Relative Strangers (17 page)

She wasn’t happy with that explanation, but she
could
put herself in his place. After all, she hadn’t wanted to believe in ghosts at first, either.

Corrie thought about going down to his office to try again to explain herself, but she fought the impulse. It was too soon. They both needed time to cool down. Barge in on him now and they’d only end up quarreling again.

There was but one chance for them. She had to fulfill Adrienne’s mission. Only then would she be free to build a future with Lucas.

She was startled when a knock sounded at her bedroom door. Not Adrienne, she thought with a wry smile. That much was certain.

“Who is it?” she called out.

“It’s your father.” Donald Ballantyne’s gruff voice was unmistakable.

“Daddy?” she whispered in astonishment.

“Corrie, let me in.” He sounded worried.

She quickly opened the door, then froze. For the first time, Corrie saw how elderly her father looked. He’d aged a great deal in the last year, until he seemed almost . . . frail.

“Daddy, what are you doing here?” She managed to get that much out before she was engulfed in a bear hug. He didn’t
feel
frail. Relief surged through her at that realization.

“I tried phoning you yesterday. Couldn’t reach you.”

Holding her away from him, he studied her, taking in the scab on her forehead and probably noticing the shadows under her eyes as well. She didn’t think she wanted to explain to him the reason she hadn’t gotten much sleep either of the last two nights. Or where she’d been.

“I had a nice drive up,” he told her. “Started yesterday afternoon. Stayed over in Vermont. Came the rest of the way today. Rachel’s been entertaining me while we waited for you to get back.”

His gaze fell on her overnight bag, still packed, sitting on the floor by the bed.

How much, Corrie wondered, had Rachel told him? For all the problems between them, he was still her father, and a father tended to condemn any man he suspected of sleeping with his little girl.

That was all she needed—a duel over her honor!

But Donald Ballantyne avoided that subject entirely. Instead he held up one finger to indicate she should wait a minute and ducked back across the hall to Rachel’s room.

Rachel appeared in the open doorway and gave Corrie a what-else-could-I-do shrug as her father retrieved his suitcase. Later, Rachel would no doubt want a full report on the time Corrie had spent with Lucas, as well as on the forthcoming session with her father, but at the moment she seemed relieved to be out of the line of fire.

Donald put the heavy suitcase on Corrie’s bed to open it. He looked a little embarrassed. “After I couldn’t reach you by phone, I realized it would be easier to show you what I found. This way you can explain to me what it all means.”

He withdrew a heavy leather-bound book from the battered Samsonite case that dated from the time before soft-sided luggage. “I found that photograph you asked about. It was marking a page in this.”

“This” was the family Bible, and the marked page was one on which births were entered. The first name leapt out at Corrie: Marguerite Mead, born May 5, 1878, Waycross Springs, Maine.

“I don’t understand,” Corrie murmured. What was Marguerite from the Mead/Sinclair family tree doing in Alice Ballantyne’s family Bible?

“I noticed the town,” her father said. “I figured there must be some connection.”

“To
Marguerite?”

“Your mother always called her Daisy,” he explained. “Look on the page for marriages.”

The name there was “Daisy Skinner, widow.”

The pieces of the puzzle suddenly fell into place. Just as the second Marguerite Mead, Stanley Kelvin’s mother, had used the nickname Rita, the first had gone by Daisy. Marguerite Mead Skinner Hanover was Horatio Mead’s missing daughter. She was also Corrie’s great-grandmother.

Corrie couldn’t imagine why she hadn’t seen it sooner. Oh, the fact that the Meads and Sinclairs apparently thought Marguerite had died at the age of eighteen had thrown her off, and she still couldn’t explain that mistake on Joyce’s chart, but she’d known ever since high school language classes that
marguerite
was French for daisy. And the pin she’d found not an hour earlier on the dresser was shaped like a daisy. Obviously Adrienne had left that, and on top of the red file folder containing the Sinclair family tree.

“Okay, Adrienne,” she said softly. “I’ve got it now.”

“Corrie?”

Her father sounded puzzled. And concerned.

