Page 14 of The Earl of Christmas Past
A knock at the door saved her from bursting into tears. Vanessa shooed at him as she hurried to unlock it and opened to an anxious Bess.
“I heard the blast!” she fretted. “I came to make sure the ghost hadna gotten to ye.”
“The ghost and I are getting along just famously,” Vanessa said with what she hoped was an encouraging smile. “I was merely testing the camera to make sure the storm hadn’t damaged it.”
“Aye, well.” Bess itched at her cap. “Would ye like to come through to the common room for stew, so Balthazar and Dougal can haul your bathwater away?”
“Of course, thank you.” She turned to the ghost. The Earl…
John.
“I’ll be right back,” she promised him.
Bess leaned into her room and eyed the device warily. “Ye’re really attached to that contraption, aren’t ye? Talking to it and the like.”
“Oh, no, I was talking to—” Vanessa looked over to see that he’d disappeared. “Well, actually, yes. It’s my most prized treasure.”
Bess regarded her askance, but ultimately shrugged. “I talk to me oven sometimes,” she admitted. “It’s a mite smarter and more useful than me husband and less temperamental, too.”
Vanessa laughed merrily as she followed the woman through the adjacent storeroom and toward the front. “You called your husband Balthazar, but I heard you refer to him as Rory not too long ago.”
“Aye well, the keepers of this inn have had Balthazar in the name since back when this part of the world was Caledonia. Since it is the name of the place, they all seem to take it on.”
“I see,” she murmured, not seeing at all.
Because the Douglasses were getting even more drunk and sloppy by the fire, Vanessa eschewed the mostly empty tables for the bar, at the end of which the two gentlemen in fine suits were nursing drinks and playing cards.
Bess placed a steaming bowl of stew in front of her and hovered as Vanessa tucked into it immediately.
“How do ye like it?” the proprietress asked, pretending to shine a glass.
“Oh, this is…”Deliciouswasn’t the word. She luckily had some incredibly fibrous and gamey meat to chew as a stall tactic. “It’s really filling and—erm—flavorful.”
“Aye, it’ll put some meat on yer bones.” Bess winked. “I gave that driver of yers something extra in his stew. He’ll be up all night heaving into a chamber pot for leaving ye in the storm like a blighter.”
Vanessa suppressed both a giggle and a spurt of sympathy for the man while she reminded herself never to get on Bess’s bad side.
Even after only a moment away, Vanessa was antsy to get back to her room.
To Johnathan. However, she thought this an excellent time to do a little sleuthing for his sake. “So, Bess, you were saying, about the inn. It was here during the Jacobite rebellion? And the battle of Culloden?”
“Och, aye!” Bess said, obviously delighted to have someone to tell, as she was a natural raconteur. “Like many crofts and castles around here, it was a safe haven for the Jacobites, to be sure.”
“But, not the English?”
Bess’s features wobbled as she narrowed only one eye at her. “Well, no offense to yer countrymen, but after the battle at Culloden, the English were everywhere were they not? They stayed at the inn, to be sure, as it was sedition to deny them entry. But, they never found our secret spots, did they?” She tapped her head as if she’d thought of those secrets herself.
Vanessa perked up. “Secret spots?”
“Just so. Like Carrie Pitagowan’s Chamber of Sorrows.”
“Chamber of Sorrows?” Vanessa echoed. “Now that sounds deliciously ominous.”
Bess leaned closer, her chins wobbling in agreement. “Aye, Carrie worked beneath these old rafters during the days of Culloden. A saucy minx she was. Curious, like you. Always looking for something more.”
Vanessa winced. Was she that obvious?
Bess seemed not to notice, continuing with her story. “Carrie would go to Jacobite battlefields and strip the English soldiers of their treasure. It was about this time of year back then, another blizzard, anotherNa Fir Chliswhen ’twas said she cursed that room. Warned all who would listen that a lion lived there and would devour any who stayed.”
