A Haunted Romance (11 page)

Chelsea shrugged. “It could be. It doesn’t sound like she had a very fulfilling life, from some of the letters she got.” She’d talked vaguely by reflex, but decided that it was a good time to make it clear to Dalton she was a modern woman. “She wasn’t getting any sex.”

Dalton raised his eyebrows. “That doesn’t necessarily mean—”

She had leaned a bit hard on that last word. She kept going. “I guess ghosts usually have something that makes them stay rather than move on to wherever they ought to move on to. If ghosts exist at all.”

“Maybe you should try a séance,” suggested Dalton.

“I wouldn’t have the slightest idea of what to do.”

“Me neither. But there are people who would. I’ll try to find someone for you.”

The idea made her shiver, but she supposed there was really nothing to be afraid of. Either it worked, or it wouldn’t, and her money was on wouldn’t.

“I’ll come,” said Trent. “They usually want a few people, from what I’ve seen in the movies.”

To her surprise, Dalton smiled. “Good.”

She didn’t feel like puzzling out that particular mystery. Inviting Dalton over had been a mistake, even if it did help the work get done faster. And work wasn’t getting done if they just sat there talking. Still, she didn’t want to be a slave driver. “Back to work, or do we need a break?”

“Work,” Trent said.

“Of course,” said Dalton.

She didn’t have time to read the text or she’d have been holding things up, but she did need to make sure the images were all legible and didn’t need to be rescanned, and that required taking a good look at each one. Experiencing a novel backward was certainly strange. Perhaps Minerva had placed each page into the chest as she’d finished it, but that hardly made sense. It was well written, and the sort of thing she could have tried to have published without embarrassment.

She had a thought. “What was the date on those books, Dalton?”

“I don’t remember exactly. 1908, 1911, 1916, thereabouts.” Dalton was busy laying out pages for Trent to scan. She could have gone and looked at the notepad he’d written the information down on, but she didn’t need to. This chest had been filled after the other one, and the last thing put in it was the manuscript they were working on. Minerva probably kept her secrets in the chests to stop her father from prying. If that was true, this manuscript might have been the last thing written before her death.

The next ten pages described Frances’s conversion at a revival. Frances apparently had been known as Fanny before that, by the author as well as her friends, but upon being told that it was something of an obscene word in Britain, she dropped the name entirely, “intending on a wholly new and proper life.”

The next set of pages revealed anything but a proper life. She glanced over at Dalton, but he didn’t seem to be reading the pages anymore, his mind apparently somewhere else. It would be easy enough to ignore the words if one wanted to, given Minerva’s handwriting. Fanny’s life in New York City involved graphically described sex with men, women, and multiple partners.

Trent grinned at her. He was still reading bits and pieces obviously.

Twenty pages later, feeling a bit guilty for letting Dalton help with a project she was no longer sure he’d approve of, she asked him, “Are you reading this stuff?”

“Hmm? I’m trying not to. I’d be interested in reading this in the right order, once you get it all straight, though.”

“Oh.” She felt a little guilty for not saying anything more and glanced over at Trent, expecting another smirk. To her surprise, he was frowning.

“The early part is pretty sexy,” he said, finally.

Dalton read a page and then glared at Trent, as if the offending page was Trent’s fault. For a long moment, the two men just stared at each other.

Something clicked in Chelsea’s brain. Minerva may have known she was dying. She’d written the sudden conversion and end of Frances’s life knowing that it was the last thing she’d write, possibly looking for some sense of repentance and salvation herself. If it was really Minerva doing the haunting, she hadn’t found it. Although she hadn’t gone to hell either, which was perhaps what she was afraid of. Chelsea hadn’t been brought up very religious herself, but rural communities tended to be pretty traditional. That sort of thing had to weigh on one’s mind, if one heard it often enough.

“Do you really think, Chelsea,” said Dalton, “that it’s this Minerva haunting your house? The one who wrote this filth and owned all these books?”

“It might be.” It fit, in a way, with the dildo appearing in her bed. Minerva had a playful attitude about sex that came across in her work, even if she’d never experienced it in person. The author of the first part of both the book they were scanning and the one in the other room was just the sort of person who’d do something like that.