“Thanks, Daddy,” she said. “You have no idea how important this is.” She set the Bible aside to hug him, whispering, “I’m glad you came.”

He seemed pleased by her words and hugged her back. Then, both of them a little embarrassed by the display of emotion, they separated. Donald went to stand by the window and look out at the snow-covered landscape.

“Wanted to see the place for myself,” he said after a moment. “For Alice’s sake.” He fell silent again, as if he was carefully weighing his words. When he spoke, his voice sounded gruffer. “Wanted to spend some time with my only daughter too. I don’t want to lose you, Corrie. Family’s pretty important. Maybe the most important thing there is in life.”

“Oh, Daddy.” She knew how hard it had been for him to express his feelings. In swift steps she crossed the room to stand beside him. “You’re so right.”

For the next half hour, they said things to each other that should have been said years earlier. Corrie was just glad they hadn’t waited any longer, that they hadn’t missed this chance.

“Family’s important,” her father said again. “That’s why I had to come in person.”

She laughed softly, remembering what he’d brought her. It seemed they were
all
one family here.

“What’s so funny?” her father asked.

She told him some of what had been happening to her at the Sinclair House. He didn’t even blink at the idea of his daughter seeing a ghost.

“And if there weren’t already clues enough to show that our Daisy and Horatio’s Marguerite were the same person,” she concluded, “then there’s the name of Marguerite’s mother on Joyce’s chart. She was Cordelia La Fleur. I imagine I was named after her.”

“Could well be that you were. I remember your mother saying she’d gotten the name from somewhere way back in your grandmother’s family.”

“So now all I have to do is figure out what Adrienne wants me to do with this information. At least now that I know I’m descended from her niece, I can understand why she was able to communicate with me. And with Mama. I just wish I knew what it was that turned Adrienne into a ghost in the first place and how I’m supposed to help her find peace.”

“You’ll figure it out and then you’ll find a way,” her father said. “You’re resourceful. Always have been. Your mother was very proud of you and so am I.”

“Thanks, Daddy. I wish everyone had that much faith in me.”

“Everyone? Or just this Lucas Sinclair?”

In her account of the events since Christmas Eve, Corrie had tried to gloss over her feelings for Lucas, since their future was so uncertain. She’d avoided mentioning New Year’s Eve and the following day and night entirely. Her father hadn’t been fooled, though. She suspected he’d gotten an earful from Rachel, and his paternal instinct was strong as well.

“Corrie,” he asked, “are you in love with this man?”

When she didn’t answer, he patted her hand.

“Never mind. I’ll take a look at the fellow for myself. Did I tell you I promised to buy Rachel lunch?” He headed for the door. “Join us?”

What choice did she have? It was nearly lunchtime and she had to eat. Besides, with any luck at all, if they ate in the hotel dining room, she’d get another chance to communicate with Adrienne.

They collected Rachel and went down to the lobby. Lucas caught sight of them as they exited the elevator. For an instant, as he stared at her father’s hand on her arm, Corrie saw a flash of what was unmistakably jealousy in his eyes.

She found that reassuring.

Introductions were stilted, but passed without incident, though Rachel was chortling to herself as they entered the dining room.

Conversation turned general over lunch. Corrie had just begun to relax when her father dropped the next bombshell.

“I think I’ll stay a few days here at the Sinclair House,” he announced.

Corrie bit back a groan. She was glad of the chance to finish mending fences with her father, but she shuddered to think of the effect his presence might have on her unsettled relationship with Lucas.

She also had the uneasy feeling they’d just acquired one more matchmaker.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Corrie expected some sign from Adrienne.

After her father left her in her room on his way to take Joyce up on her invitation, made as they were leaving the dining room, to introduce him to Lucas’s father, Corrie stood still and waited.

Nothing happened.

She frowned, realizing she hadn’t actually seen Adrienne since the ghost led her to that room in the closed portion of the hotel. But surely it had been Adrienne who’d taken the daisy pin off her lapel and left it out where Corrie would see it. Why hadn’t she materialized again?

