“She…” Ariel put a hand to her lovely lips. “If it’s not Bess…” She faltered. “It has to be a woman, doesn’t it?”
“It certainly was a woman who appeared here tonight.”
“Yes,” she whispered. “But who would…?”
“Precisely.”
He straightened his coat and pushed the now-ruined cupboard door closed. “Let us go somewhere private, and you can tell me everything you know about this matter.”
She stiffened. “Why should I?”
Alan looked surprised. “So that I can resolve the situation and be done with it.”
“The ghost, you mean?”
“Exactly.”
“What about my mother?” she demanded.
Trying to temper his impatience with sympathy, Alan looked down at her. “I am very sorry about your mother. The prince was right, it was a terrible thing.”
“He wasn’t right, because he knows nothing about it and hasn’t bothered to find out.”
“Perhaps so, but—”
“I must speak to the ghost,” she went on, “and ask her what she knows. I will discover why my mother is dead!” She glared up at him, defiance and something more poignant in her hazel eyes.
“Don’t get hysterical,” he said uneasily.
“I am not hysterical. I’m never hysterical. I am simply utterly determined.”
“You are being unreasonable,” accused Alan. “I know that as a woman, you are prone to illogic, but you must see that—”
“I won’t tell you anything, or help you in any way with the ghost, unless you agree to do the same for me as I search for the truth,” she said.
“Don’t be ridiculous. You are a woman. You have no notion how to conduct an investigation, even if you were capable of sustained—”
“I know who my mother’s friends were,” she offered. “I have her things. And her servants will talk to me and no one else. They are very loyal.” Her voice broke a little on the last word.
“Some of that information might be useful,” he conceded.
“Well, then…”
“And it might not,” he added. “This haunting may have nothing to do with your mother, if it is simply someone trying to discredit the prince.”
“But you should eliminate the possibility that it is related to her death,” Ariel said.
He was surprised. “That would be a logical course of action,” he admitted.
“No one else is better placed to help you do that,” she pointed out.
“That may be so, but—”
“So, we are agreed?” She held out her hand as if to shake his and seal the bargain.
Alan gazed at her small white hand. His eyes ran up the slim arm attached to it and met the deep hazel eyes fixed on his. This was most likely a complete waste of time, he thought. She was a woman, and thus a creature of instinct and whim rather than rational thought. She could not have anything valuable to offer that he would not discover himself. However, there was something about her… He suppressed this irrelevancy. A scientist considered all alternatives, he told himself, no matter how remote they might be. “Very well,” he said. He took her hand firmly and shook it.
Two
“There, that looks all right, doesn’t it?” said Ariel, pushing the silver tray an inch to the left on the small side table. The crystal decanter and glasses had been polished to a high sheen, and the lemon wafers on the enamel plate had been purchased from the confectioner that very morning. “It’s the sort of thing Miss Ames used to serve important visitors at school,” Ariel added. “I imagine it will do for a lord, don’t you?”
She turned to look at the only other creature in the room, a huge cat with blue-gray fur the color of smoke and preternaturally glowing golden eyes.
“I got fish heads for you, so you needn’t worry,” she told the animal.
As if he understood, the cat rose and stretched, first digging his claws into the carpet and extending his whole spine in a concave arc, then pushing out his hind legs one at a time. He started toward the door. Ariel followed.
“It’s Lord Alan Gresham coming to call,” she informed the cat. “He’s going to help me find out about Bess’s death.”
Downstairs in the kitchen, she unwrapped the fish heads and set them on the floor for the cat, who began to eat at once. His sonorous purr echoed through the room, and Ariel bent to run a hand over his extraordinarily thick, smooth coat. “What would I do without you?” she murmured.
She had returned from school to find an empty house. Her mother’s servants had scattered after the suicide, she discovered; no one knew where they had gone. The magistrate in charge of looking