“Very much. Thank you, sir. Please sit down.”
“My, there will certainly be a lovely prospect from these windows when Lady Stonevale finishes with the gardens.” The vicar peered out at the ongoing work as he took one of the mahogany armchairs. “Your wife is a fine woman, sir, if you don’t mind my saying so. A man could not ask for a better helpmate.”
“I was just thinking something along those lines myself.”
“You realize, of course, that in the village they’ve started calling her their Amber Lady on a regular basis?”
Lucas grinned. “I won’t worry until the tenants start calling me their Amber Knight. I would not want them to think their landlord is a ghost. They might get the notion they can delay the payment of their rents until the afterlife.”
“Rest assured,” the vicar told him with a chuckle, “that they view you as altogether real and quite solid. Definitely not a ghost. You are a natural leader, Stonevale, as I’m sure you’re well aware. And leadership is precisely what this land and the people on it have needed for some time. Which reminds me.”
“Yes?”
The vicar arched his brows knowingly. “Word in the village has it the Amber Knight and his lady were running about again late last night.”
“Is that so?”
“Seems a certain lad of the village reported seeing them. Personally I questioned what this particular lad was doing out at midnight himself, although I believe I can hazard a guess. In any event, apparently his meeting with the knight and the lady changed the lad’s mind about pursuing an extremely dangerous career as a highwayman. The boy has chosen to go to work in your stables, instead.”
“A much safer, if less exciting job.”
“Yes, indeed.” The vicar smiled. “The lad is basically a good boy, and as he has the responsibility of caring for his mother and sister, I am particularly pleased that the knight did not deem it his duty to see the young man shot down on the road or hung.”
Lucas shrugged. “Perhaps the knight has already seen far too many young men die senseless deaths. I imagine even a ghost can get a bellyful of that sort of thing. Now, then, vicar, I must ask you what progress you are making on your gardening book.”
The vicar gazed at him with piercing understanding for a second and then blinked and smiled genially. “Kind of you to inquire. I am working on the chapter dealing with roses.” He glanced at the picture propped on the desk. “I must say, that’s a wonderful rendering of Strelitzia reginae. Quite perfect in every detail and it seems to have a life of its own. Magnificent. How did you come by it, if I may ask?”
“It was a gift.”
“Was it, indeed? I am still looking for someone to do the colored plates for my book, you know.”
“Yes, I believe you mentioned you were inquiring for a skilled watercolorist who also knew something of botany.”
The vicar continued to examine Victoria’s painting. “Whoever did this would be perfect. You do not happen to know the artist by any chance, do you?”
“In point of fact,” Lucas said smoothly, “I do.”
“Excellent, excellent. Any possibility you might arrange for me to contact him?”
“The artist is a woman, and yes, I think I can arrange for you to talk to her.”
“I would be most extremely grateful,” the vicar said happily. “Most extremely.”
“My pleasure,” Lucas said. “I will make certain you meet her. Now, then, I want to ask your opinion on putting in an irrigation system for the farms that border the woods.” Lucas spread a map out on the desk and indicated a section of land.
“Yes, indeed. Got to do something to increase productivity in that area, don’t you? Let’s see what you have in mind.” The vicar leaned forward to examine the map and then glanced up one last time. “Don’t mean to press you, Stonevale, but do you have any idea of how soon I might get in touch with the watercolorist you mentioned?”
“Soon,” Lucas promised. “Very soon.”
Two hours later Lucas saw his visitor out the door and then he headed for the stairs carrying his precious picture of Strelitzia reginae. He was feeling quite pleased with himself. The correct word might have been “smug,” he admitted as he reached the landing and started down the hall toward his room.
Finding just the right gift for a wife who had brought considerably more money than her husband into the marriage was not the easiest task in the world. A man could hardly use the lady’s own inheritance to buy her a diamond necklace.
Lucas rehung his picture with careful precision, stepped back to admire his handiwork, and then went over to the connecting door and knocked. When there was no answer from within, he frowned and tried again. He was certain Griggs had said Victoria was in her bedchamber.
“Vicky?”
When there was still no response, he turned the knob and opened the door to glance into the room. He saw her at once seated near the window with the three letters that had arrived at breakfast on the little rosewood secretary in front of her. She turned her head as he walked into the room. Her smile was wan.
“I am sorry, Lucas, but I am not feeling all that well. I came up here to rest.”
An odd tension hummed through him. It was not unlike the sort of feeling he had known on the battlefield before the first shot was fired. “You were feeling well enough at breakfast.”
“That was before I opened the post.”
He relaxed somewhat. “I take it you are still annoyed at being obliged to accept Jessica’s invitation?”
“Jessica Atherton is no longer of much consequence one way or the other.”
“I am relieved to hear it.” He went into the room and sat down across from her. He thrust his legs out in front of him, absently massaging his thigh. “What is it, Vicky? I have seen you in a variety of moods, but never one quite like this. I swear, madam, you leave me panting for breath trying to keep pace with you.”
