"He told me about many of you, how kind you were, how pleasant and witty, how very good you all were. He also said he hoped you would come back and scrub things up so Wyverly Chase can be brought back to its former glory."
Still uncertain looks, at least two appalled faces.
Rosalind leaned a bit closer to the group and lowered her voice. "I can tell you this: He will add interest to your lives, he will make you smile after you become used to hearing his booming voice. When he breaks into song, I daresay you will soon find yourselves singing along with him. Who among you can be so timid, so fearful, as to turn down this very rare opportunity? Isn't this an adventure, something to tell your grandchildren? Your friends? I daresay they will all be hanging off your words, buying you glasses of ale to hear you talk."
Ah, most of the faces weren't quite so stony now.
She continued, "All great houses have their ghosts. Without ghosts, great houses simply don't come up to the mark. Now, the old earl's ghost isn't ancient and thus he hasn't yet decided whether or not he wishes to settle here. As I said, he is still afloat, but eager to greet all of you. Will he remain? I don't know. We will see."
She stepped back and let them huddle. Voices were muted but they were talking, and that was good. Eyes darted around the library, but the old earl remained quiet, if he was even here.
Finally, the woman with the sweet voice, Mrs. McGiver, took a step forward and said, "All but Robert will come, my lady. Robert is afraid, a sorry thing for a man to be-"
" 'Ere now! I ain't afeared!"
Mrs. McGiver sneered at him. "Then sign on, my lad. You won't even have a chance to hear the old earl sing, or sing with him for that matter, since you'll be yanking up weeds in the gardens. You too afraid to do that?"
More grumbling, then Robert nodded. "All right, I'll stay on the grounds, but niver will I come into this den of iniquity. A ghost in the library-it fair to beetles the brow."
Thankfully, the old earl's den of iniquity remained quiet, the air unruffled and warm.
Rosalind heard Peter Pritchard tell the group as he ushered them out of the library, "If you would all begin today, his lordship and ladyship would be very pleased. Do you know that I myself have sung a duet with the old earl? His is not a very good voice, I must say, but he does try. I'm thinking there must be heavenly points for singing rather than simply speaking. What do you think, Mrs. McGiver?"
"He never had a good voice, at least I wouldn't imagine he did. I never heard him sing, truth be told."
Robert said, "Well, now, the old earl's dead, ain't 'e? Who could sing good with grave dirt in 'is mouth?"
Mumbled agreement. Thank the good Lord no one mentioned there hadn't been a body in the old earl's casket.
Rosalind was grinning when she joined Nicholas in the small overgrown garden with hummingbirds dipping into the rich tangled rose blooms. The air was soft, the sun shining down hot from a clear sky.
"I like my new home, Nicholas. We now have ten additional servants. All will be well. Our new housekeeper is Mrs. McGiver, and I have to hand the prize to her. She's got a backbone, in addition to a lovely voice."
"However you and Mrs. McGiver managed it, I am impressed." He kissed her. The hummingbirds were blurs in the air, swooping closer when he took her to the ground behind a thick-pedestaled sundial. She asked him between kisses if the earl ever visited this small garden.
Nicholas, no fool, said, "No, never. He hated flowers, hated the bright sun. Do you know, I hated leaving you this morning, I ground my teeth, kicked the chair on my way out the door. Do you know you clutched me to you when I tried to leave? Ah, be quiet now."
"Then why did you leave?"
"You had to be sore," he said between kisses. "I didn't want to hurt you. You're better now, aren't you, Rosalind?"
"Oh, yes," she said into his mouth even as she pulled his ears, "I am perfect."
He laughed.
Because Peter Pritchard wasn't a fool either, when he heard voices in the garden he immediately turned himself about and went back into the old earl's library. He thought about the widow Damson, her lovely smile, her pillowy breasts, and decided it was time to pay a visit.
Twenty minutes later, Nicholas helped Rosalind to her feet and straightened her gown. She fussed with her hair. "Oh, dear, how do I look?"
He was so sated, so contented, not a care in his brain, his eyes heavily hooded, that he wanted to fall in a heap and grin like an idiot. His fingers touched her cheek. "You look like a queen." Since this was perhaps not all that accurate, Rosalind punched his arm. He grinned down at her, kissed her mouth again because he couldn't help himself, and said, "You look happy and satisfied with yourself. You look silly and adorable as well. There were three twigs sticking out of your head like horns. This look of yours befits a new bride. Don't concern yourself-no one will know what you've done beneath the sundial. Trust me, you also look like the stern mistress of Wyverly just so long, well, so long as one doesn't look at your eyes."
"What's wrong with my eyes?"
He kissed her again. "Not a thing. However, the terms 'vague' and 'dreamy' come to mind." Like his own eyes, he guessed. "That sundial is very old, you know, at least two hundred years. I'm pleased it didn't fall on us when you kicked out with your foot." He lightly touched his fingertips to her cheek. "I am very pleased with you, Rosalind. Very pleased."
Rosalind didn't look up at him. "I am pleased with you as well, Nicholas. I know I should be shocked at what I most willingly wanted you to do to me-again-things that you did to my great satisfaction-again-but I'm not." That tongue of hers licked over her bottom lip. He went en pointe. She stood on her tiptoes and whispered against his ear, "There are things I wish to try, only you didn't give me a chance."
He could practically feel her long white legs, sleek with muscle, squeezing his flanks, and consulted his watch. It was ten o'clock in the morning. Perhaps after luncheon he could take her riding to the small copse where a stream ran through it surrounded by soft grass, and larks sang their sweet songs overhead on the maple tree branches. He beamed down at her. "I will give you a chance. We will ask Cook to make us a picnic."
"Oh, yes. Would you look at all the hummingbirds. Do you know how long they live?"
"Only about three years, I believe."
"They move about awfully fast, don't they? Always moving. Do you think with all our activity we will shorten our lives?"
He stared down at her, kissed her because he simply couldn't stop himself, and said, "I wouldn't mind." He felt the book in his pocket. He cleared his throat. "I couldn't free the last pages. The answers are there, I'm thinking, only something or someone is preventing us from finding them." And he kissed her again.
When she would have taken him behind the sundial again, he raised his head and smoothed his thumb over her lower lip. "What do you think?"
"I think it's time to use your brain rather than other parts, my lord," she said and laughed as she tugged him back into the library. They both stopped cold on the threshold when a scratchy old voice boomed out,
Sins of the flesh Sins of the flesh
A bloodless bore the world would be Without sins of the flesh.
Rosalind shook her fist toward the empty chair. "We committed no sin. We are married. You are surely a lecherous old ghost. Be quiet."
"The thing is," Nicholas said slowly, after hearing nothing else from the old earl for several moments, "my grandfather never sang a note in his life. Why should he begin singing in his death?"