A Haunting at Hensley Hall (A Ravynne Sisters Paranormal Mystery) (18 page)

He looked up as she entered the room and raised one black brow inquiringly, “To what do I owe this pleasure, etc.etc.?”

Charlie felt the beginnings of a blush and dug her nails into her palms. That he could make her feel even the teeniest bit flustered, was very unnerving! “Looking for a book. I see you’ve found yours?” she said, realizing how inane that sounded.

He smiled until his dimples bracketed his mouth, “So it would seem. I met your sister a short time ago. Interesting name ‘Rayne’. Is she staying long?”

“Hopefully. We don’t get to see her very often. Are we making too much noise? We do tend to do that when we all get together.”

He crossed one ankle over his knee and leaned back in his chair, regarding her with a look she found very disturbing. “No…not really…perhaps a bit. By the way, I ran a set of your prints, .you aren’t the only one who has contacts you know and you seem to be an ‘enigma wrapped in a mystery’ as they say.”

Charlie felt a sudden awareness, a feeling of being caught in someone’s cross hairs as they are about to pull the trigger, but none of that was apparent when she replied, “You really are full of surprises, aren’t you? And just why would you be checking on me? Perhaps you think I am an
axe murderer
?”

He smiled and rested his chin on his steepled fingers. “You were a writer, freelance, traveling all over the world and getting into
situations
that ordinary tourists never encounter. Who were you working for?”

“If I told you that, I’d have to kill you, isn’t that what I’m supposed to say?” Charlie inquired, beginning to enjoy herself.

“You’re kidding, of course.”

“Not entirely,” she replied with a smile.

He rose then and was at her side in two steps. She stood her ground, when he grabbed her by the shoulders. He looked into her eyes and smiled. That beguiling smile she almost remembered? He shook her then, just once. “Word is that you’ve retired. I think that’s wise.”

“If I knew what you were talking about, I might agree. Would you please take your hands off me?” Charlie asked without really meaning it.

He let her go then and stalked to the window. When he spoke, she had to strain to catch his words. “Is Devon dead?”

He turned to watch her, as he waited for her reply. “I don’t know. What are you doing here? Are you writing a book or trying to solve the mystery?”

“The two would not be mutually exclusive, would they? Do you think he is a murderer?” he asked moving closer again.

“I don’t know the answer to that either. Apparently, you have access to all the information I do. Except for the journal, which she had no intention of sharing, she thought to herself. “What do you think? Or am I allowed to ask?”

He smiled. “I visited Sunnyvale the other day. Apparently, in your wake. Devon had an interesting history from what Nell had to say. Nell and others. She also told me you upstaged me with chocolates and a ‘wee white dog’. What do you think was the nature of the relationship between the twins?”

Charlie flushed slightly and hated herself for it. She wasn’t sure why she wouldn’t tell him about the journal and then she remembered. She wasn’t entirely sure he wasn’t Devon! “I have things to attend to,” she told him brusquely and fled the room. She heard him laugh as she closed the door and remembered that was the second time he’d done that. It made her mad…and it made her something else she didn’t want to think about overmuch. The only thing she knew for sure was that she was not going to mention one word of their conversation to Meg, who knew nothing about her past and, hopefully, never would.

***

As the days passed, Rayne busied herself “scoping out the competition!” She poked around the countryside and came back with her latest ideas for making ‘Hensley Hell’, as she persisted in calling it, “a big success!”

The report on the fingerprints came back. There were a lot, as was expected, but none from a registered felon. Whoever Meg’s mysterious admirer was, he wasn’t listed in any database. That should have made Charlie feel better…it certainly did Meg…but it didn’t. She was still very uneasy. The sender could have wiped his prints off and, still be watching Meg. She would need to keep a closer eye on her sister.

Then one day at lunch, Rayne dimpled mysteriously and said around a ham sandwich she’d been picking at, “I met the most fascinating man today.” Meg and Charlie uttered a collective groan. “Stop that, he is everything I
should
be interested in, at least right now. He’s distinguished…”

“She means old,” Charlie whispered to Meg.

