‘Can you smell roses?’ he whispered. ‘I’ve only just noticed it-but surely there cannot be any in bloom now, or smelling at this time of night, come to that.’

‘You can smell them too?’ she asked eagerly. ‘I thought it was only me. I smell them when I am happy, or when I am thinking about the house. I sometimes think that scent is the only ghost the Moon House holds. There are a few sodden blooms in the garden, but of course-’

‘Quiet,’ he murmured, putting his fingers over her mouth. Was he imagining it? No, there was the sound of movement from the hall, the merest brush of unshod feet on the marble, the almost imperceptible stirring of the air. ‘Stay here.’ He used one hand to press her down on to the chaise, with the other he reached for the sword. The thought of bullets flying in the darkness with Hester there chilled him.

Almost holding his breath, he drifted towards the door. The intruder was closer now, at the foot of the stairs. Guy lunged out of the door and a figure whirled around, cloak swirling as it did so. Guy took in only that it was fast, clad all in black and that it had no face, then his mind caught up with his imagination and he realised it was masked.

‘Stand! I am armed.’

The figure seemed to waver in the faint light, then something swept towards his face. Instinctively Guy threw up his left arm to protect his eyes and stabbed forward with the sword as pain lanced through his face. For a moment he thought the intruder had thrown a cat and it was clawing at him, then his hand closed around hard, thorny stems and crisp, dead leaves and he realised it was roses.

He swept them aside and drove towards his attacker again, lunging forward in a fencer’s attack. His foot came down, not on flat marble but something hard and rounded, slipped as the scabbard moved on the polished stone, and, completely off- balance, he began to fall. As he went down he dropped the sword and hit out with his right fist, to feel it connect with a satisfying thud on the masked face.

Then he was on the floor, scrambling to regain balance to spring to his feet as someone tripped over him with a cry of dismay. His reaching hands found themselves full of fine cotton and the warm female form beneath. ‘Hester!’ Unceremoniously he rolled her off on to the floor behind him and got to his feet. The hall was empty, the house silent. Where the hell had it gone?

The stillness lasted only seconds, then there was an outburst of cries and opening doors from upstairs and light from two candles illuminated the staircase.

‘Hester! What’s happening? Oh, you brute!’ Miss Prudhome, uncaring of curl papers, flannel nightgown and bare feet, flew down the stairs to Hester’s side where she rounded on Guy, one trembling hand holding a chamber stick, the other clenched to wave under his nose. ‘Hurry, Susan, bring the poker-the beast has tried to ravish her-see how she has scratched him!’

The maid was hard on her heels, poker in raised hand, her candle waving wildly.

‘Quiet!’ It was Hester, managing a voice of absolute authority despite being in the middle of scrambling to her feet with her hair in a tangle, her feet bare and her nightgown hitched up to her knees. A wave of pride in her washed over him, warring with a stab of lust. ‘Be quiet, everyone-we found the ghost and now it’s gone and we have to search.’

Guy took the opportunity to remove the poker from Susan’s grip and scoop up the scabbard from the floor before it tripped anyone else up. ‘Stay behind me, please-and, as Miss Lattimer says-be quiet!’ He took Miss Prudhome’s candle and glanced into the dining room. Empty. That left the kitchen, although by now a troop of cavalry could have unbolted the door and made their escape.

But not only was the kitchen empty, but the bolts were shut, the door still firmly locked, the windows closed and latched. The only sign of the intruder was the trail down the hall of dead roses and the drops of Guy’s blood that marked the way it had fled towards the kitchen.

Guy, with Susan dogged at his heels, searched the dining room again, looked in every nook and cranny of the kitchen and scullery, even opened the door of the longcase clock and peered inside, but he found nothing. But then he had not expected to-whoever was getting into the Moon House, they were not coming in through the door.


* * *

Hester left them to search, instead filling a kettle from the scullery pump and banging it down on the range. ‘Fetch the poker from his lordship, would you, please, Maria? I don’t know about you, but I need a cup of tea.’

By the time the searchers returned, predictably empty handed, the tea was brewing and Maria was buttering bread. ‘Bread and butter is very soothing in a crisis, I always find.’

Guy made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a snort of amusement, but Hester was too concerned with the state of him to join in the joke. Now they had lit all the kitchen candles his face, covered in scratches and streaked with blood, looked horrifying.

‘Guy, your face! Come and sit down and let me sponge it.’ Hester tipped hot water from the kettle into a bowl, seized a petticoat that had been drying by the fire, ripped a handful of cloth from it and advanced on him. ‘Now, sit down here and let me see. Did anything go in your eyes?’ She bent over him, tipping his chin up in one determined hand in much the same way as she would have with Jethro.

‘No, ma’am,’ he said with unaccustomed meekness.

‘Are you sure? Are you hurt anywhere else? Your breathing sounds very heavy.’ She tipped his face up some more, and carefully inspected the scratches, their noses almost touching. Now there was no mistaking the wicked twinkle in his eyes.

‘I am labouring under a great deal of stress, Miss Lattimer.’

Hester dropped the cloth back in the bowl and handed him a dry piece with a reproving look. Her own heart rate had accelerated to an uncomfortable degree.

‘Have a cup of tea, my lord,’ Maria urged, mercifully missing the by-play. ‘I am sure that will make you feel better. Then I will fetch the basilicum powder.’

‘Thank you, Miss Prudhome.’ He gave the chaperon a look of such docility that Hester could have boxed his ears.

‘There are only ten tonight,’ Susan said, dumping an armful of roses on the kitchen table. ‘Fourteen the first night, twelve the next…’

‘It started with the new moon.’ Hester made her voice steady with a struggle. ‘It happens every second night, and each time there are two fewer. By the time of the full moon there will be none. And at the full moon-’ She broke off, unable to repeat the nonsense Miss Nugent had spouted.

