Lord Melvedere's Ghost (17 page)

“
He is busy securing the area and keeping watch, so you won’t
see him around much, I am afraid.” He wasn’t the least bit sorry
and made a mental note to make sure that Jonathan remained outside
as much as was practically possible without offending his friend
and colleague. Jonathan had offered to reside in the local tavern,
but after yesterday they had both decided that he would be better
off keeping watch outside, while Jamie kept the house under
control. They were fairly certain now that whatever had happened to
Cecily yesterday, nobody else had been involved but weren’t going
to allow themselves to be caught off guard.

“
What are you going to do with your afternoon?” Jamie asked,
pouring Cecily another cup of tea.

“
I think I should like to take a look at the library,” Cecily
declared softly, “although I think I will leave that until Miss
Emstridge is not around.”

Jamie
balked at that suggestion and cursed himself for not getting a grip
on Miss Emstridge’s presence in his house long before now. He
wanted Cecily to feel at home at Melvedere and that meant giving
her the freedom to move around as she chose. If he had his way, it
was going to be her home too from now on and the quicker she felt
at home the better as far as he was concerned.

“
Nonsense, let’s go and take a look now,” Jamie suggested,
pushing to his feet and officiously holding his arm out to her. “I
don’t know about you but I find the woman scary too but, between
us, I am sure that we can allow the terrier to release her hold on
the bone. After all, the library isn’t hers.”

Determination hardened his gaze as he led Cecily out of the
room. Moments later, they swept into the library, banging the door
back against the wall with a resounding thud.

“
Oh, dear me, no,” Miss Emstridge gushed, pushing away from her
desk with a scowl on her face when she caught sight of Cecily. Her
anger receded a little at the sight of a clearly glowering Jamie
behind her, and she resumed her seat cautiously without saying
anything else.

“
If you would excuse us, Miss Emstridge, I am sure you are due
to take a break. Miss Tinsdale and I will be availing ourselves of
the library for a while.” His tone brooked no argument and he
purposely held the door open, beckoning her out of the door. His
eyes met and held the challenging Miss Emstridge for several long
moments, before the woman decided to return to the guise of
bespectacled, and slightly eccentric, librarian.

Jamie
made a mental note to get Jonathan to find out what he could about
his suspicious employee at the first available opportunity, and
studied Cecily carefully as soon as the woman had vanished. Was
Miss Emstridge responsible for Cecily’s injury? But why had Miss
Emstridge hit Cecily on the head? What could Cecily have possibly
done to the curious woman in his library? Wondering if he was just
being overly protective and seeing monsters where there were none,
he paused just inside the door for several moments and watched the
awe and wonder on Cecily’s gaze as she studied the rows upon rows
of books in all colours and sizes.

Tipping
her head sideways, she studied the gold lettered titles as she
meandered slowly down the rows, shaking her head at the long
forgotten stories she had heard about but never had the chance to
read for herself. If it wasn’t for her mother, she would never have
been taught to read at all, and for that she was very grateful. Her
fingers positively tingled with the urge to pull the books off the
shelves and run her fingers through the fine, silken
pages.

“
So, have you found anything interesting?” Jamie asked,
studying the shelving carefully. They were crammed full to
bursting, with yet more books lying across the top. However, unless
he was very mistaken, there were several books missing. He was sure
he could remember the top shelves having more lying on the top that
were there. He studied the desk Miss Emstridge used, and the huge
towering pile of books sitting to one side, presumably to be
catalogued, and mentally shrugged. Instead, he meandered behind her
as she sauntered around the room.

“
There are so many to choose from,” she whispered reverently,
her eyes alight with the excitement of a small child.

“
Well then, might I suggest you start by the door? Pick a book
and get reading. You will be old and grey by the time you get half
way around, of course, but the subjects you will have read will be
wide and varied.” He wished he had kept his mouth shut when he
watched the excitement dim from her eyes, and knew she was thinking
about leaving.

“
Think about what I have said, Cecily,” Jamie whispered,
wishing he could offer her reassurances out his honourable
intentions but, in order to do that, he needed to know a bit more
about what was happening with the Star Elite and her father. He
didn’t want her accepting his offer of accommodation because she
had nowhere to go, while refusing to even consider a future with
him. He knew now that if she chose not to marry him yet stay in the
Dowager’s house, she would condemn not only herself, but him as
well, to a life without matrimony and a family of their own,
because he had no intention of marrying anyone else. He had chosen
his bride. Now all he had to do was convince her that he would be a
good husband.

“
Can I choose a book to read while I am here?” Cecily asked,
pulling a book of the shelf randomly. She frowned at the weight of
it. It was far lighter than she thought it should be. Although she
had not read many books in her life, she had picked up a couple and
could remember them being far heavier than this one. Frowning down
at the gold lettering in her hand she turned it over. Something
wasn’t right about it.

“
What is it?” Jamie asked, moving closer to her. He watched
Cecily’s slim fingers turn the cover back.

They
both stared nonplussed at the blank, wooden page that lay in her
hands. Turning the book over, Cecily studied the back, then the
binding, then the edge where there should have been pages, but
instead it appeared that the wood had been carefully painted to
look like pages. Glancing up at Jamie, her eyes met his in
confusion.

Jamie
lifted the book in her hands and studied it carefully. The hairs on
the back of his neck prickled in alarm, and he knew there was
something nefarious going on. He studied the title carefully. It
didn’t ring any particular warning bells with him, it was just a
book but, he knew that his father would never have knowingly had
such a thing in his library. He was an avid book collector, and
bought hundreds of them through his lifetime. He had no reason to
want to pretend to have full shelves when his shelves had already
been full to bursting.