Pacing in her room, Corrie tried to put together all she knew. What Adrienne had said about Jonathan came back to her. What if he was literally a bastard? Then Marguerite would have been the legitimate Mead heir.

That meant the Phoenix Inn should have descended to Corrie and her brothers instead of to Stanley Kelvin.

There were too many cloudy areas, where she had only guesswork to guide her. It was obvious Marguerite had not died at eighteen. It looked as if she’d run away from home instead, and somehow ended up in New York State. She’d probably eloped. With Mr. Skinner, whoever he had been.

But why had anyone thought Marguerite was dead?

Adrienne must have known where her niece was. Had she meant to tell Horatio and died before she could? Or was there more to it? More to do with Jonathan?

Even if she never learned the remaining details, at least one thing made sense to Corrie. Her psychic link with Adrienne was the result of a blood relationship. Through her mother, Corrie, like Adrienne, was a descendant of Micah Mead.

Was that what Adrienne had been trying to get across to her all this time? Had Adrienne been condemned to haunt the hotel until she could reveal the truth about Jonathan and Marguerite?

But what
was
the truth? This was mostly supposition on Corrie’s part. The possibility that she might never have an explanation for being haunted bothered her a great deal.

On impulse, she positioned herself on the bed, flat on her back, and stared up at the high ceiling. In the past, Adrienne had been able to influence her dreams. Maybe that was the key. Deliberately, she emptied her mind of everything except an image of the Sinclair House’s resident ghost.

Focus, she told herself. Be open to anything.

She felt very heavy at first, and then as if she were floating.

She slept.

* * * *

“Horatio will not thank you for interfering,” a male voice said. “He may not even let you through the door of the Phoenix Inn. It’s been six years since you married me against his wishes and he has ‘t spoken to either of us since.”

“I know that.” Adrienne hated the feud, but there seemed no way to end it, especially not now.

“Miss Cordelia La Fleur may just make him a very good wife,” Lucas said.

“She’s an actress.”

Lucas chuckled. “You say that in the same tone of voice you’d use to say she was a whore. They aren’t the same thing, you know.”

Adrienne tried another tack. “Would the child’s real father wed her if he were free to?”

“The point is moot. He can’t marry her and that’s enough said. Let it be, Adrienne.”

“The child will be a bastard.”

“You can still regard it as your niece or nephew. I do not see why this should bother you so much. Your brother made his own bed. Now let him lie in it. You owe him nothing.”

“That’s right. Blame it all on my brother. You Sinclairs have been just as bad as any Mead when it comes to this rivalry between the two families. You talk as though you think Horatio deserves to he deceived.”

Lucas didn’t trouble to deny
it.
“It will make matters worse if you interfere at this juncture. The wedding is tomorrow. If nothing else, then think of that child. What will happen to
it,
and to Cordelia, if Horatio doesn’t
marry her? How will she care for a baby alone? And don’t say we can help, because to do so would only create more scandal.”

“I do not like keeping secrets.”

“It will be all right.” Lucas nuzzled her ear. She inhaled the scent of bay rum. “Trust me, Adrienne. I know what is best to do.”

Distracted by his kisses, by the desire he sparked in her so effortlessly, Adrienne said no more, but she was not easy in her mind.

Corrie stirred restlessly in the old-fashioned bed as vestiges of long-ago passion tickled her subconscious.

Both Lucas Sinclairs were marvelous lovers.

Both were stubborn and opinionated and sure their view was the only right way to look at things.

The dream faded, but in a little while it was replaced by another.

This time Adrienne lay in the bed in the room that was now Corrie’s. She was alone, obviously older, and plainly in ill health. Coughs racked her. She was running a high fever. And she missed Lucas horribly.

He’d gone to Boston on business the very day the influenza struck. Nearly all the hotel staff were sick with
it.
By the time he returned in another week, some would have recovered and others would most likely be dead. In the last epidemic, four Waycross Springs citizens had expired.

The young man came in without knocking and stood near the footboard, glaring down at Adrienne with ill-concealed dislike. “I intercepted your letter to my father,” he said. “He will not he coming here to listen to your ranting. There is no reason he need ever know the truth.”