“Yes.” Dinah smiled. “That must be it. There is a happy feeling here.”
“And a distinctly chilly feeling,” Lady Asquith said, drawing her shawl more closely about her shoulders. “Let me introduce you to some of my husband’sancestors. You will notice a family likeness, I believe.It is really rather amusing.”
One long wall of the gallery was covered with paintings of Nevilles, who could trace their line back to the fifteenth century and even earlier. And Lady Asquithwas right, Dinah discovered, as she gazed at each portrait in turn. Lord Asquith had inherited his height andphysique, his dark coloring and his aquiline nose, fromseveral of his ancestors. One portrait in particularlooked so like him that it quite caught at her breath.The man was dressed rather severely in a long blackcloak over black top boots, a whip in one gloved hand,his other resting on the saddle of a magnificent blackhorse. He was bareheaded. His dark hair was cut shortand he was clean shaven, though the painting was inthe style of the seventeenth century and one might haveexpected long curls and a pointed beard. He staredunsmilingly out of the canvas from intense dark eyes.
“Oh,” Dinah said to Lady Asquith, who had turned to one of the windows at the sound of rain patteringagainst it, “this man is very like Lord Asquith.”
Lady Asquith turned back again. “Ah, yes,” she said. “The dark rider. His portrait was discovered onlyabout fifty years ago, I believe, and restored to thegallery. He was not a popular young man with hisfamily, having decided to fight on the side of Parliament during the Civil War instead of holding firm for the king. He was banished—from Malvern, that is. Isuppose he did very well for himself under the rule ofOliver Cromwell.”
He was unutterably beautiful. And so very like Lord Asquith. Dinah wondered what had happened to himwhen King Charles II acceded to the throne. Did hefind himself in deep trouble? Or did he adjust his waysand convictions? Did he never come home? Probablynot if his portrait was hidden away and came to lightonly fifty years ago.
“In saving you from catching the measles,” Lady Asquith said, shivering, “I shall be giving you a severe chill instead, Dinah. Anthony and your mamawould never forgive me. Let us go down and ordersome hot tea, shall we, my dear? And you shall tellme about your successes during the Season. I am surethey must have been many.”
“I like London,” Dinah said, turning to walk back along the gallery to the door. “But I have always preferred the country.”
“We will go to the library first,” Lord Asquith told her after luncheon, “to visit our monk.”
“A monk?” Dinah said, looking up at him with her large eyes—they were still smoke-gray in the daylight,he had noticed at breakfast.
He took her hand through his arm. It was a small and delicately formed hand, one he would have likedto cover with his own if there had been an excuse todo so. She was quite exquisite—sweet and shy withoutbeing awkward and tongue-tied. And beautiful withoutbeing in any way pretty. He found himself lookingforward to the hour ahead. It would be a welcome relief from the almost unbearable tensions of the pastseveral days and would distract his mind from the dangers of the days ahead.
He would like, he thought—and the thought surprised him since he had had little to do with women lately—to make love to her. Not just to kiss that veryattractive mouth but to have her with him on a bed.He would like to put himself inside her—a thought thatsurprised him even more. He was not in the habit ofentertaining lecherous thoughts.
“He came to Malvern at some time during the Dark Ages,” he said, opening the door of the library andtaking the opportunity to set his hand in the shapelyhollow of her back as she preceded him into the library, “to copy some manuscripts. And he never left.Perhaps his monastery forgot about him. Or perhapsthe particular Neville who was master here at the timeprided himself on having a resident holy man and keptfinding him more manuscripts. Or perhaps he liked theplace well and dawdled over his tasks. However it was,he is reputed to have died here peacefully in his sleepwhen he was little short of his eightieth birthday.”
“And he haunts this room?” Dinah asked, strolling across the library to the very part where the monk wassupposed to appear from time to time.
“Part of it,” he said. “The old library, before it was extended to its present size. Even after death, itseems, our monk likes being here too well to settlepermanently in heaven.”
“So he is a kindly ghost,” she said, smiling and closing her eyes briefly, as if trying to imagine themonk. “He was happy here.”
Lord Asquith smiled at her. He had rather expectedthat she would be clinging to his arm, but she appeared to be unafraid. It would not do. He must do better with his description of the next ghost. Despitehis conscience and his inclination, which did not wantto frighten her. And despite his mother’s admonition.
“You must not frighten the poor girl, Edgar,” she had told him before luncheon. “I will not have itthough I know that the prospect amuses you. She isquite a sweetheart and a guest here besides.”
“Mama,” he had said, “the best possible thing for her will be to be frightened out of her wits. For herown safety she must not wander. I almost swallowedmy fork this morning when she announced that shehad been exploring in the white tower.”
“She frightened herself,” his mother had said. “She will not go back there. And all this business,which you know I disapprove of, Edgar, need nottouch her at all. I cannot see the wisdom of frighteningher further. It is not fair.”
“I wish,” he had said, “that Uncle Anthony’s children had chosen some other time to catch the measles.”
He wished it again now. He wished he had the leisure in which to explore his powerful attraction toMiss Dinah Ridding. And he wished he did not haveto frighten her.
“There is an unhappy, frustrated spinster in the chapel,” he said. “She is at her best—or her worst,perhaps I should say—and her most visible in gloomyweather and at this particular time of the year, I believe. Shall we pay her a call?”
They visited the spinster. And the child in the gallery, who apparently ran from one end to the other spinning his hoop and shouting with delight. The poormite had died very young of typhoid. And the old lady in the gold bedchamber, who sometimes, witnesseshad sworn, set the rocking chair to swaying as she satin it embroidering sheets for her grandchildren’s wedding beds.
Dinah did not appear to be terrified. She even walked up to the rocking chair and set her hand on theback of it.
“I daresay,” she said, ‘‘that she was lonely in her old age and gained happiness and some sense of purpose from working at her embroidery.”
He smiled rather tenderly at her as she looked down at the chair. Her nerves were considerably strongerthan he had guessed. Or else she believed so little inghosts that the past hour had been a pleasant storytime for her.
“Don’t ever go into the white tower again,” he said, his voice very serious.
She looked up at him.
“There is very definitely an evil presence there,” he said. “One that might do harm to someone whohad the misfortune to be there at the wrong time. Youmust promise me not to set foot there again.”
