The housekeeper looked at her with complete disdain, her lips pursed like she’d just consumed the sourest of fruit. “My apologies, Mr. Falconer. I am not sure what Mrs. Hobson and Sarah were thinking to set a place for Miss Thomas in the formal dining room. I will see to it that it does not happen again. Miss Thomas, you will come with me at once!”
“I asked to have Miss Thomas join me for dinner, Mrs. Baynard, to discuss Elizabeth’s care... and going forward, Miss Thomas will continue to join me for dinner, and a place will be set for Elizabeth as well. A child cannot learn how to act in company if they are never permitted to be in company.”
Mrs. Baynard’s entire body seemed to vibrate with rage. “It is not done, sir! Not in a proper household.”
“I don’t want a proper household, Mrs. Baynard, I want a pleasant one. You are dismissed.”
The housekeeper stood there for the longest time. So long, in fact, that Philippa feared he might be forced to physically remove the woman. Finally, after a long and tense silence, the woman spun on her heel and marched out of the room.
“I think she does not like me overmuch,” Philippa noted.
“Then you are in good company. I should hate to meet the person who could coax even a hint of a smile from Mrs. Baynard.”
*
Worn out fromher travels and from the rather tense welcome she had received, she fell into her bed and instantly into an exhausted sleep.
It was the sensation of small hands on her face that woke her. Philippa’s eyes popped open, and she found herself staring into the very frightened face of her charge.
“Miss Thomas,” she whispered in the darkness, “there’s a ghost in my room.”
Forcing herself to wakefulness, Philippa struggled to make sense of it. “What is in your room, Elizabeth?”
“A ghost,” the little girl whispered again, pointing back toward the open door.
“There are no ghosts,” Philippa said firmly. “Come, and I’ll tuck you back into bed.”
Walking the little girl back across the hall, Philippa was never more aware of just how dark and eerie the corridors of Peregrine Hall could appear. Every shadow seemed ominous. Every darkened corner seemed to harbor something terrifying.
Dismissing such thoughts as the product of an overly tired brain with an overactive imagination, she walked Elizabeth into her bedroom. And instantly she felt it. The room was cold. So unbearably cold that she couldn’t fathom how the temperature from one room to the next could be so different. Nonetheless, she put on a brave face. “See? There are no ghosts.”
Elizabeth raised one trembling hand and pointed her finger to a dark shadowy corner atop an armoire in the corner. “She was up there.”
“There is no one up there,” Philippa said with a firmness directed more at herself than the child.
“But there was. There was. I saw her face. It was pale and dreadful!”
The child was near hysterical and would not have it that they were alone in the room. In truth, Philippa wasn’t certain she hadit in her to insist that they were, not when every hair on her body stood on end and she could see her breath in that chamber. “If something was there, it is gone now. It is gone, and you are quite safe.”
“Can I stay with you in your room?”
It wasn’t something that she would typically have permitted, but in light of her own exhaustion and the strange sensations she was experiencing in that room, it seemed the least harmful solution. With a jerky nod, she led Elizabeth back across the hall and tucked her into bed beside her.
In Elizabeth’s room, a dark, feminine shape emerged from the shadows. Draped in black, that figure stood watchful and ominous, never making a sound.
Chapter Three
It had beena long and sleepless night. Sharing her bed with Elizabeth had proven to be the same as sharing a bed with any child—Elizabeth tossed, turned, kicked, sprawled, and generally claimed every square inch of the mattress while Philippa clung to the edge of the bed and prayed not to wake up with a broken rib.
So as she rose and saw to her morning toilette, then helped Elizabeth with hers, she determined that they would not be imprisoned in those rooms as Mrs. Baynard had suggested. It was Elizabeth’s home, and she should be permitted to explore it at will, within reason. To that end, Philippa took Elizabeth downstairs for breakfast. She had not been expressly invited to do so, but she couldn’t imagine that a friendly face at breakfast would be unwelcome, since Mr. Falconer had expressed how tired he was of dining alone.
As she marched Elizabeth into the breakfast room, the maid who had escorted her yesterday simply gaped at her. “Good morning, Sarah. Has Mr. Falconer broken his fast yet?”
The maid shook her head. “No, miss. Yes, miss. That is... he’s only just gone in for his breakfast.”
“Excellent. We are just in time,” Philippa stated, and breezed past the stunned maid to usher Elizabeth into the breakfast room.
At the sideboard, Mr. Falconer turned his head and took them in with a cursory glance. “Good morning. I take it you have not yet had your morning meal?”
