Chapter 36
Thirty-Six
The sound of the Minster’s clock tower pulled Harry from his sleep.
Twelve chimes. He pulled the covers tighter around himself and Agnes.
Using her charms, Agnes had convinced him to spend the night in York again.
But he was also too exhausted for travel after having turned the house over from top to bottom trying to locate the copy of Richard’s original will.
The night was chilly, but Agnes’s warmth felt like a lifeline. Did she often sleep in such a cold room?
The latch of a door sounded in the dark. His breath hitched as he shot up, before thinking better of it and lying back down quietly. Perhaps the servant wouldn’t notice him in Agnes’s bed if he remained motionless under the covers. She was probably here to stoke the fire and leave.
He waited for the sound of footsteps, but none came. The door slammed shut. The maid did not appear worried about waking Agnes. Or perhaps the breeze from the open window had caught the door.
Something dropped to the floor with a heavy thud and then rolled across the wood. The sound had come from the next room, Richard’s bedchamber. He remembered Agnes’s stories of the haunted paperweight.
Oh, dear.
Harry forced himself to calm his breathing.
Meeting a ghost had never been something he aspired to do, but this was for Agnes.
He thought about waking her, just for a moment, but he didn’t want to get her hopes up if it turned out to be nothing.
She was eager for the spirit to bring her more answers.
Sliding out from under the covers, he realized how cold it actually was.
The fire was still burning, but its heat was inadequate against the frigid air.
He carefully tucked the ends of the coverlet around Agnes.
Bram’s bell tinkled behind the adjoining door—the door to the bedchamber of the man whose wife Harry had just been lying next to.
His hand rested on the door handle. Sweat made his fingers slip against the brass. After three deep breaths, he turned the handle and jumped into the room. Immediately he spotted the black cat sitting on the floor next to a round object.
Wind whistled through the room, disturbing the stillness of the night.
Checking each window, he noted none were open.
He reached behind him, feeling for the door handle.
Agnes was just on the other side. He was no better than a schoolboy afraid of the monster under his bed.
But that wasn’t even a fair comparison. Unlike those childhood tales, these spirits were real.
“Richard?” Hopefully the man wouldn’t mind his use of his familiar name. It’s not as if Harry were his employee any longer. In fact, they would be like family soon, wouldn’t they?
The sound of snapping fingers came from behind him. Bram walked across the room toward Harry, crooked tail high in the air. As the cat slunk past, he turned to the darkness behind him. Bram sat, staring up at the ceiling, his purrs echoing through the room.
“Richard. If that is you, I have a favor to ask you, as a friend. I hope you would consider me a friend. I sure enjoyed spending time in your company.” Now he was rambling—to a ghost. Surely the ghost had no time to listen as he struggled to find the right words, or did he?
Harry had never considered how much spare time one had in the afterlife.
“Agnes . . . She wants to stay here. Live the life that you helped her build, the one she had planned. Can you give us a clue to help us find the proof we need? I know we would both want that for her.”
There was no movement, no signs. The lack of response left him feeling a bit like a clod. Maybe he was speaking to an empty room. Yet, all of his senses told him otherwise.
“Well, then. If you find a way to help, we would appreciate it. Before you go . . .” Harry tapped his foot on the ground.
Despite wanting to reach into the void to test whether he was really alone, he kept his hands glued to his side.
Touching a ghost would surely make his own heart stop.
“Before you go, I want you to know that I will be there for her, always. I love her, Richard. I know you cared for her deeply in your own way, and she is so fortunate for that. But I will care for her now. I need you to know she will be safe, and she will be happy.”
A tap on his foot startled him. He jumped, shrieked, and looked down at the offending object. The paperweight had rolled to him.
He assumed that it was supposed to be a reassuring sign, but this was more ghostly contact than he was ready for. Planning his escape, he noticed that the room had warmed and the air had stilled. Bram turned his head, looking at him instead. Richard was gone.
“Come on,” he said, snapping his fingers to the cat. “Let’s go back to bed.” He and Bram returned to Agnes’s chambers. They both snuggled with the sleeping woman. Looking at the cat lying by her feet, he whispered, “I guess I can share her, just a little.” Bram hissed.
Agnes opened her eyes to find that Harry was no longer next to her. The clothes they had abandoned last night were no longer strewn across the floor. Harry still cared so much for feigning propriety that he probably had snuck back to his room to avoid raising the servants’ suspicions.
