Someone to Love (15 page)

Before she could say anything, they heard a sound from downstairs. Voices.

“You don’t think Mrs. Browne has let them in, do you?” Jace asked.

“She’s probably angry about that remark you made about shooting the English.”

“Or she’s angry because she thinks you’re showing off your heart-shaped birthmark to yet another man.”

“I
knew
you were going to badger me about that. Danny is full of himself, but he can be a lot of fun. At least he knows how to laugh.”

“Jerry.”

“What?”

“You said Danny.”

“No, I didn’t.”

They stopped talking because they heard footsteps on the stairs. “Someone is coming to get us,” Jace said. “One of us is going to have to face the lot of them and confess that you made up the whole thing about the Ghost Center.”

“I just asked questions. You made it real when you told people you’d be hiring.”

“No, I told them
you
would be hiring.”

The steps were getting closer and they could hear more voices.

“You go on ahead. I’m going to get some things and I’ll meet you at my car,” he said.

“If you can get it out.”

“Don’t worry. Mick will have the garage open and ready for us to go.”

Nigh ran to get the hidden staircase open, then motioned to Jace to hurry up. She wasn’t going without him. He tucked his laptop and cord under his arm, then followed her onto the stair landing. It was pitch-black in the staircase with the door closed, and it took minutes to make sure the door was securely closed. They could hear someone pounding on the door of the bedroom.

“I can’t see a thing,” Jace said. “Where are the candles and matches?”

“At the other end of the tunnel.”

“That’s clever.”

“I was nine when I set it up,” she said. “What do you expect? Electricity?”

“I just hope the damned timbers hold for one last dash. Ow!”

“You’re too tall. Duck!”

“No, I’m not too tall, the ceiling is too short.”

“Take my hand,” Nigh said, fumbling behind her as she hurried along the dark, dank dirt tunnel. She felt his chest and even his arm, but she couldn’t find his hand. She stopped, then put both hands out to find his. It was a full minute before she realized he was deliberately preventing her from finding his hand.

“I’ve spent hours locked away in a bedroom with you today and
now
you want to play sex games? Give me your hand and let’s get out of here. One of those psychics might be real and tell people where we are.”

Chuckling, Jace gave her his hand and they hurried to the end of the tunnel. It was early afternoon, but the rain made the sky gray and fog gave them cover. Jace tucked his computer under his sweatshirt and started running, Nigh close on his heels. They had to stop twice and hide from people who were now swarming over the grounds.

“Don’t you people have trespassing laws?” Jace hissed at her once. Before she could answer, he grabbed her hand and started running so fast that she nearly fell, but he dragged her upright and they kept going.

Just as Jace said, when they reached the garage, the door was open and the car running. Mick stood just inside the garage door. “Hatch saw you coming,” Mick said, “and he knew where you were going. He told me to clear the way for you.”

He looked at Nigh. “Take the old road to the highway,” Mick said and she nodded. “I don’t know what it’s like. We heard some crashes today, so you may have some trouble.”

When they got to the Range Rover, Nigh asked politely if she could drive.

“Think you can handle it?” Jace asked.

Mick was on the far side of Jace and he raised his eyebrows at Jace’s question. “She can!” he yelled before shutting the door.

“All buckled up?” Nigh asked, her voice calm as she backed the big, heavy car out of the garage.

As soon as the people saw them, they started running. Some of them ran toward Jace’s Rover, but some ran back to the front of the house to get their cars to pursue them.

The back road into Priory House was a service road, and it was, at best, full of potholes and whatever had fallen onto it. As Mick had warned, today’s rain had brought down several tree branches. The first one that Nigh hit, Jace yelled at her to watch out, but she went over it easily, even if his head did hit the roof.

When they saw a car coming toward them, Nigh didn’t hesitate as she turned a sharp right and headed for the steep bank of a stream. She had to move fast. If she slowed down, she knew the vehicle would get stuck.

After his first shout of warning, Jace said nothing but watched where she was headed. “Right!” he yelled one time. “Cut your wheel to the right.” He had seen some jagged, tire-slashing rocks that she hadn’t. She turned hard and missed the rocks.

When they went up the bank of the stream, they were at a forty-five-degree angle, like sitting in your seat when a jet takes off. “Good” was all Jace said when they were back on flat land.

They came to a fenced pasture and Nigh drove the car through the wire. There were sheep around them, looking up placidly as they chewed.

“My sheep?” Jace asked as he held onto the handle above the window.

“Your pasture, but you rent it to the shepherd.”

“Nice to know,” Jace said as they banged over a solid rock surface. He drew his breath in sharply when he couldn’t see the other side of the rock. For all he knew, it was a sheer dropoff.

