Page 12 of Harrowing Hall
“Blake.” She kept pointing over his shoulder. “Do you see?”
He eyed the picture of Lady Annabel and sighed. “See that she might have been the woman you saw in the window via this portrait, aye, but—”
“No, Blake.” Maude led him to the painting and pointed from her necklace to the one Annabel wore. “Do youseehow similar they look?” She grew serious. “Are they hers?” She sounded more breathless by the moment. “Might I assume Annabel’s pearls have been in the family all along, and you decided I should wear them tonight?”
Confused, he looked from the pearls around Annabel’s neck to the ones Maude wore. They were identical. “I do not understand.”
“So, you did not gift them to me?” Maude seemed perplexed. “Then who did?”
“I don’t know.” He looked from Annabel’s pearls to Maude’s again. “I would have told you had I given you such pearls, let alone if they were family heirlooms.” He glanced between the two necklaces once more and gestured at Maude’s. “May I have them for a moment?”
Because surely, he was not seeing straight.
“Of course.” She turned and held up her hair. “If you could unclasp them?”
“Aye.” They might have a mystery on their hands, but he could not help but breathe in her sweet flowery scent nor become transfixed by her slender neck. “Just give me a moment….”
She turned her head just enough to give him a glimpse of her cheek. The daintiness of her chin. How familiar she suddenly seemed. As though he had known her face long before he met her.
He removed the pearls and brought them to the picture, stunned.
“They are the same, are they not?” Equally baffled, Maude looked from him to the necklaces. “So surely you jest and did indeed give them to me? Left them out to go with my gown, as they suit it so well?”
Blake nodded, then shook his head no. “They do suit your dress, but I did not give them to you.” He ran his fingers over the smooth stones. They were glorious. Authentic antiques. “Yet here they are.” He looked at Maude. “Where again did you find them?”
“On my dressing table, laid out beautifully.” Sadness flashed in her eyes before curiosity. “So they truly were not from you?”
“How I wish they were.” He really did, if only to keep sadness from filling her eyes when she thought otherwise. “But no, I did not purchase these for you, nor did I see them delivered to your room.” He urged her to turn and hold her hair up so he could put them back on. “Though they are so verra lovely on you,” he murmured in her ear when he secured the clasp. “So verra pleasing.”
“Thank you,” she whispered, then cleared her throat. To be expected, she started fanning herself again. Also to be expected, she did not give up on her mission when she turned back and looked at the picture of Annabel. “Why am I wearing her pearls, Blake? Why were they left for me?” She did that pouty pleading thing with her eyes that ensured she got her way every time. “Because theywereleft for me. I know it like I know Jane is meant for Hugh.”
“Aye, we will get to that in a moment.” Before her mind focused on matchmaking, he meant to try and explain away what she saw when she arrived weeks ago. “But first.” He pointed from the courtyard to Annabel. “Could it not be said that the face you saw when you first arrived was nothing more than this portrait caught in sunlight? A mirage?”
“No.” Maude shook her head. “By my estimations, the angle is all wrong. Her face would have been obscured no matter how bright the sun, which,” she wiggled a finger at him, “was nearly set if I remember correctly.” She notched her chin. “There is no way the woman I saw in the window is this painting, yet itwasLady Annabel.” She notched her chin a bit more if possible. “And I stand by that.”
Where some of his ilk might think her mad, might even reconsider marrying her, he was no such man. Rather he was a Scot who had lived in this castle his entire life and knew full well something, orsomeone, haunted this hall. And now, for the first time, it, she,Annabel, seemed to be reaching out to another.
Because there was no doubt in his mind the pearls around Maude’s neck were Annabel’s. That said, he should not, for a moment, dissuade Maude from believing what she saw. What he himself had suspected the first day she arrived. Where he had done it initially to comfort her, he could tell by the look in her eyes that it was having the opposite effect. She needed him to believe her in all things, and he did not blame her.
So he said what needed saying.
What he should have said from day one.
“I believe you.” And he would not have her think otherwise. “I believe you saw Lady Annabel in the window when you arrived and believe everything you have heard since.”
Under the assumption he would think her mad, Maude appeared ready to argue her point before she blinked twice and cocked her head. “You do?”
He nodded. “I do.”
“I am not sure I expected that.”
“Clearly.”
Maude nodded and smoothed her skirts, trying to compose herself. “So you have a ghost?”
“Wehave a ghost.” He nodded at Lady Annabel before holding out his hand to Maude, determined to find some normalcy in an evening he would ensure ended as she wished. One he never dared hope would happen so soon. “We also have guests.” He grinned. “A great deal as it is All Saints’ Eve.”
“Oh, yes, how could I have possibly forgotten?” Her eyes widened. “I’m so sorry I lost track. That I—”
