The Second Lady Emily Read Online Free Page B

The best-known ghost is the sixth marquess, who haunts the library where he shot himself. Any number of people have seen him. He first appeared the day his wife died in Scotland, leading many to conclude he had previously been haunting her. A more enigmatic ghost occasionally appears on the cliff path, but he has never been positively identified. At least nine family members perished out there, and we can’t see him clearly enough to identify his clothing. The most elusive one lives in the great hall. It is probably female, but even that is uncertain. All anyone’s ever seen is a flash of blue. Theories range from a servant to the fifth marchioness, who was said to fancy blue. Of course the most frightening ghost is the gypsy, but only the marquesses see her. She is not confined to the estate, and her appearance always presages a death. None has survived the sight by more than forty-eight hours. At least one – the sixtieth, I believe – died on the spot.”
    “Mabel Hardesty, if you’re cackling on about ghosts again, why don’t you come up here so everyone can hear you,” chided the guide, but it was clear she had a soft spot for the old lady. Mabel happily complied.
    Mrs. Tibbins paused in the doorway to the great hall, waiting patiently while the last of her charges trickled through. Mabel was expanding her tale of ghostly wonders. “I hope she wasn’t annoying you, my lady,” she whispered. “It’s been eighty years since a Broadbanks last set foot in this house. I want the occasion to be a positive one.”
    “You know?” She cringed.
    “How not? Stay after the others leave and I’ll show you the rest of the place. Don’t worry about reporters. I doubt those outside recognized you. They are hoping to see the stars.”
    Cherlynn raised a brow.
    “We’re turning the Hall over to a film crew at five o’clock, so they can shoot Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park . This will be your last chance to see the place until autumn.”
    “Thank you.” The words lent a different twist to the urgency that had propelled her to Broadbanks this day. What had she hoped to find? It had not been used by the family since World War I. Had she thought the sixth marquess might materialize to explain how to break the curse? If any clues existed, surely one of the many previous marquesses would have found them. Her incentive was no stronger than theirs. They had all faced early death.
    Unless it was the gypsy herself who had impelled this visit. Perhaps she needed Broadbanks Hall to connect with someone outside the Villiers bloodlines.
    “Oh, my God!” she muttered under her breath. It was June 15.
    Perspiration instantly soaked her shirt, bringing on clammy chills from the cool air. She fought down her fear. This was a perfectly ordinary English great house full of perfectly ordinary tourists. No one was going to leap out and strike her down. Besides, she had seen no one resembling a gypsy – which showed how superstitious she had suddenly become.
    Biting her lip to control incipient hysteria, she concentrated on Mrs. Tibbins’s lecture, turning obediently to examine the portrait above the mantel.
    It was the missing sixth marquess. His expression was grim, his eyes revealing fathomless grief and stoic determination. Neither was suited to his face. The drawing room had held a painting of five children, commissioned when this man was fourteen. In the group he had been happy, radiating life and laughter with a face designed for smiling. What had happened in the intervening years to turn him into this dour shell? It couldn’t have been the curse, for this portrait had been completed before it was cast, if Lady Travis’s letters were accurate.
    She drifted closer until she stood directly below him, mesmerized by his haunted countenance. Despite pain and desolation, his mouth remained sensuous. With melting warmth added to the chocolate brown eyes and a light breeze ruffling his short brown curls, he would be a lady killer.