Authors: Jude Deveraux
For a moment Jace could only blink at her. “Everything is twisted and distorted.”
She reached for a stenographer’s notebook and pen. “So sit down and tell me the truth. I promise to publish your side of the truth this time.”
“There is only one side of the truth. What you wrote is nothing but lies.”
She looked at him for a moment, then uncurled herself from her chair. “How about a cuppa?” She turned her back on him with all the confidence of a woman who was used to men doing what she asked them to.
In spite of himself, Jace followed her through the doorway, then down three steps into the kitchen. Against one wall were old cabinets and open shelves filled with mismatched dishes and a thousand notes shoved in between. A narrow table was against the other wall and a couple of doors in the corner. When she motioned to the table, he sat down, the newspaper in front of him, his old photo staring up at him. “Where did you get that?” he asked softly.
“Internet. The Big Brother of the modern world. It took a while but I found it. Your family is very secretive about what it owns and who’s in it.”
Jace didn’t answer that. “I have people asking me for jobs.”
“I’ll print a retraction so the lovely people will forget what I questioned.”
She had her back to him, standing at the sink filling the kettle. She had on narrow black trousers that ended midcalf and a long-sleeved, knit black sweater. She wasn’t very tall, but she was as thin as a model. When he glanced up he saw that she was watching him in the reflection in the window.
“What do you want?” he asked. “I can’t believe you were dumb enough to believe what you wrote, so what do you want?”
She put the kettle on the stove, then turned to him. “We haven’t been properly introduced, have we? I’m Nightingale Augusta Smythe—that’s with a
Y
and an
E
at the end. My mother was trying to compensate for marrying a man named Smith, so she changed the spelling. Old spelling, but it’s still Smith. Mum was born Jane Bellingham, then became Jane Smith. She hated her bland name, so she gave me a rather exotic one.”
“Nightingale was Ann’s name,” Jace said, looking at her.
For a moment she stared at him, blinking in astonishment. “You have been reading,” she murmured as she turned away.
With her back to him, she straightened her shoulders. “Will Earl Grey do for you? But then, you Yanks know nothing about tea, do you? Tell me, is it true that you put cups of sugar in it, then add ice? Or is that just one of those American legends put out to make us glad we didn’t fight to keep the colonies?”
He could see that she was trying to distract him. She wanted to get information but not give any. “Ann Nightingale Stuart. Any relation to you?”
“Distant,” she said. “I have tea bags, will they do? Or do you want loose tea? Or can you tell the difference?”
He refused to let her jibes get him off the subject. “You went to a great deal of trouble, and risked a lot to get me here, so what do you want?”
“I’ll use loose tea,” she said. “It’s what the Queen drinks. Did you know that the Queen Mum never used a tea bag in her life? Now that’s a lady.”
When she smiled at Jace, he didn’t smile back.
“Did you really see Lady Grace in the daylight?” she asked, her pretty eyes wide. “It’s all over town that you did. They’re saying you saw her on her horse, bearing down on Mrs. Browne, her hair flaming red. Grace’s red hair, that is, not Mrs. Browne’s.”
Jace almost started to explain that he’d made that up, but he caught himself. “What would it matter to you if I did see her? As long as I don’t open my house to the public and have helicopters landing on the green, what is it your business what I do?”
Nigh sat down across from him. “You wouldn’t have heard of an author called Norah Lofts, would you? No, of course not. My mother read her and I used to sneak the books under the bedcovers. My favorite book of hers was about a house. She told of the people who built it, then took the house to the twentieth century, through being made into apartments, then converted back into a single-family dwelling. That’s what I want to do and I want to use Priory House as my prototype.”
She was leaning forward on the table and she was batting her thick lashes at him. He could see that she knew she was beautiful and that she was used to getting what she wanted from men. But it was going to take more than a pretty face to distract Jace. “Isn’t that called plagiarism? But then, anyone who could write the lies you did wouldn’t mind a bit of stealing, would they?”
She started to reply, but the kettle whistled. She got up from the table.
He watched in silence as she poured hot water into a ceramic teapot, then poured the water out and filled it again. She put in several teaspoons of loose tea, put a knit cozy over it, and set the pot on the table. She was lost in thought as she moved about the kitchen and got two cups and saucers.
She got a little pitcher of milk out of a tiny undercabinet refrigerator. “Milk in first or last?” she asked, standing over him.
“Last, like the Queen,” he said, letting her know that he did know something about tea.
She gave a sound close to being a laugh, then poured their tea and added milk.
Jace sipped his and watched her, not saying a word. If she wanted to get herself out of the mess she’d put herself into, she was going to have to give him some information.
“I know a lot about Priory House,” she said. “I have huge files on it.”
“I know. I read your essay in the book.”
She sipped some more and seemed to be trying to decide what to tell him. “I know a way to get into the house secretly.”
“I’m listening.”
“Mrs. Browne has her habits and she’s out on Sundays.”
Suddenly, Jace understood what she was telling him. “Are you trying to tell me that you sneak into the house when it’s empty?” He paused, then opened his eyes wide. “You’ve been in the tower at night,” he said. “It’s
your
lights the people see, not the ghost of some criminal.”
“Perhaps,” she said. “But I’ve never heard Lady Grace referred to as a criminal before. Most people swoon over the romance of it all.”
“Then they have a different idea of romance than I do,” Jace said quickly. “Did you know the last owners?”
“No. I’ve only been back in Margate for the last six weeks. I’ve been away, working.”
“For how long were you away?” he asked, sounding like an interrogator.
For the first time, there was a real spark of interest in her eyes. “From the end of 2001 until recently.”
