while Martin helped me with the heavier lifting. I found myself unsurprised, however, the day Martin came to me, hangdog and apologetic, to tell me he'd taken a new position with a household in Kingston.
"That's where a bright young lad like you belongs," I told him firmly. "Stay in touch, but go with a light heart."
Most of the other servants followed. For the better part of a year, Harlan, Dawson and I were the only staff left at Grey Moraine. The master didn't even seem to notice. He continued to fulfill his obligations as a landowner, meeting with tenants and seeing to estate business, but it was clear his heart did not belong in the world of the living. He was pleasant, he was thoughtful, at times he was moved to great acts of generosity, but he had very little attention to spare for anyone outside the spectral realm. Every day he withdrew a little more. He was not sad—in fact, for the most part he was quite cheerful—but he was no longer really present. He grew thin and a little absent-minded. It was possible to think that he was deliberately paring himself down to very little more than a restless soul encased in the slimmest sheath of skin.
It was hardly a surprise when he caught the fever that swept through town with the first of the winter storms. Three elderly women and one infant succumbed to the ailment and died, though anyone with a modicum of physical strength was able to fend it off handily enough. But the master, of course, was far from robust. Three days after he contracted the illness, he was dead.
Harlan wrote the estate agent, and within the week, Callum and Letitia were back at our door. Time for a new master to be installed at Grey Moraine.
I stayed with the house, of course. I always stay with Grey Moraine. I am the guardian of this place, an elemental creature of the earth itself, and my place is here.
Naturally, I could not retain my familiar shape. I waited until Callum and Letitia arrived—bringing, as was customary, their own grooms and butler and a few upper servants. Dawson and Harlan were handsomely pensioned off, and the new mistress began hiring to fill other key positions. I drew Letitia aside and sang the praises of my granddaughter, trained from birth in the intricacies of running a manor home.
"She sounds perfect. Do send her to see me!" Letitia exclaimed. And so Nettie vanished and Norah appeared, and Grey Moraine was still under my watchful eye.
Letitia was glad to have me, and we became quite close within a short period of time. She was so warmhearted and open that it didn't occur to her that a servant girl might not be a proper confidante. She told me everything: of the rare arguments she had with Callum, and of their passionate apologies as well; of her social ambitions, which were no grander than not to be afraid of Sarah Horton; of her hopes and fears and silly dreams. She was an excellent mother, rarely turning the young heir of Grey Moraine over to his nanny, and moving through the days with easy grace when she became pregnant with her second child. Every servant loved her, both the ones she had brought with her and the ones she hired, and not a soul in the neighborhood could say a harsh word against her, not even the vicar's wife.
That didn't mean that everyone managed to be kind. She had not been mistress of Grey Moraine for a day before she heard tales of how its last mistress had died—and how she continued to haunt the property. Callum laughed off the stories, and Letitia was strong-minded enough not to let herself be frightened by whispers and stories. But she paid attention, I could tell. She lifted her head when the wind moaned by, and if a curtain fluttered when there was no breeze, she watched it with a narrowed gaze.
It was almost the end of winter, and she had been in the house for five months, before she said anything to me on the subject. The day had been sunny, though very cool, and she had chased the young master all through the gardens for the better part of the afternoon. When the nanny came out to fetch him, Letitia dropped to the stone bench with a sigh and rubbed her rounded belly.
"Soon I won't be able to run after him quite so quickly, and he'll get into all kinds of trouble," she said. "Norah, sit with me a minute! Have you come to tell me about some new domestic crisis? Surely it can wait for five minutes while we both enjoy the sunset."
I dropped beside her on the bench, which was quite cold even through my heavy dress, and smiled. "No crisis. I was just going to ask if you wanted anything from town tomorrow. One of the footmen will be taking the gig in."
"I can't think of anything at the moment," she said. She pointed, to make sure I did not miss the impressive sight of sunlight streaming down in great differentiated rays and lying across the grass like so many bands of hazy gold. "People say that the most impressive view at Grey Moraine is the chasm, but I love the gentler scenery of the garden and the lawns," she said. "Don't you? The prospect is so pretty."
