Chapter Fifteen.

I sat down on the edge of a delicate winged chair, George thankfully content to remain settled in my lap. I stroked his ears while I sat there, saying nothing, just looking into the cold fireplace.

Lawrence and Amelia came into the room. "Andy," Lawrence said, and came to where I sat. He kneeled beside me and took my hand. "You are in a new house. So much happened today, frightening things, unexpected things, things that could easily give the most phlegmatic of individuals violent nightmares. My God, you even fell and hit your head. Who knows what that blow to the head could produce in the dark of the night?"

I smiled at him. Everything he said was quite true. "I did not make it up. I did not dream it. It all happened just as I told you."

Amelia said, "Andy, nothing like this has ever happened before here at Devbridge Manor. Has it, Uncle Lawrence?"

He shook his head. "There have been stories, of course, of spirits in this bedchamber, of strange noises, and shadows that should not have been here, but none of us have ever seen anything unusual. It has always been servants' tales, nothing more."

"No," Thomas said slowly. "That is not quite true. I remember I was in here once, not long after Caroline died, and I was just sitting there, in front of the fire, reading, and I must have fallen asleep. Something touched my cheek, and it felt warm and yet somehow like a touch of ice at the same time. When I opened my eyes, I saw her, but just for an instant, and then she was gone, simply vanished."

I stared at him. I didn't want to believe him. It sounded like a fanciful boy's imagination at work. But then, what was I? I was a girl with a very vivid imagination.

But I hadn't dreamed it, I hadn't.

I looked up when John came back into the room. George raised his head and wuffed.

I began patting him again, slowly, slowly.

"My knife is in its place, the cabinet locked."

I stared at him.

"I collect knives," he said to me. "One of my most valuable is a royal Moorish ceremonial knife, more than three hundred years old. It has a sharp curved blade, a fine silk red tassel attached to its handle. There are two large rubies set in the handle. Most importantly, its blade is gold, not silver. It is there, safely locked beneath its glass cover."

"I want to see the knife," I said, then rose and walked toward the door before my husband could hem and haw and demand to know if I was as mad as his second wife.

John perforce had to come with me since I had no idea where he kept his knife collection. It was in his bedchamber, of course.

He lit more candles. All of us trailed after him, even Amelia, who was yawning and saying that it was just too much for my mind, that it was a strange dream that any of us could have had, given all that had happened today, this my first full day at Devbridge Manor.

I said nothing, just marched after John. I nearly swallowed my tongue when I saw that knife lying there on a bed of crimson velvet. I did take a quick step back.

"That's the knife the old woman was holding," I said. "I remember the tassel now.

It swayed and fell back when she raised the knife. And the two big rubies, one at each end of the handle. All I remember is bright flashes of red."

I turned to look at all of them. "How could the knife have gotten back here so quickly?"

"It couldn't have," Lawrence said matter-of-factly. "You must have seen it earlier when you came in here and it became the knife in your nightmare."

"No, I did not," I said.

"Andy," Amelia said, coming to pat my shoulder, "You must let this go. It's over.

You are all right. George is all right. It has been a difficult day. You will forget all about it in the morning."

In that moment, for the first time, I wondered if perhaps I didn't imagine the old woman, if it had been a violent nightmare, brought on by the blow to my head or the dreadful cold menace I'd felt in the Black Chamber. And there had been the slamming door in my face, Amelia trapped, calling out to me.

I no longer knew. I felt a huge wave of sheer exhaustion wash through me. I had nothing else to say. I turned away from all of them and walked back to The Blue Room, George trotting just behind me.

I heard Thomas say, "This was only her first day here. I dread to see what will happen on her second."

I dreaded it more than he did.

I shut my bedchamber door, paused just a moment, then turned the key in the lock.

If the old woman came back, then she was either a violent aftershock from my mind or she was a spirit. Either way, I knew it would not be a very good thing.

I surprised myself. I fell asleep almost instantly. However, George managed to beat me. I closed my eyes with the sound of his snoring in my ears.

In the morning, my first thought was no, I did not imagine anything. If I had to do it myself, I would search every inch of Devbridge Manor. I would find a clue to that miserable old woman who had frightened me witless.

When I saw how everyone was looking at me the following morning when I came down to the breakfast room, I decided to change my tactics. I gave everyone a big smile and said, all modest humility, "You have all been so very kind. Goodness, you even treated me well in the middle of the night when my imagination went berserk and I conjured up a vision to terrify myself. I apologize to all of you.

It is forgotten. Thank you for being so very kind. I should love some scrambled eggs."

I picked up my plate and went to the sideboard. I fetched George three slices of very crispy bacon and one small kipper. It was no surprise that conversation was on the stiff side. However, I just continued to beam good humor, smiles, and speak of nothing more weighty than the lovely weather, so unusual for November, and it did not take long for everyone to breathe metaphorical sighs of relief and resume their normal thoughts and actions.

