Chapter 31
Robert, his grandmother and Meleri had been in the library about an hour when Hugh and Iain returned from church with the twins. The moment they walked into the room, they must have sensed something was wrong, for Iain stopped and told his daughters, “Run along and change your dresses.”
“Can’t we stay for a while?” Catriona asked.
“Do as I asked,” Iain said.
Catriona and Ciorstag looked terribly disappointed, but they did as their father bid and left the room.
Meleri came to her feet. “I will go upstairs with them,” she said. “I’ve had all the deaths and ghost stories I can take for one day.”
Lady Margaret stood, as well. “I think it is time for a nap. This has been a trying day.”
“I will walk both of you to your rooms,” Robert said, rising.
“I will be fine,” Lady Margaret said. “Save that offer for when I am old and really need it.” She left the room.
“Very well.” He watched his grandmother leave, then turned to look at Meleri. “Then I will walk you to your room.”
She placed a hand on his arm. “No, I am all right. Truly. I’m just a little shaken and would like to lie down a bit.” She noticed Iain and Hugh were looking quite baffled by her behavior and comments, neither of them having a clue as to what she was talking about. “Stay here and explain everything to them. I’ll see if the twins want to join me in the garden.”
“You’re sure you don’t mind being alone?” Robert asked.
“No, I’ll be fine. Really.” She started from the room, and as she was going through the door, she said rather flippantly, “After all, what could possibly happen to me now?”
Catriona and Ciorstag were waiting for her. “Where is Lady Margaret?” Meleri asked.
“Gram said she would go on up. She was tired,” Ciorstag said.
“We told her we would wait here for you,” Catriona added.
“I’m glad you waited.”
They walked toward the gallery. As they went, Meleri spoke of the dresses she wanted Agnes to make for them. “I’ll show you the fabrics. They would be perfect for you. Agnes is a fair hand with a needle, although not exceptional. I think you will be pleased.”
“Gram is very good with a needle,” Ciorstag said.
“She has made all of our clothes,” Catriona said. “But her eyes are not as good as they once were.”
“Perhaps they could work together,” Meleri said.
They decided that would be the perfect solution and the three of them walked on until Catriona said, “I am hungry. Let’s go to the kitchen before we go change.”
“It would spoil our dinner, and Papa would be upset with us,” Ciorstag said.
“But they will talk and talk, and I am famished,” Catriona said. “I didn’t have time for breakfast before we left for church.”
“You spent too much time on your hair, hoping Alexander MacKinsey would notice.”
“I did not!” Catriona denied.
“Aye, you did, and all for naught. Alex MacKinsey’s mother said he stayed home to help his father. Everyone knows you fancy him.”
“I do not, and everyone does not think that. One would think you fancied Alex, since you always seem to know of his whereabouts. You don’t see me asking about him.”
“No, you wait until I find out, then you ask me.”
“It doesn’t really matter why I was late, or where Alex was. Neither of those will do anything to make me get over being hungry.”
“Why don’t you go to the kitchen,” Meleri suggested. “If you had a small bite of food, I don’t think that would ruin your appetite for later. I agree that your father will probably be talking to the others for quite some time.”
The twins looked at each other, then rose up on their toes, each of them kissing her on the cheek, before they turned and dashed off toward the kitchen. By the time they disappeared, they were laughing, and Meleri wondered if she would ever have daughters such as these.
She absently thought about the dogs as she approached the staircase, so accustomed she was to see them lying in their usual place, their attention riveted on the gallery of portraits. She came to the old earl’s painting and stopped, her mind filled with a dozen questions that all seemed to ask, “Was it you that I saw?”
She continued on her way, and as she went up the stairs, she felt a presence that came with a cool, chilling draft of air that seemed to rush up the stairs ahead of her. But when she looked, there was no one there. Next time I will not look, she told herself. I don’t care if it drops to freezing in here and he comes up behind me and taps me on the shoulder. I will not look.
She hurried to her room and closed the door. She turned the lock, then began to laugh. “I am changing right before my own eyes…changing from a simpleton to an idiot! Here I am, locking my door to keep out a ghost! I must be losing my mind. Yes, that is what is happening. I am either dreaming or I am losing my mind. None of this is really happening anywhere except in my head.” She tapped her forehead for good measure. “This is getting ridiculous. I have allowed all those silly stories about images disappearing out of paintings and legends and ghosts and missing jewels to occupy my thoughts far too much. Well, I won’t let it do so again.”
