The Ghost and Miss Demure (19 page)

Hugh wouldn’t follow them. Why would he? She shook her head. “He won’t. He likes it here. Maybe he has to stay here. So, yes, let’s get to work. Let’s go back to normal,” she said, relieved to finally be able to leave the subject of last night.

“Are we ready to send something off to the printer? We’ve only four weeks left.” Tristam’s voice was calm but he strafed the walls and ceiling with his gaze. She knew who he was looking for. Karo was just glad that he’d never looked at her that way.

“Uh…” She pulled her wits together. “We’re ready—or we will be by next week. Except for photos.”

“No photographs!” he commanded. “Unless Vellacourt agrees to pose with the china.”

“I could ask,” Karo offered.

Tristam goggled, momentarily startled out of his erect posture. “What!”

“I said that I could ask Hugh to pose.”

“Good God! That was a jest. Don’t even speak of that devil. I don’t want to encourage him. Or any ghost-hunting nuts.”

Karo wasn’t certain if she should take Tristam seriously. “I have a photo of him on my cell phone. It isn’t real clear, but we could use it. Want to see?”

“No. At least, not right now.” He continued to stare at her.

“Well, it’s an idea. Ghost-hunting nuts would pay money to see him,” she pointed out. Her thinking had evolved over time and she was no longer worrying about what the academics would say.

“It’s a terrible idea! We want a tourist attraction not a freak show. If we offer proof positive of a ghost, every nut-job from both sides of the Atlantic would show up here for séances and spirit-raisings. There’d be animal sacrifices,” he went on, warming to his Cassandraic theme. “Soon the National Enquirer will be camped on our doorstep, and the historical societies and the DAR will demand that we close our doors or be run out of town on a rail. We’d never make it into Frommer’s or Michelin, and—”

“Okay! Okay! I get the point,” she interrupted. “Don’t be so melodramatic. We’ll be a little subtler about cashing in.” Karo took Tristam’s abandoned chair and reached for a pad of paper. “Do we mention anything about him in our cookbook—throw in a recipe for ghost punch or something?”

“No. We handle all this”—he waved a hand, indicating both the architecture and the graveyard that lay just beyond the north wall—“by word of mouth. If I can’t get rid of him first,” Tristam added under his breath.

“Okay.” Karo scribbled a note. “When is that cleaning crew coming back? The floors need waxing.”

“Next week. We need to have the garret empty by then. We have a termite inspection on the thirtieth.” Tristam walked behind the desk and consulted his calendar. “The roofers have their inspection the next day—Halloween. And then the plasterers will be back to finish the repairs in the west wing. Also, I’ve called in a firm to deal with the largest of the chandeliers. The rigging has
rusted. I put up a ladder and took a few swipes at the thing but even WD40 didn’t knock those things loose. I decided that it would be best to call in a professional before I fell off the ladder and became an example of Newtonian physics in action.”

“That’s best. Falling apples are one things, falling bodies another. Shall I schedule Miles?”

“Miles?” Tristam looked up.

“The photographer. For the postcards,” she reminded him. “Not the brochure.”

“Oh, yes. He can come anytime after the exterior work is done.” Tristam nodded, but continued to stare at her.

“What is it?” she asked, laying down her pen.

“We really have only one job left, excepting a tour of the lower basements.”

“Yeah? What’s that?” But she had a feeling she knew what he would say. Their plan to avoid it just wasn’t going to work.

“The garret.”

“Oh.” Karo looked away.

“We could do it separately. Want to toss a coin to see who gets stuck with it? Or…”

Karo could hear the laughter in Tristam’s voice and allowed herself to glance back at him. His eyes were gleaming. “Or?” she asked warily.

“Or do you think that you can keep your hands off of me for an entire afternoon?”

In response, Karo threw her pen at him.

They tackled the room together. In spite of their concern, Vellacourt tactfully made no appearance. They were only hampered in their task by their
own memories and febrile imaginations, which they wisely kept to themselves.