Toward the middle of the morning, I changed into my riding clothes and walked to the stables, George trotting beside me. It was overcast now, a bit on the chilly side, the lovely weather only a memory. But Brantley had assured me that it would not rain until late afternoon.

Since I was convinced that he was Moses, I believed him implicitly.

Rucker saddled Small Bess for me and gave me a hand up. I petted Small Bess's glossy bay neck. "You are lovely, you know that?" George was barking, and so I asked Rucker to hand him up to me. "He can run later. Right now, he can ride."

I did give Tempest one wistful look before I lightly tapped my heels into Small Bess's sides. I called back to Rucker, who was standing there, watching me, "If anyone wonders where I am, just tell them that I'm going to the village to meet our merchants."

I didn't ride to the village. George, Small Bess, and I went to the narrow stream that ribboned east to west on Devbridge land. I left Small Bess free to eat whatever grass pleased her. I carried George to the edge of the stream and sat down beneath a billowing willow tree. George sat beside me, tall and straight.

"George," I said. "I could have imagined that hideous old woman. I don't think I did, but we have to consider it a possibility."

George turned to look at me. He cocked his head to one side.

"On the other hand, there is simply no way you would have imagined her as well.

I saw you looking at her, barking your head off. You were as scared as I was, but you were ready to leap for her throat, weren't you, my brave lad?"

He gave me a light wuff.

I began to pet George's head, and he stood there, staring out over the stream, trembling slightly because he loved me to pet him, to scratch here and there, in places he had trouble reaching.

"Wouldn't you say that it was also rather impossible for a violent spirit to return the knife so very carefully to John's collection that just so happens to be in his bedchamber?"

George wuffed again, probably at the sound of John's name.

"But you know, George, we are considering two very different things that are happening here. There was something awful in that wretched Black Chamber, and it scares me to my toes because I can't imagine what it is. But that old woman?she was very human. Even if I lost my wits and dreamed her up, you couldn't have. No, she was real, she exists, she is here.

"And then there is what happened to Amelia in that other room. Well, you and I will look into that when we go back to the Manor, although I am not all that certain I wish to go back there. Someone either tried to kill me or scare me into leaving. I am to pay for all of it. What does that mean? And who said it and why, George?"

George remained silent.

I picked him up and held him tightly against me. He allowed it for a few seconds, then pulled free and ran to chase a pheasant that had just burst from a thicket of brush.

I eventually collected George and remounted Small Bess. I did not ride to the small village of Devbridge-on-Ashton. It frankly seemed a silly thing to do when someone had come at me with a Moorish dagger in the middle of the night. I returned to Devbridge Manor. I now knew what I was going to do.

I stood in the middle of the empty room Amelia had entered the previous day.

There were two long, narrow windows, no draperies to soften them, that gave onto the front of the house. If you looked off to the right, you could see the stables, the left, the home wood.

The room, which had a nicely polished wooden floor, was completely empty. I went into each and every chamber around it. They were either bedchambers, charmingly furnished, or they were small sitting rooms, likewise nicely furnished.

Only the small room Amelia had entered was stark and empty. I felt nothing as I stood there, nothing at all. But there had been something there the day before, something that had slammed the door in my face. Yet it wasn't the solid, very real, old woman who'd come at me with John's Moorish ceremonial knife the night before.

I had brought George with me. He sniffed about, but he didn't feel any more in that small room than I did. No hair stood up on either of our necks.

I returned to The Blue Room with George, shut and locked the door. This had been Caroline's room. She had climbed out through one of the large windows in this room and made her way along the ledge until she could get back inside the Manor.

Then she had walked to the north tower and thrown herself off.

The old woman of last night?could she not have also climbed out those windows and walked along the ledge until she could climb back into the house, into another room?

Thomas had told about the woman he had seen here very briefly when he'd been younger. Had it been Caroline's ghost? Why would she come back here? Why would she want to come back here, to this particular room? Was Caroline the reason the servants believed this chamber was haunted? Or was Caroline in that other room, the small one that was very empty?

I searched out Mrs. Redbreast, the Lyndhurst housekeeper for certainly more years than I'd been on this earth. I found her in her charming suite of rooms in the east wing. If she was surprised or discomfited in any way to see me, she didn't let on. She invited me into her lovely sitting room, furnished with very old pieces from two centuries ago. A softly warm fire glowed in the fireplace.

All the draperies were drawn against the deepening autumn chill. It looked like it would begin raining any minute, but when I mentioned it, Mrs. Redbreast shook her head, smiled, and said, no, Brantley said not before three o'clock in the afternoon.

"My lady, a cup of tea?"

I accepted. I complimented her on the delicious India tea, told her in all seriousness that I was counting on her to guide me, since Devbridge Manor was such a very large house. When it was necessary, I could lie better than one of those damned weasel-tongued Whigs, as Grandfather had told me more than once. In truth, I had managed Grandfather's various houses since I had turned fifteen, including Deerfield Hall, larger than Devbridge Manor by a good dozen bedchambers and a ballroom the size of a London block. I had made a hash of many things in those early years. However, by the time I was eighteen, I was as at ease discussing the mending of an old washtub with copper bands with a butler and the blacksmith as I was deciding upon baking a buttock of beef in the French fashion with the cook.

