The Haunting of a Duke (11 page)

"Hello, Emme."

"Hello, Melisande,” she responded in the same level tone. “What brings you here today?"

Her smile faltered, and for a moment looked very grown up and very, very sad. “I am not here today. I am here every day. It has been that way since I died."

Emme felt a rush of sympathy for the girl, trapped as she was between two worlds, and so very alone. “That must be very difficult for you. Do you wish to leave Briarwood?"

Melisande met her gaze with a steady one of her own. “I wish for many things. Mostly I wish for my brother to be happy. I wish for Michael to let go of the past. And I do wish to leave here, when everyone else is safe."

"What is it that you want of me today?” Emme asked her.

"Now, that is a much more direct question,” the child said, with a sardonic smile that mirrored her brother's. “Did Michael tell you how I died?"

Emme shook her head. “No, I don't think he likes to talk about it. He did tell me that he loved you very much."

The girl considered this for a moment. “He might have, if I had grown up. He loves a memory. And he feels guilty because he did not save me."

The tragedy, he had called it.

"He was a child,” Emme said, “how could he have saved you?"

The child rose and began to pace back and forth in front of her on the path. She still looked real and solid, but the light appeared different around her. It shimmered around her, rather than settled on her, much like staring into the distance on a hot summer's day. “He couldn't have. But still he blames himself. It's because he was the one who found me. There in the woods, just beyond the garden."

The words poured out of her then, horrible and so very vivid. “He cried so very hard, and was so frightened. He wanted to go for help, but I wouldn't let him. I knew that it was too late, that I couldn't be helped and I was so afraid to be alone."

Emme's skin prickled and she felt cold all the way through to her bones, in spite of the warmth of the day. “What happened to you?"

Melisande stopped her pacing and turned to face her. “That is why you're here, Emme. Until my murderer is found, Michael cannot be free."

"What of Rhys, Melisande? What of Elise?"

Melisande leveled a look at her that implied she lacked in intelligence. “There is only one killer, Emme. And I wasn't the only one. Elise died at the same hands for very different reasons."

Emme asked no more questions for Melisande disappeared. There was no puff of smoke or any other sign of warning. One second she was there and the next she was simply gone.

Emme sighed and tilted her head back, her shoulders sagging with exhaustion. She wanted answers, and she wanted, perhaps for the first time in her life, to prove that her abilities were real. It had become important, at some point along the way, for Rhys to believe in her and that was enough to terrify her.

Aware that the sky was darkening, Emme knew it was time to return to the house. It was not so late in the day, which could only mean that bad weather was coming in. She stood and began the short walk back to the house, contemplating what the ghost child had told her. Melisande and Elise were killed by the same person, but why, she wondered? What was the connection between the two? Melisande had been dead for better than a decade before Elise even came to Briarwood Hall.

Emme was deep in thought, pondering these connections, when she heard it. It was a soft rustle in the trees beside the path, but the sound was out of place, as was the absolute stillness that followed it. She knew instantly that someone was watching her. She didn't pause, neither did she hurry; keeping her pace steady, she continued moving toward the house.

Somehow she knew that alerting the unknown person that she was aware of his or her presence was the last thing she should do. After several seconds there was another rustle, and the distinct crunch of gravel as someone stepped out onto the path. There was a curve in the path ahead, and once she rounded the curve, Emme began to run. It was unladylike, and her hostess would undoubtedly be scandalized, but she didn't care. If the person wasn't following her, they would simply continue on at their sedate pace and never know she had run away like a fool. But if they were following her, by the time they rounded the bend and realized she'd quickened her pace, she would be back in sight of the house.

Emme was close to the break in the trees that would lead her back out onto the lawn when she heard thrashing behind her. It was closer than she would have liked. Though her sides were aching and her feet were on fire from running in her dainty slippers, she managed a small burst of speed that had her stumbling out onto the lawn.

