The Lord Who Sneered and Other Tales Read online

  She must have seen his dismay at her words for she rushed to reassure him. “We shall see one another at dinner, Theo. Can that not be soon enough?

  “I suppose it must do. However, you must promise to give me your full attention when once I have you to myself again.”

  She smiled and laid her hand upon his arm. “Of course you shall have it.”

  “And if I require that you go for a midnight stroll with me, you shall do as I ask?”

  Her smile brightened. “I am looking forward to it.”

  As she quit the room, Theo swore that it should be the last time she walked away from him unspoken for. The hours until the evening meal seemed without end, and when, at dinnertime, instead of Anne, he received a note explaining her continued absence, he thought his lot could not have been more difficult to bear. She finally met him in the drawing room, quite late, after the Dowager had finally fallen into a deep sleep.

  “Oh, Theo, please do not glare at me so!” Anne pled as she went to him and put her hands in his. “Grandmama was in such a mood; I didn’t wish to be ungrateful. It has been so good of her to allow me to stay here. And then there’s you,” she added, her voice growing softer. “She has allowed you to stay, as well, and I owe her much for that.”

  “As do I,” he said with a gentle squeeze of her hands. “Now that this ghost business is done with, I fear she will finally have reason to turn me out.”

  “Whatever do you mean? If not for Grandmama, then for whom has the ghost come to warn us?”

  “As to that,” Theo said as he led her to the sofa and settled her next to him for a long cose, “there is much to tell you.” With growing impatience, he related all he had learned about the ghost and his conclusions, wishing, all the while that they could be done with the whole subject and, at long last, make inroads as to the subject of their lives together.

  “After we have learned what it is the gardener wishes to tell us, I have a question to ask of you. It must wait until then, but it shall not wait a moment past.”

  Anne blushed and looked down at her hands. He felt then that he had her answer, but he dared not presume too much. Time had passed far more quickly in her presence than the hours prior, and once the hall clock struck the hour of half past eleven, he sent her off to collect her cloak and meet him in the front hall. They walked down the drive, her arm through his and pressed tight to his side just as the night of the ball. It seemed difficult to believe that a mere two days had passed since then, one of them having been the happiest of his life.

  They found Baldwin waiting for them in the graveyard by the tomb of the Crenshaws. When Anne spotted him, she looked a question at Theo, but he merely put a finger to his lips and gave the gardener leave to speak.

  “Many people have claimed to see a ghost in this graveyard over the decades. Their accounts are so similar it easily could sway one to believe in its happenin’. In every event, save, perhaps, that of the dyin’, hysterical maidservant, the ghost has been spotted at the entrance of this tomb. They are all adamant the ghost never speaks. Together, these two claims are what prove that the ghost is a figment of the imagination.”

  “Are you accusing me of hysteria, then?” Anne inquired.

  “Not exactly. You are seeing somethin’, but it is your imagination only that makes it appear to be a man, one that doesn’t speak and appears to be incorporeal, is that not so?”

  “Well, yes,” Anne conceded.

  The gardener bent and retrieved a darkened lantern from the ground at his feet. “The moon is not as bright as it was the night of the ball, but if I hold up this lantern, it will reveal a pattern that looks very much like a ghost.” Uncovering the lantern, he stood upon the bench where Theo and Anne had sat and held the light aloft so that the shadows of the branches of the closest tree were caught against the wall of the tomb.

  At first Theo was not sure he saw anything unusual, but the longer he stared at it, the more convinced he became that he spotted a face, one with dark, ragged eyes and a round, black mouth. “Look, Anne, do you see it? If you follow the shadow down, you can just make out buttons and even the buckles such as on a pair of old-fashioned shoes.”

  “I am not so sure I see anything such as you describe, but if you see it Theo, I am persuaded it is there, just as you say.”

  Baldwin allowed the lantern to fall and jumped to the ground, sending the shadows swinging crazily against the tomb. “As you see, light and shadow play tricks on the mind. I pray that puts an end to your fears of the ghost at Dunsmere.”