But it wasn’t. The car bounced when it hit the ground, ran over a bumpy cattle guard, then leveled out onto a gravel road.

The relatively quiet and smooth ride was the calm after the storm. Jace took a few deep breaths and tried to relax. “I guess you learned to drive in your job…whatever your job is, that is.”

“Right,” she said. “You want to take over now?” She pulled the car to the side of the gravel road and got out. For a moment she stood beside the car and took a few deep breaths.

Jace came to stand beside her. When he saw she was trembling, he pulled her into his arms and held her for a moment. “Okay?”

“I’m fine,” she said, but she liked being this close to him. He smelled of wood smoke from the fireplace and he was damp from the rain. She wanted to curl up next to him and stay there for a long time.

Jace knew that the hug had turned from paternal to something else, so he pushed her away. “Ready to go? If we don’t leave now, one of them will get a divining rod and find us.”

She smiled, nodded, then got into the passenger side of the car.

They rode in silence until they reached the highway, then Nigh gave him directions on how to head toward the county of Hampshire.

“Is there a city near here where we can stop?” Jace asked. “I need to call the B and B and we need to get some clothes.”

“I don’t have my bag so my credit cards—”

“You can pay me back later,” he said, cutting her off. He glanced at her. “You did a good job back there,” he said quietly. “I’ve never seen a woman drive like that.”

She gave him a look.

“Okay, I’ve never seen a man who wasn’t a professional drive like that. You must have had some training.”

“Mmmm,” she said.

“You aren’t going to tell me?”

“Not until you start revealing secrets to me.”

“But I’ve told you all about Ann,” he said in protest. “Every word.”

“And I’m supposed to believe that
she
is your secret? You must think I have the intelligence of a doorstop. It’s my guess that you didn’t know anything at all about Ann Stuart or Lady Grace before you bought Priory House. Is that right?”

“Maybe,” he said.

“I know it’s right. Fooling with this ghost story is lagniappe, something extra, something…” She broke off and looked at his profile. “Dead. You want something from her, don’t you? You want something that only a dead person can give you, don’t you?”

“It’s a roundabout,” he said. “You better watch for the signs or we’ll end up going around and around it for eternity.”

“That one,” she said. “The one that says Winchester. You aren’t going to distract me from this, you know. I’ll figure it out. Did I tell you that I used to date Clive Sefton?”

“You didn’t have to. It seems to me that you’ve dated every male in Margate.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I don’t know, but they all seem to know where your birthmarks are.”

“I’ll have you know that—” She stopped, then smiled. “You are not going to start a row with me just to keep me from asking questions.”

She leaned back in the seat and smiled. She had a good nose for a story and she knew she was on the right trail. “So we help Ann, then you hope she’ll help you, is that it?”

“Maybe,” he said again, but this time there was a little smile at the corners of his mouth.

D
id you get the reservations?” Jace asked when Nigh returned to the table in the café. He had purchased sandwiches and drinks for them while she called Tolben Hall.

“Yes,” she said, then gave a great sigh. “I did, but there’s a problem. They had only one room available so we’ll have to share. But the owner assured me the room has a very large bed. We can put pillows down the middle. Do you snore?”

“I’ve never been awake to find out,” Jace said, frowning.

“Come on, Montgomery,” Nigh said, “don’t look so worried. They had two rooms, so I won’t disturb your chastity.” She sat down across from him. He was still frowning. “Would you stop it!” she said. “I’m not making a pass at you. I was making a joke. Get over it.”

When he looked up at her, there was something in his eyes that made her sit back in her chair. “What has hurt you so much?” she whispered. “Who has hurt you?”

“Nothing and no one,” he said, then looked back down.

She couldn’t get him to say anything more. They were in Winchester and they had an hour before the stores closed for the day. She was embarrassed to be seen in the huge sweatpants and shirt that she was wearing, and it was difficult to ignore the stares she was receiving from people.

“How do you want to do this shopping?” she asked. “You want to do a
Pretty Woman
and go together?”

“What?” Jace asked, looking up, obviously so distracted he wasn’t understanding what she was talking about.

She leaned her head toward his and lowered her voice so the other customers wouldn’t hear. “I apologize for making a sex joke, okay? I won’t do it again. Are you gay? Is that the problem?”

That question brought a twinkle to his eyes and he smiled at her. “Yeah, that’s it. Gay. I don’t like women at all. I especially don’t like a sassy little woman who looks beautiful even in clothes twice her size. A woman who laughs and enjoys life and is smart and funny and is the first one to take me out of myself in three years. Yes, I’m as gay as you get. Are you finished with that? Let’s get some clothes and get out of this town.”

With that he stood up and walked out to the sidewalk. Nigh hastily finished her drink and ran after him.