With a huff of irritation, Rayne continued, “He’s intelligent. educated, handsome and knows what to drive and how to dress.”

“And just what is this paragon doing in Merritsville of all places?” Charlie asked lightly.

“I bumped into him at the Historical Society. Who would believe this town even has one?”

“And,” Charlie prompted. Rayne was another one who had a hard time staying on track, but with her there was usually a reason. If she led you off the track, it was because she wanted to steer you in another direction.

“He says he’s ‘tracing his roots’. Apparently, his family came from this area and he was traveling along the coast and thought he’d just drop in and check out….”

“The Historical Society,” Charlie supplied. “What part are you leaving out?”

“He said he’d heard about the contest and, well, I invited him to dinner. He would love to see the house and, who knows, he may know the right kind of people to help us get things off the ground.”

“When and who?”

“If Annie doesn’t mind
terribly, I
told him tonight would be fine. And his name is Adrian Adams,” she told them with a too bright smile that made them both groan again.

As they finished lunch, Rayne laid out her plans for the evening. It was a must that Annie be the one to answer the door, when he arrived. “It gives a better impression than if one of you does it. Does she have a little cap and apron she can wear?” When Meg and Charlie answered her with matching scowls, she continued, “We will, of course, use the main dining room, though it is not very intimate for a party of four. Meg, you can arrange something as a centerpiece. And I’ll select some flowers for the front parlor, where we will greet him, when Annie announces his arrival.”

Annie was listening to Rayne rattle on and smiled, when Meg suggested they use the four places closest to the kitchen to make it easier to serve. “And we want to help you, Annie. There’s no reason you should do it all. I can peel vegetables and Charlie can set the table and…”

Annie laughed, “I’ll not be needin’ any help from the two of you…Lord love you both for offerin’… but that’s me job. You be the fine ladies tonight and I won’t be ahearin’ otherwise!”

At 7PM sharp, Adrian Adams arrived in his black Jaguar. Annie led him to the front parlor, where the three sisters waited per Rayne’s instructions. She was posed gracefully on the window seat in a way that showed off her incredibly long legs. Rising with the fluid grace, Meg and Charlie had watched her perfect in her teenage years, she crossed the room and made the introductions. Fluttering her hands gracefully, she told Adrian she would play “bar tender for the night, since they were still woefully understaffed”.

As she made them all a drink, Meg and Charlie studied Rayne’s latest interest. Not tall but quite good looking! Probably touched up the gray in his black hair. Impeccably dressed and his manners were flawless. Even his voice was cultured perfection!

He was
entertaining
them with a story of his exploits in Kenya, big game hunting, that made both Charlie and Meg want to quietly vomit in Rayne’s carefully arranged flowers, when Annie announced,” Dinner be served!”

This was the first time they’d used the main dining room and both Meg and Charlie were proud of how it had turned out. The crystal chandelier was dimmed to supplement the tall white candles that banked the centerpiece Meg had worked on most of the afternoon.

Adrian helped them all to their seats. He laughed as he pulled out their chairs. “Usually, my attentions are directed to just one beautiful woman instead of three,” he told them smoothly.

“It was the butler’s day off, or he could have relieved you of some of the responsibility,” Charlie replied, raising one brow in an unspoken challenge.

He looked at her and narrowed his eyes, then laughed again, this time without humor. With everyone seated, they waited for Annie to serve. As she scurried about, muttering under her breath “serve from the right…take away from the left or tis it the other way round”, Rayne leaned close to Adrian’s ear and whispered something she didn’t want her sisters to hear, which Meg thought decidedly bad manners, so she whispered in Charlie’s ear. “I don’t like him.”

“I know. Who would unless you like the arrogant a-hole type, but he’s not our pick and Rayne’s a big girl,” she whispered back.

“She was a ‘big’ girl last year and remember the mess she got herself into?”