  “Thank you Baldwin. It was good of you to stage this demonstration so deep into the night. As for you, my dear,” he said, taking Anne by the hand and leading her away, “you need not fear that anyone of the house of Marcross shall die before their God-appointed time.”

  “How could we have ever thought a shadow to be a ghost?” she asked with a sigh; she rested her head against his shoulder as they walked, slowly and meanderingly, back to the house. When they reached the steps up to the front portal, he let go her hand and put his arm about her shoulders. “Let us not go in just yet,” he murmured as he steered her into the shadows of an ancient oak tree that stood, like its twin, to one side of the grand entrance.

  An atmosphere of reticence seemed to fall upon her, but she agreed. As they stepped into the deeper shadows under the tree, there was a shift in the air that had naught to do with the weather. When he dropped his arm from her shoulder to her waist, he felt as if they stood in a country all their own, one devoid of any other inhabitant, human or otherwise.

  He knew this was his moment to speak; there had been far too many others he had squandered yet there was one more test of her feelings he felt he must employ before he dared declare himself. Placing an arm to join the other around her waist, he drew her into an embrace.

  She did not object as he feared she might and willingly laid her head to rest against his chest. When he felt confident that she had no desire to break away, he put a hand to her chin and tilted her face to rest, skin against skin, along his own. It required that he bend his head, but the feel of her satin-smooth cheek against his was redolent of a heaven of which he had never dared dream.

  When he turned his head so that the corner of his mouth brushed against the corner of hers, the unaccustomed contact sent a jolt throughout his body, as breathtaking as it was unexpected. He had delayed marriage until he had found a woman who was as good as she was beautiful; now that he had found her, he was unprepared for the overwhelming hunger he felt for her.

  “How long,” he murmured, “can I go on like this?”

  “Go on…like what?” she asked, her voice alluringly breathless.

  “Like this,” he moaned, his lungs laboring for breath as, lightly, he drew his lips across her cheek, “wishing to kiss you.”

  He heard the breath catch in her throat and impatiently endured the tiny pause that prefaced her response. “Have you been? Truly?”

  “Yes,” he said as he placed a hand behind her head to pull it back while, with the arm that encircled her tiny waist, he drew her to her toes so as to have better access to her lips from his great height. “I have, from the moment I first saw you.”

  “Oh,” she said faintly as he drew her ever closer and searched her eyes for signs that she might oppose his intentions. Finding none, he bent his head and kissed her with a barely restrained passion made up of all his finer feelings of admiration, regard and even worship. When she put her arms around his neck and pulled herself deeper into his kiss, he knew what her answer to his proposal would be.

  After a dizzying interlude that left Theo in no doubt as to his future happiness, he emerged from his abstraction long enough to recall that he had not yet asked the crucial question. “Mrs. Crenshaw—my own, dear Anne—will you marry me?”

  “Yes, Theo, for I am persuaded I shall love being married to you above all things. But only if you profess always to allow me to be first served from the bacon platter,” she said as she stretched upwards for a
nother kiss.

  “Dearest girl,” Theo said, scarcely able to believe his excellent fortune, “if it suits you, you shall have your own pig!

  *

  It was with a great sense of relief that Baldwin watched the Dowager’s guests emerge from the trees and enter the house, a sensation that was short lived when the ghost that haunted the house of Crenshaw materialized at his side, his face set in lines of stony anger.

  “Why must you tell such falsehoods?” the ghost wailed.

  “Surely, you don’t expect me to allow you to scare that young woman half out of her wits. And what of Her Grace? She is beside herself with worry as to the possible fate of her grandson.”

  “But if they do not believe in me, how am I to warn them? It is my fate to warn,” moaned the ghost.

  “Well then, out with it and be off,” Baldwin demanded.

  The ghost looked a bit affronted but did not hesitate to speak his piece. “If the current duke does not mend his ways, he shall suffer an ignominious death.”

  “What ways might those be?”

  “His extreme hubris and sense of entitlement, his belief that his good fortune is due to his superiority rather than an accident of birth, his lack of concern for his fellowman, as well as his enormous care for comfort and power at the expense of all whom his life touches.”

