Elisabeth Fairchild (2 page)

Bolton remained expressionless, voice calm. “Miss Gooding?”

***

Henrietta Gooding and her bespectacled companion stepped down from their weather-battered
and patched-together vehicle as four beautifully matched black horses pulled a black-wheeled
coach into the wind-driven courtyard of the White Hart Inn.

Henrietta recognized at once the young man in the coach’s window.

“Mr. Roberts!” she cried.

David Roberts leapt down before the wheels had stopped spinning, his cloak kicking
high in the wind. “Hen! Fancy meeting you here! Can’t bring yourself to call me David
any more, now that you are a woman grown? Can you believe this wicked weather? Copeland
will be in a temper. His pet project delayed again.”

Henrietta fought to hold her bonnet on. “Indeed, I do believe Kirk cares more for
widows and orphans than for me.”

Her companion hunched deeper within a wind-whipped black coat of dubious style. “Like
an evil force, this wind,” the frizzle-haired young woman exclaimed. “Pushing the
horses to a standstill. Come, we must find the fire and warm ourselves.”

“Poor Kirk.” Henrietta wore a worried look as David shooed them toward the inn’s door.
“He’ll be especially disappointed to see his ghost hunt ruined. Obsessed with it,
he’s been.”

“Don’t worry. Better luck tomorrow. We’ll be hunting Broomhill’s spirits by Christmas
Eve, mark my words.”

“And a fascinating collection of ghosts they may prove to be.” Henrietta’s companion
looked excited by the idea. “I have thoroughly researched the Copeland estate. It
is a house plagued by tragedy.”

Her words were whipped from her mouth by the same energetic wind that shook the ice-frosted
windows of Broomhill in their ancient leading where Lord Copeland stood regarding
the whirling white downfall—snow feathers shaken from a heavenly wing—muffling the
garden, the stable, the drive.

Bolton watched him, worry in his eyes. “Miss Gooding will be gravely disappoint—”
His voice cut off.

Copeland chuckled, amused by the unintentional pun. “Gravely, indeed.”

“Apologies, my lord. A most unfortunate choice of words. But a clever idea, this ghost
hunt.”

Copeland traced a heart upon the fogged window. “Seemed the perfect notion for the
perfect Christmas.”

He missed the look of pain that pinched Bolton’s lips.

The fireplace hummed and moaned, as if to confirm the rumored haunting of Broomhill
Hall. Gabriel’s ears perked.

He leapt to his feet, and raced for the door.

Bolton ignored the skittering toenails. “I have yet to encounter the slightest hint
of anything otherworldly at Broomhill Hall despite all rumor.”

A familiar spasm touched his lordship’s chest, the feeling that someone held his heart,
and now and then they squeezed.

“Our ghosts? Yes. Well, I like to think there is another world.” Copeland pressed
the flat of his hand to his sternum and chuckled. “And to prove it to you, I shall
haunt the place personally when I am gone, Bolton. Look for me. Listen. I vow, on
my honor, I will give you ghostly signs.”

Wind whistled beneath the door, a sudden whiff of ash filled the room.

Bolton allowed his customarily austere façade to offer hint of amusement. “How shall
I know you, my lord?”

Copeland tapped his chin, considering his options. “I will whistle down the chimney,
and bang the door knocker thrice.”

As if it heard, the lion-faced doorknocker on Broomhill’s ancient oak door trembled
in the wind, vibrating to a distant thudding, like a heartbeat, and a great whoosh
of cold air howled in the chimney, sending ash shooting into the room.

“It would appear, my lord,” Bolton said dryly as he moved to sweep up the ashes, “that
some other spirit has already appropriated that particular mode of communication.”

Copeland burst out laughing as Gabe raced down the drive, barking at the thunder of
hooves.

The coach full of musicians from Andover turned in between massive knob-fingered oaks
that reached for the coachman’s hunched form. The sound of cheerful singing traveled
on the wind.

***

Bolton quietly closed the door behind him as he left the master’s study, but a storm
gathered over Copeland’s brow as he broke open the seal on one of the just-delivered
letters to read with a growing frown.

Dearest brother,

Deepest regrets. Gerald and Anthony have contracted the croup. We shall not come for
Christmas.

“Blast!” Copeland cried out, his disappointment a sharp contrast to the approaching
song.

“Fa-la-la-lala-lala-lah-lah!”

“’Tis the Season to be jolly, devil take it.”

The fire flickered. The flue moaned. He read further, Gabriel barking.

