“I didn’t want anyone to think me mad, but when Thomas admitted seeing a young
lady here in The Blue Room, I knew it would be all right to tell you. You won’t
tell anyone else, will you? Promise me, Andy. Thomas worries so. I don’t want
him to become ill because he is distressed about me.”
“All right.” I thought a moment, then said very slowly, very precisely, “Amelia,
did you know that the empty room was Caroline’s music room?”
“I suppose so. She died so long ago, there was no reason for me to remember. You
believe she wanted you in that room, don’t you? Not me. You believe her ghost
was there yesterday.”
“It makes sense, does it not?”
Amelia rose, that very soft jaw of hers set in hard lines. “I don’t care that
Thomas doesn’t want me to, I am going to write my father now, Andy, right now.”
“Good.”
She marched out of my bedchamber before I could say another word. George raised
his head and wuffed.
I spent the next hour knocking on the walls, but there was no hollow sound. Then
I heard something. I quickly turned to look at the door. I saw the doorknob
slowly turn. I nearly fell off my stool.
Then there came a quiet knock.
I had to get hold of myself. I had locked the damned door. I went to open it.
It wasn’t Caroline or that old woman. It was Belinda.
She gave me a bright smile. “His lordship said you were napping, a good thing, I
say. Did it clean all the ghostly webs out of your mind, my lady?”
“There’s not a single web left.”
“Good. Wicked dreams are like some men, my ma used to tell me. Sometimes they
can just burrow in, and it takes the devil himself to yank them out.” She
continued talking while she pulled out the gown she deemed appropriate for me to
wear to dinner. She didn’t ask me, simply nodded when she smoothed out the
lovely skirt of a pale peach silk gown, with a crepe overskirt of a darker shade.
“Now, ribbons,” Belinda continued to herself. “Yes, here they are, all tangled
up. Now, how did that happen?”
She turned to see me still standing there, staring at nothing at all.
“It is being in a new house as well,” she said, sounding like a comforting nanny
with a new charge. “New houses can make a body as nervous as a canary drinking a
cat’s milk. Now, a bath will help you.”
And so it was that an hour later, my hair finally dry, I knocked on Miss
Crislock’s bedchamber door and let her worry herself over me for a good five
minutes. When she’d finally exhausted all of her concerns, given me all her
advice, patted my arm at least six times, she said, “Now, don’t you fret, Andy,
about me. I am just fine. Everyone is quite helpful, Mrs. Redbreast especially.
I do not believe I will join the family this evening. I am a bit on the bilious
side, not a charming thing for a new family to see. You enjoy yourself, my dear,
and try to forget the strange things that have happened, or that haven’t
happened, as the case may be.” And I kissed her, hugged her tightly, wishing she
weren’t bilious, then walked down the main staircase, my shoulders back.
Belinda had assured me that I looked such a sweet lovely lady. I would rather
have looked ill-tempered, ugly, and had a gun in my pocket. A gun, I thought.
Now, where would I get a gun? Just the thought of being able to protect myself
made me slough off a good portion of the grinding fear.
“My lady,” Brantley said. “May I say that you are looking no worse for all your
adventures?”
“You certainly may, Brantley. Thank you.”
He came closer, and to my astonishment, he appeared confiding. He said in a
lowered voice, “It is a very fortunate thing that Lord and Lady Appleby just
left and you were spared their onerous company.”
“Are they so very dreadful, Brantley?”
“They are more dreadful than that Cockly boy in the village, who painted all the