Chapter Five

R afe held still and listened, but there was only silence on the other side of the door. No snarls or silent screams or scratching claws. Maybe the ghost really had been a hallucination, though he'd only had a single glass of claret this evening.

He tried the door again, using all his strength to try to force it open, but it was solid and unyielding. Was there an object nearby heavy enough to batter it down?

He felt around and found a trunk on his left and a massive wardrobe on his right, neither suitable to be a battering ram. But the attic had another door at the far end. All he need do was inch his way through the clutter and leave that way, because it was unlikely that the other door was also jammed.

An irregular pathway wound through the clutter. He found the path and gingerly moved forward through the total darkness. The attic was bitingly cold and icy winds rattled the roof above his head. Progress was slow with bumps, and he tripped a couple of times. He wished the castle was smaller, but he'd reach the other end eventually.

Then he heard a wisp of music that stopped him in his tracks. A flute? No, it was the warm, sweet tones of a wooden recorder. He was instantly jerked back to his boyhood, when he'd played in this attic with his best friend, Sarah Wesley, the daughter of the local vicar. She'd been as bright and sweet as summer sunshine, but she'd died in the fever epidemic that had taken the lives of so many in the area.

He stood still, heart pounding, and heard several more tantalizing notes of music. Greensleeves, one of Sarah's favorite traditional tunes.

If there could be a ghost cat, might there be a ghost girl? Impossible! Yet the music drew him like a moth to the flame.

Barely able to breathe, he moved forward and promptly stumbled over an old chair. He almost fell, swearing. The music stopped abruptly and a soft female voice asked uncertainly, "Is there someone there?"

Would Sarah's voice sound like that if she'd had a chance to grow up? Quite possibly. Wondering if he was going mad, he said, "I assure you I'm quite harmless. I came in through the western door of the attic but that door is jammed, so I was heading toward the eastern exit."

"I'm equally trapped," the woman said ruefully. "I came up here to play my recorder, but when I decided it was too cold and turned to leave, I found that the eastern attic door had jammed behind me and my candle blew out."

"Two jammed doors is a very strange coincidence," Rafe said, frowning into the darkness. "Perhaps a party guest drank too much and is playing pranks?"

"Perhaps," the voice said rather doubtfully. "I tried banging on the door, but most of the servants are busy working at tonight's gathering. I thought if I waited a couple of hours and started banging again, one of the servants might hear and come let me out."

"That sounds like a good plan. If necessary, I should be able to figure out a way to escape eventually." He took a cautious step forward. "Could you please keep talking or playing your recorder so I can find you? I don't want to fall on top of you by accident."

She resumed playing Greensleeves . Desperate to find this stranger in the darkness, he moved too quickly and tripped again, almost falling. His heart was hammering. It couldn't possibly be Sarah, she'd been gone for years, it couldn't possibly… .

Telling himself not to hope for the impossible, he asked, "What is your name, Mystery Lady?"

She stopped playing her instrument. "Sarah Wesley."

Her words struck like a lightning bolt. "You can't be!" he said in a raw whisper. "Sarah Wesley died of a fever years ago!"

"Most of my family and our household died of that fever," she said, muted sorrow in her voice. "But I was staying in Bath with a school friend when the plague hit, so I was spared."

"I've mourned you for years," he said, his voice tight. "I'm Rafe Delafield and you were one of the best memories of my childhood."

"I know who you are, Lord Carroll," she said without inflection. "The castle has gone mad since word arrived that you were the new earl and you'd be returning."

"For heaven's sake, don't call me ‘Lord Carroll'!" he exclaimed. "The title doesn't fit yet, and it makes me nervous to hear it. Particularly from one of my oldest friends."

"Are we still friends?" she asked shyly. "It's been many years and you've traveled far and wide and had great adventures since we last saw each other."

"I've always thought of you as one of my dearest friends," he said with a catch in his voice. "When I received news of the deaths of so many people in the valley, including everyone in the vicarage, I could scarcely believe it." His voice dropped to a whisper. "I was in Spain at the time, and I rode to the nearest Catholic church and lit candles in memory of all those who were gone. Two each for you and your father. He was the best teacher I'd ever had." He'd lit two for Sarah because her loss was the hardest to bear.

"Thank you for caring," Sarah said in a matching whisper. "Distant news is often wrongly reported. In your soldiering days, you were twice reported dead." After a long silence, she added, "Since you'd survived the first time, when the same news arrived after Waterloo, I prayed you had survived again."

"And I did." He chuckled, wanting to lighten the mood. "Apparently I'm very hard to kill, though the French did their best."

"And now you've come home, even if the castle doesn't quite yet feel like home."

He was glad she understood. "Were you a guest at tonight's entertainment? I didn't see you there." If he had, he wouldn't have bolted.

"No, I'm not a guest. I work for Lady Carroll."

She worked here in the castle? He felt carefully ahead until his outstretched right hand made contact with a warm, female curve. "Sorry!" Unnerved, he jerked back. "You must be sitting on that old sofa in the middle of the attic?"

"Yes, and it's no more comfortable now than it ever was!"

He chuckled. "It always felt as if it was carved from solid wood. Do you mind if I sit beside you?"

"Not at all," Sarah replied. "A bit of warmth would be welcome." There were sounds of wriggling. "There's plenty of space on my left."

Feeling carefully around so he wouldn't inadvertently do anything improper, he found a cleared area at the near end of the sofa. He settled into it, aware of her warmth just a few inches away—and froze when the delicate scent of rosemary wafted toward him. She always used a rosemary rinse on her hair, and it conjured his memories of her as sharply as the notes of the recorder.

Suppressing a ridiculous desire to draw her into an embrace, he reached out to determine how far away she was and touched a cold hand. "You're freezing!"

"It's a very cold attic," she said with a hint of chattering teeth.

Rafe stood and tugged off his warm wool coat and settled it around her shoulders. "This should help."

She tried to push the coat away. "Then you'll freeze, and you're more important than I am!"

"Wrong on both counts," he said as he sat down with his right side pressed against her. She wasn't very large. "Having campaigned in every variety of weather from snow to burning heat to drowning rain, I don't notice temperature much."

"Then I thank you."

He heard her tightening the coat around her shivering body. He said, "Please forgive my forwardness, but I'm going to put my arm around your shoulders."

As he suited deed to word, she burrowed against him. "If I had a shred of propriety, I'd pull away and give you a furious set down for ruining my reputation, but you feel so good!"

"I have plenty of heat to spare and we're under hardship conditions," he said reassuringly.

"There is that," she added wryly. "And luckily I'm not a sheltered maiden with a reputation to worry about."

"You said that you work for the countess. What do you do?" he asked curiously.

"After my parents died, I had no money and no relatives who could take me in, so the countess offered me the job of castle librarian. I've lived here ever since."

It was a good reminder of the countess's better qualities. Rafe considered the size of the library. "Are there enough books to keep you busy?"

"No, so I also take care of the sheet music and sometimes I help the countess with her accounts and similar secretarial work. She appreciates the excellent education my father gave me." Sarah laughed. "I was born to be a library mouse, I think! The best part of my job is that I'm the keeper of the secret Delafield family files."

"There are secret files?" Rafe asked, surprised. "What's in them, or am I not allowed to know because they're secret?"

After a moment's thought, she said, "Since you're now Lord Carroll, you have every right to know. The files are written in old diaries that go back for many, many years. There are listings of private loans made when there were financial problems, there are notes about illicit affairs, and sometimes damning information about friends or enemies. But the best parts of the private archives are the ghost stories!"