Page 3 of My Devoted Viscount (Brazen Bluestockings #2)

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“I- I beg your pardon?” Sophia could not have heard right. Mrs. Digby looked perfectly serious.

“It’s just the one ghost.” Mrs. Digby shrugged one shoulder.

“Everyone else refers to her as the Grey Lady. I prefer to think of her as Mother Hobart. She visits now and then to keep an eye on her home and descendants and is more likely to make an appearance if we make changes or when there is somebody new.” Absently she scratched her dog behind its ears. “Like you!”

Her bright smile creased deep crinkles at the corners of her eyes and deepened the brackets around her mouth, betraying how decades of living outdoors in army tents had weathered the older woman’s skin.

But the laugh lines also bespoke a jovial personality, despite her ramrod straight posture. Was she jesting? Testing Sophia?

Holding perfectly still while she digested the widow’s comments, Sophia reconsidered her options.

Her cousin Claire and odious husband Stanley, who demanded more and more of her fast-dwindling money, and lived so far inland there were no seagulls, never mind a view of the sea.

Or a little old lady with a little white dog who lived in a centuries-old manor by the sea … who apparently believed in ghosts.

“Ghosts don’t bother me,” Sophia bluffed. “Many older buildings are rumored to be haunted. I enjoy learning about their origin stories. Why the spirits haven’t moved on or why they come back to visit.”

Mrs. Digby slowly nodded as Sophia spoke.

“It’s simple, really. Her husband and son were wastrels who nearly ruined the house and estate to fund their whoring and gambling.

Once they died, she worked tirelessly to restore everything.

She comes back to make sure we aren’t mucking things up again.

” So blasé about it, Mrs. Digby could just as easily be referring to an estate steward.

A living, breathing, steward of flesh and blood.

“Perfectly logical.” Much better company than someone who had been murdered and sought retribution, as ghost stories went.

Mrs. Digby let out a sound that was more of a cackle than a laugh.

“I think you’ll do.” She slipped her shoes back on, making the dog leap down, and strode for the door.

“I’ll let the staff know you’ll be staying.

” She paused in the doorway long enough for her dog to exit, his toenails clicking on the polished oak plank floor, before she smiled over her shoulder at Sophia and shut the door.

Now that she was alone in the library, Sophia allowed herself to let out a sigh of relief that she wasn’t going to be sent packing before she’d even started the job.

Well, not quite alone. There was still the sleeping woman to whom she had not been introduced.

Except both chairs beside the fireplace were now empty.

Sophia cast an apprehensive glance around the room, noting the many bookcases lining the walls as well as the comfortable chairs, tables, and sofa arranged to take advantage of heat from the fireplace or the magnificent view out the windows. Furniture, but no elderly woman.

Listening for footsteps in the hall, she jumped up from her seat to peer behind the sofa and curtains, even bent to look under the tables and desk, calling herself ridiculous for doing so.

She was alone.

Where had the other woman gone? Only Mrs. Digby and her dog had exited through the door to the hall.

There must be a logical explanation for the woman’s disappearance.

Even though it was of modest size as grand country homes went, did this room have another exit?

Trying to be quick but thorough, Sophia examined the walls for a concealed servant’s entrance or secret panel.

Even tried to turn the candelabra mounted on the wall on either side of the fireplace mantel.

She succeeded only in dislodging the unlit candles.

Had that been the Grey Lady ghost rather than a living woman dozing in the chair?

Sophia’s knees nearly gave out. She gripped the mantel to steady herself.

The sound of approaching footsteps gave her the strength to race back to her seat and smooth her skirts just before Mrs. Digby entered.

She took up a spot before the fire, her hands clasped behind her toward the heat.

Sophia opened her mouth to mention the female personage she’d seen, considered how ridiculous she’d sound inquiring about a ghost, and closed her mouth without uttering a sound.

Mrs. Digby nodded toward the desk over by bookshelves filled with leather covered tomes, their gilt titles glinting in the fading sunlight. “Go through the supplies to confirm we have what you need. I’d like to begin first thing in the morning.”

Sophia checked the drawers on both pedestals of the desk and found paper, ink, quills, and other necessities. The thickly padded leather chair behind the mahogany desk was comfortable, yet small enough she could still touch her feet to the floor as she sat at the desk.

