Chapter 16
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“Your Grace?”
A light, almost reluctant knock on the study door brought Adrian’s head up from the mountain of correspondence he had just peaked.
“What is it, Jarvis?” he replied, flexing his aching hand.
The butler entered with a look of mischief about him, though he tried to hide his smile. “As the boys will be returning as early as tomorrow, Miss Wightman and Mrs. Mullens have prepared a little something in the drawing room this evening. They thought—hoped, rather—that you might want to join?”
It took every speck of Adrian’s discipline to smother his surprise. He had not expected Valerie to request his presence and had spent the day in his study for that exact reason—to give her some distance from him.
Would it be wise? He glanced down at his last letter, a dull bit of writing to one of his business associates. That morning, when he had come downstairs to begin his day, it had taken him hours to write anything, too distracted by thoughts of last night.
So, it was something of a miracle that he had made it through everything that needed to be done.
Surely, that diligence called for a reward?
And what could be the harm in joining a group entertainment?
It was not as if he could lay her down and indulge in arousing her pleasures with other people in the room.
Indeed, it might actually be the safest place for him to be.
“Why not,” he said, folding up the letter and adding his seal.
The butler’s face broke into a cheery smile. “Excellent, Your Grace! Oh, they will be so pleased!”
“Jarvis,” Adrian said sternly.
The butler paused. “Yes, Your Grace?”
“Do not make a fuss.”
Jarvis bowed his head, though the quirk of a smile remained. “Of course, Your Grace. Apologies.”
Valerie could not sit still, her gaze darting around the drawing room to survey the scene.
The little party to celebrate the boys’ imminent departure had been a last-minute idea, a sort of rehearsal for the Christmas party at the orphanage, and she had not realized how stressful it was to be a host.
“Oh, I have seen plenty of ghosts here,” the cook, Mrs. Leggat, said, presumably in response to something David and Isaac had asked. “And, let me tell you, they can’t be chased away with mere stones.”
Isaac, who sat cross-legged on the floor by the fire, munching contentedly on a blackberry tart, stared in awe at the cook. “Where did you see one?”
“Have you spoken to one? Were you scared?” David interjected, removing the head of a small marzipan snowman and popping it into his mouth.
The cook seemed delighted that the boys were enjoying her food, which she had spent all day making for the occasion. She seemed equally delighted to be the source of their rapt curiosity.
“Well, let me tell you about the winter ghost,” Mrs. Leggat said in a dramatic voice, as she shifted in her seat.
The boys gasped, sitting up straighter, nodding eagerly.
They were not the only ones. A reasonable crowd had gathered to honor their unexpected, young guests: Kate, Esther, the stablemaster and one of the stable boys, a handful of maids, two footmen, and the gardener were all there.
Mostly for the food, Valerie suspected, but their presence created a pleasant, warming hubbub that was precisely what Christmas was all about: the gathering together of people in shared merriment.
Although, the boys’ choice of entertainment was more reminiscent of All Hallows’ Eve.
“She wanders the rose gardens, where you made those snowmen,” the cook continued.
“A beautiful woman all dressed in white, with the sweetest voice you’d ever hope to hear.
Now, you have to look closely in the snow, or you won’t see her at all.
But you can still hear her when all’s quiet, singing a Christmas hymn. ”
The gardener chuckled. “Aye, I’ve seen her. Like an angel, she is.”
The boys looked like they might burst with excitement.
“Who is she?” David asked, squirming. “What happened to her?”
“No one knows,” Mrs. Leggat replied with a smile.
“Some say she was a bride, due to be married on Christmas Day, but when her beloved didn’t arrive, lost in a snowstorm, she died of a broken heart.
Some say she is an angel, wandering the earth during the Christmas season, granting the wishes of any who are lucky enough to see her. ”
The stablemaster sniffed. “And some say she’s just one of the maids who’s had too much of the master’s brandy.”
A ripple of laughter made its way around the gathered staff, glasses clinking as they toasted to the remark. Such a warming, comforting sound, filling Valerie’s heart up with contentment.
She might not have been at Gramfield with her brother and sister, playing their usual games and enjoying their usual traditions, and she might not have made it to Scotland to fulfil the mission that had taken her away from her siblings, but this was a heartening substitute.
A castle coming together, relaxing in merry company, just people instead of their positions.
“I think she is a Christmas spirit,” the cook insisted. “When someone sees her and hears her beautiful voice, they can’t help but feel cheerful. And she’s only here in the winter, when everything is gloomy and cold and there are no roses to admire in those gardens.”