“I have never been in quite this position before and I admit I do not know how to deal with it. But ’tis certain something must be done or I shall go out of my mind.”
“You are really not feeling well?” He grinned. “Mayhap you are breeding, after all, madam. Have you thought of that?”
“To be truthful, Lucas, being with child would be simpler than this business.”
She was not carrying his babe after all. Disappointment shot through him. “I am sorry to hear that. Perhaps you had better tell me just what is troubling you, my dear.”
She looked down at the papers on her little desk. When she glanced up again, her amber eyes were startling in their intensity.
“Lucas, do you believe it is possible to reanimate the dead through the use of electricity machines?”
“Reanimate the dead? Nonsense. I fear you have been playing too much lately at being a ghost, Vicky. I have never heard a single reliable instance in which such an experiment has been successful.”
“But we do not know of all the experiments that have been done, do we? People all over England are playing with electricity these days.”
Lucas looked doubtful. “I am certain that any successful experiment in reanimation would have been in all the journals and newspapers.”
“Perhaps not, if someone paid the experimenter to keep quiet about the results.”
He began to realize just how frightened she was and a cold anger swept through him. Without asking any more questions, he reached over and picked up the sheaf of papers lying on her desk. He immediately tossed aside Annabella and Lady Nettleship’s notes. A glance at the pamphlet and clipping was sufficient to show that they were concerned with missing bodies and attempts at reanimation.
“Interesting, but I see no reports of successful attempts. Where did you get these?” He indicated the pamphlet and clipping.
“They were sent to me. They were in the third envelope that I opened at breakfast. Along with this.” Victoria handed him a short note.
Lucas scanned it quickly and had to force himself to keep his ra
ge under tight rein. “ ‘Madam: given your interest in intellectual inquiry the enclosed should intrigue you greatly. It appears the dead do not always remain so. Signed “W.” ’ ” He tossed the note down on the table with a savage little flick of his hand. “Goddamned bastard.”
“Lucas it is him, it is this ‘W’ again, the one who left the scarf and the snuffbox.” Victoria was struggling for her self-control.
Lucas recognized the symptoms of shock and fear. He made a deliberate effort to keep his voice calm, much as he would have if he were dealing with a brave but frightened young officer on the eve of combat. “Calm yourself, Vicky. This has gone quite far enough. I will take steps to find out who is behind this and I will put a halt to it.”
Her beautiful mouth trembled. “I know who is behind it. Samuel Whitlock. The man who killed my mother. He has come back, Lucas. Somehow he has returned from the dead and he is going to kill me or else drive me to my death the same way I—” She broke off and covered her face in her hands. “Oh, my God. Oh, my God.”
Lucas got up and reached down to pull her into his arms. She stood in the circle of his sheltering embrace, shaking. Although his hands moved gently, soothingly on her slender back, his rage was so cold now it could have frozen the marrow in his bones.
The shudders eventually ceased racking Victoria’s body and she slowly disengaged herself from his grasp and went to her dressing table for a handkerchief.
“You must think I’m a witless little fool to believe in such things as reanimation of the dead,” she whispered, keeping her back to him as she dried her eyes.
“I think,” said Lucas, “that you have been very frightened and that someone has deliberately set out to accomplish that goal.” He watched her face in the dressing-table mirror. “Who would do such a thing, Vicky?”
“I just told you. Samuel Whitlock.”
“No, my dear, not Samuel Whitlock. He’s dead. You have been so terrified by the signature on that note that you have not been thinking logically.”
“It has to be him.” She whirled around. “Don’t you see, Lucas? He is not dead. Either he did not really die that night at the bottom of the stairs or else he has been brought back to life by someone with an electricity machine. One way or another he has come back and he is after me. Whitlock is the only one who could possibly have any reason for carrying out this horrible revenge.”
Lucas studied her. “That brings up an interesting point. Just what is his reason for wanting revenge against you?”
Victoria’s eyes clouded with an infinite sadness. “Lucas, I cannot tell you. If I did, you would be filled with such disgust for me that you would not be able to tolerate the sight of me.”
In spite of himself, he felt his mouth twitch in a small grin. “Having led up to the grand revelation with a remark such as that, you most certainly will have to tell me the whole truth now. If you don’t, I shall expire of curiosity.”
“This is no joke. Lucas, you have no idea of what I have done.”
He walked over to her and drew her tense body back against his chest. “I assure you that it is very unlikely you could tell me anything about yourself that would make me unable to tolerate the sight of you. I doubt there is anything to which you could confess that could compare with some of the small slices of hell I have seen on a battlefield. Tell me everything, my sweet.”
“Very well, Lucas.” Her voice was tragic. “But never say I did not warn you.”
“I will never say it.”
“I killed him.” She went perfectly still in his arms, obviously bracing herself for his shock and disgust. “I murdered Samuel Whitlock.”
“Hmmm,” Lucas murmured. “I did rather wonder about that.”
She jerked her head back to stare up at him. “You did? But what made you think such a thing? I have kept the secret to myself all these months. Even my aunt has no notion of what I did.”
