‘Are you sure? Are you hurt anywhere else? Your breathing sounds very heavy.’ She tipped his face up some more, and carefully inspected the scratches, their noses almost touching. Now there was no mistaking the wicked twinkle in his eyes.
‘I am labouring under a great deal of stress, Miss Lattimer.’
Hester dropped the cloth back in the bowl and handed him a dry piece with a reproving look. Her own heart rate had accelerated to an uncomfortable degree.
‘Have a cup of tea, my lord,’ Maria urged, mercifully missing the by-play. ‘I am sure that will make you feel better. Then I will fetch the basilicum powder.’
‘Thank you, Miss Prudhome.’ He gave the chaperon a look of such docility that Hester could have boxed his ears.
‘There are only ten tonight,’ Susan said, dumping an armful of roses on the kitchen table. ‘Fourteen the first night, twelve the next…’
‘It started with the new moon.’ Hester made her voice steady with a struggle. ‘It happens every second night, and each time there are two fewer. By the time of the full moon there will be none. And at the full moon-’ She broke off, unable to repeat the nonsense Miss Nugent had spouted.
‘At the full moon, what?’ Susan was wide eyed.
‘Nothing, just some nonsense Miss Nugent says she found in an old manuscript.’
‘Tell us,’ Guy commanded. He glanced round at the other women. ‘I suspect that Sir Lewis and Miss Nugent may be hoping to alarm Miss Lattimer into reselling the house to them. I would like to hear what taradiddles they have concocted.’
‘You think they are breaking into the house?’ Hester found it incredible as soon as she said it. ‘Respectable members of local society?’
‘I am respectable, and you had no trouble believing me the culprit,’ Guy pointed out with a grin. ‘Now, what is supposed to happen at the full moon?’
‘The evil in the house will wax with the moon, and then when it is full… Oh, this is such fustian, it isn’t worth repeating!’
‘Go on, Miss Hester,’ Susan urged. ‘You can’t not tell us now, imagining is much worse.’
‘Very well, if you must have it. When the moon is full, Death walks.’
There was silence as the four of them absorbed this. Then into the stillness they heard the dragging footsteps coming down the hall. Four pairs of eyes turned to the door, which slowly began to creak open.
Guy got to his feet, gesturing with his hand for silence. With a muffled squeak Miss Prudhome clutched Susan and Hester found herself standing, her hand on Guy’s arm.
The door opened to reveal a white-clad figure and, with a sigh, Miss Prudhome slid to the floor in a dead faint.
CHAPTER TWELVE
‘Jethro!’ Hester released her hold on Guy’s arm and went to take the unsteady figure by the elbow. ‘What on earth are you doing down here at this hour in the morning? You scared us all to death! Oh dear, Susan, is Miss Prudhome all right?’
‘She will be if I can just find some feathers to burn under her nose.’ Susan struggled to get the wilting companion into a sitting position, only to find his lordship bending at her side.
‘Here, let me, I think she is coming round.’ He scooped up Miss Prudhome, almost dropping her again at the screech of alarm she let out when she realised she was in the arms of a man. He hastily seated her in a Windsor chair by the range and retreated to assist Hester, who was urging Jethro to take the seat opposite.
‘I heard the to-do, Miss Hester,’ Jethro explained, wincing as the hard chair back met his shoulder. ‘But I didn’t reckon on being so shaky on my feet. It took me near ten minutes to get out of bed. I’m sorry, my lord.’ He turned his pale face towards Guy, ‘I should have been more alert-like, ready to help.’
‘It’s a very good thing you did not, Jethro, there were enough of us falling all over the place-I am afraid I let your ghost go.’
‘I think we need a council of war,’ Hester announced, marching back into the room with the brandy decanter in her hand. ‘Susan, brew some coffee, please. Tea is simply not stimulating enough.’ She placed the decanter on the table. ‘Now, who would like brandy in their coffee and who would like it in a glass?’
‘Oh, if anyone should see us,’ Miss Prudhome lamented. ‘Drinking brandy at three in the morning with a man in the house.’
Guy unstoppered the decanter, sniffed, then reached for one of the glasses Hester put on the table. ‘It would be a crime to mix this with coffee.’ He poured five glasses and pushed them around the table. ‘Is the rest of your wine cellar up to this standard, Miss Lattimer?’
Off guard she replied, ‘Oh, yes, all of it is very good, although I have not dared look at the clarets yet after their jolting on the carrier’s cart.’
‘You must introduce me to your wine merchant.’ Guy took an appreciative sip. ‘I imagine we are too far from the sea here for it to be run brandy.’
‘I inherited it,’ Hester admitted. ‘Unusual, I know…’
‘Your father had excellent taste.’ Of course, that was the obvious conclusion, there was no need to fear he would guess the truth.
Hester smiled brightly. ‘Thank you. Maria, are you feeling a little recovered?’
‘Yes, indeed.’ In fact, Miss Prudhome was faintly flushed, and Hester noticed that she was taking rather more sips from the glass than from her cup. ‘This is very reviving, although naturally I do not approve of spirits except in a medicinal capacity.’
‘Good. Now, what are we going to do?’ Hester looked round the kitchen table at her supporters. One nervous lady’s companion one feisty maidservant, a boy with a damaged shoulder and a nobleman who most certainly shouldn’t be there. ‘We know whoever is doing this is flesh and blood; Lord Buckland hit him.’
‘Hard enough to bruise.’ Guy rubbed his knuckles.
‘So we must watch out for men with a bruised cheek or a black eye. We know they can get in and out of here without using the doors and windows.’
‘Which is strange, in a house of this age,’ Maria remarked. She was sitting up, looking much recovered, a faint flush on her cheeks. ‘I mean, it is not as though it is some ancient mansion where you might expect priest holes and secret passages, is it?’
‘The ghost has therefore taken time to prepare something before your arrival,’ Guy mused. ‘Or the secret entrance was built at the same time as the house. The latter, I imagine.’
Hester shot him a suspicious glance. There was something about the tone of his voice that made her suspect he was putting two and two together-and that the clues he was adding up were unknown to her.
‘And that entrance is in this kitchen, or the scullery,’ Susan added. ‘That would make sense-this is the back of the house and shielded from passers-by.’
‘And the only person, other than his lordship, who has expressed a desire to buy the house is Sir Lewis.’ Hester shook her head in disbelief. ‘He has not pressed me about it, only said that if I was alarmed he felt it was his duty to buy it back. I cannot imagine that would be easy for him, his own home is in poor repair.’
‘You think him short of funds?’ Guy twirled the stem of his glass between his fingers. ‘If he does indeed want this house, then it must represent an investment of some kind to him, but what I cannot imagine.’
‘Someone was here at night, several times just before I arrived.’ Hester recounted the village gossip. ‘Lights were seen. But if they were searching, there was no trace of it. The Nugents could well have retained keys, of course-the back door was not bolted when we arrived. But why should they? It is only a short while since their father sold it to me; if there were some secret, something of value, surely both father and son would know about it, and it would have been removed before the house was sold.’
‘If Lewis did know. I wonder just how sudden his father’s death was.’
‘He was unwell-Miss Nugent would have it that he became so when he signed the bill of sale-but the end was sudden, following a fall, and, according to her, the moon was full and a dead rose was found.’