The thrashing behind her stopped abruptly, and she looked up to see Lord Ellersleigh and Rhys standing on the terrace eyeing her curiously. She took a deep breath, straightened her skirts and made her way toward the house via the library, on the opposite end of the terrace from where the two men stood. She nodded at them politely as she passed by, though her heart still thundered in her chest and her knees were trembling violently.

Michael looked at Rhys curiously. “That was interesting."

Rhys didn't comment. His gaze was fixed on a point in the thick shrubbery near the path where Miss Walters had emerged. He had spent enough time on a battlefield to know the glint of sunlight on the barrel of a gun or on a blade. Someone else had been in the garden, and he or she had been armed.

"I think,” Rhys said, turning to face Michael, “that there is no longer any question that Miss Walters is in grave danger."

"From someone other than your aunt?” Michael had wasted no time in informing Rhys of Lady Eleanor's thinly veiled interrogation.

The woman was not someone to be trifled with. She could ruin Miss Walter's without even putting forth considerable effort, and she was ruthless enough to do it without compunction.

Rhys eyed him askance. “Aunt Eleanor is a bit put out with her, but she's hardly dangerous."

Michael shook his head. “Your aunt will not physically assassinate Miss Walters, but she will assassinate her socially, unless you intercede on her behalf."

Rhys nodded. “I will do what I can, but the other matter I find more pressing. Something frightened her in the garden, and in spite of her assertions that she speaks with the dead, or perhaps because of them, I do not think she is a woman given to being easily frightened. Whoever was following her today was doing so with the intent to harm, otherwise there would have been no need for weapons."

"I agree,” Michael said. “The question is how do we proceed?"

"She is not to be alone,” Rhys said.

Michael concurred. “Miss Walters has not yet discovered anything about Elise, but she has seen Melisande. Perhaps Melisande's killer fears he will finally be found out."

Rhys’ jaw firmed, and he fought down the stabbing guilt that always assailed him. He had not been able to offer justice to Melisande, and if Miss Walters could name his sister's killer, regardless of her means, his gratitude would be endless. Though the ultimate conclusion had been that her murder had been committed by a stranger, by a vagrant passing through, he had never believed it. “Perhaps, Michael. Do you really believe that she is speaking with Melisande? That my sister is still here in some capacity?"

Michael paused, and sighed heavily before answering. “I do believe her, but I can't tell you why. I'm not a man given to fancy, as you well know, but there is something about Miss Walters that I simply trust. Whatever anyone else thinks of her motives, I think they are pure."

Rhys considered that as he let himself back into the house to seek out the lovely medium and place himself in the role of guard dog. He could not accept with the ease that Lord Ellersleigh had that she could converse with the spirit world. He preferred to believe only in things that were tangible, that he could see and touch and feel. Anything else, especially something as nebulous as the spirit world, was simply too far outside his realm of experience. But she believed it, he thought, and apparently a killer believed it as well.

Hidden behind a copse of trees, he cursed her. His blood had run cold when he'd listened to her conversing with a spirit. It wasn't possible, of course. He refused to believe that. He had watched her die. He'd felt the life seep from her body and had seen it fade from her eyes. He was the bringer of death. He chose when life ended. No one defied his will.

If those he had taken remained behind, watching, observing—No, he shook his head. He wouldn't allow her, with her airs and her deceit to make him question what he knew. She would pay for that, as well, he decided. He added it to her list of sins and determined that he would make her pay far more dearly than any of the others had.

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Emme had not had a moment's peace. It had been just over a day since the incident in the garden, but since that frightful event, she had literally been tripping over Lord Ellersleigh and Rhys. His Grace, Emme mentally corrected herself for the hundredth time. She didn't understand how it had come to be that, in her mind, at least, she had made so familiar with his name. There was no connection between them and there simply never could be. She didn't want a connection with him either, she told herself. He was stodgy and bossy, he thought she was a feather brain, believed her to be a liar or a lunatic and had as much as told her so.