***

Snow caught upon the windowsill. Lord Copeland caught his breath, heartbeat uneven.
The letter drifted to the floor like a snowflake. Copeland sank to his knees beside
his desk. Across the room, the carved marble mantel support, half woman, half lion,
stared at him with stony eyes as cold as the day had turned.

With trembling hand Lord Copeland pulled the tincture of foxglove from his inside
coat pocket, took a drop on the tongue, then waited through a second spasm, and a
third, less severe.

Snow drifted past ancient glass panes in a distorted white flurry, air taking solid
form. Daylight faded beneath the ruffled hem of a lowering skirt of clouds. Beautiful.
So beautiful! The snow. His life. It took his breath away. Copeland stood, knees shaky,
made it to the window. He pressed his cheek to the cool glass. He would miss this.

“Heaven must wait a little longer,” he whispered, and tucked the bottle into his pocket,
gazing hungrily at the view. His Christmas was coming.

Outside, Gabriel had matched his gait to that of four bay horses with belled harness,
barking them onward, the coach kicking up a veil of snow. The coachman’s nose was
plum-colored, his cheeks scalded by wind that whipped his muffler. From the coach
came singing. “Deck the halls with boughs of holly—”

Copeland’s vision of the world shrank through a window breath-fogged. His hand rose
instinctively to check his pulse. He could feel the heat, the heartbeat within him—ebbing—and
nothing he could do. Nothing name, or title, or money could do.

“’Tis the Season to be jolly—”

Copeland’s view of the coach was distorted by a flaw in the glass, his view of the
future distorted by the flaw in his heart.

Too cheerful the musician’s voices, out of tune with his sudden sense of despair.
He had vowed not to fall prey to such emotion. He pinched the bridge of his nose,
shook away looming melancholy, and forced a laugh. He had laughed when the physician
suggested he put his affairs in order, that he avoid taking ill. A nonsensical suggestion.
Did not everyone try to avoid illness?

“Fa-la-la-lala-lala-lah-lah!”

He rubbed a clear spot on the pane, stared at his fingers. Strong. Unshaken. How precious
the strength in his grip.

“Sing we joyous, all together!” The song burst forth from the carriage along with
the hired musicians: three well-bundled fat men, one thin. Out came their instrument
cases, a clattering, wheezing set of bagpipes, an infusion of life and song—and barking.
Gabriel dashed about, tail waving, his whole body wagging their guests welcome.

The smiles and laughter lifted Copeland’s spirits. His heart must keep beating long
enough to have a grand Christmas—a perfect Christmas—a Christmas to remember. Resolutely
he stirred the dying fire into a flurry of bright sparks and leaping flame. “Well,
merry spirits, time to show yourselves.”

Burning wood snapped and crackled as if in answer.

With the same strength he held onto life, Copeland clasped the cold, smooth shoulder
of one of the figures bracing the mantel. A noble face she had, with beautifully delineated
curling locks—a vacant-eyed beauty, trapped since the fifteenth century by a skilled
stone carver who had chiseled suspended life into cold marble. The caryatid stared
past him, smiling faintly, as if she possessed amusing secrets, as if she saw things
the master of Broomhill Hall did not.

The hair at the base of Copeland’s neck prickled with the feeling he was not alone.
He turned.

The room was empty.

He smiled, amused that his orderly mind stood so ready to believe in otherworldly
nonsense, and went to meet the musicians.

The stairwell watched him descend in a sea of faces. Green men, mouths sprouting leafy
branches, held the banister rail high. Painted faces lined the walls, Copelands from
the past. Griffins leered from the ceiling, gargoyles from polished mahogany corbels.

Copeland looked past them, through them.

Not musicians he found standing in the deeply shadowed entryway, but a cloaked woman,
clutching a sprig of mistletoe. Pale berries glowed like pearls in the candlelight.
Her face glowed, too, a dark hood falling away to reveal a wealth of gleaming hair,
pale braids wrapped from her temples, crisscrossed at the nape of her neck. Eye-catching
hair, like candlelight in shadow. Loose tendrils wisped rose-gold against alabaster
cheeks.

Maggie’s school chum? None to share the holidays with—her only living relative a brother,
at sea? Copeland had not realized the music teacher meant to arrive with the musicians.
He leaned over the banister, footsteps muted on the Pompeian red carpet runner, “I
know who you are.”

Evergreens. The clean, outdoorsy smell teased him, elusive—familiar—slightly musky.
Braids winged back from her brow, even features, a rosebud mouth. Her complexion shimmered,
lily white in candlelight. Golden eyebrows arched in perpetual question, chiseled
perfection from a master’s hand. The depths of her gray-blue eyes drew him in.