I asked her about her family and was told that she was one of the Hildon Dale Redbreasts, and her family had been in Yorkshire since the Vikings came from the sea, to rape, pillage, and settle. Yes, she said, it was likely her ancestors had some of that raping and pillaging blood in their veins.

I moved ever so slowly, planning to steer her eventually to what I wanted to talk about. When I handed her my teacup for a refill, I said, "Have you ever experienced any unpleasantness in The Blue Room, Mrs. Redbreast? Recognized, perhaps, that something was different in that room?"

She dropped her cup she was so startled. Fast as a snake, I managed to snag it in the air just before it hit her shiny oak floor. Thank God it was empty. I set the cup down and said calmly, "Do tell me about it, Mrs. Redbreast. I am the mistress here now, not Lady Caroline or her ghost. Tell me what you have seen or heard or experienced in that room or in other rooms, like the one where Mrs.

Thomas was found napping on the floor."

Mrs. Redbreast was a very large woman, on the shadowy side of middle age, but still handsome. Her black hair was streaked with white, but it was thick and well styled. It was her face, though, that held me, her eyes. They were as dark as her hair and, at the moment, frightened.

Of all things, she began wringing her hands. I was swimming into very deep waters here.

I merely smiled at her. "Mrs. Redbreast, I am new here. My husband has given me something of a history of the family, but not nearly enough. I ask you to help me understand."

"My lady," she said slowly, "what happened yesterday was a shock to all of us."

"A greater shock to Mrs. Thomas."

"Oh, yes, the poor lady. But she fell asleep, that was all there was to it, just a nap, in the middle of the day, and door wasn't locked."

"I'm very sure it wasn't by the time the gentlemen of the house were there to try it. But that isn't the point, is it? I am now the Countess of Devbridge, Mrs.

Redbreast. There's no going back from that. This is now my home. Doubtless you've also heard all about what I reported happening to me last night."

Oh, yes, she had heard, and I could imagine all the speculation going on below stairs. Very possibly all the servants were beginning to wonder if the earl hadn't married another Caroline. Well, I had changed my tack with the family. I would not, however, change with the servants. Servants knew everything, and they loved to talk. They were a part of the family, and everything that happened concerned them. They were my best bet at finding things out. Goodness, there was much wariness, or was it fear? in those dark eyes of hers.

Push her, I thought, and so I leaned toward her and clasped one of her large hands between mine. I looked her right in the eye. "There is a malignant presence in the Black Chamber. There was something altogether different in that small empty room Mrs. Thomas went into. However, I simply don't know about the old woman who was in The Blue Room last night. Help me, Mrs. Redbreast. I don't wish to die in this house or perhaps lose my mind, as did Lady Caroline."

Mrs. Redbreast pulled her hand away and rose very quickly for one of her size.

She walked to the windows, and whipped back the dark blue draperies as if she were angry at them. Then she slowly turned back to me.

"Lady Caroline brought her madness with her, inside her. You are very sane, my lady. Now that you have admitted to the family that what happened last night must have been some sort of a nightmare, then no one could think otherwise."

True enough, I thought. I smiled at her. "No, indeed not. Tell me about Lady Caroline."

"After she killed herself, the poor lady, stories began to pop up, always spoken in whispers, about her returning to The Blue Room. I didn't want to believe them.

Who wants to live in a house where there are spirits roaming about?"

"I don't want to," I said, then nothing more, just waited.

"I finally went there myself, slept in that large bed, and I swear to you nothing happened. I slept very well, better than usual. And when I awoke I felt calm, perhaps even unusually calm."

"Perhaps as if someone had watched over you that night, someone who liked you and had no wish to hurt you or frighten you?"

She nodded slowly. "Yes, that's exactly how I felt. There have been so many stories, and perhaps I believe some of them, but I would never admit that to his lordship. If the poor lady returns occasionally to that bedchamber, it is because she spent most of her time there and it is familiar to her."

"Did Caroline spend a lot of time in that other small room that now stands completely empty?"

"Yes," Mrs. Redbreast said. "It was her own private music room. She played her harp there, so beautifully she played, and the sweet sounds drifted from those windows. Everyone would smile and look up when they heard her playing her harp.

Some have heard the harp over the years."

"Why is the room empty?"

"His lordship had all the furnishings removed. I believe Lady Caroline's lovely harp is in one of the attics. No one goes in there anymore."

"Because the door is kept locked?"

"Yes, that's exactly why. I open it once a week so that one of the maids can dust. But there is nothing more, my lady, I swear it to you. As to what happened last night, I don't know, I simply don't know. There are spirits, every great house has them, but it is something else when a spirit actually threatens you.

No one would appreciate that happening."