“It was nothing specific that you said or did. Just a few simple things that made me mildly curious.”
“What simple things, for heaven’s sake?”
“Well, there was the timing of Whitlock’s death so soon after your mother’s, and the fact that you were convinced he had killed her and would never hang for it. In addition to those two points, I have had occasion to get to know you rather well. Not as well as I would like, I will admit, but well enough to predict with some certainty that you would not let your mother’s murder go unavenged.”
There was a distinct pause and then Victoria spoke in a very small voice. “You do not sound particularly upset about this, my lord.”
Lucas considered her words. “The only thing that upsets me is the thought of the risks you must have taken to get the job done.”
She sighed. “I did not actually set out to kill him, you know. All I wanted from him was a confession. But I will admit I was not sorry when I realized he was dead. In fact, I experienced the most amazing sense of relief.”
“I hate to be indelicate, but you did actually witness his death?”
Victoria buried her face in Lucas’s chest. “Oh, yes. I witnessed it. And almost witnessed my own in the process.”
“Good God. What happened?”
“Tis a long story. Are you quite certain you want to hear it?”
“I assure you I am prepared to listen all day and all night, if necessary.” He eased her down into her armchair and resumed the seat across from her. “Talk, Vicky. Tell me everything.”
She was twisting the handkerchief in her lap, but she met his eyes unflinchingly. “You must understand that my stepfather drank heavily. Sometimes he turned violent. His habits were no secret and I decided to make use of his weakness.”
“Strategy,” Lucas said approvingly.
She frowned. “Yes, well, I could not think of anything else, you see. I knew the house well because I had lived there for a few years before my mother sent me to my aunt’s. It was a huge, old place with hidden passages and long halls with unexpected openings into certain rooms. I used that information to haunt my stepfather.”
“You haunted him?”
She blew her nose. “Yes.”
“Amazing.”
“Really, Lucas, I’m sure you should not be looking quite so fascinated by all this. ’Tis rather reprehensible when you think about it.”
“Let’s just say I find it intellectually interesting. What’s wrong with that? Surely no worse than trying to reanimate dead bodies. Pray, continue, sweetheart.”
“I arranged to stay with friends who happened to live in a neighboring house for a week. Everyone knew I did not feel comfortable around my stepfather and these people had been friends of my mother’s, so they were sympathetic to me. Several times during that week I slipped out of the house in the middle of the night and walked through the woods to my stepfather’s house. I wore the dress in which my mother had been married and I began haunting Samuel Whitlock.”
“You hoped that in his drunken stupors he would think he was seeing the ghost of his dead wife?”
Victoria nodded. “At first he thought he was having nightmares. Then he began talking to me. It was eerie, Lucas. He ordered me to go away and leave him in peace. Then he told me about how he had never wanted to marry in the first place but he had to have the money and why could I not understand that? He pleaded with me to leave him alone. Finally, one night his nerve broke entirely. He came after me with a knife, saying he would kill me again and this time he would make certain of the job.”
Lucas shut his eyes for a second, trying not to think of how close she had come to her own death. “That is when he had his accident on the stairs?”
“Yes. I was fleeing from him down the hall. I started down the stairs. He was directly behind me, holding the knife high in his hand and screaming about how he was going to kill me. He lost his footing about a third of the way down and fell all the way to the bottom.”
“The servants,” Lucas murmured. “Where were they?”
“There were only two in t
he house, an elderly couple with rooms far removed at the back. They were in the habit of retiring early and staying out of their master’s way until morning. The screaming they may have heard that night was certainly not the first time they had heard such noises in that house. They had learned to mind their own business.”
“I see. Did you check to see if your stepfather was truly dead?”
“No. I was so frightened that I ran. Perhaps the fall didn’t kill him.” She looked at the newspaper clippings. “Lucas, I do not know what to believe. Do you think he might have merely engineered his burial to haunt me as I once haunted him?”
“It is a possibility.”
Victoria chewed her lip. “What has he been doing all these months if he is still alive?”
“Hiding, perhaps? Waiting to see if you would go to the authorities with your report?”
“He was dead. I know he was dead. I killed him,” she said.
“You did not murder him, Vicky. You tried in a very clever fashion to extract a confession and you got it. In the process, you almost got yourself killed, and that is all there is to the matter,” Lucas said very firmly. “As to whether or not he is actually dead, that remains to be seen. This business with the pamphlet and the note certainly indicate there are some loose ends that need tying up.”
“Such as who sent me this note and the pamphlet and clipping.”
“Yes,” Lucas agreed. “That is one of several questions I think we should get answered as soon as possible. There is also the little matter of that carriage that nearly ran you down and the footpad who assaulted me the night before you found the snuffbox.”
“Lucas, this is making my head spin. I cannot go on like this. I must have answers.”
“I could not agree more wholeheartedly. As I said, there are several questions that now must be answered as quickly as possible. I think the best place to begin is in Town, where this all started.” He smiled. “Now we have an excellent reason to go to London in addition to the invitation to Lady Atherton’s ball, don’t we?”