Isaac sighed. “I wish I could see her before we leave.”
“I wish I could see a real ghost,” David said, his tone a little disappointed. “She doesn’t sound scary at all.”
“Why must a ghost be scary?” Valerie asked, picking up one of the red marzipan apples that Mrs. Leggat had made.
David shrugged. “Because all the stories about ‘em are scary. The ones Hetty tells. I’ve never heard a nice ghost story before.”
“Well, now you have,” Mrs. Leggat replied with a chuckle. “But if it’s not to your liking, why don’t you tell us one of these scary ones?”
The boy shot to his feet like he had been waiting for this moment, the staff laughing amiably at his enthusiasm.
“The Gray Lady haunts the hallways of Blackwall Castle,” he began, “and on dark nights when it’s bitter cold outside, she screams so loud it reaches the town, and if you aren’t good and you aren’t tucked up in your bed asleep, she’ll come looking for you.
She’s got ghost dogs that follow her, big ones, and… ”
Valerie did not hear the rest as the door opened quietly, and Adrian slipped inside. If the others noticed, they did not show it, utterly charmed by David’s eager tale of a howling ghost and her pack of hounds.
But Valerie could not concentrate on anything else.
The party for the boys was, in essence, a means of distracting her mind from the events of last night.
She had thrown herself into its organization all day, for if she had not diverted her attention, she knew she would have stayed in her room just thinking about Adrian’s kiss, the brush of his tongue, and the storm of euphoria that crackled even now, when she but half-thought about the glorious things he had done to her.
David stopped suddenly. “Your Grace,” he mumbled, bowing his head. “I was just telling a story.”
“And I am eager to hear the rest of it,” Adrian said, moving through the room. “Do not mind me.”
He picked up a glass of port, the sight of it flooding Valerie’s skin with heat. She remembered the taste of it on his lips, that spiced, seductive flavor that would now, forever, make her think of him as well as Christmas.
“I can tell another story,” David said, flustered.
Adrian shook his head. “I want to hear this one. I should like to hear all about the Gray Lady and her hounds, who haunt this castle. Otherwise, how shall I know what to look out for?”
A shy smile graced David’s face. “Where was I?”
“The dogs had caught the scent of a naughty lad who wasn’t asleep,” the gardener offered, the staff relaxing a little.
As the boy continued, his wild tale helping the rest of the staff to relax even more into laughter and merriment once again, Adrian came to stand just behind Valerie.
“This is a lovely party,” he said in a low voice that tingled up the back of Valerie’s neck. “Music or the story of the Nativity might have been more appropriate, but I admire the uniqueness. I have never heard ghost stories at Christmas.”
She frowned in bemusement, a half-smile lifting the corner of her lips. Is he… teasing? Does he know how?
“Indeed, I am learning so much about my own castle,” he added, leaving her in no doubt: he was teasing.
Yet, she did not dare to turn around in case she found she was mistaken and discovered a scowl instead of a smile. Then again, a smile from him might have been more shocking, for she did not know if he was capable of that either.
“I am… glad you could join us,” she said quietly.
“I would be a poor host if I did not,” he replied, his tone giving nothing away.
As she half-listened to the increasingly outlandish tale that David was regaling the party with, Isaac chiming in here and there with embellishments of his own, she fought against the temptation to look back at Adrian.
Do not ask for too much. Do not ask for too much. Do not ask for too much, she repeated over and over in her mind, as confused now as she had been all night and all day.
After all, he had not dismissed her or walked away as he had done twice before. Indeed, he had escorted her to her bedchamber and wished her a goodnight. Yet, somehow, she found that to be worse than an abrupt departure, more baffling, more dangerous.
“And then,” David said dramatically, his arms flying outward, “she exploded into a sea of bats!”
Valerie’s heart thundered in her chest, feeling the closeness of Adrian, the back of her neck prickling as if his fingertips were caressing her nape. But there was no touch, just the recollection of one.
Just turn. Just speak to him properly and get it over with, she urged herself.
Taking a bite of the sweet, spiced tart to give her some courage, her eyes closing at the delicious creaminess of the buttery pastry mingling with the slight sour of the blackberries and the warming notes of nutmeg. It was enough of a distraction to steady her thoughts and bolster her bravery.
Putting on a smile, she turned… but there was no one there, where she could have sworn she felt the presence of him, thickening the air behind her. A ghost story all her own, haunted not by a spirit but by memories of a heaven she knew she might never experience again.
He was right here… Where on earth did he go?