Chapter Forty-Two
“We’re lost,” Viscount Speed said grimly. “We’ve been circling these woods in the dark for hours. I swear I’ve seen that tree stump before.”
“It’s too dark to see a hand in front of your face,” Brodie said, standing in a pool of moonlight, staring at his own palm.
“I thought you said you knew these woods intimately,” Mandeville said.
“O’ course I do!” Brodie said, and set off straight through a thick patch of thistles. Speed and Mandeville followed, crouched low. Brodie stopped suddenly, and they crashed into his back.
“For the love of God and all his angels, what is it now? Did you see something?” Mandeville said, straightening his coat.
“No, but I heard something,” Brodie replied, swinging his gun wildly at every shadow. It ended up poking into Mandeville’s bulging belly.
The Englishman pushed the barrel away with his fingertip. “Well, what did it sound like?”
“It was a terrible groaning sound,” Brodie said.
“Like a person—or an animal?” Speed asked. “What kind of animals are in these woods at night, anyway?”
“Fearsome things,” Brodie replied in a low voice. “Great, huge, nasty deer; furious badgers that could gnaw a man’s leg off, bats—”
“Ugh. I hate bats.” Speed shuddered.
“What about ghosts?” someone asked in a hollow tone.
“Ghosts?” Lord Mandeville exclaimed.
“The dead,” Speed said in a hollow voice.
“The recent dead at the very least. They walk right up and tap you on the shoulder, all gory and grim, clad in nothing but grave clothes and ashes, and when you turn—” He cried out, discovering Brodie behind him, instead of in front where he’d been a moment before.
At Speed’s cry, Brodie raised his gun, and nearly put the viscount’s eye out.
Mandeville took out his handkerchief and mopped the sweat from his face. “Ghosts. Ha! There’s no such thing, and if there were, you simply need to look it in the eye—”
“If it still has eyes to look into,” Speed put in.
“You look it in the eye and say, ‘Begone,’ and off it goes.” He waved a meaty hand.
“Is that so?”
“Which one of you said that?” Lord Mandeville asked.
“Wasna me,” Brodie said.
“Nor I,” Speed said, anxiously. “What’s that tapping noise?”
Mandeville peered around his friend. Brodie was shaking so hard his gun was clattering against his belt buckle. He was staring into the dark above the Englishmen’s heads, his face white, his eyes hollow. “Gh-ghost!” he managed, and raised his finger to point.
Speed shut his eyes and began to mutter what he hoped was an incantation against evil spirits, ill luck, and the pox.
He spun when he heard Mandeville’s shriek, and looked straight into the eyes of a glowing form sitting on a branch, just above his head, grinning down at them, a winding cloth still wrapped around its horrible chin, its teeth bare, the eyes sockets empty.
It raised a bony hand to unwind the cloth, and the jawbone dropped onto its hollow chest.
Speed felt something warm and wet spill over his stockings, smelled the acrid scent of urine, but he couldn’t look away. The horrible thing in the tree grinned, if something so horrible could be called a grin. Then it swooped forward.
“Begone,” the ghost said, but by then, Speed, Mandeville, and Brodie had already fled.
“Now was that really necessary?” Georgiana asked Angus, floating up to watch the men fleeing over the hills. “It was rather undignified.”
Angus rubbed his hands together gleefully. “Most fun I’ve had in—well, on this side of the grave, anyway. I’ve never liked Brodie’s branch of the family, for all they’re kin. Daft to a man, they are.”
“And now he’ll be running about the countryside telling tales of rotting ghosts in trees.” Georgiana sniffed.
“Well, it did the job, didn’t it? I daresay a ghostly piper standing on a hill would have been lovely, but I haven’t got any pipes!”
Georgiana smiled. “Oh well, perhaps it was worth it to see Lord Mandeville barreling over the hills that way. I remember his grandmother. She choked on a candied plum at a dinner party. I daresay he won’t stop until he crosses the border. He’ll not trouble us further.”
“Or Alec,” Angus added.
“What of Devorguilla?” Georgiana asked.
Angus smiled at her. “I think we can leave her to Muira.”