Grayson looked up before he banged on the huge iron griffin knocker. With the morning sunlight haloing it, the castle walls appeared a mellow pale gray stone. Grayson was certain P.C. would think it vastly romantic. It was called the Great House or the Hope by locals, and all admired the abundant farmlands with its rich black soil and the deep thick forests. All knew the Storne tenant farmers considered themselves a lucky lot. Mr. Bentop, the Storne Hope steward and a fixture in the area for thirty years, and, glory be, an honest man who made swift repairs on cottages, installed new farming techniques. He gave the added bonus of gossip about the old earl who’d fallen into melancholia and become a stolid Methodist a decade ago, no jollity for him, not a single toe-tap to a fiddler’s music.Why?everyone wondered. Mr. Bentop said the old earl was too old to divorce his wife and marry a young lady of wide hips to produce more heirs. As it was he had only one heir, and what man could be content with only one heir in this fragile and violent world? Mr. Bentop would shake his head. The one heir, Thomas Oliver Maxwell Strickland, presented to him by his second wife, Lady Beatrice, who, not surprising, wasn’t willing to live under the old earl’s black cloud. She’d decamped five years before to spend half her time with her sister in Bath, half with Max in London. She readily said to let the old varmint molder in Storne Hope—she was going to enjoy herself before she doddered into the hereafter.
After Max had buried his father, he met locals at Mrs. Surley’s pub, the Black Goose, bought everyone a pint, and listened attentively to all the local news. After three rounds of pints, the locals not only liked him but believed him of a sufficiently riotous nature so he would never become a Methodist like the old earl, despite life’s inevitable trials and tribulations.
When the old earl had fallen, or thrown himself, from the parapet onto the now wide graveled front drive, gossip exploded. Was he in a drunken stupor, even though he was a thumping Methodist? Had his melancholia driven him to drink too much laudanum and he’d jumped in a sort of confused mental state? No one wanted to believe his fall was a simple accident—no drama in that mundane ending. Some chose to believe Lady Hilda’s ghost had endured enough of his plaints and his carping and moaning, and shoved him over.
Grayson already knew Max hadn’t come alone, but who had he brought with him? Whoever it was, Max needed his ability to control otherworldly spirits. Grayson felt his blood hum.
Grayson’s hand was raised to bang on the heavy griffin knocker when the amazing doors smoothly opened and Flowers appeared, ancient, stately, dressed in his always immaculate shining black suit, his white hair a tonsure around his head. His wife, Maude, the Storne Hope cook, was a dumpling of a woman with flour in her billowy hair.
“Good morning, Mr. Sherbrooke. His lordship is in the drawing room.”
Grayson smiled. “You are looking particularly sartorial this fine day.”
Flowers gave him a taste of a bow. “Thank you for remarking so fittingly on my attire, sir. Female staff enjoy admiring themselves in the shine.”
Grayson was charmed.
“If you would please follow me, sir.”
But here came Max striding across the immense black-and-white squared entry, smiling widely, showing beautiful white teeth. “Thank you, Flowers. Please tell Mrs. Flowers our guest is here. We’ll be in the drawing room.”
Grayson looked at the handsome, fit man he hadn’t seen for two years. Max was tall, maybe taller than Grayson, a sportsman, fit, strong, his energy nearly making the air around him crackle. His dark eyes were alight with pleasure, and his black hair was a bit on the long side, nearly brushing his collar. He had a swarthy complexion gifted from a Spanish ancestor. He was wearing tight buckskin pants, a white shirt open at the neck, and black boots. He looked just as he had when Grayson had first met him at Oxford—ready to spring into action no matter the adventure.
The two men shook hands. “It’s excellent to see you, Grayson, too long a time since we met in London. And now you live here where I spent my boyhood years. Amazing coincidence, isn’t it? Of course your father wrote to me when you moved to Cowpen Dale, not three miles from Storne Hope,a marvelous turn of fate, he wrote, and now I know what he must have meant. Thank you for coming. I have a problem only you can help me solve.”