She went to her bed and sat down. “Starting right now, I am not going to think about any of this again. I will not look at that painting. I will not think about the old earl. I will not dwell upon any of those stories or legends. I will not give any of it one minute of my time. I know that ghosts do not exist, not even good ones.”
Suddenly the drapes at the window billowed out and a great wind blew into the room, stripping leaves from the trees outside and driving them inside. A lamp fell over, knocking a vase of flowers to the floor.
Okay. So, she was wrong. She was persuaded. She believed. “You should be ashamed of yourself,” she said. “What kind of ghost are you…trying to frighten someone half your size, when you are supposed to be a good ghost?”
He did not answer, of course, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t around. He was in here, all right. She knew he was in here. But where? She began walking around the room, hoping she stepped on him. It would serve him right if she smashed his toes. She lifted the valance on the bedstead and peeped under it. Where would a ghost hide? she asked herself. Anywhere, she answered. She supposed a ghost, being without solid form, could fit himself into any location, any size or shape, even a snuffbox if he so pleased. She lifted a knitted shawl from the chair. Nothing there. She continued looking, but found nothing.
At last, she said, “I know you are in here. Why don’t you do the honorable thing and show yourself?”
Meleri lifted several toilet articles from her dressing table and looked beneath them. She opened her letter box. Nothing. One by one, she searched the drawers and cabinets of the wardrobe. At last, she threw up her hands in defeat. “Oh, I give up. Come out or don’t come out. I don’t care anymore. However, I do think it is rather boorish of you to remain invisible in a lady’s bedchamber. What if I want to change clothes? I don’t know why you are picking on me. I don’t want to believe in ghosts. It was never on my list of suppressed desires. I am not a Scot and I don’t think you are very nice to be picking on me. I certainly don’t know why anyone would call you good. You may have saved my life the other day, but then you turned around and canceled everything out when you killed Philip. And don’t try to deny it. I know it was you and I know you left your mementos behind as proof.”
Another gust of wind came into the room, one that was much stronger than the first, then it died down quite suddenly. Everything was still and quiet. The draperies dropped back into place. From somewhere behind her, a deep baritone voice seemed to rumble out of nowhere.
“I did not kill him.”
“Yiii!” she shrieked, and leaped in fright. She could have sworn she turned around in midair, for when she landed she was facing the opposite direction.
The ghost bubbled up before her.
He was standing on the other side of her bed, at first nothing more than a vapor glowing with light, a shimmering green mist, and then at last, a solid shape taking form. She was so shocked at his sudden appearance and the manner in which he dressed, the features she had wondered about for so long and could now see up close, that she did not say anything.
“Ye are remarkably silent for a woman who only a moment ago had plenty to say. I take by yer silence that ye believe in ghosts.”
“You have not converted a man because you have silenced him,” she said, trying to sound smug. “You surprised me, that is all. I am, you understand, not in the habit of receiving ghosts in my bedchamber.”
“’Tis yer own fault. Ghosts only come to those who look for them.”
“I was not looking for you.”
His eyes twinkled as he watched her and said, “Aye, lass, ye were.”
He wasn’t as old as she imagined he would be—a sturdy man of medium height, with dark hair and a stern countenance. But it was his eyes that mesmerized her, eyes that were blue, darkly, deeply, beautifully blue. They were Robert’s eyes. “I know who you are. You are the old Earl of Douglas…”
“I am no that old.”
“I don’t know how you can say that. You’ve been dead more than three hundred years.”
“A man doesna age after he dies. Ghosts are ageless.”
“So are women,” she said. “And we don’t have to die to be that way.” She thought for a moment and then asked, “Shall I refer to you as the missing earl?”
“I don’t like that one, either,” he said. “I am not missing. I know exactly where I am.”
She studied him with mounting curiosity, suddenly realizing what an opportunity she had here. Just how many times did one find she had a real and true ghost at her disposal? One she could ask all sorts of questions? “Where do you stay, now that you are no longer in your portrait? Are you with the Countess of Sussex and the missing Van Dyck?”