  “What is there in that?” Baldwin asked. “You have described more than half the men and women in the kingdom, titled or not. The Duke is amongst the worst of the lot; I’ll give you that. There is not a soul who should mourn his passing nor be in the least surprised that he’s dead.”

  “But I must warn,” keened the ghost. “It is my penance.”

  “Then tell me; what of Sir Anthony? Is he doomed to die in the next year?”

  “No, he is safe. Never shall he be doomed to spend eternity warning his descendants of impending disaster.”

  Baldwin grunted. “Well, that is a relief, to be sure. If that is all, I have my bed to think of.”

  There came a pause as the ghost seemed to grow in size and transparency. “There is a babe,” he intoned.

  “There be two babes, one belonging to Sir Anthony and one to the Duke.”

  “The son of the Duke is my concern. It is with his birth that the line continues, unbroken. So does the evil. He might prove to be the most evil of them all. Take care to keep his feet on the path of righteousness or much of goodness could be lost.”

  “I will be sure to pass the message along to the Dowager, but I can’t promise that she will be eager to share your warning with her son, the Duke.”

  “He must be warned!” the ghost wailed as it grew ever larger and more translucent so that the clouds scudded through him.

  “But what does it have to do with the two of ‘em?” Baldwin asked, jabbing his jaw in the direction of Anne and Theo as they lingered at the portal of Dunsmere House.

  “Naught, it has naaauuught,” wailed the ghost as it loomed so large and thin that it became at one with the night sky of clouds and mist. “They shall be blessed forevermore.”

  A Rose for Christmas

  England, September 1812

  Part One

  Baldwin, gardener of the Dunsmere estate, deposited the last of the day’s accumulation of autumn leaves onto the cerise and titian mound and set it on fire. Although he was more than fond of the vibrant display, it would never do for the oak and Chinese tupelo leaves to obscure the meticulously manicured, emerald green lawn of the Dowager Duchess of Marcross. No, indeed.

  Through a haze of smoke, he surveyed the roses that filled the area between the front lawn and the park and saw that all was well. The beautiful rose garden with its dozens of heirloom varieties had originally been planted nearly a century prior and was the pride and joy of the Dowager Duchess of Marcross. If the wind were to pick up and carry the fire in the wrong direction, it was as much as his life was worth. He doubted not that Her Grace would go gladly to the gallows over the loss of her roses; she had very little else she cared to live for save her favorite grandson, Sir Anthony, a man who filled his days with the pursuit of pleasure and precious little else.

  However, the arrival of the newly orphaned Ginny six months prior was proving to put a permanent sparkle in the old lady’s eyes. The fact that Miss Ginerva Delacourt’s first London Season had been just shy of a full-out disaster did not keep the Dowager sunk in poor spirits for long. Indeed, the presence of the young maid, granddaughter of the old lady’s beloved brother, had softened many of her ways since Ginny had come to live at Dunsmere.

  Preoccupied with his thoughts, he didn’t hear the approach of his mistress until she appeared at his side, her face a mask of disapproval.

  “Baldwin, I pray you know what you are about, burning these leaves in such proximity to the roses!”

  “Yes’m, beggin’ your pardon, ma’am,” he said with a tug at his cap as he cursed his thoughtlessness. Though he had burned the leaves on the very same patch of ground every autumn since he had been taken on at Dunsmere, he knew the Dowager was particularly fretful this year. She was to enter a new variety of rose at the annual flower show and once she had won, as she was persuaded she must, people would flock from near and far to visit her spectacular rose garden. “I have taken care to cart out a barrel of water in the case it is needed.”

  The Dowager grunted her approval, and he thought she looked not quite so grim.

  “Tomorrow I shall rake the leaves to the verge of the east lawn, if’n it please you, Your Grace.”

  “As long as it is not too close to the potting shed, mind. Were everything on the property to burn to the ground save the roses and that potting shed I should not care one fig!”

  As the potting shed housed the specimen of the Christmas rose they had been developing the past four years, Baldwin cursed himself yet again and bowed deeply to hide the burning of his face. “Yes’m; nothing shall harm any of the roses, I so swear.”