Jamie
held the book for a moment and watched Cecily pick up the book that
had been sitting next to it. The thin pages flew threw her fingers
as she studied it carefully.

“
Try some more,” Jamie ordered, searching the shelves
carefully. At the first glance there was nothing untoward with any
of it, so just how many were like the one in his hand? He had to
fight the urge to stalk out of the door and demand an immediate
interview with Miss Emstridge, and instead watched as Cecily pulled
several more books off the shelves, all of which were as they
should be, full of pages ready to be read.

“
Why?” Cecily demanded several minutes later when book after
book had proven to be real.

“
I have no idea, but I am going to find out.” Making a note of
the title, Jamie carefully slid the book back into position on the
shelf. He turned back to Cecily. “Until we know a bit more, I
should be grateful if you do not discuss this with
anyone.”

“
Who am I going to discuss it with?” Cecily asked, keeping her
voice low. “I mean, you cannot accuse Miss Emstridge of anything,
you have no proof.”

“
I know,” Jamie sighed, feeling more in tune with Cecily than
ever before and loving it. Although he could not involve her in any
of the work of the Star Elite, he could use this to his advantage
if he was clever enough. As long as she wasn’t put at any risk,
there was no reason not to involve her in a little investigation of
her own.

“
I need your help,” he announced, watching Cecily’s brows lift
in surprise. He took a breath to explain only for Cecily to lift
her hand and stop him.

Cecily
tried not to study the area around them, but could feel that they
were being watched. She didn’t know if it was the events from
yesterday, or her own wayward imagination, or both, but she
couldn’t discount the knowledge that there was a secret passageway
running along the walls around here, and that passageway could run
alongside the library. Anyone, including Miss Emstridge, could be
listening right now from the shadowy depths of a room Jamie didn’t
seem to know was there.

“
Let’s go outside,” Cecily announced, staring meaningfully at
Jamie who merely nodded warily. “I’ll explain more in a minute,”
she whispered directly into his ear as she passed.

She
should have pushed the hand away that landed on her waist, but
couldn’t resist the lure of his lips as they descended to hers. The
kiss was brief, yet deep, and she felt positively shaken by the
time he released her and opened the door for her to precede him
from the room.

Inside
the room, the painting of the old Lord of Belvedere stood ever
watchful and silent, gazing down with thoughtful eyes on the
occupants of the room as they left. No sooner had the door closed
behind Jamie, and the room fell into silence once more, than the
painted eyes of the portrait slid quietly back into
place.

Once
outside, Cecily took Jamie’s arm and steered him away from the
house, toward a pagoda that sat on the far edge of the lawns. She
could feel Jamie’s curious eyes on her as she practically dragged
him across the gardens, but she didn’t stop until they were
standing in the sheltered canopy of the huge wooden structure, safe
from prying eyes. From their position in the garden, nobody could
approach without being seen. It was perfect.

Jamie
lifted his brows in silent query, and watched as Cecily scanned the
area around them. His lips quirked in wry amusement at her furtive
behaviour but he had to admit it, he was intrigued.

“
Just how much do you know about your house?” Cecily demanded,
moving to stand beside him. She studied the huge building now
several hundred feet away. Jamie had perched his hips on the low
running balcony and stood with his back to the house he called
home.

“
I have been there all of my life, and know it like the back of
my hand,” he declared confidently.

“
Do you?” Cecily’s voice was crisp and searching. “Are you
sure?”

“
What do you mean?” Jamie felt uneasy, and wondered just what
the hell he had missed.

“
Do you know about the secret passageways?”

Jamie
froze and stared at her. His initial reaction had been to laugh her
comment off as a joke, but the deadly seriousness on Cecily’s face
made him stop. He turned around to stare at the walls around them.
“There are secret passageways?”

“
Yes, there are. They run upstairs and downstairs.”

“
Are you sure?”

“
I was in one yesterday,” Cecily declared firmly, turning angry
eyes on the house. She had read his scepticism and didn’t know
whether she was angry at him or herself. She knew she couldn’t tell
him about the man, he just wouldn’t understand, and she wasn’t
entirely sure she believed it herself, but she could tell him about
the secret passageways in his own home. She felt she owed that much
to him, especially after his hospitality and the strange librarian
he was saddled with.

Her
thoughts flickered back to her dream of the swarming books and the
appearance of his father. Had he been trying to tell her about the
books? Giving herself a mental shake, she pushed the thought aside
to think about more carefully later.

“
Where are they?” Jamie frowned at her. He felt the hairs stand
up on the back of his neck and he glanced about them cautiously.
Had he spent his life in a house with secret passageways and not
known of them? How? He had played in the house throughout his
entire childhood. Had his father known about them? Jamie couldn’t
ever remember his father ever mentioning them before.

“
The door to the passage I came out of sits at the back of the
rose trellis on the terrace. I fell into the corridor from the
upstairs passageway, right next to the servants’
stairs.”

“
Fell
into it?” Jamie announced each
word carefully as though trying to assess her honesty.

Cecily
sighed in frustration and wanted to shake him. She couldn’t really
blame his scepticism. After all, it sounded wildly improbable, even
to her, but she knew what she had experienced was real.

Seeing
the growing concern in his eyes, she sighed and grabbed hold of his
wrist. Ignoring the jolt of awareness that flew up her arm, she
dragged him across the lawns toward the terrace in question. Jamie
was intrigued. He had never seen this fire in Cecily before, even
when she had been riding on a horse the first time. He was
enthralled; intrigued. Amazed at the possibility of secret
corridors and, although he wouldn’t normally agree to her dragging
him around his own lawns, he could not find it within him to
protest. He quite liked this slightly domineering side to
her.