He laughed. “That shrew!”
She bristled at his choice of words. “There are worse things than being a shrew,” she said with utmost piety.
“Name one.”
“Scots.”
He laughed again. “Ye have a quick mind, lass. That was an interesting guess, abeit an incorrect one. The Countess and I dinna see eye to eye. If I couldna spend five minutes in the same room with her when I was alive, why would I want to spend three hundred years crammed on a small square of canvas with her?”
“What do you mean, you didn’t kill Philip?”
“It was an accident.”
“It was an accident you caused, therefore it was your fault.”
“Studied to be a barrister at Edinburgh, did ye?”
“One does not have to be a barrister in order to add two and two together.”
“An accident means no one is at fault. If I wanted to kill him, I could have finished the job with one swoop of my claymore.”
“You left your claymore in my room that day, or did you forget? And you are the one who frightened his horse.”
“Aye, but murdering him was no my intention. It was my desire to warn him away from ye and this place, to frighten him enough to send him back to England where he belonged. When his horse tried to run away, he spurred the puir beastie unmercifully. His horse reared. He was thrown. His foot caught in the stirrup. I ken ye know the rest.”
“Did you try to save him?”
“Do you wish to have him back?”
“No, but that doesn’t mean I wanted him dead.”
“Lass, ye are as wavering as a weathercock. Ye canna be in Edinburgh and Glasgow at the same time, ye ken.”
“You never did answer my question. Did you try to save him?”
“Of course not.”
“Why not?”
“I am a ghost. I am not God. I canna interfere with destiny.”
“But, you just said you could have killed him with your claymore.”
“Aye, I could…if that was his destiny.”
“How do you know when it is someone’s destiny and when it is not?”
“I know.”
“Could you be more vague?”
“It is the nature of greatness not to be exact.”
Meleri drummed her fingers on a nearby tabletop. “It would be my luck. I’m haunted by a ghost that is as boastful as he is full of pride.”
“Ye are outspoken, lass—not marked by meekness, modesty in behavior, attitude or spirit. Nor are ye prone to showing submissive respect.”
She shrugged. “I’ve never had a propensity for humility. Whenever I dwell upon my own imperfections, they seem sweet and innocent…utterly charming little attributes, really. Nothing at all like the outrageous imperfections I see in others.”
He seemed amused by that and she found herself thinking, Here I am, talking to a ghost, mind you, like he was an old friend. Truly, this was the opportunity of the century. Just how many people could say they conversed with a congenial ghost, who was both charming and witty? She should be terrified, but all she really felt was a strange sort of curiosity. “Do you like being a ghost?”
“It has its advantages.”
“For instance?”
“Ye dinna have to open doors. Yer feet never hurt.”
She burst out laughing. He was a Lowlander, through and through, so difficult and provocative in some ways, possessing of a piquant wit and a penchant for getting to the heart of the matter. He even looked the part, with a large imposing head, the manner of a bird of prey and the eyes of an eagle. His speech was odd, quite different from the way Robert and the other members of the family spoke, but she had no difficulty understanding what he said. Not that it mattered. This whole thing was preposterous. She was dreaming. This was all in her mind. Suddenly, she closed her eyes and put her fingers to her temples. “Oh, I don’t know why I’m doing this.”
“What are ye doing?”
She dropped her arms and looked at him. “I will tell you what I am doing. I am standing here like a moron, carrying on a conversation with someone who has been dead for over three hundred years.” She began to pace the floor, talking to herself. “This isn’t happening. It’s impossible. I can’t be talking to a ghost. Ghosts are not real. You are not real,” she said. “You can’t be. Tell me you aren’t real.”
He did not answer, and when she looked back at the place on the other side of the bed, he was not there.
The wind came rushing into her bedchamber once again, blowing leaves, just like before, only this time the wind seemed to suck the air from her lungs and she felt herself growing dizzy. She gasped for breath and made her way to the four-poster bed. She had no more than sat down when everything went black.
When she awoke, she was lying on her bed, staring up at the worn canopy overhead. She looked around the room. There were no leaves on the floor. The lamp was on the table by the bed. The flowers were in the vase on the table in front of the window, unbroken.
Everything was as it had been before.
And yet, it wasn’t.