  He stood upright to see how the Dowager gazed longingly across the lawn in the direction of the potting shed and suppressed a sigh. “If you wait but a moment, Your Grace, I shall have the fire out, and we might see how fares the new rose.” He didn’t wait for the assent that would surely come but took up the bucket at his feet and dipped it into the barrel on the nearby cart. He put out the fire under her anxious eye, and they walked, side by side, along the circular path from the front of the house to where the potting shed stood at the end of an avenue of ancient limes.

  He hadn’t even a moment to wonder if the Dowager hadn’t yet expelled her store of scoldings before she started in again. “As I am sure you are aware, that foolhardy Squire Barrington cannot be trusted! There are no lengths to which he would not go to foil me. I have born bravely his victories these past few years, knowing I had the beginnings of an absolute triumph propagating in the greenhouse, but what should I find this morning?” she asked in a voice that promised to brook no argument. “The door to the shed was unlocked!”

  “Yes, ma’am, it is as you say. I heard the rattle at the door, but as you did not enter, I carried on with my work. I would never leave the Christmas rose unprotected, Your Grace.”

  The Dowager did not apologize for her misapprehension but only uttered a deep “harrumph”, her most common concession to his pride. Nevertheless, her doubt produced an anxiety in him that grew as they drew closer to their objective. He knew he had locked the shed right and tight when he had last closed its door behind him, but he could not help but fret as he fingered the key in his pocket.

  As they rounded the curve at the end of the avenue and the potting shed came into view, he saw that all appeared to be in order. It was clear that the door was pulled to and that the padlock hung at the expected angle. When he took it in his hand and gave it a hard tug, it was locked in place, just as expected. Once he had twisted the key in the lock and pushed open the door, however, his soaring spirits plummeted and his knees turned to jelly; the floor of the greenhouse side of the shed was marred with a quantity o
f broken glass and what remained of the Dowager Duchess’ Christmas rose.

  Quickly, Baldwin began to calculate the odds that he might be successful in slamming shut the door before the Dowager had a chance to enter, but she pushed past him in a trice. As he watched her face in the pale light of the afternoon, he wanted nothing more than to run, even as he knew it only could serve to delay his punishment. By the time the Dowager’s face had turned a deep plum he thought of nothing but the condition of her heart and whether or not he would be needed to catch her before she fell to the glass-and-thorn-littered floor.

  Her ensuing screams brought the young mistress running from the house and before long she came through the door of the shed. He could see that she comprehended all with one glance of her lovely gray-green eyes, but she seemed as much at a loss as how to proceed as did he.

  “Grandaunt Regina!” the girl called, but the Dowager seemed not to hear. Ginny then turned to Baldwin. “The maids are washing the windows on this side of the house and have heard all. The housekeeper has asked if she should not send for an officer of the law!”

  Frantic, he cast about for a chair and managed, with Ginny’s help, to get the Dowager seated. As the screams mellowed to low moans, his eyes met those of the girl’s over the quivering feather that adorned the Dowager’s turban. It was clear that Ginny was terribly shook up and that she depended on him to set matters to rights. If only he knew what was to be done. It was impossible to determine whether the glass was broken by a human or animal, by accident or design. A deer might have torn the rose bush to shreds and dragged its potted roots into the park, yet, it might have been done by a person, as well, someone who had every reason to envy the Dowager her prize rose.

  “Baldwin, what can be done? If you haven’t a solution, then who?” Ginny beseeched him.

  Not for the first time, the pain in her eyes put him in mind of Holly, his own motherless daughter who had no brother or sister with whom to pass the time. She had been but twelve years of age when he and the Dowager had conceived of a rose guaranteed to bloom at Christmas, one with the headiest scent and deepest crimson petals; one that was so perfect in every way, it was sure to win first prize at the annual flower show. How could he return home to tell his Holly that he had failed to protect the Christmas rose they had spoken of so often? It was then Baldwin knew that to return home was exactly what he must do and without delay.