For a moment it seemed she stared past him, or through him, smiling faintly, as if
she saw something he did not.

Chapter Two

She guarded her expression in facing the new master of Broomhill Hall, in gazing up
the dark, heavily carved walnut stairwell that reminded her of a long-ago Christmas.
Lord Copeland must not know how thrilled she was to be here. Unseemly, really, to
experience such a rush of ecstasy.

Clever, leering fox-like faces peered back at Bee from among the remembered carvings
on the stair: branches, leaves, and wooden fruit so cleverly wrought as to appear
almost edible. Behind her host, more faces eyed her blankly from painted canvas showing
no sign of recognition. Lord Copeland could not—must not—guess her reasons for accepting
his Christmas invitation. He would not welcome her if he did.

“You know me?” The ring of her own sarcasm startled her, so long since she had heard
that strength. He did not know her, not at all. But he would before she left this
once beloved hall. Of that, she was absolutely certain.

“Maggie wrote me,” he said, as if that explained everything. It did not, could not.
She was surprised to find herself here, surprised to come face to face with the Earl
of Copeland after years of dreaming, and hoping, and knowing it might never happen.
Knowing only that she yearned for it above all else.

She watched with growing expectation as he moved lithely down the last of the steps,
strangely familiar, very like the painting on the wall behind him, as though he had
stepped down out of the hunting scene, a slender, elegantly attired gentleman in black
boots, black breeches, black waistcoat, trim fitting. His thick, tousled hair had
once been black, soot black in the portrait, silvered now at the temples. The graying
hair seemed at odds with a youthful complexion, and dark sparkling eyes, mischievous
eyes, a mischievous mouth, not quite smiling, and yet threatening to do so at the
slightest provocation. She knew the look of him, the look of a flirt, a gentleman
who knew his own distinguished appeal. She knew too well the type, and despised herself
for being drawn to him despite all intention to remain removed—distant—objective.

“Don’t tell me your name.” He held up a slender, privileged hand, the hand of a nobleman
born from a long line of noblemen.

She read strength in his wrist—a strength she did not want to acknowledge or confront.

“I will remember it in an instant.” He smiled, eyes narrowed, sparkling—as if he shared
a secret with her she had yet to know. “It starts with a—B.” His voice echoed. She
almost expected the painted faces to evidence dismay.

His accuracy was unexpected.
He could not know, could he?

His smile broadened, cheeks dimpling, his mouth, his lips, in their merriment, unexpectedly
alluring. He had the look of the old Earl about his eyes. She steeled herself against
his charm.

He pinched the bridge of his nose. The dark forelock, only slightly touched by age’s
frost, curled waywardly through his fingers. “Biddie?”

He cocked his head with a playful look, one dark-lashed eye peeping, an expression
that had her longing to laugh with him. She refrained.

“No. Don’t tell me.” His amused gaze passed over her, head to toe, in a most probing
manner. One hand rose in a motion to stay her. “You’ve not the look of a Biddie.”

He shrugged a wordless, amused apology. As if he knew she must forgive him. As if
women always did.

“Is it Bridget?” He held both hands out to her, palms up, grace in the gesture, acquiescence.
“I am dreadful with names, always have been. My greatest failing.”

No great failing at all, and in his deeming it so she immediately doubted both the
claim and his veracity. She could see right through him, through the self-assured
play of his smile, the handsome lad he had been, the handsome youth, used to being
excused his failings. He expected to charm his way out of social ineptitude. A Copeland
trait. A contemptible trait.

And she, who had fallen hardest for just such charm, should have been resistant to
it. She must withstand the play of dimples, the teasing sparkle of light in eyes that
held within their depths a glint of unexpected sadness, some hint of the boy, some
echo of all that had once seduced her.

“My name is Belinda Walcott.” She forced herself to politeness: a smile, hand extended
in greeting. “You may call me Bee if you wish. My brother always did.”

“B.” He said it as if he would imprint the buzz of it forever in his memory. His mouth,
so readily amused, curved upward. “I do beg your pardon. I misread Maggie’s scrawl.”

He clasped her hands briskly, warmth as unexpected as her sprig of dead mistletoe.
His head tipped, he gave her a look, as if to say,
What’s this?
But pleasantries were all that emerged. “Pleased to meet you. And to welcome you
to Broomhill Hall. I am—”

“Kirkland Brougham, Earl of Copeland.”

His brows rose.

Did he really think she would not immediately recognize him? Gently she extricated
her fingers from his grasp, from the unexpected pull of his heat.

