Mariana (13 page)

I was less sure of that one, but his approving smile gave me confidence.

'I am impressed,' he said softly. 'The rose symbolizes the family's patriotism and loyalty to the crown, and the hawks our blind faith and tenacity. Hood and talons. Try a little more,' he urged. 'What does the helmet on top of the shield tell you?'

That one I knew.

'That the owner of the arms is a knight or a baronet,' I said with certainty.

'And how do you know that?'

'Because the helmet is facing forward and the visor is up, with no bars on it.'

'And the helmet's steel,' he added, 'not gold or silver. Well done. And the crest?'

'It's that thing on top of the helmet, isn't it? The hawk's head on the twisted wreath.'

This hawk was also hooded, and very fierce looking.

'Now'—Geoff folded his arms across his chest—'tell me what the scrolled bit framing the shield is called, and I promise I'll fall over backward in astonishment.'

'Sorry.' I grinned. 'I don't remember what it's called, but I do know that it's supposed to represent the mantle of cloth that knights wore to keep the heat of the sun off their armor.'

'It's called the lambrequin,' he told me with a triumphant smile. 'At least there's one thing I know that you don't. "I'm a little rusty on my armorial bearings," ' he mimicked me, his smile broadening. 'Are you angling for a job as a tour guide?'

I blushed a little, shaking my head. 'No. I just have a good memory for details. I see things, or read them, and I remember them.'

'I didn't mean to embarrass you.' He frowned. 'I was just teasing. You shouldn't be embarrassed about having brains.'

'I'm not, really, I—'

'I like smart women,' he told me with a good-natured wink. 'Intelligence is very sexy.'

I blushed deeper and concentrated fiercely on the coat of arms above my head. 'What does the motto mean?' I asked him.

'You're a little rusty on your Latin, as well?' He moved closer until I felt the warmth of him through the thin fabric of my blouse. His voice was a low, pleasant rumble beside my ear.

"Everti nan polest.'
He read the words aloud, slowly, reverently, solemnly. 'It means "Indestructible."'

The word hung in the air between us for several seconds before the excited murmur of voices approaching jolted
us out of our contemplation. We had lingered too long in the Great Hall, and the next tour was about to begin.

'Bloody hell,' Geoff swore without violence, looking round for an escape route. 'Come on,' he said, and grabbing my hand fairly hauled me through a doorway to the left
of
the fireplace and into the narrow passage beyond.

Thirteen

And this is the west passage,' Geoff said, pulling the door shut behind him, he leaned back against it with a wolfish grin. 'I couldn't wait to show it to you.'

'It's lovely,' I said, laughing. 'Arc all your tours like this?'

'Usually,' he admitted. 'I don't much like crowds. You ought to count yourself lucky—when I took Vivien round to show her the restored rooms a couple of years ago, we had to hide in a cupboard for twenty minutes.'

"Lucky Vivien,' I almost said, but I caught myself in time. Instead I asked him, tongue in cheek, 'There's a name for that, isn't there? A pathological fear of crowds?'

He nodded. 'Privacy.' He gestured to the door directly opposite. 'That's the servants' hall across there, but since the tour will be going there next, I think we'll skip ahead to the kitchens, if you don't mind.'

I trailed after him down the long passage with its sloping flagstone floor. 'Does it bother you,' I asked him, 'having all those people tramping about your home?'

'Not really.' He shrugged, his tone amiable. 'As I said, I kept the best part of the house for myself, and that's my home—those are the rooms I grew up in. All this is just...
superfluous, I suppose. It's too much for one family to live in, let alone one person. Most of these rooms would probably never see the light of day if it weren't for the tourists. Besides, it's all a bit much, don't you think? I mean, can you honestly see me whipping up a midnight snack in
this?'

He stopped walking and raised a hand to indicate a kitchen of truly baronial proportions, all brick and polished copper, with a monstrous hearth. The turn-of-the-century stove planted in one corner looked as if it could hold twenty roasting turkeys with room to spare.

'I see your point,' I told him, raising my eyebrows.

We toured at leisure through the kitchens, the brew-house, the dairy, the buttery, the larder, and finally the scullery, built round an unusual indoor well. From the scullery a small, heavy door gave onto a square courtyard, open to the sky and surrounded on three sides by the house itself. The fourth side of the square was closed by a high stone wall, overgrown with trailing ivy and surmounted by imposing iron spikes.

Rather like having a private park in the middle of one's house, I thought. Except that it was dreadfully overgrown. You couldn't see the ground at all, in some places, and a tangled mass
of
weeds and wildflowers had choked off the stone walkway that angled across the courtyard. I was surprised that Iain hadn't done anything with the place, and said as much.