“Let’s just hope she learned something from all that.”

“Wanna bet?”

Adrian broke in on them then. The candlelight flickered across his handsome face, as he raised his wine glass and said, “Here’s to your every success. This place is really something. That contest was a stroke of genius, if it was legal, but of course they would have checked all that before hand. Rayne tells me the place is haunted?”

Meg sent a well-aimed kick at Rayne’s shin and was rewarded with a yelp of real pain. Annie paused and looked at her, then finished refilling her wine glass. If she had heard the ‘haunted’ word she didn’t give any indication.

“That’s just one of Rayne’s marketing ideas,” Charlie told him largely because she had to say something.

He laughed, “Rather a clever one at that. You’ll have to see how it plays out. I wonder how they will figure out the taxes on this place?” he asked looking at her over the rim of his glass.

“The property tax rate is low around here,” Charlie began.

“And the income tax? Of course you realize you will have to pay 50% on a contest award.”

After that, neither Charlie nor Meg heard much of what went on around them. They both operated on auto pilot as they finished their meal, had coffee in the drawing room, said their ‘good byes’ with pasted on smiles, and hurried Adrian out the door with Rayne attached to his arm.

When they were finally alone in Meg’s room, Charlie collapsed on the bed and buried her face in her hands. “Oh, Meg, what have I got us into? Why didn’t I think of that before? Fifty percent! Oh, Meg, and there’s Sage and Dad involved in this fiasco, too, and it’s all my fault!”

Meg did the only thing she knew how to do. Wrapping her arms around her sister she dragged her into a hug. “Don’t be such a poop, Charlie. I am as much to blame as you are, if we should even
want
to blame anyone. We’re in this together. You and me. We’ll manage. We always have. The Ravynne sisters, remember?”

Charlie was crying openly by then and so was Meg. “Dear God,” Charlie prayed silently. “Please let Meg be right, at least this once!”

***

“You know that marketing idea we won’t mention may have some merit,” Rayne said thoughtfully over breakfast.

“Annie’s picking parsley or something so she can’t hear you. You know we don’t want her to know the place is haunted. If you had to tell what’s his name, you might have told him to keep his mouth shut,” Charlie told her irritably. She would have wondered why Rayne was even up so early, if she hadn’t noticed she was still wearing what she wore last night. “And I think you should be careful. Who is this guy? What do you really know about him?”

“Yes,
mother
. So why do you both look like the living dead this morning?”

“Taxes. Your new boyfriend dropped the tax bomb on us last night,” Charlie said with a moan.

“For some reason, we just didn’t figure it in,” Meg added. “But I know everything will be all right. Charlie’s last book will be a big success and I’m going to find a job. So, we’ll manage.”

“Well, back to what I was saying before. The haunted angle could work for you. There are plenty of people fascinated by the supernatural. Adrian and I discussed it at length.”

“Now we know why you arrived back here just in time for breakfast. I don’t want our ghosts exploited,” Meg said, “they trust us!”

“And Old Thumper? Does he trust you, too?” Rayne asked sarcastically “You two really are something! I’m here to help, remember? And you, Meg. I’m surprised at you even mentioning how I may have spent my night. That’s Charlie’s job to meddle in everyone’s affairs…bad choice of words!” Rayne stormed , as she snatched up a blueberry muffin and fled the room in a royal huff.

“Well, she’s right in a way I guess,” Charlie said with a sigh. “Maybe I do hover over everyone like a helicopter, but I don’t want to see any of you hurt. I’ve seen too much to be any other way.”

“Fine by me. You can hover around like the mother hen helicopter from hell and I won’t mind. I’ll tell you when I’ve had enough. I always have,” Meg reminded her with a laugh and punched her in the shoulder, just as Annie walked through the door.

“Now, you two, I will not be havin’ fisticuffs in me kitchen any time before noon,” she told them with a smile. “Where’s that sister of yours, who’s still awearin’ what she wore and comin’ home not more than thirty minutes ago?”