Chapter Two

T he following evening, prepared for another tray to be delivered to the schoolroom, Philippa found herself in a rather perplexing situation. Dinner was not as she had expected. She was not dining in the nursery with Elizabeth. Instead, she was seated in the formal dining room across the table from Mr. Falconer. When the maid had summoned her to the dining room, she'd been quite shocked. Now, seated across from Mr. Falconer in the formal dining room, she felt so terribly out of place she could hardly eat a bite.

"Is the food not to your liking, Miss Thomas?" The tone of his voice sounded terribly concerned.

She glanced up. "Oh, it isn't that, sir. Everything is quite delicious. I am simply puzzled that I am dining here with you rather than with Elizabeth."

"It's selfish, I suppose," he admitted. "I dine alone with such frequency that having a dinner companion is quite the luxury."

"Perhaps you could try dining with Elizabeth?" Immediately, she realized how that sounded. "I do not mean that I do not wish to join you, sir, only that it might be good for Elizabeth. She is so very quiet, and having an opportunity to engage in conversation or watch how others converse might be good for her."

"I confess, Miss Thomas, to not knowing a great deal about children or how to interact with them. I've only recently returned to England. When I received word that my brother had passed and my sister-in-law was ill, I sold out my commission. Alas, I was too late. It was not a happy return. My sister-in-law had already passed, and Elizabeth, at only seven years old, was alone in the world save for an uncle who is little more than a stranger to her."

"I see... and then she suffered another loss. Miss Hawley."

His fork clattered against his plate. "Why must that infernal woman's name forever torment me?"

A sinking feeling in her stomach unsettled Philippa greatly as she asked, "So when Elizabeth said Miss Hawley had died... did she—how did she die?"

"She drowned in the river, Miss Thomas. That is all I mean to say on the subject."

"Forgive me, Mr. Falconer. I should not have pressed so."

"You have a right to know," he said. "After all, she was your direct predecessor. And many lay the blame for her demise on Peregrine Hall... and indirectly on me."

"You cannot be held to blame for the accidental drowning of one of your employees. You hardly told her to go to the river, did you?" Philippa reasoned. "I am truly sorry. I know it must have been a horrible time.... Was Elizabeth terribly upset by it?"

"She was. Elizabeth was very fond of Miss Hawley, though I feel that the relationship was not a healthy one. Miss Hawley... well, she put ideas in Elizabeth's head."

"What sort of ideas?"

"It doesn't matter now. It only matters that they were inappropriate. If I had sent her packing at the first sign of such behavior, she might yet be alive today."

"I am sorry for her untimely demise, but I fear that you may take too much responsibility for it upon yourself, sir." Philippa realized that she was defending him far too vehemently for someone she had just met, and for someone who was both a stranger to her and her employer. It would have helped, she thought, if he'd looked like an ogre, or at the very least like a not-ridiculously-handsome man. With dark brown hair that swept across his forehead and chiseled features, he was already very well favored. Tall and lean with a bearing honed by his years in the military, he was a commanding figure. And yet there was a kindness in him. It was evident in the warm gaze of his brown eyes. Realizing that she was staring, Philippa abruptly looked away just as Mrs. Baynard marched into the dining room.

The housekeeper looked at her with complete disdain, her lips pursed like she'd just consumed the sourest of fruit. "My apologies, Mr. Falconer. I am not sure what Mrs. Hobson and Sarah were thinking to set a place for Miss Thomas in the formal dining room. I will see to it that it does not happen again. Miss Thomas, you will come with me at once!"

"I asked to have Miss Thomas join me for dinner, Mrs. Baynard, to discuss Elizabeth's care... and going forward, Miss Thomas will continue to join me for dinner, and a place will be set for Elizabeth as well. A child cannot learn how to act in company if they are never permitted to be in company."

Mrs. Baynard's entire body seemed to vibrate with rage. "It is not done, sir! Not in a proper household."

"I don't want a proper household, Mrs. Baynard, I want a pleasant one. You are dismissed."

The housekeeper stood there for the longest time. So long, in fact, that Philippa feared he might be forced to physically remove the woman. Finally, after a long and tense silence, the woman spun on her heel and marched out of the room.

"I think she does not like me overmuch," Philippa noted.

"Then you are in good company. I should hate to meet the person who could coax even a hint of a smile from Mrs. Baynard."

*

Worn out from her travels and from the rather tense welcome she had received, she fell into her bed and instantly into an exhausted sleep.

It was the sensation of small hands on her face that woke her. Philippa's eyes popped open, and she found herself staring into the very frightened face of her charge.

"Miss Thomas," she whispered in the darkness, "there's a ghost in my room."

Forcing herself to wakefulness, Philippa struggled to make sense of it. "What is in your room, Elizabeth?"

"A ghost," the little girl whispered again, pointing back toward the open door.

"There are no ghosts," Philippa said firmly. "Come, and I'll tuck you back into bed."

Walking the little girl back across the hall, Philippa was never more aware of just how dark and eerie the corridors of Peregrine Hall could appear. Every shadow seemed ominous. Every darkened corner seemed to harbor something terrifying.

Dismissing such thoughts as the product of an overly tired brain with an overactive imagination, she walked Elizabeth into her bedroom. And instantly she felt it. The room was cold. So unbearably cold that she couldn't fathom how the temperature from one room to the next could be so different. Nonetheless, she put on a brave face. "See? There are no ghosts."

Elizabeth raised one trembling hand and pointed her finger to a dark shadowy corner atop an armoire in the corner. "She was up there."

"There is no one up there," Philippa said with a firmness directed more at herself than the child.

"But there was. There was. I saw her face. It was pale and dreadful!"

The child was near hysterical and would not have it that they were alone in the room. In truth, Philippa wasn't certain she had it in her to insist that they were, not when every hair on her body stood on end and she could see her breath in that chamber. "If something was there, it is gone now. It is gone, and you are quite safe."

"Can I stay with you in your room?"

It wasn't something that she would typically have permitted, but in light of her own exhaustion and the strange sensations she was experiencing in that room, it seemed the least harmful solution. With a jerky nod, she led Elizabeth back across the hall and tucked her into bed beside her.

In Elizabeth's room, a dark, feminine shape emerged from the shadows. Draped in black, that figure stood watchful and ominous, never making a sound.