Silverbridge (25 page)

She stared back at him, then she nodded.

He swallowed. “Are you serious?”

“Very serious. I began to see them as soon as I arrived at Silverbridge.”

“See whom?”

“Charles and Isabel.”

He inhaled deeply. “Who the hell is Isabel?”

“She was governess to Charles’s children. She looked
very much like me, just as you look very much like Charles.”

That image of the girl in the white dress floated into his mind once more. He said roughly, “I can’t believe we are actually sitting here talking about ghosts.”

“I know.” Her expression was somber. “But I also know what I have seen, Harry. I saw Charles’s ghost before I saw his portrait in your office, and the image I saw looked exactly the same as the portrait. How could I have known how he looked if I had never seen a picture of him?”

Thud, thud,
went his head. “I don’t know.”

“I’ve seen them a number of times,” she said, leaning forward. “It’s almost as if they’re enacting a little play for me. Charles was in love with Isabel, and his wife found out and said Isabel had to leave. Charles made plans to send her to stay with a cousin in America. He was going to follow her, but he was killed before he could do so.”

He said slowly, “Isabel’s hair didn’t have any gold in it, and her nose was straight.”

Her eyes widened. “Yes.” Her hands tightened into fists. “You
have
seen something, then!”

“Jesus,” he said. “This is unbelievable.”

“
Tell me what you saw.”

He told her about the dancing scene, and when he had finished they stared at each other in silence. At last Tracy said in a small voice, “When I first saw you, I felt as if I knew you.”

“Yes,” he said. “I felt the same.”

She drew herself up, as if preparing for battle. “What do you think it means, Harry?”

“I don’t know.
It’s
…
creepy.”

“I think it’s happening for a purpose. I think that once we find out who killed Charles, we will know who is trying to kill you.”

“Jesus,” he said again.

“I think that Charles and Isabel are
t
rying to help us have the happy ending that they were denied.”

He stared at her, and said slowly, “I have never believed in ghosts.”

“I never did either, until I saw them,” she returned.

Thud, thud, thud.
“I suppose it is difficult to deny something we both have seen.”

She nodded solemnly.

“Somebody did push me,” he reiterated. “I’m not mistaken about that. I can still feel the hand on my back.”

Abruptly Tracy stood up. “You look like a ghost yourself.” She came over to his chair, bent, and kissed his forehead. “Go to bed. We’ll worry about this in the morning.”

He turned his head and buried
his face between her breasts. “
Tracy,” he said.

She enclosed him in her arms. “I love you,” she replied. “I love you, and we will figure this mess out together.”

He shuddered. “God, I hope so.”
Her breasts were so soft. She smelled of roses. “Don’t leave,” he said.

Ebony had leaped off Harry’s lap when Tracy approached, and she jumped on the bed and gave one sharp
moaw.

Tracy laughed. “Ebony’s just given me my marching
orders, and she’s right. You need to sleep. We’ll talk again in the morning.”

“Who said anything about talking?” he muttered. But the pills were beginning to work. The thudding in his head was lessening, and his eyelids were feeling very heavy.

“Good night,” Tracy said, placed a kiss on the top of his aching head, disengaged herself, and went to the door.

Within minutes, Harry and Ebony were asleep.

25

W
hen Harry awoke the following morning, his clock told him it was too late to pay a visit to Tracy. Muttering to himself in frustration, he dressed and was about to go downstairs for breakfast when someone knocked on his door. It was Tony.

“May I speak to you, Harry?”

He looked at his younger brother, who was dressed in perfectly cut tan pants and a sky-blue sweater, and said, “I need a cup of coffee, first. Come downstairs with me. We can talk in my office.”

He collected his coffee from the kitchen, which was empty except for Mrs. Wilson and the dogs, and led Tony into his office. He took a seat at his desk, so he was facing the portrait of Charles, and Tony sat in the old leather chair on the other side of the desk. Millie and Marshal took up their usual postures on either side of him.

Harry took a sip. “I hope you aren’t going to start again about that bloody golf course.”

“
This is the last time, Harry.” There was an unusually grim line around Tony’s flexible mouth. “If you don’t agree to sell now, Percy is going to pull out of the deal and build his hotel somewhere else.”

“Good. That should get Mauley off my back.” Harry took another sip.

Tony slowly shook his head. “I don’t get you, Harry. I really don’t. You don’t have the money to rebuild the stable according to English Heritage specifications. You don’t have the money to buy a new car. And yet, you turn your back on a fortune. It doesn’t make sense to
me.
”

Harry leaned back in his chair and said mildly, “How did you know about the E.H. specifications?”

“You told me.”

“No, I did not.”

Tony shrugged. “Well then, I must have heard it from Meg.”

Harry put his coffee cup down on the desk and asked bluntly, “Tony, did
Mauley bribe that wretched Howl
es to force me to rebuild with the original materials?”

