Page 13 of My Devoted Viscount (Brazen Bluestockings #2)

Vincent called to mind the song Ravencroft had composed and performed with his quintet that won the medal for best original composition from the Gentlemen and Noblemen’s Catch Club, beating out Vincent and his group.

“If you could see and hear him sing the song he wrote for her, you would have no doubt he is utterly besotted with her.”

“Besotted?” Miss Walden looked hopeful but unconvinced.

“As long as I’ve known him, Ravencroft has had no time for women other than looking out for his sisters and their children.

Not even an opera dancer. Shortly after he met Miss Hamlin, he disappeared for a fortnight.

When he appeared again, his voice was better than ever—and I’ve been singing with him since we were in short coats—and he had composed that little number.

Wasn’t a dry eye in the room by the time he was done. ”

Miss Walden finally seemed convinced, as she had the same far-off, misty-eyed look that all the women—and a few men—in the room had when Ravencroft finished.

“I should ask him to give me a copy of the sheet music, in case I ever want to impress a signorina .”

Her lips tightened, as though holding back a smile. He had the sudden urge to make her smile. To hear her laugh.

Hmm.

He usually had to put little effort into getting women, of any age or social status, to do either. It might take longer to make reparations for the fright he’d given her last night.

“The pianoforte sounds perfectly in tune, by the way,” he said to distract himself. “Aunt Gert said you took care of it your second night here.”

“I did. Seemed a waste to let such a magnificent instrument sit there, unplayable.”

She was very matter of fact about it, though he knew no other woman who could, or wanted to, tune a pianoforte. He looked to make sure no one was entering the room from either door and lowered his voice. “So you’re adept at wielding a tuning hammer as well as a brass candlestick, cara ?”

She leaned over the desk toward him and tilted her head slightly, her voice also at a conspiratorial pitch. “And don’t forget it.”

At his burst of laughter, he finally had a smile from her.

“Vincent, dear boy,” Aunt Gertrude said, sailing into the room from the hall door, interrupting Vincent’s unexpected joy in the smile from Miss Walden. “Go amuse yourself elsewhere for a bit. We have work to do.”

Vincent returned his chair to its usual place and kissed his aunt on the cheek, and winked at Miss Walden over his shoulder as he exited the room.

* * *

Questioning maids was not going to be nearly as entertaining as chatting with Miss Walden, but Vincent asked around until he found where Enid was working.

She was in the middle of changing bed linens in Aunt Agnes’s room. Vincent lounged against the frame in the open doorway until she noticed him. She jumped, then clutched the pillow to her torso even as she dipped a deep curtsy. “My lord?” she squeaked.

“Tell me about the ghost you saw on the beach last week.”

“Oh!” Her face drained of all color to the point he feared she would faint.

“Oh, it was the most horrible thing! I ain’t never seen the Grey Lady before!

All tattered dress and shawl, her long hair billowing.

Her feet didn’t even touch the sand!” The pillow looked close to bursting, she clutched it so tightly.

“Where were you when you saw her?”

She gulped. “In my room, of course. It was late.”

“In your room on the third floor?” He pointed up, indicating the floor above.

She vigorously nodded.

“And you were tired after a long day of work.”

Enid nodded again, not quite as confidently.

“From the window of your room on the third floor, you saw the ghost down on the beach, late at night. When the waning moon was in its last quarter.”

Enid pursed her lips. Her nod this time was much slower. He barely heard her whispered, “Yes, my lord.”

“You may return to your duties.”

Next he sought out Ruby. She was in his—no, Miss Walden’s—room, pressing a dress, one clothes iron in hand, another heating on the coals. “Tell me about the ghost you saw last week.”

“I don’t think it was a ghost, my lord.” She put the iron in her hand back on the coals to heat. “Enid swears up and down it was the Gray Lady, but it weren’t her.”

“Why?”

Ruby repositioned the dress on the ironing board. “You’ll think I’m barmy.”

“I promise to keep an open mind.”

Ruby looked him straight in the eye, assessing him, bolder than maids usually dared unless they were about to offer him sexual favors. “Because I seen the Grey Lady before, and that weren’t her.”

Vincent straightened from leaning against the doorjamb. “Looking from your window on the third floor all the way down to the beach, late on a night with only a quarter moon, and you’re confident it was a ghost other than the Grey Lady?”

“No, my lord. I don’t think it was a ghost at all. I think it was just a woman out for a stroll.” She fussed with the dress. “It was Enid who insisted it was the Grey Lady.”

“You have seen the Grey Lady before? Tell me about her, please. When did you see her?”

“You’re serious? You ain’t making fun of me?”

Vincent crossed his heart to show his sincerity. “I’ve been visiting Aunt Gertrude here since I was a lad and have never seen the ghost myself. Please tell me about your experience.”

Ruby hesitated, as though still weighing his intent, but then apparently liked what she saw in his face.

“Me mum had come that day to help out Mrs. Nelson, who was feeling poorly. I was about this big.” She held her hand palm-down at her side to indicate a child of about four or five years.

“There was a lot of people in the house because they hung a new painting of Mrs. Digby’s dead husband in the long gallery.

After they all admired it and left, I was still sitting on the floor by the window playing with my doll.

An old lady dressed in grey walked by. I got scared ‘cuz I could see right through her. But she smiled at me. Looked directly at me and smiled, like she was happy I was there!” Ruby pointed two fingers at her eyes.

“Then she walked into the wall, right through the portrait, and disappeared.”

Vincent took a moment to digest this commonplace description of a ghostly encounter … save for smiling at a child. “What did your mother say when you told her?”

“I didn’t tell nobody.” Ruby rested her fists on her hips. “Well, I told my big sister that night, and she laughed at me. So I ain’t told nobody else about it. Until today.”

“I appreciate being taken into your confidence.” Vincent bowed his head and rested his hand over his heart.

Ruby beamed at him, completely forgetting to be submissive or awed by his title.

“Your experience of her fits in with other stories I’ve heard about her.”

“Really?”

Vincent nodded. “She must have approved of the portrait of Uncle Digby. If she hadn’t, it would likely have ended up on the floor.”

Ruby grinned. “Like the new drawing room curtains she didn’t like!

The rod kept falling off the wall at night, even though no one heard it fall.

They’d find the curtains in a puddle on the floor every morning until they gave up.

Mrs. Digby gave them to Mrs. Nelson, and she gave one of the panels to me mum.

” Ruby held her hands up and shrugged. “I don’t know why the ghost didn’t like them.

Mum made our panel into right nice pelisses for me and my sister. ”

The jangling keys on the housekeeper’s chatelaine announced her arrival before Mrs. Nelson turned the corner from the landing just then.

Her eyebrows rose in surprise upon seeing Vincent in the doorway.

“Is there a problem, my lord?” She marched closer.

Ruby resumed ironing. “Did you want your usual bedchamber? I shall ask Mrs. Digby if she wants us to move Miss Walden.”

“That won’t be necessary, Mrs. Nelson.” On barely twelve hours’ acquaintance, he already knew he would have difficulty falling asleep in the same bed in which the intriguing Miss Walden had recently slumbered.

Even if said bed was the same one that had cradled him on his visits for the last twenty years.

With a last glance at the room that was as familiar to him as the one at Hobart Hall where he’d slept since he was old enough to leave the nursery, he moved on to his next task …

a walk on the beach where the “ghost” had been sighted.