‘At the full moon, what?’ Susan was wide eyed.

‘Nothing, just some nonsense Miss Nugent says she found in an old manuscript.’

‘Tell us,’ Guy commanded. He glanced round at the other women. ‘I suspect that Sir Lewis and Miss Nugent may be hoping to alarm Miss Lattimer into reselling the house to them. I would like to hear what taradiddles they have concocted.’

‘You think they are breaking into the house?’ Hester found it incredible as soon as she said it. ‘Respectable members of local society?’

‘I am respectable, and you had no trouble believing me the culprit,’ Guy pointed out with a grin. ‘Now, what is supposed to happen at the full moon?’

‘The evil in the house will wax with the moon, and then when it is full… Oh, this is such fustian, it isn’t worth repeating!’

‘Go on, Miss Hester,’ Susan urged. ‘You can’t not tell us now, imagining is much worse.’

‘Very well, if you must have it. When the moon is full, Death walks.’

There was silence as the four of them absorbed this. Then into the stillness they heard the dragging footsteps coming down the hall. Four pairs of eyes turned to the door, which slowly began to creak open.

Guy got to his feet, gesturing with his hand for silence. With a muffled squeak Miss Prudhome clutched Susan and Hester found herself standing, her hand on Guy’s arm.

The door opened to reveal a white-clad figure and, with a sigh, Miss Prudhome slid to the floor in a dead faint.

CHAPTER TWELVE

‘Jethro!’ Hester released her hold on Guy’s arm and went to take the unsteady figure by the elbow. ‘What on earth are you doing down here at this hour in the morning? You scared us all to death! Oh dear, Susan, is Miss Prudhome all right?’

‘She will be if I can just find some feathers to burn under her nose.’ Susan struggled to get the wilting companion into a sitting position, only to find his lordship bending at her side.

‘Here, let me, I think she is coming round.’ He scooped up Miss Prudhome, almost dropping her again at the screech of alarm she let out when she realised she was in the arms of a man. He hastily seated her in a Windsor chair by the range and retreated to assist Hester, who was urging Jethro to take the seat opposite.

‘I heard the to-do, Miss Hester,’ Jethro explained, wincing as the hard chair back met his shoulder. ‘But I didn’t reckon on being so shaky on my feet. It took me near ten minutes to get out of bed. I’m sorry, my lord.’ He turned his pale face towards Guy, ‘I should have been more alert-like, ready to help.’

‘It’s a very good thing you did not, Jethro, there were enough of us falling all over the place-I am afraid I let your ghost go.’

‘I think we need a council of war,’ Hester announced, marching back into the room with the brandy decanter in her hand. ‘Susan, brew some coffee, please. Tea is simply not stimulating enough.’ She placed the decanter on the table. ‘Now, who would like brandy in their coffee and who would like it in a glass?’

‘Oh, if anyone should see us,’ Miss Prudhome lamented. ‘Drinking brandy at three in the morning with a man in the house.’

Guy unstoppered the decanter, sniffed, then reached for one of the glasses Hester put on the table. ‘It would be a crime to mix this with coffee.’ He poured five glasses and pushed them around the table. ‘Is the rest of your wine cellar up to this standard, Miss Lattimer?’

Off guard she replied, ‘Oh, yes, all of it is very good, although I have not dared look at the clarets yet after their jolting on the carrier’s cart.’

‘You must introduce me to your wine merchant.’ Guy took an appreciative sip. ‘I imagine we are too far from the sea here for it to be run brandy.’

‘I inherited it,’ Hester admitted. ‘Unusual, I know…’

‘Your father had excellent taste.’ Of course, that was the obvious conclusion, there was no need to fear he would guess the truth.

Hester smiled brightly. ‘Thank you. Maria, are you feeling a little recovered?’

‘Yes, indeed.’ In fact, Miss Prudhome was faintly flushed, and Hester noticed that she was taking rather more sips from the glass than from her cup. ‘This is very reviving, although naturally I do not approve of spirits except in a medicinal capacity.’

‘Good. Now, what are we going to do?’ Hester looked round the kitchen table at her supporters. One nervous lady’s companion one feisty maidservant, a boy with a damaged shoulder and a nobleman who most certainly shouldn’t be there. ‘We know whoever is doing this is flesh and blood; Lord Buckland hit him.’

‘Hard enough to bruise.’ Guy rubbed his knuckles.

‘So we must watch out for men with a bruised cheek or a black eye. We know they can get in and out of here without using the doors and windows.’

‘Which is strange, in a house of this age,’ Maria remarked. She was sitting up, looking much recovered, a faint flush on her cheeks. ‘I mean, it is not as though it is some ancient mansion where you might expect priest holes and secret passages, is it?’

‘The ghost has therefore taken time to prepare something before your arrival,’ Guy mused. ‘Or the secret entrance was built at the same time as the house. The latter, I imagine.’

Hester shot him a suspicious glance. There was something about the tone of his voice that made her suspect he was putting two and two together-and that the clues he was adding up were unknown to her.

‘And that entrance is in this kitchen, or the scullery,’ Susan added. ‘That would make sense-this is the back of the house and shielded from passers-by.’

‘And the only person, other than his lordship, who has expressed a desire to buy the house is Sir Lewis.’ Hester shook her head in disbelief. ‘He has not pressed me about it, only said that if I was alarmed he felt it was his duty to buy it back. I cannot imagine that would be easy for him, his own home is in poor repair.’

‘You think him short of funds?’ Guy twirled the stem of his glass between his fingers. ‘If he does indeed want this house, then it must represent an investment of some kind to him, but what I cannot imagine.’