Through Richard’s door, she heard movement. She had slept longer than she thought. It must already be sunrise and the servants had already begun dusting the room.
But then she heard his voice—a voice she hadn’t heard in two months. Pulling the covers back, she looked down at her night rail. She hadn’t worn it when she went to bed last night. She was dreaming.
Creeping through the door to Richard’s bedchamber, she followed the sound of his voice. She braced herself to see Richard for the first time since his death, but instead, she caught only a glimpse of his slippered feet moving through the door to the hall.
She chased after him, catching only hints of him disappearing around corners. Agnes called his name as she ran through their home. “Richard, Richard.” Her voice came out barely above a whisper. It was so cold that her shaky breaths materialized into a white fog.
She followed him to her apothecary, recognizing the rhythm as the ghostly footsteps she had heard in the past weeks on the stairs.
Upon opening the door, she no longer held hope that she would see Richard’s spirit or be able to communicate with him directly. But he was showing her something, and she was listening.
At first glance, her apothecary appeared unchanged from how she’d left it the night before. She looked around the familiar room, her favorite place in the world. But now she wondered if her favorite place was anywhere with Harry beside her.
With a thump, an old journal fell to the floor.
It was her first journal, the one Edith had given her when she first brought Agnes home to York all those years ago.
Everything on the pages had been learned by heart, laying the foundations that guided her intuition as she worked.
She hadn’t opened the book in several years. There had been no need.
Agnes picked the book off the floor and opened it. Hours of her hard work were detailed on the pages. The scrawled recipes and observations, annotations, notes in the margins, and mysterious stains all showed her commitment to the craft. Memories of her time with Edith flashed through her mind.
Between the last page and the back cover, she found a folded piece of paper sealed with a wax crest of the Barony of Skelton. It had never been there before.
A scream rang in her ear. She was back in her room, this time with Harry by her side.
“What? What is it?” she said, still making sense of her surroundings and trying to hold on to the final revelation of her dream.
“He bit me.” She felt Bram’s weight lift off her ankles as he scurried from the bed.
“Well, were you moving?”
“I don’t sleep like the dead.”
“Well, that’s why.” If Harry wanted to share her bed, he’d have to get used to the cat, and Bram would have to get used to him.
Harry followed Agnes up the stairs to her apothecary wearing nothing but his union suit and one of her silk wrappers.
Agnes had jumped out of bed asking him to follow, so he had.
If any of the staff saw him now, they would likely chase him out of the house and never allow him into the city again.
He carried the lamp in one hand, holding the garment tightly closed with the other as if it preserved his modesty.
“I had a dream,” she whispered. “Richard visited me again.”
“Did he?” Harry was surprised, but not too much, since Richard had visited him tonight too.
But something about his conversation with her late husband felt too private to share.
It had been a discussion between friends, man to man, or perhaps ghost to man.
Either way, he would tell her one day, but not tonight.
“So what are we doing in here?” he asked as he held her waist and she leaned into him. Then she grabbed his hand and pulled him to the back wall covered with shelves.
“Here. In my dreams, I heard Richard’s voice and he led me around the house. He brought me here, and I saw something I did not recognize in this book. Something I did not place there myself.”
She was nervous, likely afraid that this message that seemed so significant would lead to another dead end. With one shaking hand, she reached for a navy-blue journal, thickened with well-used pages and a worn spine.
They both held their breath. “It was tucked in here. I haven’t opened it since he died. Well, long before that. This is what he showed me.”
She opened it to the back cover and gasped. Folded papers sealed with wax sat inside. Harry knew the Skelton crest well from his years of service to the estate.
“Agnes.” He gripped her waist even harder, placing his head on her shoulder.
“Do you think . . .?” she began.
“Open it.” She nodded but held the papers to her chest first, closing her eyes. Droplets beaded on her lashes.
“I’m scared.”
He clasped his hands over hers, holding her. “Whatever it is, Agnes, you will still have your work and a home. I swear to it.”
She opened her eyes and turned so that they faced each other. He saw his reflection in the tears that had yet to fall. “I will have a home because I will have you.”
“Always. I love you.”
“I love you too.” She planted a sweet kiss on his lips before straightening her shoulders and sliding her thumb under the wax seal. “Here it goes.”