Tony’s eyes were perfectly blank. “What an extraordinary question. Of course not. Mauley is a respectable businessman, not a crook.” He shifted in his chair. “Besides, I didn’t think one could bribe an E.H. officer. They’re all so bloody self-righteous.”

“I didn’t know you had ever had any dealings with them.”

“I know about them from you.” Tony’s eyes blazed momentarily bluer. “Good God, Harry, next you’ll be accusing Mauley of burning down your stable!”

Harry returned calmly, “Someone did, and Mauley is
the only person I can think of who might profit from the fire.”

Tony’s eyes flattened, and his voice grew colder. “I sincerely hope you are not including me in this accusation?”

Harry steepled his fingers and regarded them with interest. “Something very unpleasant is going on, Tony. Besides the stable fire, there have been three attempts on my life.”

Tony jumped to his feet. “On your
life?
Good God, Harry, I don’t believe this! Now you’re accusing me and Mauley of trying to murder you?” Tony moved behind the leather chair, as if to use it as a shield against Harry, and rested his hands on its back.

Harry looked up from his fingers. “Someone is.”

“Well it’s not me!” Tony’s jaw jutted out. “It’s true that I want you to sell the land, but I’m not prepared to kill you in order to get it. What the hell were these attempts anyway? I know you think someone fiddled with your brakes, but I’m not ready to buy that story. I think Ian is covering his own backside.”

“Someone tried to run me down in the hospital parking lot. That was the second attempt. The third came when someone lured me out to the lake with a fake message from Tracy and almost succeeded in shooting me.”

“Are you serious?” Tony looked shocked.

“Unfortunately, yes.” Harry flattened his hands on the desk and leaned toward his brother. “I can’t prove anything about the murder attempts, but, if I can prove that Mauley bribed the E.H. officer, then I think I can get the Secretary of State for the Environment to reverse
Howl
es’s ruling about rebuilding. Will you help me do that, Tony?”

Tony thrust his fingers through his perfectly brushed hair. “Let me be clear about this. You’re asking me to help you catch Mauley out in a bribe? I’m working for him, for God’s sake!”

Harry lifted an eyebrow. “I didn’t know you were on salary already.”

“Well I am,” Tony snapped. “And I hardly think it’s ethical for me to set traps for my employer.” He paused. “Besides, I don’t believe that Mauley bribed anyone.”

“I think he did. And I hardly think it is ethical for your employer to try to bankrupt me in order to get his greedy hands on my land,” Harry flung back.

Tony’s finger gripped the chair back so tightly that they showed white. “This discussion is going nowhere. Keep your damn land, Harry. Much good may it do you.”

He strode to the door and was on the verge of going out when Harry said, “You’d better rebrush your hair. You mussed it when you ran your fingers through it.” Tony glared at him and slammed the door.

Harry sat sipping his coffee and looking at the portrait of Charles. “What do you think?” he said out loud. “Is my own brother trying to do away with me?”

No, he’s not.
He answered his own question in his mind.
I can picture Tony bribing the E.H. officer; I can perhaps even picture him burning the stable. But I can't picture him disabling my brakes, or trying to run me down in the hospital parking lot, or shooting at me in the woods.

“I think Tony is in the clear,” he said out loud to
Charles. “Mauley must be acting on his own.” He tried to push out of his mind the thought that if Mauley were indeed behind his problems, then the real estate mogul would have needed an assistant. One could hardly imagine Mauley creeping around in the woods with a rifle.

He hired someone,
Harry thought.
He would need someone from Silverbridge to do his dirty work.

The dregs in his coffee cup were stone cold, and he had come no closer to an answer when he got up and went back into the kitchen for breakfast.

T
hat day the film company was shooting the final scene in the earl’s bedchamber. It was Tracy’s death scene, the scene where Martin, at the end of his rope, feels the only thing he can do to save his honor and his sanity is to murder his beautiful young wife.

The set was ready when Tracy came into the room wearing a long ivory silk nightgown, cut to show a lot of cleavage. The lights along one wall were trained on a beautifully carved four-poster covered in a gold- embroidered spread, which had been turned down in readiness for her. A chaise lounge covered in the same material as the spread stood near the window, along with an elegant little writing table; and two upholstered chairs, with a tea table between them, were set in front of the alabaster fireplace. Over the mantel hung a Titian portrait of the Contessa de Alfori, who Meg had once said was her distant ancestress.

It was a large, open room for a bedroom, but all the equipment made it seem smaller.

“All right, Tracy,” Dave said. “If you would get into the bed, Ivan will check the lighting.”

Tracy went over to the bed, stepped out of her loafers, and slipped in between the fine cotton sheets. Someone dashed over to remove the offensively muddy mode
rn
footgear.

“Lie back against the pillows, please,” the photography director instructed from his place behind one of the cameras.

Tracy complied, resting her head against the lace-embroidered down pillows behind her.

“Fix her hair,” Dave said.