"Make it into a sort of secret garden, you mean? Yes, well, I suggested it to him once, but he wasn't keen on the idea. He doesn't like the courtyard,' Geoff said. 'Says it feels like a tomb.'

It did, rather, come to that. The air within the walls was still and lifeless, the silence palpable, and though the sun beamed brightly down upon us, beneath my feet the grasses sighed from sadness and neglect.

'But if it's gardens you're after, come take a look at this,' Geoff offered. He led me back along the pathway to the
main body of the house, and drew me once again into the west passage. Opposite the kitchen wing a short flight of steps led down into the conservatory, a wonderfully formal Victorian room filled with glass and light and painted wicker, and the smell of lilies hanging over everything.

For the second time, the sound of approaching footsteps sent us scuttling for cover. Geoff shepherded me across another passage and into a darkened stairwell that was saturated with the cool, dank scent of stone. Halfway up the stairs he held me back with a hand on my arm, and pointed to a spot near our feet.

'See that? That bit of carved stonework below the paneling? That's twelfth century. It dates from the time of the Benedictine priory. Apart from a few ghosts and some Gothic arches in the west wall, that's all the monks left us.'

I stooped low for a closer look, tracing the carving with my fingers. 'Left you a lot of ghosts, did they?'

'Oh, one or two. I think they're the only respectable ones I have. The ghosts of Crofton Hall are a rowdy lot.'

'So you believe in them.'

'I admit the possibility,' he clarified. 'After all, when a dozen or more people, who don't know each other or the house, claim to have seen the same thing, you have to concede that there's something there. They can't all be crazy.'

'And are there any ghosts upstairs?' I asked, gazing up the staircase with blatant curiosity.

Geoff laughed. 'A baker's dozen,' he informed me. "That's where the bedrooms are, you see, and ghosts seem to like bedrooms. My ghosts do, at any rate. There's one in particular—not so much a ghost, really, as a
feeling
—that seems to get a lot of people ... but I'll let you find it for yourself.'

'Oh, thank you very much,' I said dryly. 'This isn't an ax-murdering sort of ghost, is it?'

'No, nothing like that.' He shook his head, smiling. 'It's rather difficult to explain, especially since I've never felt it
myself. Here we are.' He paused on the top step to push open the solid oak door. 'After you.'

The upstairs chambers were lovely, and richly furnished with an eye to detail. Heavy embroidered curtains and spreads made the massive four-poster beds look even more stately and luxurious, like miniature rooms unto themselves, and the fifteen-foot ceilings made me feel very small and plebeian.

I particularly liked the huge King Charles bedroom, where the ill-fated king himself reputedly passed a few nights while mustering his troops against Cromwell. The bedroom was directly over the Great Hall, and had the same massive proportions, with a beautiful ceiling plastered in curvilinear ribs that gave the room an almost continental gracefulness.

'And this is the Cavalier bedroom,' Geoff went on, leading me through the final doorway. 'It used to be called the crimson bedroom, but "Cavalier" sounded much more romantic for the guidebooks, and seemed to tie in with the King Charles room next door.'

The original name was the more logical, I decided, letting my gaze roam the faded red fabric-covered walls and the deeper crimson colour of the heavy draperies hanging from the imposing Jacobean bed. And then I felt the-cold.

Geoff continued with his narrative, but I was no longer listening. Some force,
some
irresistible, unexplainable force, was drawing me toward the room's only window, a large mullioned and transomed window that looked out over the wide front lawn and the walled churchyard.

He stopped talking, watching me, and then I think he said, 'So you feel it, too,' or something like that, and my body was suddenly invaded by a tidal surge of powerful emotions that I was powerless to control. First a longing, so deep and wistful that it tore at my soul, and then a kind of frantic praying, a desperate litany that raced round and round in my fevered brain, and finally a stab of sorrow as
deep as a twisted knife. I sagged against the window ledge, my eyes brimming with sudden tears.

'Are you all right?' Geoff clasped my shoulder with a warm, strong hand, his voice concerned.

I blinked back the tears and showed him a reassuring smile that only wobbled a little. 'I'm fine,' I said. 'So that's the ghost, is it?'

'Yes. Look, I really am sorry.' He gazed earnestly down at me. 'I should have given you some warning—told you what to expect—instead of being so damned secretive about it.'

'No harm done.' I moved away from the window, smoothing the folds of my skirt with an absent gesture. 'Like you said, it's only a reeling ... nothing more.'

'A sort of deep sadness, was it?'

'Yes.' I held back a shiver of remembrance. 'Do you know the cause of it?'