As Grayson shook Max’s hand, he said, “As you probably already know, Max, Edward is doing splendidly with my father. He particularly liked the box of mechanical puzzles you sent him for Christmas.”
Max grinned widely. “Edward wrote to thank me. Actually, he writes me on the first day of every month unless something special happens, then I receive a bonus letter.”
How many men, Grayson wondered, would have saved a child and followed him into adulthood? He’d never doubted Max was more honorable than most men he’d met.
The immense entryway was an odd mixture of coarse, stark medieval stone combined with the fanciful excesses of the late Baroque. Now pure white walls and pastel colors dominated. It was jarring to the eye, yet somehow it also pleased. Grayson looked up at the enormous chandelier hanging down by a massive white-painted rope from fifty feet above. “I don’t think I’d want to be one of the men in charge of lowering that chandelier to light those candles.”
Max laughed. “When I was a boy, Flowers told me they shot boys out of a cannon and if they happened to land on the chandelier, they planted the candles and lit them, then dropped back down to be caught in sheets held by the servants. As I recall, I was mad to be shot from a cannon.” He paused, laughed. “I never asked him what happened to the boys who didn’t land on the chandelier.”
Grayson laughed. He sobered, looked at Max closely. “From your note I gather something is very wrong. How may I help you, Max?”
CHAPTER NINE
Max said, “Yes, something is very wrong. Let’s go to the drawing room. My study is too drab and depressing at the moment.”
Flowers double-stepped up the wide staircase to open the tall white door to the drawing room. He was panting only a bit and bowed them into a large rectangular room, no vestiges of medieval left here. It was painted stark white and filled with light from the large windows. Grayson stared at incredible rococo frescos painted on the white walls. They gave the illusion of motion—you were walking in a garden or playing with musicians or singing in an opera, frolicking with Harlequin and Columbine in Venice in the sixteenth century. There was an abundance of ornamental scrolling on white columns and exquisite sculpted molding—all dramatic, a bit too dramatic for Grayson’s taste. How could the former earl suffer melancholia in this vivid setting? The ancient stone fireplace had been replaced with Carrara marble and more fluid intricate scrolling. Grayson would have preferred the medieval stone fireplace that called forth images of thirteenth-century King John drunk as a loon, throwing a golden goblet into the flames.
He was silent a moment, letting the Baroque atmosphere sink in. It seemed to him a honey scent was wafting through several large open windows. Sweetness filled the air. It also seemed to Grayson the frescos seemed to grow more animated as he looked at them—a couple moving about along the edge of a smooth body of water, the man’s hand on the lady’s arm. Suddenly, he jerked her forward and flung her into the water.
Grayson blinked, stepped back, looked again at the fresco. The man walked with the woman, his hand on her arm—there was no violence, merely two lovers casually strolling by a lake. He shook his head at himself. His imagination was running rampant.
Flowers said in a grand voice from the doorway, “I bring you tea and scones from the hands of Mrs. Flowers, my lord. Of course she kissed one of the scones for you just as she did when you were a lad, and now, just as then, you will have to guess which one.”
Max said under his breath, “I always guess aright because she presses her thumb in the dough on the underside. Please sit down, Grayson.”
When Grayson had settled himself on a very old green brocade sofa, Max facing him, Max picked up one scone after the other. “Ah, here’s the kissed scone. See the small imprint? You may have it. I’m assured it’s always the best one and brings good luck. Mrs. Flowers said your cook, Mrs. Elvan, told her you prefer your tea with only a dollop of milk and nothing else.” Max handed him a cup.
Grayson nodded his thanks and waited.
After a moment, Max set his cup on the marquetry table beside his chair, sat forward, his elbows on his thighs. “Do you know about our resident ghost, Lady Hilda?”
“Everyone in the area knows all about Lady Hilda, although from what I’m told few have actually seen her.”