She turned halfway, as if to study the suit of arms that stood eavesdropping, the
laughing sweep of fox-like faces that surrounded her host and the gallery of ancestors
who pretended not to care. They would care before she was done. Two could play the
game of flirtation. She knew the lure of her carefully plaited hair.

“I know you.” She echoed his earlier teasing tone, coyly eying him through lamp-lit
lashes. “You are the new master of Broomhill Hall—leader of a ghost hunt.”

Laughter welled unexpectedly from the depths of Copeland’s deceitful chest.
Here,
he thought,
is the beginning of my Christmas fun.
A good feeling to laugh, as heartwarming as this cool young woman inexplicably proved.
“Is it too ridiculous a notion, chasing ghostly spirits?”

Her face caught the light and held it—rose-gold brows, fair lashes, her mouth blooming
with a smile that never quite reached the chill, gray-blue eyes. Like winter ponds,
no reflections, untold secrets frozen there.

“We all chase the past,” she said. “In our own way.”

A poor, plain, spinster,
his sister had written—always the tease, dear Maggie. Noting poor or spinsterish
about this intriguing young woman. He would enjoy chasing after the Christmas spirit
with her, he could feel it.

“Do spirits linger, then, out of love for a place?”

Emotion played across her features, like flickering candlelight. “Perhaps some do.
More often, they seem connected to violence. Turmoil. Unexpected death. Suicide. Murder.”

She spoke with grim authority, sure of herself and her opinions this schoolmistress,
no shy wallflower, no shrinking miss. He liked that. Too often his title was met with
mindless stammers or obsequious bootlicking. He did not tolerate it among his friends.
He would not have cared for it in a guest, no matter that her station and his magnanimous
invitation put her in a position to kowtow.

He cocked his head, studying her intently, considering her point of view. “Why should
tragedy make a spirit haunt a place? Remorse?”

The dark mystery of her eyes locked away her initial reaction. She considered earnestly
what others might have pronounced a ridiculous question. They were, he thought, engaged
in the most stimulating conversation about death that he had experienced since his
physician informed him he had one foot in the grave.

“I think revenge a far more likely reason to keep the spirits of the departed attached
to a place.” She twirled the dry sprig of mistletoe, leaves rattling, berries rolling
in several directions. “Then again, perhaps the dead have no choice. They are lost
and have nowhere else to go. What think you?”

What he thought of death at the moment was that she was the first person to speak
openly with him about the subject. There was something incredibly liberating in saying
so freely, “I should like to think there are souls who so love a place they cannot
bear to leave. Cannot let it go, as it were, rather like this.” He stared down at
the dried mistletoe she held that rained withered berries onto the marble floor. He
raised his head, his face within a breath of hers, their lips so close he almost kissed
her as he whispered, “Are you hoping for the ghost of a kiss, Miss Walcott?”

She drew back, eyes downturned, lashes golden against cream complexion—and while he
might have expected roses there, her cheek remained blushless. “I forgot I carried
that.”

Laughter flew from her mouth like a bird uncaged, beginning with an amused flutter,
then soaring, free of flight, echoing grandly in the stairwell. “I did, once upon
a time, hope for Christmas kisses, my lord. No longer.”

She surprised him, admitting as much, the truth of her emotion hidden beneath lowered
lashes.

The mistletoe, leaves curling, crumbled beneath his touch. She had to have carried
it all the way from Andover.

“And why no more kisses?” Had she been discarded by a loved one, as he prepared to
discard Henrietta?

“Kisses can lie,” she said enigmatically.

“Ah, I see.” Quiet, the words, self-recriminating. When silence threatened to well
uncomfortably between them, he suggested, “There is always hope you may find someone
wiser. Kinder. Someone who treasures mistletoe kisses and offers nothing but truth
in them.”

Her eyes widened, surprise breaking through the veneer of an emotion he could not
quite identify. Sadness? Anger? Her walled-off injury filled him with a desire to
help her forget. The best Christmas ever. He could offer her that.

He broke a fresh bit of mistletoe from the bunch over the door, holding it out to
her. “You’ve only to look up to find someone more than willing to kiss you.”

She stood quite still a moment, studying his offering, expression indefinable. “Yes,”
she said at last and took the green sprig.

In the instant their fingers touched his knees went weak. Vision dimmed, his ears
rang with a high, thin, bell-like tone. All he could see in that moment were her eyes,
a fathomless depth of gray. He teetered on the edge of falling into them. For a brief
head-whirling, mouth-gone-dry moment, he thought,
Here is death, come to claim me after all. And such a pretty face on it.