Someone to Love (20 page)

If Jace was such a caring man, maybe he’d taken on a mentally disturbed woman and tried to keep her from harming herself. But he’d failed. She’d killed herself anyway.

But Clive didn’t think she had committed suicide.

“Read between the lines,” she’d heard her editor say a hundred times. “Read what they’re not saying.”

She looked back at the two articles taken from the newspaper and read them again. Emma had raised a good question. If her fiancé was in London, why wasn’t he called? Nigh smiled because she realized that it was all right there. Ralph had written the story, and now he might be the editor of only a village newspaper, but before he retired he’d worked in Edinburgh on a big paper for all his working life. He knew how to report the facts.

The fiancé in London wasn’t called because they didn’t have his name or number, Nigh thought. They had called whomever Stacy Evans listed in her passport as who to call in an emergency. Nigh imagined Jace in London, looking for his fiancée, being frantic about her, while her mother and sister were flying in from the United States.

So why didn’t
they
call Jace? He was never seen in Margate. Clive had never met him, so he was never connected with Miss Stacy Evans.

As Nigh went over the articles again, she began to get a clearer picture of what had happened. If there was one thing she knew about Jace Montgomery, it was that he wasn’t hard to talk to. A man who was open to ghosts and the extraordinary things that had happened to him since he’d arrived in Margate wasn’t a man who’d force some woman to marry him.

Nigh would like to go to Ralph’s house and ask him questions, but he’d taught her that when it comes to reporting there is no such thing as “off the record.” If she expressed doubt about a suicide, Ralph would probably report it in the next issue. And worse, Ralph would probably figure out that there was a connection between the suicide and the man everyone in Margate seemed to think Nigh was having an affair with.

“I wish,” she said out loud as she turned the key in the ignition. She glanced in the rearview mirror to see if anyone was behind her, then froze. Standing on the grass, on the other side of the pavement, was Danny Longstreet. He was smiling at her, and when she looked at him in the mirror he raised his hand in a wave. He had on his riding clothes, an outfit that hadn’t changed much in many years, but she could see now that it was different, old-fashioned, out of date.

Quickly, she turned to look out the back window. She saw nothing. There was no one there, just the grass, a wire fence, then the pasture beyond.

She put her hands over her face and sat there for a moment. Danny Longstreet had followed her to Margate. Would he follow her to her house? Haunt her? Was she going to live in fear of seeing ghosts everywhere she turned?

She took a deep breath, then opened her car door and got out. She marched across the parking lot to the grassy patch where she’d seen Danny. “I’m not going to stand for this,” she said out loud. “I am
not
Ann Stuart! Do you hear me? I may look like her and be a distant cousin, but I’m not her. Ann is at Priory House and I suggest you go there
now!
Do you hear me? Oh!” she said. “Good morning, Mrs. Vernon. Looks to be a nice day.”

The woman scurried past Nigh as quickly as she could.

“You heard me and I mean it!” she said under her breath, then got back in her car.

Jace wandered about Priory House for most of a day. After he sent Nigh to the train station yesterday, he’d gone to the local library and tried to find out more about Danny Longstreet, but there was nothing. Everywhere he turned, he was told that Mrs. Fenney and Tolben Hall had everything. At last he had to face it: There just wasn’t much about Danny or his father.

He spent another night at Tolben Hall, but left early the next morning, without having Mrs. Fenney’s fry-up. He stopped at a roadside restaurant and had a bowl of sticks and twigs cereal and whole wheat toast, but ate only half of it. When the pretty waitress asked him if he’d like something else, he almost told her to fry the bread, but he didn’t.

He drove back to Margate, arriving just as the sun was coming up, and the sight of the ugly old house depressed him. He’d never liked it, never wanted it.

He managed to bypass Mrs. Browne and get to the chintz room without being seen. But as he looked about the room, he suddenly hated the way it was a reproduction of Ann’s room. He hated the wallpaper that had cost him so much, hated the Victorian furniture. In fact, at the moment, he seemed to hate everything.

He went to the closet, unscrewed the floorboard, and took out Stacy’s photo. For the first time since her death, he didn’t feel as close to her, didn’t feel as though she was in the room with him.

He looked out the window toward the village and thought he saw a streak of yellow. Maybe it was Nigh’s outrageously bright Mini Cooper that she drove at breakneck speed, careening around corners.

For a moment he smiled at the memory of being with her while she drove his Rover across rocks, a fallen tree limb, down a creek bed, then back up the side of it at an angle that had made his stomach clench. When she’d first started driving, he’d been terrified, but when he saw that she knew what she was doing, he kept his fears to himself. He held on and gave her the respect that such driving deserved.

Last night at Tolben Hall he should have been going back through the papers in the box about the Longstreets. Maybe he’d missed something. Maybe there was something important in there that he hadn’t seen.

But, instead, what did he do? Hooked his computer up to a land line and went on the Internet to read about N. A. Smythe, the reporter. He saw a short video of her in the Middle East, and winced when a bomb went off not far from her. He read half a dozen accounts of the cameraman who’d been killed while standing beside her. After that happened, there were few articles about her or by her. She’d been quoted as saying that she needed to take some time off, then there was nothing.

He’d gone to bed at midnight and dreamed of the kind of things Nigh must have seen. He awoke at four, dreaded the long wait until breakfast was served, but then decided not to wait. He left Mrs. Fenney a note and crept out at five.

On the long drive back to Margate, Jace thought about how much he’d enjoyed the trip down when Nigh was with him. He was sure she’d noticed that he refused to talk about the time he’d known Stacy.