“I wouldn’t spend another night here if I were you. Take the offer to sell—I’ll take it too—and get the heck out of here before you get hurt.”

“Is that a threat, Dalton?” Trent’s voice was as hard as steel.

“You know it’s not, Trenton. Quit trying to play the white knight in shining armor when you know you’re the furthest thing from it.” Dalton turned back to Chelsea. “Seriously.”

The image of Trent as a knight in shining armor made Chelsea smile. And the image of him naked and covered with sweat that popped unbidden into her mind immediately afterward.

“Chelsea?” Dalton prompted.

“Just because Minerva wrote these things doesn’t mean that she’s dangerous,” Chelsea said. “Let’s have the séance and see if we can find out what she wants. I know what I’d want if I were her.”

“What’s that?” asked Trent and Dalton at the same time.

“I’d want to see my books published.”

“You’re not seriously thinking of publishing these things, are you?” asked Dalton.

Chelsea shrugged.

Trent chuckled. “I think if every author who died without publishing their novels became a ghost, they’d be a lot more commonplace. Not to mention painters who don’t sell their masterpieces.”

Dalton shook his head in disbelief. “Good God, Chelsea. I’m sure the whole thing is worth quite a lot to someone, but package it up and let some expert take care of it.”

Chelsea shook her head, knowing she was probably burning a bridge. “I’m curious. And the more we know about Minerva, if it really is her haunting this house, the better.”

“You’re certain?” Dalton asked.

“Quite.”

“Well, I’m not going to leave you alone with all this”—Dalton made little quotes with his fingers—“‘literature’ and this reprobate. Let’s keep working then.”

Trent reached for the envelope that was on top of the pile, bent back the flap, and looked inside.

“Well?” demanded Chelsea.

“Picture postcards. Of the sort that needed to be mailed in envelopes to start with. Shall I lay them out on the desk?”

“Yes, please. Writing on the back?”

Trent nodded.

“Then let’s look at the writing side first. We’ll worry about the pictures later.”

Dalton let out a breath as if he was relieved. Chelsea shrugged. She had no desire to rub his face in the whole thing. She might not agree with his convictions, but she had a little grudging respect for him having some.

As it turned out, the writing was interesting enough. Apparently Minerva, or Minnie as the post cards were usually addressed, had no lack of admirers who enjoyed sending her racy photographs. She remembered Dalton’s comment about being born in the wrong century and thought of how much fun Minerva would have had with the Internet, or how much she would have simply appreciated living in a more liberated era. Maybe they’d both be happier if they could switch places, but that was even more impossible than believing in ghosts.

Chapter Six

Chelsea wasn’t sure whether it was gratifying or annoying to have two big, strong men fighting over her. A little of both, she decided.

She’d finally sent them both home. It was well after dark. Trent had made some very tasty spaghetti, which they had all eaten, but other than the break for dinner, they had kept working on the papers in the chest. There had been more letters and several short stories. She wondered if the letters Minerva had sent back to her correspondents were somewhere in a box or a chest in England. Some of the letters indicated that Minerva had indeed gotten a few of her shorter stories published in England, but there was no indication she had ever followed through in sending one of her novels. One letter recommended she get a typewriter. Sending in a manuscript would have meant copying them over and rewriting them in longhand, unless she trusted her only copy to the overseas postal service. As much as Chelsea hated rewriting, it was a lot easier with a word processor. It was really a wonder to her that anyone published anything at all back in the old days.

To her surprise, Dalton had paid as much attention to what was written on the pages as anyone, even occasionally delaying the process to read. If he found the more erotic passages stimulating, Chelsea couldn’t tell. The bland smile he’d worn when he first met her was now fixed to his face, rendering him completely unreadable.

She didn’t exactly look forward to staying in the house alone another night, but she’d had enough testosterone poisoning to last her for a while. They were gentlemanly about the whole thing. She was actually surprised that Trent didn’t try to tease Dalton about his prudishness. Dalton clearly hadn’t wanted to leave her alone with Trent, so she couldn’t gracefully get Dalton to go without shooing them both out.