“You’re sure of the dates?”
“Yes,” she said slowly. “My mother died in November 2001, and I couldn’t bear to stay here without her, so I left. Traveling, that sort of thing.”
“Alone?”
“Boyfriend, sometimes; sometimes alone. Why?”
“You know all about me, so shouldn’t I know about you?” he said, not giving her an answer.
“Mmmm,” she said, that sound the English gave in answer to anything they didn’t want to answer. She was looking at him hard, as though trying to read his thoughts. “You’re searching for something, aren’t you?” she said.
“Peace,” he said quickly.
She gave a little snort at that and Jace almost smiled.
“I could be a great help to you. I could be your secretary.”
“I have a secretary.”
“Gladys Arnold,” Nigh said in contempt. “Gladys goes to school in the mornings, works for you in the afternoons, and cleans another school at night. And she’s shagging Mick every moment she isn’t at work, so how much can she do?”
“Gladys and Mick have been good friends to me. I won’t have anything bad said about them.”
“All right, how about this? Gladys is young and inexperienced; I’m not. I can research. I know the ins and outs of the British library system. Do you? I could be your research assistant.”
“To what end? And don’t lie to me about some book you could have written long ago,” he said, looking down at his cup. When she didn’t answer, he looked at her.
She looked at him for a while, her eyes meeting his over the table. She took a deep breath. “When I was nine years old, I had a row with my mother—a common occurrence—and I decided to run away from home. I had fantasies of their missing me and crying about how much they loved me. All the usual things. I slipped out the kitchen window of our house and ran across the fields to Priory House. It was one of the times when it was vacant, the owner having been scared away by the ghost. It was dark and—More tea?”
Jace held up his cup, but said nothing.
“Am I boring you?” she asked as she filled his cup.
Jace’s eyes drilled into hers, but said nothing.
“I…felt something that night. I couldn’t find a way into the house so I curled up under one of the windows and cried my heart out. I’m sure I was a pathetic sight.”
“And she came to you,” Jace whispered.
“Not the flame-haired criminal, as you call her, but…I don’t want to sound crazy.”
For the first time, Jace gave a tiny smile. “You don’t know what crazy is.”
“I know enough about being accused of being crazy that I’ve never before told anyone about this. I did
not
see a ghost, didn’t hear one, but I felt as though someone was with me, as though I was being soothed. Does that make sense?”
“More than you know. What happened to you? Did you spend the night in the damp and cold?”
Nigh smiled. “No. After a while I decided that maybe my mum had a right to be angry. My friend Kelly and I had accidentally dumped flour all over the kitchen floor just before her ladies’ book club arrived. And we’d eaten all the tea sandwiches and most of the pastries she’d spent the morning preparing. Anyway, at Priory House, when I felt calmer, I went home.”
“Were your parents upset that you’d run away?”
“That was the odd thing. My mother
always
checked on me before she went to bed, but that night she didn’t. And my dad
always
checked the doors and windows to see if they were locked. But that night he didn’t. I slipped through the kitchen window and went to bed. No one ever knew I’d been gone.”
“And you’ve been fascinated with Priory House ever since.”
“Exactly,” she said. “Over the years, I’ve done what research I could, and I found the secret entrance when I was twelve—no, don’t ask me to tell you where it is. You have to let me in on what you’re up to before I reveal that secret.”
Jace drank more of his tea. He figured he was now drinking about eight cups a day, but if you asked Mrs. Browne, she would have said he didn’t really like tea because he hardly drank any.
“How can I use your help?” he asked. “You’re a liar and a blabbermouth. I could never trust you. This…” He pointed to the newspaper still on the table. “This may have done irreparable damage to my reputation.” Even to himself, his words sounded insincere.
Nigh stood up and went to the sink. She knew he was going to give in. “Since when did you Yanks care about anything except freedom? Say the word ‘freedom’ to an American and he starts crying.”
“Rather like you Brits react to the words ‘beef and beer,’” Jace shot back.
Turning, she smiled at him. He didn’t smile back, but there was a twinkle in his eye.
“Look at it this way,” she said. “If you and I spend a lot of time together, the village will think we’re shagging all over the house, so they won’t spend their time trying to figure out what you’re really up to. Why
did
you make that notorious chintz room up to look like a Victorian movie set? And who’s the woman in the portrait over the mantelpiece?”
“I thought you knew all about Priory House,” Jace said.
“I only heard about the portrait through the grapevine. I haven’t seen her. Describe her.”
“Beautiful. Eighteen-inch waist.”
“Ann Stuart’s cousin. Their fathers were brothers. Ann killed herself rather than—”
“No, she didn’t,” Jace said quickly.
“And how do you know that she didn’t?” she said even quicker.
“I overheard Ann and Catherine talking. Ann
wanted
to marry Danny Longstreet.”
At that, Nigh couldn’t speak. She just stared at him.
“At last I’ve silenced that tongue of yours.”
“You overheard them? That implies a sort of time travel. Don’t tell me—”
“I have no intention of telling you anything, and if you write about this you’ll be the laughingstock of the town.” He stood up.
She put herself in front of him. “I know everything that’s happened in that house and people tell me all the gossip in this village. I know you and Clive Sefton share a secret.”
“What secret?” Jace said, his face serious. It was one thing to share information about a ghost, but he didn’t want her to know about Stacy.
“I don’t know and I’m sure it’s none of my business. I’m only interested in the house. Let me help you research whatever it is that you’re trying to do.”
“What do you really want?”
She looked him in the eyes. “If I told you the truth, you wouldn’t believe me.”