Page 17 of To Swoon and to Spar
Jane had panicked and come perilously close to confessing all to him in an attempt to ward off the sale—she envisioned a future in which she was forced to live with Mr. Bourne in London, attending all sorts of horrid society events and eventually being married off to the highest bidder. Before she could completely lose her head, Mr. Bourne’s plan became clear: to marry her to the nephew interested in purchasing the estate, thereby killing two birds with one stone. At this point, Jane’s panic had abated slightly—and another possibility began to present itself to her.
After all, if she could frighten off one Bourne man, why couldn’t she scare away a second?
To be sure, if this mysterious nephew wished to regain his estate badly enough to marry a woman he’d never met, he might prove to be a bit stubborn, but Jane was confident that the reality of life on a remote Cornish cliffside (and some well-timed supernatural occurrences) would be sufficient to break the will of an indolent London gentleman.
And so, now that the marriage had taken place and she found herself back home, all that remained was the next part of her plan: chasing away her unwanted husband.
“No christening gowns drenched in blood appearing in hisbedroom in the middle of the night only to vanish later?” Mrs. Ash asked a bit regretfully.
Jane sighed. She was rather proud of that innovation—it was remarkable what an antique christening gown (rescued from a trunk in the attic), a bit of pig’s blood from the butcher, and a sneaky servant hidden in a dark room could accomplish—but since this had proved to be the final straw, and Mr. Bourne had announced the following day that he intended to sell the house, Jane supposed she had better rein in her more ghoulish impulses. “I think not. We’ll want to start with something more subtle.”
“It’s the dead of winter, in any case,” Mrs. Ash said. “He’s not likely to want to make that journey back to London, no matter what happens here. May as well start slowly to begin.”
“It’s not just the weather keeping him here,” Jane said, her mind full of what she’d observed of her new husband thus far. “He seems to truly care for the house.” This undoubtedly complicated things, but there was no cause for alarm—it might even be fortunate, as it meant there was little chance he would be frightened into selling the estate, as his uncle had done. All she had to do was convince him that Trethwick Abbey wasn’t a terribly pleasant place to live, compared to the luxurious, ghost-free environment of town.
“Mr. Crowe remembers him from his boyhood,” Mrs. Ash said hesitantly. “He seems to regard Lord Penvale with some affection.” Or as much affection as a stoic English butler was capable of.
“Never mind that,” Jane said briskly, trying to drive away the memory of Penvale’s serious expression as he’d discussed his tenant visits, and the niggling concern that he wouldn’t be as easy to frighten away as his uncle. “He’s a London gentleman—he hasn’t lived in Cornwall since he was a boy. Soon enough he’ll realize that lonely moors andcliffs aren’t as exciting as balls and card games, and he’ll be racing back to town as quickly as he can. All we’ll do is encourage him to make that realization a bit sooner than he might have done otherwise.”
“But what of you, love?” Mrs. Ash asked, her face creasing with concern. “I know you want this house to yourself, but once he leaves, you’ll be all alone—and since you’ll be wed, it’s not as though you can ever marry someone who could live here with you.”
“I don’t mind being alone,” Jane said, which both was and wasn’t true. She didn’tmindit, in the sense that it was how she had spent much of her life. She was accustomed to it. And she certainly preferred it to the feeling of being in a room full of strangers, unable to think of a single interesting thing to say. And, for that matter, to living under the thumb of a domineering man who cared nothing for her thoughts or preferences.
Therefore, Jane had a plan, and she intended to follow it.
And that meant she had a house to haunt.
Chapter Six
Little more than a weekinto his tenure as lord and master of his ancestral home, Penvale was beginning to think that this business wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.
It had been a long day—his tenant visits the previous week had revealed a few leaking roofs that could not wait until spring to be repaired, and Penvale had made immediate arrangements for them to be mended. This afternoon, however, while he’d been holed up in his study with his steward, trying to make sense of the previous year’s accounts, he’d been interrupted by the arrival of one of the possessors of a previously leaking roof, now eager to complain that it had been mended improperly. (This had devolved into a lengthy explanation on the wrong sort of straw that Penvale, frankly, did not understand.) After listening to this grievance vociferously aired for over a quarter of an hour, Penvale finally lost patience and—with a bit less tact than he might have wished to display—flatly informed the man that, if he and his family were warm and dry, then it would suffice until April, at which point Penvale promised he would take another look at the roof.
No sooner was the first tenant gone than the roofer from the village appeared, complaining bitterly that if the tenant farmer did not stop griping about the repair, it would ruin his reputation and scareoff future business. Only once Penvale had managed to reassure him otherwise did he finally beat a retreat, still bearing an expression of dark foreboding.
Penvale rested his elbows upon the papers scattered across his desk, head in his hands.
“Shall we leave it here for today, my lord?” Cresswick, his steward, asked diplomatically.
“Yes,” Penvale said wearily. “Is it always like this around here?”
“More or less,” Cresswick said. He hesitated, then added, “Your uncle was not a sympathetic listener, my lord, and I handled most of the matters myself. I expect the farmers do not know what to expect, having a viscount in residence who is willing to hear their complaints himself. They might be… testing you. A bit.”
“Lovely,” Penvale muttered, a wave of exhaustion washing over him. He’d never considered himself to be idle—certainly not compared to many of the men he knew. When he was not at the card tables earning his living, such as it was, he was carefully reading every book he could find on estate management and recent innovations in agriculture, or meeting with his solicitor or his man of business about the status of his investments. He went on long rides or swam until his arms ached, and he was a good friend and brother, always nearby whenever Diana or Jeremy or Audley had some need of him. He made time for the occasional dalliance when his schedule permitted and a particularly pretty widow caught his eye, slotting those liaisons into his calendar like he would any other meeting.
His days, in short, had been full. It was only now, facing the litany of issues that faced any titled man with an estate to manage, that he began to see the difference between keeping himself busy and truly being so.
“Give it a bit of time, my lord,” Cresswick added, and when Penvale nodded his thanks, he offered a short bow and departed.
Penvale sighed, the noise loud in the sudden silence. His head was pounding, as he’d noticed happening with greater frequency when he’d spent hours squinting at figures or correspondence. Perhaps he should have seen his doctor before leaving London.
London seemed very far away at the moment. He’d been in Cornwall not even a fortnight, but his life in town was beginning to feel like a distant memory. He wondered what his friends were doing without him—no doubt they were all cozied up together, enjoying their wedded bliss.
What was Jane doing now, he wondered idly, drumming his fingers on his desk. It was a gray, dreary day, as so many English February days tended to be, and given the drizzle he could see through the window behind his desk, he doubted she was outdoors.
All at once, he decided to go in search of her, for no particular reason other than the fact that it was a rainy day and they were both indoors and, well… she was his wife.
Before he could rise from his desk, however, he became aware of a sudden prickling at the back of his neck and had the oddest sensation that he was being watched.