She made herself sit down and write. Cat wasn’t having an easy time of it. She was trapped in an abandoned building, due to be demolished in the morning, and she hadn’t even seen who’d locked the doors behind her. She’d work the rest of the night to chisel her way out of one of the bricked-out windows in the nick of time.

Tomorrow, Chelsea decided, she’d have to call her editor. She couldn’t get enough done in an hour a day, especially with her mind on the house, Minerva, and Trent. She could scarcely explain about Trent—and that was her fault anyway; her commitments had to come before her love life—and the ghost story would be met with skepticism. But moving could be stressful for anyone. In a week, she’d be back to full speed or she’d return to the condo to catch up.

She kept the light on in the office, left the door slightly ajar, and went to sleep.

She woke up at the sound of a sudden
bang
. She got up, thinking it was a gun at first, before she realized it didn’t sound quite like a gun. The office seemed to be the usual center of strangeness, and sure enough, the door was closed. She’d heard the door slam, just like it had a few days before. She opened it back up again and peered inside. The light was still on, and it was quiet. Everything looked like it was where it should be: the chest closed, the books on the shelves, the laptop folded shut. She shrugged and thought of closing the door, but instead she left it a tiny bit ajar again.

She slept through the rest of the night.

Chelsea woke up feeling refreshed and energetic. She got her orange juice and cereal and took them to her desk so she could work on her manuscript. She noticed the door was wide open. Now what would make a door slam at one point during the night and cause it to swing open from a nearly closed position later? She frowned as she answered her own question.

A ghost.

Or air currents.

The house wasn’t super drafty, but it wasn’t the most insulated place she’d ever been in either. It was about what she expected from an old house. She shrugged and opened her laptop. Sometimes writing was so much work; today it flowed.

The phone rang at two. It was Dalton. He’d found a medium, from DC actually, who was willing to come out the next day.

“What sort of references do we have for this person?”

Dalton sighed. “I have a few friends who live in the suburbs who are Wiccan, and they pointed me her way. They say she’s not a fake. I don’t really know, Chelsea. Maybe it will be a complete bust, but it seems like it’s worth a try.”

Chelsea wasn’t sure what to make of it, but she couldn’t see any reason not to have a séance. “Sure. Thank you.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

By five it had started to bother her that Trent hadn’t called. He had called her or visited her every day since she’d gotten to Selby. At seven, after nuking some frozen curried chicken, she decided that she had the perfect excuse, since she had to call Trent about the séance.

He took six rings to get to his phone. “Hey, Chelsea.”

“How’d you know it was me?”

Trent chuckled. “We have caller ID out here in the sticks too. I had it added a while back when Dalton was callin’ a lot.”

“Dalton? Calling you? Why?”

There was a pause. “I was dating his ex-fiancée, Caroline. He didn’t like that much and started callin’ pretty regular to give me a piece of his mind.”

“Why was she an ‘ex,’ if that’s a fair question?”

“I did a painting of her. Dalton thought it was a bit too, er—”

Chelsea remembered the painting of Joann and decided to guess. “Undressed?”

“Somethin’ like that.”

“So she wasn’t really ex when you started.”

“No, it wasn’t like that. It was—”

“The séance is for around six tomorrow evening, if you can make it.”

“I’ll be there.”

Chelsea hung up the phone. She could understand why Dalton would be pissed. She’d feel the same way, if someone muscled in on—on Trent? Well, yeah, she might, but she wouldn’t harass the other woman. She knew Trent was a ladies’ man, and it hadn’t stopped her from having a few good fucks with him. No reason to make something more of it or act like she thought he was a paragon. Still, her heart had tightened when she’d heard about Caroline.

She wondered what it would be like to sit for a painting, undressed, like Joann had or Caroline. Naked, so close to an attractive man and yet not touching or being touched, just trying to stay still. Getting wet and not being able to fidget. Her nipples would be tight and hard enough to poke a man’s eyes out, and that would probably come across in a painting. At least not every evidence of arousal would be displayed on canvas.