There was a part of him that wanted to talk about Stacy, wanted to ask Nigh her opinion. But he knew he couldn’t do that. If he was right and someone had murdered Stacy, that person could still be living in Margate. The person who had sent Stacy the note to meet him at Priory House could still be in the village. He hadn’t met anyone who she might like, but—

He had a thought so startling that he nearly ran off the road. What about Jerry Longstreet? Maybe he was the reason his ancestor, Danny, had appeared to Nigh. Maybe Danny knew that Jerry had killed Stacy. Maybe—

So many thoughts went through Jace’s head that he had to make an effort to watch his driving.

When he got back to Priory House, he was bursting with questions, but who to ask? If he asked Mrs. Browne, he was sure she’d say that it was none of her business—then she’d call one of her awful women friends and tell them that Jace was asking about Jerry Longstreet. Jace couldn’t imagine what kind of gossip would follow that tidbit.

Hatch wouldn’t know and if he did, he wouldn’t tell. Gladys and Mick were too interested in each other to notice anyone else. The maids were…

Jace well knew that the only person he wanted to talk to was Nigh.

At lunchtime he went downstairs and ate in silence while Mrs. Browne fussed about his actions of the last few days.

“Driving an expensive car like that,” she said. “I never! If you had any sense—”

Jace had had enough. He picked up his plate and went to the door. “From now on, Mrs. Browne, I’ll eat in the dining room.”

He heard her usual “hmph!” but he also thought he heard a “yes, sir.”

At 3:30, it started to drizzle outside. He’d jogged for an hour and even taken a nap, but it was now only the middle of the afternoon. He was in the small sitting room off the kitchen that no one used, a room he had never before spent any time in. A fire was burning and the rain was streaking the windows. He should have been content to read more of the books about the history of Margate, but he couldn’t seem to sit still.

“Excuse me, sir,” came a voice and he turned to see Daisy the flirt standing there. He really hoped she wasn’t going to make one of her little come-ons to him. “Mick gave me this to give to you.”

“What is it?” he asked cautiously.

“A note.” She looked both ways down the hall to see if Mrs. Browne was anywhere near. “I think it’s from Nigh,” she whispered.

Jace was on his feet in seconds, but Daisy’s knowing smile made him slow down. When she stood there watching him, waiting for him to open the envelope, he gave her a look to go away. She left, giggling.

Jace closed the door, then went to stand by the fire to read the note.

A grin so big that it almost broke the skin spread across Jace’s face. “Very serious problem,” he said aloud, then nearly ran to the telephone in the hall.

Nigh answered on the first ring. “Hello?”

Jace took the smile off his face. “You weren’t hurt, were you?” he asked solemnly. “By Danny, I mean.”

“No,” she said, sounding a bit breathless, as though she’d run to get the phone.

“Were you scared?”

“Actually,” Nigh said, “he made me angry. I got out of the car and bawled him out.”

“Good for you.”

“Maybe,” she said, “except that old Mrs. Vernon was walking her dog and I think I may have given her a real fright.”

Jace laughed. “I’m glad to hear
you
weren’t frightened.”

“I was still too embarrassed after the first time to collapse again. I do apologize for that. I certainly wasn’t keeping up the British tradition of stiff upper lip.”

“I think even the Queen would have been frightened by what happened to you.”

“I do hope you’re not talking about
our
queen! After all her relatives have put her through, do you think a little ghost would do her in? I think not!”

Jace laughed. “You aren’t hungry, are you?”

“Starved. I’ve had nothing but my own cooking since Tolben Hall. By the way, how is Mrs. Fenney?”

“Good. She said we were her favorite guests she’s ever had.”

Nigh laughed. “I’m sure she did. Maybe we were her most exciting.”

“So how about tea?”

“You mean with you?”

“Unless you’d rather…” He trailed off.

“Eat here alone? No, thanks. I’ll go to your house. Except that it’s raining.”

“Excuse me, I forgot. You’re English, so you don’t know how to deal with rain.”

“I thought maybe I should take some dry clothes with me, that’s all.”

“Oh,” Jace said. “Yes, by all means. Bring some. Maybe after tea you could show me those sheep or my property boundaries. It might be good to know what I own. I’d like to see it at under sixty miles an hour.”

“I think that’s a great idea. I’ll be there by four. See you soon.”

Jace put down the phone and the grin came back on his face. They’d not said so, but she was coming for a sleepover, he thought, thinking he sounded like a first-grader. He found Daisy in the big downstairs sitting room. He hadn’t been in the room since the first day he’d been there. “Please build a fire in here,” he told her, “then I want you to put fresh sheets in that bedroom…” He had to think. “Isn’t there a blue bedroom somewhere? One with a bathroom attached?”

“The lady’s bedroom,” she said, her face wearing a know-it-all smirk. “It’s across from the master bedroom.”

“Good,” he said. “And put clean sheets on the big bed in the master bedroom please.”

“But you sleep in the chintz room.”

He gave her a look that made her erase the smirk. “Master bedroom and the blue bedroom. Got it?”

“Yes, sir,” she said and came close to bobbing a curtsey, then she hurried down the hallway and out of sight.

He went to the kitchen to give Mrs. Browne instructions for a weekend of wonderful meals to be prepared.

“Havin’ guests, are we?” she said, but he didn’t answer.

“And today at four I want a tea served that would make Edward VII proud. Got all that?” He started to leave, but turned back. “And Mrs. Browne, if you say one derogatory word to my guest, there will be consequences.”

Her eyes widened and she said nothing, but she nodded. It was the most he could hope for.

He went upstairs to change out of his running clothes, and when he saw Daisy and Erin changing the sheets in the room across from his, he told them to tell Mick that he wanted the rooms full of flowers from the garden.

“Yes, sir!” Daisy said, smiling.

“Maybe this old house will come back to life,” he heard Erin say as he went into the chintz room to shower and change. He looked around it and again thought that he’d made a mistake in trying to re-create what Ann had had. And he’d been mistaken to sleep in that room.