The Strange Visitation at Wolffe Hall (Sherbrooke Brides 11.50)

Pip liked a spoonful of honey in his tea, but he manfully didn’t say anything. P.C. gave him a very small cup. “Don’t spill it on the carpet, Pip, else Grandmama might chance to look down and see it, though that isn’t likely. She probably won’t even see you.”

“That tiny cup was a wedding present,” the Great said, his voice sounding far away. “Too small for anything useful except for visiting little boys.” He was reaching for a second seed cake as he spoke when a sharp female voice from the doorway stopped him in mid-flight.

“Mrs. Crandle told me if you eat that second cake, your skin will fall off your face.” She flitted over to a chair and sat, arranging her dark-green skirts around her. So this must be Palonia’s grandmother, Elaine Wolffe, who hummed and spoke to Alphonse’s portrait and had been the wife of the rotter, the Great’s only son. The Great’s skin would fall off his face?

Grayson had to admit Palonia Chiara’s grandmother had seemed to float maybe an inch off the floor when she’d walked ever so gracefully into the room. She was still beautiful at what—sixty? Which put her father-in-law well north of eighty. When she’d been young, she’d probably had every man within a hundred miles slavering over her hand. Her hair was dark brown with a single thick white swatch starting at her forehead and going straight back, all of it piled haphazardly on top of her head with thick hanks falling beside her face to her shoulders. She had the greenest eyes he’d ever seen, sharp, intelligent eyes, no matter she was a floater. He rose immediately.

“My dear,” the Great said, “this is our neighbor, Mr. Sherbrooke, and his son, Pip.”

Elaine Wolffe rose slowly and floated over to stand in front of him. Grayson bowed and lightly kissed her wrist. As for Pip, he eyed her with awe. He scrambled off the chair, and the teacup shook in his small hand. P.C., so fast she was nearly a blur, grabbed the cup before it spilled. Pip gave P.C.’s grandmother a formal bow, practiced with his nanny Mary Beth for nearly a year now.

Elaine reached out a white hand to lightly touch Pip’s shoulder. “That is well done. Aren’t you a handsome little lad? My Benedict was a handsome little lad as well.” Then she sighed.

“I’m nearly five,” said Pip, chin up, shoulders back. “Who’s Benedict?”

“He was my son and, I agree, he was a crusader.”

Pip didn’t know what to make of that, and so he took his small cup back from P.C. and reseated himself.

Elaine turned to Grayson. “Mr. Sherbrooke, it is a pleasure.”

He nodded and smiled toward P.C. “Or Thomas Straithmore.”

The Great sat back, his hands over his vest. “This is the boy who writes the spirit stories you and Miranda like to read. Now

since he has visited, I must needs read one for myself. But before I do—” The Great ate another seed cake, swallowed, and laughed. “All my skin’s still there, so what does Mrs. Crandle know? Did Mrs. Crandle really say that, or are you making it up, Elaine, to make me feel guilty?”

“You will never know,” she said and reseated herself.

CHAPTER EIGHT

P.C. came to stand beside Grayson. “Grandmama, you must call him Mr. Straithmore. He wrote Deadening Shadows. Mama read it to you, and you nearly screamed three times.”

“Of course,” Elaine Wolffe said. “A spirit was trapped in the body of a villain who wanted to kill his wife and the spirit wouldn’t let him. It was a fine tale.” She gave him a beautiful white-toothed smile.

“Grandmama, may I serve you tea?”

Elaine nodded her graceful neck. “And tea for your mama, if you please.”

“Mama isn’t here, Grandmama.”

Miranda Wolffe appeared in the doorway within the next three seconds. P.C. didn’t seem surprised, merely smiled at her mother and held out her teacup.

Grayson, still standing, eyed Miranda Wolffe. She looked skinny in the baggy brown gown at least half a decade out of date. She wasn’t all that young—well, perhaps in her late twenties, two or three years younger than he. Her hair was glorious, the same honey shade as her daughter’s, and she wore it in a thick braid down her back. Hunks of the rich stuff had worked free of the braid to curl around her face. He thought her eyes were also as blue as her daughter’s, but he couldn’t be certain because she wore glasses. He wanted her to eat—perhaps the rest of the seed cakes would be a good start. Why was she wearing that ugly old dress?

Miranda nodded to Grayson. “I know who you are, sir, and now that I see my daughter’s face, I know what you are doing here.”

“Mama, how did you know Mr. Straithmore was here?”

“Mr. Straithmore? Barnaby fetched me from my garden. He told me I’d best hurry so Bickle didn’t sneak in and try to steal the little boy who came with you. Pray be seated again, sir. Ah, I see Bickle peering in through the window. Keep the little boy close to you.”

Grayson smiled at her as he pulled Pip close against his leg. “Mrs. Wolffe, it is a pleasure to meet you. Your daughter invited me for tea. And the little boy I’m protecting from the valet Bickle is my son, Pip. Your daughter knows me by my other name, ma’am, Thomas Straithmore.”

P.C. leaped to her feet. “Sir, a man cannot be two men. You cannot be this Sherbrooke man since you’re Mr. Straithmore. You solve frightening otherworldly mysteries that bedevil families, and you write about them. You are a hero, sir. This other man clearly cannot intrude.”

Grayson smiled at an outraged P.C. “I’m sorry, P.C. I am both men. You’ve told me bedevilment is going on in this family.” He looked at the Great. “I will try to stop it if you, sir, will explain it to me.”

The Great rose, and Grayson saw his glorious white hair giving him another three inches in height, haloing curls around his head. “What have you told this young gentleman, Palonia Chiara?”