The Strange Visitation at Wolffe Hall (Sherbrooke Brides 11.50)

“Last night, he screamed at you again?” Miranda asked.

The Great nodded. “I kept reassuring him, swore to him yet again that I would take the medal to his family.” The Great fell silent and stared down at his plate. “There, I have told you the lot of it. There is no more.” He looked suddenly tired, at the end of his tether. “It is all my fault. I killed him and now I must pay. With my life? I suppose it is fair. After all, I have had more years given me than that poor young man did. But it is not right that I pay with

your lives as well.

“Miranda, I do not know what will happen now, so tomorrow morning I believe it best that you take Palonia Chiara and leave this place. I cannot and will not take a chance with your safety.” He turned to Grayson. “I ask that you take my granddaughter-in-law and Palonia Chiara to Belhaven tonight and protect them. I don’t wish any harm to come to them.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

Grayson nodded. “Of course. But, sir, first I would appreciate your telling me more about the major’s family.”

The Great raised an eyebrow, but he said readily enough, “His father was the vicar in the town of Witchery-Tyne. Evarard Houston was his name, serving for more than thirty years. I have kept in touch with Mrs. Houston, but I have not informed her of her dead son’s visits to me, his attacks on Miranda and Palonia Chiara. I doubt they would believe me, in any case.”

“And Major Houston?”

“Major Houston’s first name was Charles, and he was made a major at the age of twenty at the battle of Badajoz for his outstanding bravery. When he died at Waterloo, he was only twenty-three. He was a young man to admire, to trust.

“But now his spirit—he’s changed, he’s different, he has turned spiteful and violent. As I told you, he wasn’t like that in life.”

Grayson said, “Sir, why did the major’s spirit wait nearly twenty-five years to come to you?”

“I have wondered the same thing, Mr. Sherbrooke. I have no answer. You say, sir, you know about otherworldly beings, so how do you explain what his spirit is now doing? Why he has changed so much?”

Grayson said, “There is only one logical conclusion, sir. Major Houston isn’t dead. It isn’t his spirit.”

The house shuddered.

Miranda jumped to her feet. “Who are you?”

There was one more shudder, then it stopped. Everything was quiet.

“Oh my,” Suggs said, but didn’t move.

“No!” Miranda ran toward the window where the curtains were billowing madly. The black funnel was slowly forming, whipping itself up—turning toward Grayson. Miranda ran directly at the black funnel. Grayson lifted her out of its path and moved to stand in front of it. He felt warmth coming from that madly whirling funnel, and something else—what? An urgency, he felt that, and a plea. He relaxed, opened himself, and felt the warmth settle around him, felt it moving into him, slowly, as if exploring, uncertain. Then he was one with it. He heard the Great’s voice, heard Miranda yelling at him, even Suggs bellowed once. Grayson wished they’d all be quiet. He wasn’t afraid. And he made out one word—heir.

The funnel whirled back outside. The curtains settled. The house was calm. The silence was deafening.

Grayson looked down at Miranda. She’d run in front of him, to save him. He saw her face was white, her eyes dilated. She stared up at him and came up on her tiptoes, her warm breath feathering against his ear. “It is very odd, Grayson. You smell like lemons.”

It wasn’t only Grayson—the lemon scent filled the dining room.

The Great said suddenly, his voice far away, “There was an orchard of lemon trees off the battlefield. You could smell the lemons when the wind changed. It lessened the stench of blood and death. For a moment. You are wrong, Grayson, it is Major Houston’s spirit, it has to be, and he brought the smell with him.”

“No, sir, it is an entirely different spirit, but the visitations are about Major Houston.” Grayson smiled. Finally, everything came together. Simple, really, but still, best to be sure. He said, “Sir, do you have genealogy records of the Wolffe family?”

“Of course, but why?”

“I believe they may reveal the answer.”

Miranda looked at the smile, saw the gleam of knowledge in his eyes. “You know what this is all about, don’t you, Grayson?”

“Yes, I think I do.”

An hour later in the Great’s library, Grayson was slowly making his way through the faded, nearly indecipherable handwriting that stretched back to the sixteenth century.

And there was a family tree, shown in full detail.

“You’ve never studied this, sir?”