After much debate, they decided to leave the room as it was, save for some cleaning. Vellacourt’s toys had to go somewhere, seeing as Clarice didn’t want any of it destroyed, and this was as good a spot as any. The garret would be straightened—it was surprisingly clean, and Karo wondered if it was Vellacourt’s ghost having kept it tidy or something else—and then they would install a sturdy lock to discourage visitors from the tour. They would bring up Vellacourt’s more eclectic journals and inventions and put the whole lot under lock and key. Everything would remain safe and sound.

Karo hoped the plan would please the ghost. She didn’t put much stock in Tristam’s suggestion that Vellacourt would like to be sent to an eternal rest; their overly friendly haunt wasn’t spending his semicorporeal moments leading them after his moldering bones or toward lost gold, nor was he spinning tales of murder and vengeance. Nor was he trying to drive them off with clanking chains or ghostly moans. As spirits went, he was a very quiet soul. The only way she ever knew he was watching her was when her body temperature took an unexpected rise. When she explained the phenomenon, Tristam was dismayed. That he was hot instead of cold seemed suggestive of bad things.

The moments of feeling the ghost’s presence were uncomfortable for Karo, both because of the betraying heat washing through her body and because of Tristam’s silent anger when he noticed. Jealousy, she could tell. It was weird, in her opinion,
his annoyance, and it was making her uncomfortable. She explained that she thought it was the lightning strike that had done this to her, opening her to seeing Hugh’s spirit, but that only made Tristam more suspicious. He suggested Hugh had arranged for her to be struck. Karo didn’t mention that the ghost had said something to this effect.

One thing that was gone from the room were the candles. There were candles all through the house, in bottles, in saucers, in candelabras and sticks. They all scared Karo, who could too easily imagine accidentally setting the old house ablaze.

Flameless candles for the rest of the house
, she wrote in her notebook, planning more things to buy. Better a fortune spent on batteries than a fire.

She also found a cedar chest shoved into the darkest corner of the room. Mothballs—the odor of things past, perfume to the historian—wafted out of the chest when Karo lifted the lid. Inside she found a scrap of yellowed linen that she was certain had belonged to Eustacie, and that was the very one featured in the previous night’s X-rated experience. Karo decided not to show it to Tristam.

They took a break around five and stepped outside for a breath of air while they surveyed the Campion brothers’ recent work. The grounds were greatly improved over the jungle they’d been on the day of Karo’s arrival; the overgrown plants were slapped back from the house, and the red stony soil was buried under acres of new green sod that rolled on, smooth as a velvet croquet green. Which in fact it was. The first scheduled tournament would be played the last week in November.

Filtered sunlight filled up the mansion’s usually shady hollow like pale wine and gilded everything with an autumnal touch. It made a nice change from the dusty daylight on the third floor.

Karo and Tristam strolled out to the center courtyard where the laborers were currently working at restoring the formal gardens. A mighty winged gryphon at the center of a rediscovered fountain, carved of stone, had been scraped clean of its undignified bird droppings, and the small, cascading pools had been emptied of a decade’s clutter to again run quiet and clear over his stony toenails.

They took a seat on a stone bench held aloft by two pairs of scantily clad nymphs that looked to Karo like a quartet of cross-dressing Mr. Universes doing the clean and jerk. While the ugly cherubs were far too muscular for modern taste, all that concerned Karo was that they were quite capable of supporting the combined weight of any four humans on their fat ankles and bulky arms.

She inhaled deeply of the perfumed air. It was as potent and intoxicating as modeler’s glue. There were roses still blooming in the dappled shade. Autumn Damasks, the shrub roses of ancient Rome. Rosa Gallica, emblem of the Persians some three thousand years before. Moss roses from China, their thick pink blossoms drenched in scent. Albas, Bourbons, Musks, Rugosas, and arching sprays of the red ramblers that had attached themselves to the south side of the house.

“I’m glad they didn’t spoil it,” Karo said softly, so as to not disturb several nearby droning bees.

Tristam’s arm settled casually around her waist.
It was the first touch he had allowed himself since that morning. “It is a bit like the Secret Garden isn’t it?”

“Yes. Or some other fairy tale.” Despite her best intentions, she allowed her head to rest lightly against Tristam’s dusty shoulder. Her eyes closed. Her tired brain went to lunch.

“Better, I think.” His neck bent, and his soft lips brushed over her mouth. “Sweet.”

