Someone to Love Read online

  “That proves that you didn’t meet the nasty little boy who lived here in 1912,” came the woman’s voice, so soft the wind in the trees almost drowned it.

  Jace gave the first semblance of a laugh that had passed his lips in years. He put his hands in his pockets and tried to lift his neck, which was nearly as numb as his feet, and went in search of the gardener.

  2

  When Jace awoke the next morning the inside of his mouth felt like it had been used as a lint filter for a dryer. Worse, for a long moment, he couldn’t remember where he was. Enough light was seeping in between the heavy curtains that he knew it was morning, but he couldn’t remember how he got wherever he was.

  He lay still on the bed, blinking into the gloom. He remembered Mrs. Browne’s lunch, then being pushed outside and meeting Mr. Hatch, the gardener. He was a little gnome of a man, so short he made Jace, at six two, feel like a giant. But for all Mr. Hatch’s small stature, he was certainly strong. When Jace first saw him, he was using a big handsaw to cut up a huge limb that had broken off a tree and fallen across a path.

  “You wanta grab that end?” the man said in an accent that made Mrs. Browne’s sound as though it was from an English drawing room. “My helper is out sick today. If you ask me, what’s made him sick is that girlfriend of his. Too pushy, that one. Makin’ the boy think he’s somethin’ he’s not. Mark my words, she’ll be the downfall of him. All uppity, but she cleans the toilets over at the school. What’s the matter with you, boy? Can’t you pick up that thing? What they teachin’ you at that school?”

  Jace stood up and looked at his hands. He could see them but he couldn’t feel them, so he couldn’t pick up his end of the heavy log. “I don’t know what school you’re talking about and I have no strength because Mrs. Browne fed me a bottle of the beer you made.”

  The little man stood up straight and under his weathered skin Jace thought he saw a glow of pink. “You’re the new owner.”

  “‘The Yank,’ as Mrs. Browne calls me. Jace Montgomery.” He held out his hand to shake, but the little man didn’t take it.

  “Beggin’ your pardon, sir, I thought you was the lad the vicar said he was sendin’ to help me. What with you bein’ a big, strappin’ fellow, I thought you…” He trailed off, not seeming to know how to get himself out of the jam.

  “I’ll take that as a compliment,” Jace said, trying to put the man at ease. “Shall we try again with this log?”

  “No, sir, the lad’ll be along soon now. He’s one of the vicar’s charity cases and the vicar is savin’ the boy whether he wants to be saved or not.”

  “Maybe he’ll run off with your other lad’s girlfriend and you’ll get rid of both of them at once.”

  Mr. Hatch gave a smile and Jace again tried to lift his end of the log. This time, with great concentration, he was able to help move it to the far side of the path.

  “Where does this lead?” Jace asked, looking down the graveled path.

  “Yonder,” Mr. Hatch said. “All the paths lead nowhere, then they connect up and lead back to the house. They were made for a lady of the house that didn’t ride. Ain’t no stables anywhere on the property, so if you’re wantin’ a horse you’ll have to build somethin’ to put it in. But then, you won’t be stayin’ long enough to build anythin’ so no need to worry about that.”

  “And why won’t I be staying?”

  “On account of the ghost.” He looked at Jace with his wrinkled, weathered face twisted into something that Jace assumed was meant to be frightening. “A real fright, she is.”

  “How so?” Jace asked.

  Mr. Hatch looked around to see if the young man the vicar was sending over was coming, but they were alone. “Come with me and we’ll share a glass of my wine and I’ll tell you everything. I’ve been here thirty years and I know all there is to know.”

  Jace couldn’t resist the temptation to say, “Do you know more than Mrs. Browne?”

  “Hmph! That one? She spends her days droolin’ over some boy on the telly. That cook. Now, mind you, I’m as open-minded as anybody, but is cookin’ a fit job for a man? And callin’ himself ‘the naked chef.’ Is that a proper thing for a man to do?”

  Jace thought about asking Mr. Hatch if planting daffodils was a manly occupation but thought better of it.

  When they reached a brick shed, Mr. Hatch stepped into the dark interior and returned with a blue glass bottle and two stained ceramic mugs. “Over here, under her tree,” he said. “We’ll have a bit of rest and I’ll tell you all that you want to hear.”

  I’m going to regret this, Jace thought as he took the cup of wine. It was made from raspberries and was delicious, but it was even more lethal than the beer. Mr. Hatch downed two cups full for every half a cup that Jace drank, but even so, after forty-five minutes, Jace wanted to curl up under the tree and go to sleep.

  But for all Jace’s questions, Mr. Hatch didn’t tell him anything about the ghost. He talked at length about putting in a bed of dahlias, but he didn’t mention the ghost—and he evaded Jace when he tried to ask. Jace got the impression that Mr. Hatch was so sure that Jace, an American, would stay at Priory House for so short a time that he wanted to do as much to the garden as possible before the house was put up for sale again. And he didn’t want to hasten the end by talking about the ghost that had scared so many other people away.

  Maybe it was a feeling that two could play at this game, but Jace didn’t mention that the ghost had spoken to him, and that she didn’t sound like anyone’s idea of a lady highwayman.

  “Ah, here he is now,” Mr. Hatch said, emptying his glass for the fourth time. “I’ll get him to help you up to your room.”

  “I’m fine,” Jace said as he put his hand on the tree and tried to stand up. Legs that were once numb but functioning had now turned to rubber. “I’ll be fine. I want to hear about the ghost and about—”

  That’s the last thing Jace remembered before he awoke in a strange room with his tongue feeling like it had turned into a caterpillar. Surprisingly, his head didn’t hurt, but his mind was fuzzy. Eventually, he remembered the two soft comments by an unknown voice.

  “Are you here?” he whispered, but there was no sound. He lay still, listening and thinking about what he’d heard. Yesterday, in between two drunken sessions, he thought he’d heard a woman’s voice. She’d even made a joke to him. Could that have happened, or was it just the byproduct of some outrageously potent booze that he’d been given?

  “Please answer me,” he said. “If you’re here, please talk to me. I want to contact someone.” Until he said the words out loud, he hadn’t realized he’d thought them. He’d told his uncle Frank that a ghost in the house didn’t bother him, but now he was seeing that he liked the idea of a ghost. Maybe she could contact Stacy for him. He wanted to ask her what had been so terrible in her life that she couldn’t bear to go on living.

  When there was no answer to his questions, Jace began to feel silly. He had no idea where he was in the house. He remembered that the master bedroom had an enormous four-poster bed in it. The man who had remodeled the house back in the 1850s had bought the bed from an auction of the furnishings of a bankrupt duke. The bed was made of heavily carved, age-blackened oak, and the mattress was eight feet square. To make sure the bed stayed in the house, the remodeler had had the room built around it. The only way to get the bed out was to cut it into pieces. Over the years, the bed had come to be included in the sale, like the windows and the sinks.

  But now Jace was in another room. It was half the size of the master bedroom and much prettier. There were windows on two sides, one set forming a pretty alcove where a deep window seat had been built. He could imagine Stacy curled up there with a book while the rain lashed against the windows. She’d always loved the rain.

  For the first time since Stacy’s death, Jace felt at peace. He closed his eyes, wanting to go back to sleep, but he knew he couldn’t. How long had he been asleep? Since he passed out under what Mr. Hatch