The Earl of Christmas Past (Goode Girls Romance #5) - Kerrigan Byrne Page 0,2
me if I’m wrong, but I highly doubt you’ve ever had a woman accept such a crass and ridiculous proposition. One you didn’t have to offer recompense, that is.”
The men gathered around the fireplace all blinked at her, dumbstruck.
“I thought not,” she said. “Now I’ll thank you not to make such ill-mannered and indecent suggestions in the presence of children.” She gestured to a grubby lad of perhaps eight, who promptly tossed a piece of bread into her hair.
The boy’s father boxed his son’s ears, and the child let out an ear-splitting wail, setting her teeth on edge.
“English.” A thin, pockmarked highlander harrumphed the word into his ale glass. “The night’s too cold for a frigid, prickly wee bundle of bones, Graham,” he said to her harasser.
“Aye, she’s hardly worth the trouble.” Another spat into the fire, and the resulting sizzle disgusted her.
“Ye barbarous Douglasses behave!” Mrs. Pitagowan thundered over her shoulder as she turned sideways to squeeze herself down the aisle created by the six or so tables in the common room. “Or ye’ll find yerselves arseways to a snowdrift and make no mistake! Now follow me, lass, and let’s get ye out of those wet clothes.”
Vanessa turned to obey, cringing at the Douglasses’ disgusting noises evoked by the innkeeper’s gauche mention of her undressing. She passed a long bar, against which two well-dressed men in wool suits picked at a brown stew and another grizzled highlander wore a confounding fishing uniform in the middle of winter and leagues away from the ocean.
She’d heard tell the Scots around these parts were an odd lot, but she’d underestimated just how truly backward they might be.
Balthazar’s Inn, at least, was charming. Though the pale stone walls were pitted with age, a lovely dark wood wainscoting rose from the floor to waist height, swallowing some of the light from the lanterns and the fireplace to create a rather cozy effect. In observation of Christmas, boughs of holly and other evergreens were strewn across the hearth and over the doorways, tied in place by red ribbons. Similar braided wreaths moated the lanterns on each table, filling the room with the rather pleasant scent of pine.
“Thank you for taking me in, Mrs. Pitagowan.” Vanessa remembered her manners as she followed the woman through a chaotic scullery.
“Call me Bess, everyone else does,” the lady sang.
Vanessa jumped out of the way when Bess’s grumpy husband threw open an adjoining door and stomped past them carrying an empty cauldron and muttering in a language she’d never heard before.
“Bess, then. I appreciate your generosity—”
Turning in the doorway, Bess narrowly missed smashing the case against the frame, causing Vanessa to blanch. “Doona get the idea I’m being charitable, lass. I heard ye offer thrice the room rates. And I’ll be needing payment afore I ready the room.”
Right. Vanessa sighed, digging into the pocket of her cloak for her coin purse. “How much?”
“I’ll take half a crown what with the bath and stew.”
Vanessa counted out the coin, fully aware she’d pay half as much at any reputable establishment in London, but she was beyond caring, what with a bath and a hot meal so close at hand. “You called this Carrie’s room before,” she mentioned, more to make conversation than anything. “Is Carrie the name of the apparition who will be keeping me company?”
A dark, almost sympathetic expression softened Bess’s moon-round face as she used a free hand to tuck a pale lock of hair back into her matronly cap. “Oh—well—that’s just a bit of local superstition, isn’it? Nothing to worry about. A lady like ye’ll be perfectly safe.”
Local superstition was exactly what drew her to the Highlands for Christmas, but Vanessa thought it best not to disclose that to Bess just now.
What had the woman meant, a lady like her? Someone wealthy, perhaps? English? Or female?
Either way, fate had left her little choice but to find out.
Chapter Two
Johnathan de Lohr was awoken from his blank torpor by the sound of a delicate sneeze.
It was time again. The solstice maybe, when the sun flared and tugged at the planet in such a way the tides became wilder. The storms became more violent. The creatures of the earth more feral.
Untamed.
And those dead like himself, cursed to still inhabit this plane, were called to be restless.
Reminded what it was to be human.
Only to have it ruthlessly taken from them again.
He materialized—for lack of a better word—by Carrie’s old bed in time to have a dust sheet snatched right through his middle by