Someone to Love Read online

  “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.

  On his way downstairs, he stopped by Daisy and Erin and told them to move his things into the master bedroom.

  This time, their laughter made him smile.

  17

  Lovely,” Nigh said, her feet propped on the big round ottoman before the fire. At tea she’d told him every word about seeing Danny Longstreet in her rearview mirror, the telling of which had taken all of about ten minutes. He’d told her all about what he’d done in Tolben Hall, which took another ten minutes. After that, they’d talked about—

  She wasn’t sure what they’d talked about, but they’d never run out of things to say. After tea, they’d walked in the rain, both of them in tall rubber boots, and looked at the boundaries of his property.

  At the southwest corner, he looked down at a small house. “That looks familiar.” It was Nigh’s house.

  She shook her head. “Didn’t the estate agent show you what you were buying?”

  “I’m sure he told me everything, it’s just that I don’t remember what he said.”

  “Yet you bought the house anyway. Imagine that.”

  “Mmmm,” he said. “Imagine that.” He changed the subject. “So I own your house. How often are you there?”

  “Seldom. You rent it to me very cheaply, so I mostly use it for storage. I have a bedroom in an apartment in London with two roommates, but it doesn’t matter since I’m gone most of the time.”

  “I saw.”

  She looked at him in question.

  “On the Internet. I looked you up.” When she said nothing, he said, “So what are you planning to do with your life?”

  “I don’t know. Ask me a year from now.”

  “Is that how long you plan to take off?”

  “I haven’t had any time off since I started and it’s almost ten years now. I have to figure out what I want to do. What about you?”

  “Same here. My degree is in history, but all I’ve done is buy and sell things for my family’s business. All done under my uncle’s supervision.”

  “That sounds modest. You must have had some ideas of your own.”

  “A few,” he said. “Now and then. But I’m like you and have no idea what I want to do.”

  “You could live here,” she said, smiling.

  “In Priory House?”

  “Right. I forget that you bought a terrifically expensive house that you detest. And why did you do that?”

  He wouldn’t meet her eyes. “On impulse.”

  She knew she should just let it go, but she couldn’t. She wasn’t going to bring up Stacy; he had to do that, but she wanted to let him know that she would listen. “You bought a house that you don’t like on impulse. On a whim.”

  “Yes,” he said, still not looking at her.

  “You must have had a powerful reason for doing that.”

  “Very powerful,” he said, then hesitated before he spoke again. “What if you had been falsely accused of something horrible? What would you do to clear your name?”

  “Anything that I could,” she said.

  “Then you understand why I bought this house.”

  “Actually, I don’t, but have you made any progress in clearing your name?”

  He shook his head. “None whatever. All I’ve done is get entangled with a bunch of ghosts, a smart-aleck female, and a bunch of employees who think I’m a great source of entertainment.”

  Nigh smiled at his joke. “I’m not going to push on this, but if you want help in clearing your name, I’m willing. You would, of course, have to tell me what happened to dirty it.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind, and thank you,” he said, smiling at her. “You ready to go back? Mrs. Browne is making roast lamb for us tonight. And we’re having it in the dining room.”

  Now, hours later, they were both full of food and drink and warm from the fire.

  Jace was sitting in the chair next to her. “I enjoy your company,” he said softly.

  “And I yours,” she answered.

  He was quiet for a while and Nigh did her best to not let him know that her heart was pounding hard. It seemed that each man had that moment, the moment when he seemed to make up his mind about a woman. Some men had shown the decision by inviting her to meet his parents, some with a ring. Nigh knew that all that was much too early for her and Jace Montgomery, but what she was hoping for was that he’d tell her what was ruling his life.

  “I want to tell you something,” he said after a while. “No, I don’t want to tell you, but I need help. I find that I can’t do what I set out to by myself.”

  She didn’t say anything, just sat there quietly, willing him to go on, to tell her all of it.

  He did. He told her about Stacy, but she could see that it wasn’t easy