“I can send the coachman into town again in the morning if we need anything right away,” Mrs. Digby said, “but I will write to my nephew in London soon. There is a stationer on Oxford Street who sells the most perfect journals and paper. So smooth for writing on.”

“There is enough here to get started.” Sophia reverently ran her hands along the desk’s mahogany top, noting the little knicks and scars that told her it was a well-cared for antique.

The surface was large enough to spread out manuscript pages or account books, yet the curved center of the desk allowed everything to still be within her reach without having to stand up.

She could not have designed a more perfect desk at which to work.

This bode well, as Mrs. Digby’s advertisement said she expected the memoir project to take several weeks.

Mrs. Digby nodded. “Good, good.” Her dog trotted in and settled at her feet with a muffled groan. “I’ve ordered the staff to bring a meal to you in your room. Your manners serve you well, but I know what the food is like at coaching inns. You must be starving.”

Sophia ducked her chin.

“Eat, get settled into your bedchamber, take a walk about the garden if you’d like. In the morning, we’ll dine at eight and then start work.”

The butler who had let her in the front door appeared in the doorway. He bowed and ushered her into the hallway. “Enid will show you to your room, miss.”

Now Sophia had time to notice that he had the same regal bearing as any butler she had encountered, though there was more salt than pepper in his hair, and lines on his face indicated he was nearing retirement age.

“Welcome to Hobart Grange, Miss Walden,” he quietly said as she passed him.

A maid bobbed a curtsy and Sophia followed her up the stairs, her stomach knotted again. Would she be relegated to the servants’ quarters in the attic? Employed as the widow’s scribe, the best she hoped for was a small guest room usually reserved for unwanted relatives.

The maid opened a bedchamber door, and Sophia smiled in delight.

Ivy-patterned wallpaper stopped at dark green velvet curtains that framed windows with a stunning view of the Channel.

A matching coverlet nestled on a four-poster bed so high she would need the two-step ladder at the foot to climb into it, centered in what was easily the largest, most elegant bedchamber Sophia had ever been assigned.

A walnut Chippendale writing desk sat beneath a south-facing window, which would give her plenty of light.

No squinting by candlelight when she wrote.

“Are you sure this is the room Mrs. Digby—” Sophia cut herself off when the maid looked insulted with the implication Enid had brought her to the wrong room.

Two footmen arrived with her trunks and valise, followed by a maid carrying a steaming pitcher of water.

Sophia stepped into the room and out of their way, hoping her half-boots weren’t soiling the large Aubusson carpet that covered half of the floor.

“It’s lovely. My compliments to the staff. ”

Enid looked mollified. “Will your maid be arriving shortly? So we can be certain her quarters are prepared.”

Luggage delivered, the footmen each tugged their forelock as they exited.

Sophia raised her nose to be at least as high as that of Enid. “I am not traveling with a maid.”

Enid sniffed and bobbed a curtsy. “I’ll check on your meal. If you’d like to stroll in the garden, Marshall will show you the way.” She gestured at the younger footman who had helped carry her trunks, who now stood at his post in the hallway, before she exited and clomped down the stairs.

“Would you like some help with your things, Miss?”

Sophia had almost forgotten the other maid’s presence by the washstand, arranging a washcloth and towel next to the pitcher and basin. “Thank you, no, ah…”

“Ruby, Miss.” She dipped lower in her curtsy than Enid had.

“Thank you, Ruby, but at the Academy…” Sophia tapped her finger on her bottom lip, remembering how self-sufficient the staff always had to be at the school. “On second thought, I would indeed appreciate some help unpacking.”

With a pleased smile, Ruby set about hanging up Sophia’s dresses and even produced a clothes iron from the dressing room, while Sophia freshened up and permitted herself to relax—slightly—for possibly the first time since the Academy had abruptly closed three months ago.

She had no idea how many other candidates had responded to the little advertisement seeking a scribe to help write a widow’s memoir.

The timing of Mrs. Digby’s acceptance letter could not have been more propitious.

Claire had declared it her Christian duty to take in Sophia, a distant cousin, but Claire’s husband Stanley resented another mouth to feed.

So close to running out of money entirely, Sophia would not have been surprised if Stanley tried to force her to leave even if she had nowhere else to go.