“Well. Maybe a little.”
“May I walk you back to the vicarage?”
“Yes, if you please,” she said in a rush of relief. “May we drop Kitty on the way?”
“Of course.”
“Thank you, Frederick.”
“My pleasure, Miss Rebecca.”
———
The memory faded.
He wondered if Miss Lane still trusted him as she once had. He hoped so. Although if she had heard the rumors about his wife’s death, her opinion of him may very well have changed, and if so, he could not blame her.
That night, Rebecca settled into bed with her reading spectacles and an old novel she’d brought with her. She struggled to concentrate on the print, guilt still chafing her over that awkward attempt to console Sir Frederick. Recalling her words,she winced again.“You will always have your memories”?What were memories to a flesh-and-blood woman? A lover? A wife? Did the fact that Rebecca had her memories alleviate the pain she still felt over her parents’ deaths? No. It had been a stupid and thoughtless thing to say. She had been nervous, yes, but that did not excuse her.
Determined to put it from her mind, she turned a page inThe Italian, or the Confessional of the Black Penitents, a Gothic novel by Ann Radcliffe. The story was about a young man kept from the woman he loved by a ghostly monk.
Rebecca read a few more lines, then looked up midsentence. What had she heard? Footsteps outside her room? Porters and page boys going about their duties, she supposed. It was not her first time in a hotel, she reminded herself. She should be used to such sounds by now. She continued reading.
When the young man refused to stay away, abductors carried off his love and hid her. He eventually found her imprisoned in a remote convent at the mercy of a cruel lady abbess....
Rebecca shivered and shut the book. It was definitely not helping allay her nerves, nor would it help her sleep.
Setting the book on the nearby table, she leaned over to blow out her candle but changed her mind and let it burn. She settled under the bedclothes, the flickering light casting disconcerting shadows on the walls. Finding her pillow too flat, she bunched it up and lay back down. Wind whistled through the abbey in a low moan.
She closed her eyes, but when a door whined open somewhere nearby, she abruptly reopened them. Merely a guest returning to his room, she decided, and turned over.
Footsteps sounded outside her door, followed by a cry, quickly stifled.
Rebecca sat upright in bed. Was someone hurt?
She folded back the counterpane and climbed from bed, wrapping a shawl around herself and wriggling her feet into shoes. Picking up her guttering candle, she inched open the door and listened.
Silence.
She tiptoed into the main corridor, lifting her candle high to survey the closed doors. All was quiet.
She stepped to the nearest window overlooking the inner courtyard. A flutter of movement drew her eye to the right. Across the quadrangle, a figure in black hood and gown floated past window after window, head covering fluttering behind, then disappeared from view.
Rebecca’s heart thudded. Real person, or apparition?
She told herself the Gothic novel she’d been reading had invaded her imagination. Or perhaps it was all those terrifying stories she’d heard as a girl about the ghost of the abbess who haunted Swanford Abbey. Whatever the cause, Rebecca chastised herself for a fool.
She turned back, not sure if she had remembered to shut her door. A chill slithered up her spine at the thought of someone entering while she’d been creeping about. She returned to her room and searched beneath the bed and in the closet before locking her door, and with a sigh of relief, climbed back into bed.
But it was a long time before she fell asleep.
4
The next morning, Rebecca awoke feeling muddled and queasy. She had not slept well, tormented by the late-night scare, her worries for John, and the question of how to meet with Mr. Oliver.
As Rebecca climbed from bed, Mary Hinton arrived with warm water and asked what she wanted for breakfast, offering eggs, bacon, kippers, kidneys, ham, toasted muffins, and orange marmalade.
“Goodness,” Rebecca breathed, stomach roiling at the thought of so much rich food. She selected tea and toasted muffins, hoping the comforting combination would settle her stomach ... and her nerves.
