“I know you do not believe me,” she said, her voice dropping dully. “But how else can you explain it?”
I flicked Stoker a warning glance and spoke before he could reply. “Is that why you bought the charm from Mother Nance?”
She nodded, lifting her wrist to show the length of colored cord knotted there. Dangling from it was a slim silver medallion with a worn inscription of some sort. “It’s a coin, salvaged from a Spanish shipwreck on the beach.”
“Rather unlucky for the fellow who wore it last,” Stoker ventured. “Spanish sailors have never fared well in these waters.”
“It is better than nothing,” she returned, lifting her chin.
“Why did you try to leave the island today?” I asked.
“Because of her,” Helen said. “If she walks, who is to say whom she will visit? What harm she will do? She died in the prime of her life on her wedding day. She must be angry, so terribly angry.” Her voice faded to a rough whisper, thick with fear.
Stoker’s pity seemed to stir then. He put a consoling hand to her arm. “I am certain you have nothing to be afraid of.”
She gave him a grateful look, and I chose then to speak. “I am not so certain,” I began slowly.
She blinked, panic returning to her. “What do you mean?”
“If Rosamund is returning, if her spirit is uneasy, it must mean that she has unfinished business. She wants something—revenge? To make us aware of how she died? A proper burial? Or to punish those who did not protect her in life?”
I stepped towards Helen with each question, coming so near that I could see the pupils of her eyes dilate in terror.
“Mertensia,” she said, bursting out with the name. “She would want Mertensia. I heard them quarreling the night before the wedding. In the garden. It was terrible! I thought Mertensia would kill her—” She broke off suddenly, two spots of color burning in the dead white of her face.
I stepped back, giving her a consoling smile. “There. I’m certain Stoker is right and you have nothing to be afraid of. All the same,” I added, “I would not leave this room after dark if I were you.”
CHAPTER
17
“That was a trifle mean,” Stoker observed as we made our way from the family wing. “Even for you.”
I bristled at his accusing me once more of small-spirited behavior. “I was notmean. And if I were, she deserved it. I seem to recall you carping endlessly about her fleecing the grief-stricken.”
“Oh, I object to her occupation on principle, but there is something pitiable about her nonetheless.”
I quickened my pace. “The sentimentality of the male sex never ceases to astonish me,” I muttered.
“What’s that?”
“Nothing,” I returned. “Except that for a man who has suffered as much as you at the hands of women, I should have thought by now you would be immune to feminine wiles.”
“Wiles! If you think that Helen Romilly possessesonewile—”
We were still arguing when we reached the stillroom. I had hopes of bearding Mertensia in her den. She was not there, but the pan gently steaming on the hob intimated a return shortly.
We occupied the time investigating our surroundings, and the stillroom offered much to see. The room was fitted with shelves from stonefloor to beamed ceiling, spanning the length of the walls. Each shelf held an array of glass jars, some clear, some amber, some green, and every jar was filled with something interesting. There were potions and decoctions, creams and salves, elixirs and balms. From the beams hung clusters of drying herbs, and in the corner stood a copper distillation device and next to it a large sink. A worktable had been placed in the center of the room, its surface scrubbed clean, and behind it a bookshelf had been hung and stacked with herbals, physic books, pharmacopeia, and florilegia. Another set of shelves held an assortment of equipment, glass beakers, pans, spoons, measuring devices.
“I’ll be damned,” Stoker said in a low voice. “This is nothing like my nanny’s stillroom.”
“I should have thought the Templeton-Vanes grand enough to have a stillroom maid,” I remarked as I thumbed my way through the books. I was still annoyed with him but curious in spite of myself.
“We did, but that was Nanny’s first post starting in the house and she guarded our stillroom like a dragon. And if she had seen this one, she would have raised holy hell with my father until he had equipped hers better.”
“What sort of things did your nanny brew up?”
“Toothache remedies and jams,” he said promptly as he studied the shelves of herbal mixtures. “Nothing to touch this. My God, she has a preparation of foxglove here!”
