Someone to Love Read online

  “Very,” Nigh said, then she got up and left the dining room. Ten minutes later, she was packed.

  Mrs. Fenney was downstairs and ready to drive her to the train station. “I’m so sorry about this,” she said. “Our village ghost hasn’t appeared to anyone in years, so we thought maybe he’d gone to his heavenly reward, but the vicar said you spent some time with him.”

  All Nigh could do was nod. She was too angry to do much more.

  They drove the four miles to the station in silence and when they got there, Mrs. Fenney handed her the tickets. They were for first class.

  “Mr. Montgomery said I was to ask if you needed anything and I was to give you this.” It was an envelope that she knew contained cash.

  “I don’t want—” she began, planning to refuse the money. She’d eat when she got home.

  Mrs. Fenney took Nigh’s hands in hers. “You shouldn’t be angry at him, dear. He’s been sick with worry about you. He stayed out late last night and I was told that he talked to the doctor about you, and the vicar, and he visited our local historian. When he got back I had to unlock the front door for him and I happen to know that he stayed in your room last night. He looked after you. He must love you very much.”

  “No,” Nigh said. “He—” She broke off. She didn’t want to tell this woman her private problems. “Thank you,” she said. “Thank you for everything. You have a lovely home and the food was excellent.”

  “I’m glad you enjoyed part of your visit,” she said, starting to shout because the train was pulling into the station.

  Nigh hefted her bag onto her shoulder and started toward the train. “Take care of him, will you? And keep those blood puddings away.”

  Mrs. Fenney smiled. “They never hurt my husband,” she said.

  “Ah, but where is he now?” Nigh asked as she climbed onto the platform.

  “He’s in Alaska working on an oil rig,” Mrs. Fenney called as the train started to move.

  Nigh laughed and waved, then went to find her seat.

  15

  Nigh got the greengrocer’s son to give her a ride from the train station to her house. He didn’t shut up for the whole ride.

  “I tell you, Nigh, you are the most exciting thing that has ever happened to this village. I know that people think it’s Priory House and all the ghosts those people see, but my money’s on you. First you run off the day after your mother’s funeral, and the next time we see you you’re on the telly reading the news and the next time we see you’re in—Where was it?”

  “Afghanistan.”

  “Right. I knew it was some place really foreign. You know how some places are more foreign than others? Australia is foreign but not really foreign. You know what I mean? Maybe it’s the language. And the States are foreign, but not really. Although, ol’ Harris at the butcher’s says that the States are the most foreign of all. You know what I mean? But, anyway, I think anybody would agree that Afghanistan is about as foreign as you get. You know? So, anyway, there you are and there you’ve been and everybody’s lost count of all the places you’ve been. So then this rich American shows up and first thing we know, you and he have run off together. ‘But how could they?’ everybody says because you wrote that awful stuff about him in the paper. No offense, Nigh, but if my girlfriend wrote anything like that about me, she wouldn’t be my girlfriend no more. You know what I mean? But maybe Harris is right that Americans are the most foreign because you two run off God only knows where to together just like you was regular lovebirds. Mrs. B. said the two of you spent a whole day together in that haunted bedroom, didn’t even come out for lunch. Then you run off together and the next thing we hear is you made up the whole thing and there’s not gonna be any industry in the village and we could have used some industry here, if you know what I mean. So where’d you and that American go, if you don’t mind my askin’?”

  They were at last at her house. Nigh opened the car door, said thanks for the ride, and got out.

  “If you get tired of foreigners, you know where I live,” he called to her through the open window.

  “Yeah, I know what you mean,” Nigh said, gave a wave, then hurried into her house and shut the door behind her. She paused only a second to listen to the quiet, then she went into the kitchen to put the kettle on. It hadn’t even come to a boil when she heard her friend Kelly’s voice. The only thing in the world she wanted at that moment was to be alone to collect her thoughts.

  Nigh managed to put a smile on her face as Kelly came into the kitchen. “Kelly, dear, how nice to see you.”

  “Don’t give me that crap!” she said, tossing her bag on the kitchen table. “I could wring your neck! Everybody in town has been asking me what you’re up to and I’ve had to say—truthfully, mind you—that I have no idea. When you were in Afghanistan, you sent me a video letter telling me everything. When you were in Saudi, you sent me twelve postcards. You’ve called me from some places that I couldn’t find on the map. But now you return home and what happens? You disappear. And not only do you disappear, you do it with some man nobody knows anything about. Where the hell have you been?”

  The answer to Kelly’s question was so long and complicated that Nigh didn’t know where to begin—or if she even wanted to. She was silent as she filled the teapot, got some digestive biscuits out of the cupboard, and put them on a plate.

  While Kelly poured the tea and put in the milk, she kept glancing at her friend. When she spoke again, her voice was calmer. “You look like you’ve been to hell and back.”

  “To hell, but certainly not back,” Nigh said.

  “So where is he?”

  Nigh shrugged. “In a village in Hampshire.”

  “You spent the night together? What happened? Did you quarrel and split up?” She put her hand over Nigh’s. “I’m sorry. But maybe it’s for the best. Maybe—”

  “Could you think a little higher than below the belt?” Nigh snapped. “First of all, I didn’t run away with him. If you remember, the whole village was going crazy because they thought a Ghost Center was going to be opened and they wanted in on it.”

  “But that’s what you wrote, isn’t it?”

  “At the time, that’s what I thought he was going to do. It’s what I was told.”

  “Who told you that?”

  Nigh shook her head. “That doesn’t matter now. That was so long ago I can hardly remember it.”

  “It was three days ago,” Kelly said.

  “Three days can be a lifetime.”

  Kelly drank her tea and ate a biscuit as she looked at her friend. “So tell me everything.”

  “No,” Nigh said. “I can’t.” She put up her hand when Kelly started to speak. “It’s not that I won’t tell you, it’s because I don’t know anything to tell you.”

  “Are you trying to make me believe that you spent days with this man and didn’t ferret out every secret he had, including the whereabouts of the secret box he had when he was a kid?”

  “I don’t know anything more about him now than I did before I met him. Oh, I know where he grew up and the names of some of his cousins. I know lots of unimportant things, but I don’t know what’s driving him. I don’t even know why he bought Priory House.”

  “For the ghosts. Mrs. B. has told everyone how he made up the haunted room to look like a Victorian set. Of course everyone says Americans know nothing about history because they have none of their own, or he would know that Lady Grace did not live in Victorian times. Somebody should help him get his time periods right.”

  “Stop it!” Nigh said, her hands over her ears. “I am sick of hearing gossip! I am sick of people making up stories about something they know nothing about.”

  Kelly didn’t say anything and when Nigh looked at her she was serious.

  “You’re right,” Kelly said. “I’ve become one of them. I’ve sunk so low that I’ve begun to listen to that harridan, Mrs. Browne. I apologize. If you talk, I will listen, and what you tell me won’t go any furthe