“Vanilla,” she agreed before returning his delicate kiss.

It was their first real kiss, and everything felt exactly right to Karo. Her ambivalence faded. The arms that had been so rough the night before, dream or not, were now as gentle as the afternoon sun. They coaxed her closer, and his mouth continued its light, magical seduction.

Tristam’s golden hair felt like silk beneath her fingers, and he was warmer than the late afternoon light reflecting off the marble bench. The knot of tension that had been clenched tight against the memory of their dream released its clutch and Karo relaxed completely into his embrace; the rich scent of vanilla and rose musk overcame any objection her brain might have raised.

There was a soft breeze that followed Tristam’s fingertips as they walked the length of her arms with a butterfly touch. Karo shivered and moved deeper into his arms. Her own hands stayed buried in his golden hair as she returned his kisses with growing fervor.

Heat was blossoming inside of her, a slow unfolding of red desire that was new and yet strangely familiar. It made her skin prickle. She wanted to
put her hands inside his shirt and touch his golden flesh, which flexed beneath her fingers. She wanted to press an open mouth against the pulse in his throat and taste his skin as she had the night before. She wanted to…

He stopped. Slowly he pulled away from her lips. Only an inch of space separated them, yet Karo felt like her skin had been peeled back, leaving her body naked and chilled in the failing light. The lovely heat that had flooded her body folded back in on itself and disappeared with an inaudible whimper. She moaned in soft protest and leaned forward. Tristam’s arms tightened briefly in comfort but again he set her away from him.

“Why?” she asked, shivering.

“It’s getting late, and the mosquitoes are out.”

“I don’t care.”

“You would in the morning.” Tristam stood and helped her to her feet. “Anyway, it’s for the best that we stop this now.”

“It is? I don’t think it is,” she grumbled.

Tristam put his arm around her and guided their steps toward the house. Karo resisted the urge to sneak a hand under his shirt and play with the downy hair covering the small of his back, but it was hard to do so—much harder than she liked to admit.

“No? Well, perhaps I am thinking more clearly than you. There are two very good reasons for being sensible.”

“I can’t think of a one.”

He chuckled. “That is indeed flattery.”

“If you turn into a typical male pig I’ll belt you,” Karo warned.

“I believe you, love, and I wouldn’t dream of being a typical male anything. For that reason, I am going to respect your wish about an on-the-job romance for a while longer.”

“You are?” Karo could hear the dismay in her voice and made an effort to pull herself out the sensual miasma that had coated her brain. Was all this heat from arousal, or was there another cause? She was distressed to find that she couldn’t tell. She just knew she was acting different than usual.

“Yes,” he admitted unhappily. “Much as I’ll suffer for it.”

Karo sighed and mentally chided herself. It wasn’t fair to make Tristam be the sole guardian of her rules. Still…“Well! What a time to decide to do things my way. Why weren’t you this agreeable about my suggestions about the Limoges?” she demanded as they started walking and her higher brain functions returned.

That struck just the right chord and made them both laugh.

As soon as the house was in sight, Tristam dropped his arm from her shoulders. He scanned the windows, as though expecting to find someone watching them.

“Respect of my request—is that the only reason for this newfound nobility?” she asked. She had her own suspicions about his sudden reluctance to make love and could understand them. Telling Tristam over the course of the morning about Vellacourt’s several appearances since her arrival had made the incidents sound appalling, and now that the specter had taken an interest in their love life…

“No,” he admitted, proving her correct. “It’s that damned ghoul.”

“Ghost,” she corrected. “Let’s not make him any worse than he is.”

“He’s a bloody albatross. I can practically feel him peeking through the bushes and licking his chops.”

Karo knew what he meant. She felt the ghost’s presence far more keenly than she imagined Tristam did. The only difference was, while Tristam was kissing her, she’d been far too wrapped up in the moment to know if her feelings were pure lust or some manifestation of Hugh and his will. Tristam had obviously been less distracted by the experience.

She tried not to scowl at the unwelcome thought. When a man kissed her, she preferred to be the only thing on his mind.

“In fact…” Tristam continued, making a sudden hard right. His right arm flew out to tug her along in his wake, pulling her like a string at the end of a high-performance kite.