Page 2 of One Last Whisper

“We’ll start with dinner,” I counter. “I’m famished.”

“A lady who knows her worth. Very well. I’ll order from the nice takeout place.”

I roll my eyes and head off to explore the house while Sean orders the food. My footsteps carry me up the twisting staircase that led to the second floor of our home and beyond that to the attic.

I will not visit the attic today. My return has thus far been free of hauntings, but I don’t wish to tempt fate too much.

Instead, I head to Annie’s room. I suppose it’s no surprise I am drawn to her memory more than I am drawn to the memory of my own childhood.

Annie is a year and a half younger than me, but I always see her as a child and myself as the mature one who must take care of her. That attitude led to some tension between us as we grew older, but I couldn’t help myself. Heaven knows our mother cared little for Annie, and our father was barely present later in our lives.

I push those memories away as I look through Annie's things. Dust and mold have rotted the covers and obscured the furniture, but the picture on her night table is the same as it was when she was eleven years old. I stare at that photograph for what seems like hours before Sean calls me down for dinner.

She is so beautiful and so brave, my Annie. I truly do hope she found happiness.

But her ghost, like all the rest, remains silent, and I am able to enjoy an evening with my beau before I fly to England in the morning for my next job.

CHAPTER ONE

Northumberland County is the northernmost of England's ceremonial counties with weather to match. Although I am an English native, I have lived in the United States since I was eleven years old, with the exception of brief tenures as a governess for two English families and one American expatriate family in Switzerland.

So even though I dress warmly with a coat and scarf, I am not prepared for the blast of icy wind that pierces right through my shawl as though it wasn't even there. I shiver, and the cab driver smiles at me with crooked teeth and opines, "You'll get used to it. Cold enough to freeze the fires of hell and leave enough for the icebox, but it's a beautiful place in spite of that."

I look around at the pale grass to my left and the rocky cliffs to my right. The sky is a blue pale enough that it could properly be called gray, and I don’t see a single tree in sight. I suppose it does have an austere beauty, and for politeness’ sake, I choose to focus on that. “It is striking.”

The cab driver nods, also for politeness’ sake, and offers to carry my bags up the porch steps. I am grateful for this because there are two dozen steps, all of stone and all large enough to force me to place my feet carefully as I climb.

Blackwood Manor is as beautiful and as austere as the landscape. The manor was constructed over the bones of a Medieval castle that once belonged to a baron who I'm told was famous for being the last feudal Lord to surrender to the Normans. The walls are of grey stone, and turrets and battlements ring the building. The windows are paned with glass, and there are security cameras present every five yards or so, but otherwise, there's little to suggest that this buildinghas aged at all in the thousand years since it was constructed. I wonder if the Blackwoods will be as imposing or as timeless.

The cabbie sets my bags down with an appreciative sigh. He tips his hat to me and says, “Pardon me if I leave ma’am. The earl don’t like strangers waitin’ on his porch.”

He moves down the steps to his car, leaving me to wonder what sort of man this Earl was.

I have entered into the service of Lord Edmund Blackwood, the twenty-first Earl Blackwood. I will be caring for the Lord’s nephew, Oliver. This is not my first time working for a wealthy client. In fact, all of my clients have ranged from well-off to unfathomably rich. However, thisismy first time working for an actual member of the peerage. I’m interested to see what sort of personality Lord Edmund has.

The door opens before I can knock, and a rotund, rosy-cheeked woman in her mid-forties grins and exclaims, “Well, you must be Mary Wilcox.”

I bow slightly. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Oh pish posh with the ma’am,” she replies. “I’m not Miss Cordelia. My name is Theresa Pemberton, and I’m the housekeeper. It’s pleased to meet you.”

She sticks out her hand, and when I take it, she shakes vigorously. I note, rather uncomfortably, that her hands are very strong.

“Come on in,” she says. “I’ll show you around.”

She lifts my bags with considerably less effort than the cab driver did and carries them into the house. She sets them in the foyer and says, “We’ll carried those up later. You’ll be wanting the lay of the place, I imagine.”

“Yes, thank you.”

“Right then. Well, this is the foyer. It opens up right here into the parlor.”

I follow her into a large, high-ceilinged room with several couches and easy chairs arranged in three different circles. The furniture is of exquisite quality, of course, brown leather oiled and polished to a gleaming shine. The furniture and the rugs on which they sit are tastefully arranged to maximize the amount of free space while still giving a sense of intimacy among those who sit here. There is no television in this room, as is common in English households, especially wealthy estates. The parlor is a room for socializing.

It would be nearly perfect if it weren’t for the bare stone walls. Not bare, I suppose. Artwork hangs where artwork should hang, and the coat of arms of House Blackwood is proudly displayed above the massive fireplace, as it should be.

But the dark, cold weight of that stone casts a pallor over everything. Or perhaps it’s more correct to say that the cold darkness seeps through the brightness that the décor seeks to provide. It’s as though someone attempted to paint over a crack in the sidewalk but did so poorly, leaving the crack still visible underneath.

“In here we have the kitchen.”

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