“Pick a store,” he said. “Go in, buy yourself a wardrobe, and I’ll meet you there in one hour and we’ll leave.”

“That one,” Nigh said, pointing to a high-end boutique that had Prada in the window. “But it looks expensive.”

“You snooped into my background, so you know I can afford it.”

“And I’m paying you back later, right?”

“Yes,” he said, then turned and walked away.

She didn’t know what she’d done to anger him, but she had. She couldn’t worry about it now. She had a lot to do and little time to do it. She went to the store and told the clerk that she had one hour to put together a wardrobe, then her boyfriend would pay for it.

An hour and a half later, they were back in Jace’s Rover and heading toward Tolben Hall. They were dressed in upscale English country, Jace in a jacket and tie with lightweight wool trousers, while Nigh was wearing a dress that looked rather plain but had actually cost a couple of thousand pounds. She couldn’t help running her hands down her sleeves.

“It will take me a while to pay you back,” she said, glancing at the two suitcases that Jace had brought with him when he’d picked her up. Empty when he’d arrived, they were now filled with new clothes, plus all the toiletries they’d purchased at Boots pharmacy.

“All right,” Jace said, “I want the truth. What is it you do for a living?”

“Journalist,” she said.

He glanced at her with a grimace on his face.

“No, what I wrote about you is not an example of my work. That was…”

“What was it?”

“Jet lag, maybe. And…horror. I’ve had a lot happen in my life in the last couple years and sometimes I have no perspective.”

“Tell me about it,” Jace said and there was such empathy in his voice that she wanted to tell him.

She told him her parents had died within a year of each other—first her father, then her mother—and it was as though Nigh had had the anchor in her life removed. She suddenly hated everything about her life, and she just wanted to leave Margate and all the memories. She wanted to get
away.

“So you went to London,” Jace said.

She laughed. “Exactly. Where all Englishmen and -women go when they want to find themselves—or lose themselves. I got a job in a newsroom, mostly getting coffee for the bosses. I didn’t know what I wanted to do and they didn’t know what to do with me. But one night the news presenter didn’t show up. Later we found out she’d fallen down a flight of stairs in her house and knocked herself out. She lived alone, so there was no one to call in sick for her.”

Nigh told Jace how they’d looked around at the people who were in the studio and Nigh had been the only person there who, as they said, wouldn’t “frighten the viewers,” so they sent her to hair and makeup and put her on the air. The only instruction she was given was to read what she saw on the teleprompter.

No one knew it at the time, but it had been an audition. Nigh had done an excellent job in the reading and she photographed well. The next day she was given a real job.

It was a month later that she heard that a news team was being sent to Egypt to report on a tourist bus that had been shot at, and Nigh asked to be allowed to go.

“Foreign correspondent,” Jace said.

“Yes. For the last eight years I’ve never been in any one place for more than four days at a time. I live on airplanes and in hotels.” She looked out the window and said no more.

“But now you’ve come home. Is it for good?”

“I don’t know. I know that I’m tired. I know that I’ve seen too much bloodshed and too much horror in the world.” She took a deep breath. “Eleven months ago I was in Iraq and my cameraman, Steve, was blown up. He was standing three feet away, filming me talking to some women and children. I had a translator with me and I was asking them about the horror in their lives. I was near to tears as I heard what they had to say. In the next second, I heard a sound and suddenly there was blood and metal fragments everywhere. A mortar or a missile, something, I don’t know what, had directly hit my cameraman, a man I really liked, a man with a wife and three kids. His body exploded over us and the camera equipment blew into tiny pieces. Many of the children I was talking with were seriously injured. I was wounded too, but mostly I was in shock.”

Jace reached over, took her hand in his, and held it.

“I don’t remember too much after that. Medics came and the kids were treated.”

“And you?”

“Airlifted out, stitched up, given some pills, and told that if I wanted to talk to someone, they’d listen.”

“Did you?”

“No,” Nigh said softly. “I couldn’t talk because I didn’t know what I would say. I wanted to help the world, but I don’t think I’m cut out for death and destruction. I can’t seem to disconnect myself from what I see.”

Turning, she looked at him and smiled. “I thought I was someone who could fight, but I seem to be a coward.”

“You don’t sound like a coward to me,” Jace said. “What happened to you would traumatize anyone.”

“You don’t know the news world. The real news people have something like that happen to them, they have a couple of Scotches, then they go right back to it.”

“But you couldn’t,” Jace said.

“No. I’ve done some reporting since then, but not much, and I taper off more and more. I thought I might…”

“Might what?”

“Write about what I’ve seen. I thought I might write about the people I met, what I heard and what I saw. I came back home to be still and to listen to my own thoughts, and think about what I want to do with the rest of my life.”

“And you thought your little village was being invaded by a big, bad American.”