I wasn't sure how to phrase this. "Some people don't like to look down the canyon because of the way Lady Charis died," I said. "Does it frighten you?"
She shook her head. "No. I am clever enough to stay back from that particular ledge. In any case, I have everything I want. All I would ask of any spirit would be happiness for Callum and health for my babies, and the wind demons aren't likely to grant those favors, anyway."
I just looked at her a moment, surprised into silence. "Milady believes in those country tales?" I said at last.
She nodded serenely. "Oh yes! I was brought up on them. I know all about the elementals, which ones you can trust, and which ones to stay clear of. I suppose Lady Charis didn't learn those lessons in time."
"I suppose she didn't," was all I could think to say.
Letitia stirred restlessly on the bench, and finally spoke in an impulsive voice. "Don't think I'm a silly girl, but I sometimes think—I know how it sounds, but—I believe she's still here. Lady Charis," she said. "I've never seen her, but I've felt her from time to time. Callum says that's ridiculous," she added.
"Most of the townspeople will tell you Grey Moraine is haunted—but most of them have never seen a ghost on this property and never will," I said.
She turned to me. "Have you? Why does a ghost choose to show itself to some and not to others?"
I hesitated for a long time, and then finally answered with the truth. "Yes, I've seen her," I said. "Some people are afraid of ghosts, but I've always believed that the ones who see them are the ones who loved them when they were alive. At any rate, my grandmother told me that Lord Duncan would sit in this garden for hours and talk to the spirit of Lady Charis. He was never so happy as when that ghost was sitting by his side."
She raised her pretty blond eyebrows. "Maybe his spirit is still here as well."
I nodded. "Oh, I'm sure of it. I'm sure he walks these very lawns." Now I was the one to point to the sloping landscape before us. The sunlight had all but faded, and most of the view was covered in shadow. It was too cold to be sitting out here this long, and yet I could tell the new mistress did not want to go inside yet; neither did I.
"Why is it that some spirits linger long after their bodies are gone, while other people die peacefully and are never seen again?" Letitia asked.
"My grandmother always said that spirits were anchored to a spot because that was where they had experienced some profound emotion," I replied. "Most people believe that fear or anger or hatred are the great emotions that tie a ghost to a place. But my grandmother said love was stronger than any of those. Lady Charis loved Lord Duncan and she could not bear to leave him behind. She stayed—and because she was still here, his spirit stayed as well, after his body passed on."
Letitia hugged herself as if to try to stay warm. "So love lasts after death."
"Long enough to be visible to the world. Yes, so I believe."
"I would like to see them," she said wistfully. "I would like to let them know that they are not forgotten. I would like to let them know how much Callum and I value Grey Moraine, and how well we will look after it."
"I don't think they care very much about such things any more," I said. "Land and property and the affairs of men. When her spirit first came around, she was almost as substantial as a real woman, but these days there's practically nothing left of her, and he was already a shell of a man before he died. Soon they will wear away completely, I believe, as all spirits do, and then there will be no more ghosts at Grey Moraine."
"I hope I see them at least once before that happens," she said.
"Sunset is a good time for them," I said in a low, dreamy voice. "And this is a good place, because they like the gardens. You have to sit very still and look very closely. We should be quiet now. They won't come as long as we're speaking."
I fell silent, and Letitia sat beside me, soundless as well. Behind us, the sun dropped even farther past the horizon; my skin was as cold as the marble bench beneath me. The wind had died down, and no bird, no animal, no living creature made a noise at all.
And then, I saw them. I pointed again, but Letitia nodded, her eyes on exactly the right spot. Two figures had emerged from the shadows cast by the tall oak tree and were strolling together across the grass. Their clothes were so faded it was impossible to tell color; their transparent skin held only the faintest phosphor glow. They walked together hand in hand, their heads bent together as if they were whispering. I thought I caught the echo of a woman's laugh. They paused long enough to exchange a single kiss, and then they disappeared.