Geoff shook his dark head, frowning. 'No. It's a woman's sadness, I should think. Only women seem able to sense it, and it's always in that same spot—just there in front of the window. But I've never been able to pin down the source of it. Nothing in the family history to account for it. No one died in this room, that we know of, or flung themselves out the window, or anything like that.'

'I don't think it's really connected with the room,' I said slowly. He gave me an odd look, and I flushed a little, lowering my head self-consciously. 'Sorry,' I said, 'it's just an impression I got. It seemed to me that she—if it was a she—saw something through this window. Something out there ..." I nodded toward the smooth, level expanse of freshly green lawn that stretched out to meet the high churchyard wall with its overhanging trees. Everything was pristine and still and innocent—even the shadows lay quiet and unmoving on the grass. 'She saw something terrible. Something that broke her heart. And it's left an imprint, here in this room.'

'It's possible, I suppose.' Geoff was still looking at me
strangely, with that odd blend of concern and wariness. 'Look, maybe we should finish the tour another day.'

'Heavens, no. I'm fine,' I assured him again, smiling up at him. It was a genuine smile this time. Silly to let one incident darken my entire day. 'What's next on the agenda?"

'The library,' he replied, relaxing. 'Or is that too boring for you?'

'Not at all. I love libraries. I shall probably want to steal some of your books, though, so be forewarned. You don't have any first editions of Dickens, do you?'

'Not
Dickens,
no.' He grinned.

'Oh, Lord.' I rolled my eyes heavenward. 'I knew it. It's going to be
one
of those disgustingly marvelous collections of rare works of literature, all hand bound in matching leather covers, isn't it?'

'Something like that,' he said, smiling at my groan, 'but if it makes you feel any better, all the truly rare and valuable volumes have been moved over to my side of the house. Can't trust the tourists with them, can I?'

'It's the only thing I begrudge the rich,' I said, as I followed him back down the damp-smelling staircase to the ground floor.

'What's that?'

'Their ability to buy books that the rest of us can never hope to own.'

Geoff sympathized. 'Well, if you want to borrow any of mine, just let me know.'

I sighed. 'It's not the
same
'

We had come to a stop in the wide front passage, with the Great Hall behind us, and my worst fears were confirmed as Geoff swung open the door to reveal floor-to-ceiling mahogany shelves filled with books of every possible size and shape and age. The shelves covered all four walls of the square room, broken in three places by tall, narrow windows with stained-glass inserts above and upholstered seats below, liberally adorned with loose cushions—the sort of
window seats that every book lover dreams of, visualizes, yearns for....

I stepped forward into the room, wonder-struck, inhaling the rich smell of oiled leather bindings and ancient paper and polished wood.

'How absolutely lovely,' I said.

'Yes,' Geoff agreed. 'You have my father to thank for this. He loved books—spent his whole life collecting them, having them restored. The original library for the house was a cramped little room off the south passage, near the old kitchen. Too small for my father. He built this one from the walls out, you know. The former owners used it as a sort of gamesroom—billiards, and all that—and before that I think it was a storage room. Dad thought it was perfect for the library.'

'He was right. Wherever did he find those shelves?'

'Country house in West Sussex. The place was being torn down, and the builders agreed to sell the shelving to Dad for a modest fortune.'

'Worth every penny,' I justified his father's action. 'They're just beautiful. All you're missing is the sliding ladder on the brass rail.'

'Aha.' Geoff smiled. 'You haven't looked closely enough.' He pointed to the far corner. 'Dad always believed in doing things down to the last detail.'

There, in truth, was the ladder, reaching up to the top shelf and fixed to glide on casters round a polished brass rail. It was too much like a film set to be true, really, and I was just about to voice my delight when another object in the corner caught my attention, and I froze, my throat working convulsively.

'Richard,' I whispered, my voice oddly slurred and indistinct.

'I beg your pardon?' Geoff moved forward, into my line of vision, but I went on staring up and over his shoulder at the great dark portrait hanging on the wall opposite. A portrait of a tall man with knowing eyes and an arrogant smile,
a dark man dressed in black with a cape flung over one shoulder while in the other hand he clasped a gleaming sword....

I licked my lips and tried again, forming the words more carefully. 'That picture ...,' I began, nodding my head toward it.

He turned and looked. 'Oh, that. We've dubbed him The Playboy. He came with the house. That might be old Arthur de Mornay himself, or perhaps even his father. The resemblance is really quite remarkable, don't you think?'

I didn't have to ask which resemblance he was referring to. It might have been a portrait of himself hanging there. I looked from the portrait to Geoff and back again, my eyes wide.

'It's by Lely,' he went on, as if it were all part of the tour. 'Quite a distinctive style he had.'