Nigh smiled. “’Fraid so. Sorry. I’m used to hearing two sentences of information and within six minutes changing it into a headline-grabbing story. I can’t tell you how many news reports I’ve written in helicopters.”

“So have you made any decisions?” Jace asked.

“Turn here,” she said. “So far, not a one. My idea of spending my days alone and taking long, thoughtful walks has been superseded by ghost hunting with an American who keeps more secrets than all the Middle East.”

“Small secrets. Personal ones. Not important except to me. Not earth-moving like your secrets, or your life.”

“There it is,” Nigh said, pointing to a sign that said Tolben Hall.

Jace pulled into the long driveway and the house came into view through the trees. It was lovely, a huge Victorian house with a turret on one end, and a pointed roof. There was a deep porch with a swing and several round windows.

“I can see why Longstreet bought this instead of Priory House.”

“There it is again,” Nigh said. “You hate your house. You think it’s dreadful, but you paid an enormous amount for it. Why?”

“Didn’t I tell you that I’m a masochist?”

“Great! I brought my dominatrix gear. We’ll tie you up later.”

Jace was laughing as he got out of the car and opened the trunk to get the suitcases.

“I’ll check in,” she said, then ran up the steps to the front door.

A few minutes later, Jace entered carrying the two suitcases. Nigh was talking to a short, thin, gray-haired woman who introduced herself as Mrs. Fenney. “I was just telling Miss Smythe,” she said, “that you’ll have the whole house to yourselves. We’re usually full on the weekends but not so busy during the week. And you’ll be staying how long?” She looked at Jace.

“Three days,” he said quickly.

“Oh, that’s fine then. Let me show you your rooms.”

They followed her up the stairs to a long corridor with several doors along it. She opened one to reveal a large, pretty room done in pink and green chintz. There was a round sitting area at one end. “Mine!” Nigh said.

“Yes, it is our prettiest room,” Mrs. Fenney said with pride. “And now you, sir,” she said and Jace followed her.

Nigh walked to the window and looked out. Below her she could see the surrounding acres of trees that the hotel owned and she looked forward to walking among them. In fact, she wanted to explore the town and every shop of the little village.

She leaned her head against the cool glass and thought about what she’d told Jace in the car. When she’d returned from that nightmare, from when she’d seen death at such close range, she’d been a brilliant actress, telling no one how traumatized she’d been. She’d walked out of the hospital with nearly a hundred stitches in her, but other than wincing a few times, she’d let no one see her pain.

She’d even gone to Steve’s wife and talked to her. The woman had cried, but Nigh didn’t. She thought that if she began crying, she’d never stop. Steve had been a great guy, funny, always able to look on the bright side of life. He was never pessimistic; he never lost hope. He was sure that he was doing something good in the world and he never let other people forget that.

Nigh didn’t cry for seven months, but then, one day, she couldn’t seem to stop. TV commercials made her cry, children laughing, old couples who looked at each other with love. Whatever she did or said or thought or heard made her cry.

Her editor, a man in his sixties, was the only one who saw Nigh’s deterioration. “I wondered when you’d start coming apart. I want you to take some time off and think about this job. Some people are made for it and some aren’t. Based on forty years in this business, I’d say that you should get out of it. But that’s just my opinion.”

“I have some assignments.”

“Yeah, get them done, then go home to that place where all of you come from. Some village or other where everybody knows you.”

“Margate,” Nigh whispered.

“Right. Marwell or whatever. Go there and think about what you want to do with the years you have left. Call me when you decide.”

Nigh nodded and turned to leave, but he stopped her.

“Smythe?” She turned back to him. “You’re lucky. You have heart and you feel things. But best of all, you can write. Use it.”

Now there was a knock on the bedroom door. “Come in,” she called, and turned to see Jace standing there.

He looked at her sharply. “You okay?”

“Perfectly. Just a bit of the blues. So how’s your room?”

“Dark blue, mahogany bed. A gentleman’s room. I asked her about the Longstreets and she has a couple boxes of old papers. She’s going to dig them out of the attic and we can look at them tomorrow.”

“That’s great,” Nigh said, moving away from the window and wiping a tear away.

“Hey,” Jace said as he put his hands on her shoulders. “You don’t look so good.”

She looked up at him. “I’m fine. Just thinking too much. It’s better if I stay busy and don’t think.”

“You and me both. How about dinner? I was told there’s a great restaurant in town.”

“No, I think I’ll…”

Jace moved his hand to under her chin, then lifted her face to his as his eyes searched hers. “I know how you feel,” he said softly. “I know what it is to lose someone close to you, and I know how it feels to be eaten alive with the question of ‘why?’ Why did it happen? What was the sense of it? I know—”