The hairdresser came forward and spread Tracy’s loose hair so that it haloed her head. “Like that, Dave?” she asked.

“Perfect,” the director replied. He looked around, and asked, “Are both cameras loaded?”

“I’ve already told you six times, Dave,” the cameraman replied patiently. “Both cameras are loaded and ready.”

Dave’s foot was tapping rhythmically. This was
the
crucial scene, the one that must elicit the tragic emotions of pity and fear from the audience, and he very much wanted to do it in one shoot, while his actors were still fresh. “Now all we need is Jon,” he said impatiently.

“I’m here.” At that moment, Jon came into the room wearing his costume: a ruffled dress shirt, which was open to bare his burly chest, and a pair of tight black satin knee breeches. His hair had been brushed so that a curl fell forward over his forehead, and he looked dashingly Byronic and very sexy.

Everyone on the set knew that this was Jon’s scene. Tracy’s job was to look helpless, and bewildered, and, at last, when she realized what he was going to do, terrified.

“Clear the set,” Dave said. He wanted all extraneous personnel out of the way so that his actors’ concentration would be at its peak. Jon positioned himself on the mark at the door, Tracy turned her face on the pillow and closed her eyes, and Dave said, “Roll.”

Jon came in the bedroom door.

His first line was a deliberate reference to
Othello,
which had been in the novel. “Put out the light”—he looked at the candle in his hand—“and then put out the light.” He came to a halt next to the bed and stared down into Tracy’s sleeping face.

This was the cue for Tracy to open her eyes and regard him drowsily. “You have not yet undressed, my lord. Are you not coming to bed?”

He reached out and touched her cheek, and for the first time Tracy felt a real shiver of fear. The hazel eyes looking at her had turned a darkish green.

How did his eyes get so green? Is he wearing contacts?
Tracy thought nervously.

The camera came in closer to catch her face.

“You are not asleep
…
yet?” Jon asked.

“No.” Tracy’s voice came out slightly breathless. “I was waiting for you, my lord.”

Jon’s hand moved to caress her long, bare throat. “So fair,” he said. “So fair and soft and fragile.”

Tracy struggled to sit up against the pillows. “Is something wrong, my lord?”

“Why would you say that, my love?” His voice was
gentle and caressing, in complete contrast to the look in
his eyes.

Tiger eyes,
Tracy thought. She had planned not to show fear until the end of the scene, but now her heart began to hammer in her chest.

“You
seem
…
s-strange,” she said.

The tiger eyes stared into hers, uncivilized, untamed, ferocious, cruel. Tracy instinctively glanced toward Dave for reassurance, but there was no alarm on his face. In the finished movie that look of hers would seem like a cry for help.

As the scene continued, the tiger Jon was harboring within came ever closer to the surface, pacing and lashing its tail in fury as Tracy tried in vain to placate him. She had little difficulty projecting her emotions; she had forgotten about the cameras and the mikes and was caught up in the terror of what was happening to Julia, sweet, harmless Julia, who hadn’t realized what a perilous beast her innocent flirtations would make of her husband.

Inexorably, the scene marched on, Tracy pleading her innocence, Jon growing more and more brutal as he charged her with the long list of supposed betrayals that had been destroying his mind. Sweat poured off Jon’s face and stained his ruffled shirt. He was possessed of an enormous rage as the cruel words came out of his mouth, and the tiger stalked, ready to kill.

Neither Tracy nor Jon heard when Dave said quietly, “Roll camera two.” It was the second camera that finished the scene, catching on film for all time one of the
greatest screen performances ever delivered by an actor.

By the time Jon pushed the pillow over her face, Tracy fully expected him actually to try to smother her.

He did not. As soon as Dave called, “Cut! Print!” Jon loosened his hand on the pillow. Tracy struggled to sit up and both she and Jon, in sheer exhaustion, looked at Dave, who was pumping his fist in the air, seemingly oblivious of the tears that were streaming down his face. “That was great!” he said. “That was great!”

Tracy started to cry. Jon collapsed on the bed as if his legs wouldn’t hold him anymore. The technical crew burst into applause. Jon reached out and took her hand. She stared down at the large hand that had engulfed hers and said through her sobs, “I thought perhaps you really might kill me. You were terrifying.”

“I even scared myself,” he said huskily.

As the crew began to put the scene away, Tracy and Jon sat together on the bed and let the emotions they had built drain slowly from their adrenaline-driven bodies.

A
fter taking off her costume and her makeup, Tracy went up to her bedroom and for two hours fell into a deep, dreamless sleep. When she awakened it was twilight, that lovely time in England when it isn’t light but isn’t yet dark. Her eyes fell on an envelope bearing her name, which reposed on her night table. She opened it, took out a piece of stationery engraved with the Oliver coat of arms, and read:
“I looked in on you but you were sleeping. I’m going to be at the farm for the rest of the day—
see you when I get back. Harry.
”