“I’m quite disappointed, though, that she hasn’t found a moment here to go off with Kit. It seems they both believe I invited him only to settle the details for your greenhouse. And the house is so quiet. Do you know, I think everyone’s gone to bed. And it’s not even midnight.” She gave an expressive sigh, rubbing Joseph’s smooth, warm back. “I believe I shall have to devise a way to get Rose and Kit out of their beds and into each other’s arms, at least for a while. I imagine he’ll be leaving in the morning for Hampton Court. Perhaps we’ll wait a few days before following…give Rose some time to miss him. What do you think, darling?”
Her husband’s answer was a soft snore. He was fast asleep.
Oh, well. She would lie here until she came up with a plan—she was quite used to plotting these things without him. Men were dear creatures, but the vast majority of them didn’t seem to have much of an imagination.
A few minutes later she chuckled to herself. Ah, yes, that should work—and be quite amusing in the bargain. Carefully she wiggled free from her husband and slid out of bed. She slipped back into her discarded night rail and tied a wrapper over it against the chill.
Joseph would hardly miss her. When her mission was accomplished, she’d return and wake him his favorite way. The night was still young, and dear Joseph never minded being awakened—not by her, anyway.
A little ripple of anticipation warmed her body as she sneaked from the chamber into the dimly lit corridor.
The house was amazingly quiet. Rose’s room was right beyond hers, so Chrystabel tiptoed to the door and tapped her fingernails against it—rat-a-tat-tat. Then she moved to the door of the room she’d assigned to Kit and did the same thing.
Nothing. Rose was a heavy sleeper, and Kit must be, too. She tapped on both their doors again, then a third time. Finally, the sound of a latch sent her scurrying back to her room. Suppressing a giddy giggle, she pulled the door shut behind her—but not quite all the way.
Her ear pressed to the slit of an opening, she heard someone pad into the corridor and knock loudly on another door.
“Rowan!” came a harsh whisper. Then louder, “Rowan, open up!”
It was Jewel’s voice, not Rose’s. Chrystabel sighed as she listened. Another door opened.
“What?” Rowan demanded rather ungraciously.
“I heard a noise.”
“What kind of noise?” he said through a yawn.
“I’m not sure. Maybe a ghost.”
That idea was greeted by a snort. “There are no ghosts at Trentingham.”
“I heard something, Rowan! Listen, will you?”
A long spell passed where there was no sound. Of course, Chrystabel wasn’t tapping on doors.
“It was nothing,” Rowan said at last. “Go back to bed.”
“I’m afraid of ghosts. I cannot sleep. Will you stay with me?”
“I cannot visit your chamber in the middle of the night. That wouldn’t be proper.” Even at the tender age of eleven, Rowan knew that.
“What if I hear it again?”
The boy’s sigh would have done a grown man justice. “Are you hungry?”
Jewel seemed to consider that question a moment. “I guess I am.”
“Maybe it was your stomach rumbling. Let’s go downstairs and find something to eat.”
Chrystabel waited until their footfalls had proceeded down the staircase before easing open her door. It seemed neither Rose nor Kit had awakened even with Rowan and Jewel talking outside their rooms. Something louder than those benign little taps would be necessary.
She scratched her fingernails down the front of Rose’s door, a nice, satisfying scrape as she raked down the carved linenfold design. After repeating the motion, she moved to Kit’s door and did it twice more.
Hearing a latch again, she darted back into her room.
“Just take a look, Rand! There must be something there. I cannot sleep with these noises!” It was Lily this time, Chrystabel realized with more than a little frustration. “Do you see anything?”
“Nothing. Would you like to come and look for yourself?”
“No,” Lily said. “But those sounds cannot come from nowhere.”
“Houses settle. You told me there have been no ghosts at Trentingham in the past, and there’s no reason to believe one would suddenly arrive now. Damn, now that you’ve wakened me, I’m hungry. Shall we go downstairs and find something to eat?”
For a brand-new son-in-law, Rand certainly felt at home here, Chrystabel thought wryly. While she waited for them to start downstairs, she looked around her chamber for something that would make more noise.
Her silver comb ought to do it. She snatched it up and peeked out her door. All was clear.
Drawn sideways across the wooden linenfold grooves, the comb made quite a racket. It wasn’t long at all before the click of another latch sent her to safety behind her own door.
“There’s no such thing as ghosts,” she heard Ford say.
She barely stifled a groan.
A long minute or two passed while she listened to footsteps pacing up and down the corridor. Ford, the scientific one, was a much more thorough ghost-hunter than either of his brothers-in-law. “All’s clear,” she finally heard him tell Violet. “I swear it. You hungry? Let’s go downstairs and find something to eat.”
Slumped against the door, Chrystabel pictured her oldest daughter slipping from her childhood bed and into a wrapper. Joseph snored peacefully behind her, and Rose apparently still slept in her room. Vexing girl must take after her father.
By the time Violet and Ford clattered down the steps—being none too quiet about it—Chrystabel had decided drastic measures were in order. Leaving the comb behind, she ventured once more into the corridor.
She paused by Rose’s door, then pushed down on the latch and opened it a smidgen. “Whooooooooo,” she called inside, a breathy, piercing whistle.
The fourth child of five, Chrystabel had learned young how to impersonate an otherworldly creature. How better to get back at her older sisters? She could hardly have used her fists.
“Whooooooooo,” she called twice more for good measure, then hurried