It didn't matter that he was ridiculously handsome or that her heart pounded when he was near. It didn't matter that she could pinpoint to the second when he entered a room that she was in or that her eyes could find him unerringly even in a crowd. It was infatuation because he was so handsome and it would end as soon as she left Briarwood Hall. It had to.

Entering the breakfast room, Emme noted immediately that Lord Ellersleigh was there. As she filled her plate from the sideboard, she noted that he was drinking copious amounts of coffee rather than tea and looked more than a bit bleary-eyed. According to the gossip Gussy had brought her that morning, several of the gentlemen had engaged in card play the previous evening that had not been part of the scheduled entertainment and that had sent one man hastening to depart. Lord Alistair Brammel had wagered quite recklessly. He had lost a goodly sum of money and was known to be in dun territory.

"Good morning, Lord Ellersleigh. I had not realized you were such an early riser."

Michael reminded himself that she was an innocent young lady and comments about how early he could rise would hardly endear him to her and would undoubtedly result in Rhys punching him in the mouth. “I am quite fond of mornings,” he said instead and suffered her dubious stare.

"I do like to get an early start on the day,” Emme continued. “It is much more efficient to do so. Should I submit my schedule to you or to His Grace, Lord Brammel?"

"Your schedule?” Michael queried innocently.

He had told Rhys that the girl would catch on but Rhys had simply shrugged and told Michael to charm her out of any pique. It was a conundrum, of course. Rhys would tell him to charm her. Michael would charm her and then Rhys would be angry because he had been able to charm her. It was a miserable position to find one's self in.

"Surely you didn't believe that it would escape my notice that either you or His Grace have all but been my shadows. It cannot be coincidence, as I sincerely doubt that either of you had any real interest in listening to Miss Stone and Miss Allenby and their atrocious reading of selections from Shakespeare."

There had been no interest whatsoever, Michael recalled grimly. It had been an hour of hell. “Very well, you are correct. Lord Brammel and I decided it would be for the best if we were to keep an eye on you."

Emme's lip curled, “Keep an eye on me, indeed!” She wheeled on him then, her face a mask of enraged feminine loveliness. “Does he think I mean to take the silver? Perhaps, I should allow him to search my rooms daily to ensure that I do not take anything that does not belong to me!"

Her voice had risen perceptively. Her tone was strident and angry color bloomed in her cheeks. At another time, he would have enjoyed it and might have piqued her anger just to watch her glorious bosom rise and fall with her rapid breathing as she gave him a well-deserved set down.

But he was tired, and had a hangover to end all hangovers. His head was aching, his stomach rebelling, and even Miss Walter's glorious breasts could not combat the effects of his own lack of self-control.

Rarely at a loss for words, he had no idea how to respond. He decided the truth would be the most efficient means of restoring the peace and harmony that his aching head craved. “You mistake my meaning, Miss Walters. Lord Brammel's concern isn't that you are stealing the silver!"

Emme rolled her eyes heavenward, “Of course not! He thinks I am stark raving mad, or a criminal mastermind here to swindle his mother! An unlikely event, even if it were my intent, as Lady Phyllis is quite shrewd and Lady Eleanor has set herself to guarding her as a dragon would guard treasure. It would be nigh on impossible."

"I agree with your perceptions of both Lady Phyllis and of Lady Eleanor. She is indeed quite shrewd, but you must allow me to explain, that Lord Brammel's concern, and my own, is for your safety! When you stumbled from the garden path onto the lawn the day before yesterday, you appeared frightened. And Rhys saw something that indicated that your fear was well-founded."

Emme paused, her teacup halfway to her lips. “What did he see?"

"A flash, possibly light reflecting on the barrel of a gun or a blade."

Emme shuddered delicately, those words sending a chill up her spine. There was only one reason why anyone would wish to harm her and that was to protect a secret they thought she possessed or soon would. There were questions she had to ask, paths that Melisande had shown her that she would have to follow.

"Additionally,” Michael continued, “I have doubts about that nasty spill you took into the lake. I don't think you fell and struck your head. I think someone hit you and then pushed you into the water."