Page 46 of To Swoon and to Spar
“It was, thank you. I was eight. I had stolen Diana’s scone during tea in the nursery and run away so that I might eat it in peace before someone caught me—she was screaming bloody murder, and I doubt it will surprise you to learn that, even at three, she had an impressive pair of lungs.”
“Shocking,” Jane murmured.
“Anyway, I came outside and hid along the back of the house, thinking it might take long enough to find me there that I could enjoy the scone in peace, and I was just about to take a bite when they descended.” He could not prevent a shudder.
“How many seagulls, precisely, are we discussing?”
“Hundreds.”
Jane gave him a skeptical look.
“All right, perhaps six,” he amended reluctantly. “But I can assure you, when they swoop down upon you with their wings flapping, itfeelslike hundreds.” Out of a desire to preserve some shred of dignity, he added, “I put up a fierce fight—even managed to get a small bite in before they snatched it away. But ultimately, I was left sconeless. And then I was banned from having dessert for the rest of the week, on account of stealing the scone from Diana in the first place.”
“A true tragedy.”
“To an eight-year-old, it was. I can still remember my father informing me that future viscounts did not steal scones—or anything else—from ladies. To which, naturally, I replied that chubby little sisters didn’t count as ladies, and then he advised me to stop talking before he changed his mind about thrashing me.” He shook his head ruefully at the memory. “In any case, I’ve disliked seagulls ever since.”
Jane reached out to seize his hand. “Thank you for sharing thisdark memory from your past. I hope, now that you have voiced it, it will lessen its grip on you and torment you no longer.”
“Jane,” he said, attempting sternness but failing to pull it off, betrayed by the smile that insistently tugged at the corner of his mouth. As they approached the house and she laced her fingers through his, he knew that at some point in the past hour—whether it was due to his apology, or his kiss, or possibly just his sharing a traumatic past with seagulls—she had forgiven him.
And he could not deny the wave of relief that washed over him.
Chapter Sixteen
It was toward the endof March that Jane realized something in the village had changed.
She had traipsed into St. Anne’s alone that morning, a basket over one arm and only a tentative plan in mind. Penvale was occupied with meeting a surveyor who had come to assess the bridge in need of repair. Jane had sent a couple of deliveries of books for Miss Trevelyan a few weeks earlier, in the wake of their previous meeting in the village, but she had continued to dwell on the schoolteacher’s plight, particularly each time she whiled away an evening in the library at Trethwick Abbey, surrounded by more books than she could possibly ever hope to read. Slowly, an idea had come to her—one she had not yet mentioned to Penvale—so she had come into the village today to make a few discreet inquiries.
Every village could use a library, after all, and she was in need of an occupation; while she did have her haunting to orchestrate, that hardly occupied all of her time. Initially, in the wake of Penvale’s kiss on the cliffside a week earlier, Jane had wavered, her thoughts lingering on the feeling of his mouth on hers, the warmth of his hands on her skin.This was a dangerous weakening on her part; Jane had not thought herself the sort of woman to allow a single kiss to distract her from her purpose.
It had, however, been interesting from an intellectual standpoint—her books had a lot to say about kissing, and she’d grown curious to see how the real thing compared to the fictional ones. But now she knew that even her most scandalous books had come nowhere near describing the sensation of Penvale’s tongue tracing her lips, his hands on her skin, the thoroughly shocking way her pulse had seen fit to take up residence in a certain unspeakable part of her body. So she could sleep peacefully at night, having satisfied her curiosity, and certainly would not lie awake replaying said kiss in her mind for more nights in a row than she cared to admit.
She had just begun to wonder, with a lack of enthusiasm that was frankly alarming, whether she really ought to be getting on with haunting the house again when a conversation with Penvale over the breakfast table had given her an awfully clever idea.
“Have you sent the letters of invitation yet?”
She glanced up from the toast she was buttering. “No, not yet.” She suppressed a sigh before adding, “Did you have more friends to invite?”
“No,” he said quickly. “I just thought to glance at them before you have them mailed—I might add a couple of notes to the bottom of the letters, if you don’t mind.” He glanced up at her. “Not to correct anything you’ve written—it’s just that I’m not a very reliable correspondent, and I owe notes to a few of my friends.”
She returned her attention to her toast, relieved that at least he wouldn’t be increasing their numbers even more—and believing his assurances, despite their previous argument. She didn’t wish to spendtoo much time examining why, precisely, she was so ready to believe him. “As you wish. If you could see that they’re posted once you’ve done so…”
“Certainly,” he said, and she glanced up at him as she lay her knife down, surprised to find that he was watching her with an odd expression.
“Is something wrong?” she asked uncertainly, suddenly self-conscious.
He shook his head. “No—no.” He pushed his chair back and rose. “I’d better go write those notes, then. I’ll want to warn everyone not to come if they’re particularly afraid of ghosts.” He shot her a grin as he departed, clearly finding himself vastly amusing, but Jane sat rooted to her seat, an idea taking hold in her mind.
It wasperfect. Why hadn’t she thought of it sooner?
There was one way to ensure that this awful house party didn’t take place: make Penvale so nervous about their haunted house that he canceled it. For if he was truly convinced that a ghost was wandering their halls by night—well, surely he’d warn all his friends off of visiting.
Jane rose from her seat, eager to confer with Mrs. Ash on the next stage of her plan, and resolutely ignored the fact that her desired outcome was now entirely focused on ridding herself of Penvale’s friends rather than Penvale himself. And the fact that Penvale’s absence no longer seemed nearly as appealing as it once did.
Jane and her accomplices had ceased their midnight wails, solely because the staff were sacrificing sleep (and, truth be told, so was Jane). Instead, they resorted to a simpler program of events, including mysteriously vanishing and reappearing objects from various roomsof the house, strange thumps from the ceiling at dinner every other day (except Sundays, of course; even spirits seemed to have a healthy respect for the Lord’s day).
Today, however, Jane was going to the village, and she carried with her a basket full of books.
