Page 8 of My Darling Mr. Darling

“You haven’t got a sister.”

“Oh, you are perfectlywretched,” she said, withdrawing in such a sulk that a laugh burst from his chest. She stomped away toward the stairs, her sodden skirts clinging to her legs.

“So you were with Violet, then,” he said, starting after her.

“I won’t tell you!” she threw over her shoulder, gathering her skirts in her hands to proceed up the stairs ahead of him.

Smothering his amusement, he paused at the base of the stairs, one hand curved over the rounded cap of the newel post. “Have I reminded you lately of how very much I do not care for yellow, Mouse?”

She paused, too, balanced on two steps, her gaze flitting between him and her drenched gown which was, in point of fact, vibrantly, violently yellow.

He leaned in. “Run.”

And with a squeal—of delight—she did.

∞∞∞

The crushing rain had not let up by the time John returned to his townhouse. It had been a pleasant evening, at least, as after he’d taken his obligatory turn about the floor with Serena, she’d patted his cheek and relieved him, Alex, and her husband of their obligation to mingle with guests, and they’d spent the remainder of the time holed up in Grey’s study, talking business and politics and sharing some damned fine whisky.

At least Serena had had the excellent taste not to invite any of those simpering misses who had the unfortunate tendency to flock around any available bachelor like a group of witless peahens, fluttering their lashes as if they’d all developed some sort of eye ailment.

Though he’d long disabused Wentworth of the queer notion that a butler had to be awake and alert at all hours in expectation of his master’s arrival, the front door flew open before John could retrieve the key from his pocket, and Wentworth held it open with one hand as a cup of tea trembled in his other.

“Good God, Wentworth,” John said as he stepped inside, dropping his umbrella into a stand near the door. “Have you any idea of the time? You ought not to have waited up.” And then, as Wentworth’s white, haggard face became clearer in the light, he added, “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Wentworth’s Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat, and he took a sip of tea that hardly made it to his mouth for the severity of his shaking hands. “I rather think I have, sir,” he said, his voice a hoarse rasp of sound, unrelieved even by the tea he had been drinking.

Ordinarily, John would have cast such a claim aside as utter rubbish, but he had never heard the redoubtable butler so shaken. “Well, don’t leave me in suspense,” he said, brushing off Wentworth’s halfhearted efforts to collect his coat to clap his hand over the man’s shoulder and steer him toward the kitchen. “I want to know about this ghost.”

The mere mention had Wentworth shaking violently. He collapsed into a chair at the small table in the kitchen and hunched over his teacup, his gaze shifting uneasily toward the windows, which the rain lashed still, as if he expected to find something out there in the stormy night.

“It’s quite late, Wentworth,” John prompted, but only the sound of his voice had caused the man to start violently.

“I thought—well, I woke an hour or so ago, sir. Th-thought to make myself a cuppa.” His hands cradled the teacup, which he raised to his lips for a bracing sip. “My joints, you know, sir,” he mumbled, almost apologetically.

“I’ve never begrudged you the tea, Wentworth.” John drummed his fingers impatiently upon the tabletop, but even that sound was nearly drowned by the fury of the storm outside. “Theghost, man.”

With a terrible shudder, Wentworth hunched himself over his cup. “There were sounds, sir. Within the house. I thought there was an intruder. Naturally, I gave chase.”

John suppressed a snort. Wentworth was sixty if he was a day—what had he intended to do with an intruder, had he caught one?Scoldhim to death?

“But it wasn’t—it wasn’t an intruder, sir. It washer. I saw her plain as day.” His rheumy eyes closed, bushy brows crowding down over them in distress.

“I beg your pardon, Wentworth. I’m afraid I don’t take your meaning.Her?”

“Miss Violet,” Wentworth said in a shivering whisper, as if merely speaking the name would be an invitation to the lingering spirit of the girl who had once resided within this house. “I saw Miss Violet, sir. On my oath, I saw her.”

“Yousawher? She washere?”

“My oath and honor, sir, yes. She was”—he extended one gnarled finger, gesturing toward the morning room—“just there. Just on the terrace, sir. Standing in the rain.” He hesitated, his brow furrowing. “Now that I think on it, sir, I never thought a ghost could get wet.”

“Oh, for the love of—” John bit off the invective that was sure to have gotten a rise out of the otherwise stalwart butler. “That was no ghost, Wentworth. ItwasViolet.”

“But how could it be, sir? Unless her spirit—” He broke off with a shudder.

Owing to the butler’s delicate sensibilities, John resisted the urge to roll his eyes. “I assure you, Wentworth, that there is nothing even remotely supernatural about it. Violet isnotdead.” She was only a monstrous littlehousebreaker.

“But we all assumed—”