Someone to Love Read online

Jace had bought a small stereo and some CDs, so he put on Mozart and began to unpack. Slowly, he unwrapped the wonderful things that Mick with his little old lady had found. “Hope it was all right that I gave her a hundred-pound note to say thanks,” Mick said, wanting to please his new boss, but also loving being able to tip someone a hundred pounds.

  First, Jace made the bed. Thick, rough sheets that no amount of bleaching could make white again went on. A wool blanket next, then a beautiful, hand-crocheted spread that had little tassels on its diamond-shaped edges. Big, linen-covered pillows went next, plus a pretty little blue and white round pillow embroidered with wildflowers that nearly matched the wallpaper. Jace felt sure the woman who had chosen these things for Mick had enjoyed herself.

  Jace unwrapped a dozen fragile little glass bottles and set them on the dressing table he’d bought. Ceramic dogs went by the fireplace, and two ballerinas on the mantel.

  He opened another box. Gladys had stayed up late last night cutting out the photos she’d collected at Catherine’s husband’s home. She’d bought postcards and books and pamphlets, gathering all the pictures of Catherine and her children she could find. One by one, Gladys had cut the pictures to fit into the twenty-three Victorian frames that Mick had bought, and stuck an identification label on the back of each one.

  Carefully, with slow patience and some drama, Jace unwrapped each portrait. Twenty-three times he made a show of where to set the frame. And each time he unwrapped one, he said aloud who it was. “Catherine’s next to youngest daughter, Isabella. She was born after you left, so you never saw her. She grew up to be almost as pretty as her mother.”

  He opened another package. “Ah, yes, Catherine’s youngest daughter, Ann. She was as pretty as her mother.” When the scent of flowers and wood smoke wafted around him, he smiled but he didn’t turn.

  He finished unloading the box. There was a photo of Catherine’s latest descendants, Lord and Lady Kingsclere. There was a look of Catherine about the eyes of Lord Kingsclere. His mother was named Ann.

  The scent grew stronger, and even when he heard the rustle of Ann’s skirt, he didn’t turn.

  When the box was empty, he was careful not to look up abruptly. He cleared away the trash, tossed it into the big master bedroom, and closed the door.

  There was one more package to unwrap. It was covered with newspaper and tied with string, and was propped against the fireplace. Last night Gladys had made a production of telling her story, then unveiling what she’d found. It was a two-foot-by-three-foot reproduction of the portrait of Catherine. One of the women who’d worked in the gift shop said that years before they’d sold them, but they were too big to carry on a plane so they’d quit stocking them.

  With laughter, Gladys recounted how she’d told the woman her American boss had fallen in love with the ghost of a woman who was Lady Catherine’s first cousin. She said the portrait was a gift to Ann Stuart’s ghost from her boss. The woman, who’d worked there for thirty-odd years, said that Gladys’s story was, of course, poppycock, but that few people knew Lady Catherine had a first cousin named Ann Stuart. She looked at Gladys with narrowed eyes. “How did Ann die?” “Suicide, poor dear,” Gladys said. “Where did Ann live?” the woman asked. “Priory House in Margate, Bucks.” Gladys said her love-besotted American boss had bought the house. The woman lifted an eyebrow and said, “Wait right here.” Fifteen minutes later she’d returned with the big portrait printed on cardboard, and she’d charged Gladys the original price of two pounds. To say thanks, Gladys bought an expensive, huge, gilded, wooden frame she’d had trouble getting on the train back to London. With a flare for storytelling, Gladys told them that on the train she’d looked through the books and seen that the woman who had found the picture for her was Lord Kingsclere’s mother, Lady Ann.

  They all laughed hard at the story, even Jace, although he was embarrassed by Gladys’s story of his love for a ghost. He made a mental note to be more careful of what he told her in the future. She saw too much.

  After her story, Gladys presented the portrait with the fanfare worthy of a circus act.

  After Jace saw it, he called room service and ordered champagne.

  Now, as slowly as he could manage to do it, he cut the strings and unwrapped the package. Catherine stared back at him, slightly smiling, a woman of great beauty. She was sitting on a chair so her tiny waistline could be seen. The date of the portrait was 1879, the year after Ann died, and Jace thought he could see a hint of sadness behind Catherine’s eyes. A nail was in the wall over the fireplace, so he lifted the portrait and hung it there.

  Jace stepped back slowly and didn’t stop until he was at the far side of the room, the bed on his right and the wardrobe on his left. As he knew she was, Ann was standing to the left of the fireplace and staring up at the portrait.

  Jace stood still, afraid to even breathe, as he looked at her. She wasn’t as transparent as she had been when he’d seen her in the garden. He could still see through her, but there was now more substance. She was looking up at the portrait, her face turned away from him, but he admired her figure, tall and shapely, with thick hair that he’d like to touch.

  When she turned to him, he was smiling, pleased with himself at what he’d done. All the work and expense of making the room look like it once did had paid off. She was here, and now he would find out about Stacy.

  He was pleased with himself to the point of smugness, so when she turned it took him a moment to register that she was angry. She looked as though she’d been crying, but now what he saw on her pretty face was old-fashioned rage.

  When she took a step toward him, Jace would have backed up, but he was already against the wall and couldn’t go anywhere.

  “Did you think I needed to be reminded of what was taken from me?” she said loudly and clearly as she came closer to him. “Do you think this existence isn’t bad enough that you had to make it worse?”

  He was pressed against the wall, a ghost was shouting at him, and every horror story Jace had ever heard was running through his head. In another second her ghostly body would reach his. In two seconds, would he be alive?

  “Leave me alone,” she said when her face was nose to nose with his. Since he was taller than she was, that meant her feet weren’t touching the ground.

  As Jace opened his mouth to defend himself, she ran through him, then through the wall behind him. She took his breath with her.

  He stood there gasping for air, but none would reach his lungs. A minute passed but no air. Clutching his throat, he could feel himself growing weak. Had she killed him? He fell against the bed and in the next second his breath came back to him. He lay there, panting, his vision blurred, his senses dizzy. When the room stopped spinning, he looked at the portrait of Catherine. “That went well, didn’t it?”

  After a few moments, he collapsed back onto the bed. Now what did he do? Yet again, he’d hit a brick wall. Literally. He looked at his watch. “I wonder if the pub’s open. I need a drink.”

  6

  Jace was sitting on the stool in the Leaping Stag pub, nursing a beer. Beside him sat the young policeman Clive Sefton. George and Emma were behind the bar, filling the orders of the few other people in the pub. Jace had just finished telling them how much he hated the story of Barbara Caswell, Lady Grace. “How could anyone think that woman was a character who should be romanticized?”

  “You do know the truth, don’t you?” Emma said. “The whole story is made up.”

  “But I thought it was a true story,” Jace said.

  She lowered her voice. “Don’t tell the tourists. Lady Grace gets us in every haunted England book written.”

  “It all started with a book about ghosts,” George said while filling a big glass full of stout.

  Emma leaned toward Jace. “In the thirties someone wrote a book about the ghosts of England and said that Priory House was haunted by the spirit of an aristocratic lady who used to slip out at night and rob people. That’s all there was to it. In