The idea of saying good night had never struck Hyacinth as a delicious event. But then, she had never before had a Lucas Harding to say good night to.
She felt like she might burst out of her skin. Like sitting still was impossible. Like she was filled with starlight and music. She might have been embarrassed at the spin and the happy squeal she made as she closed the door to her room, but no one was there to witness it but Eleanor. Hyacinth had stopped into the orchid house to bring her favorite flower inside for the night.
“Dearest,” she said, feeling breathless and giddy. “Our situation here at Ashthorne would be perfect even if you were the only orchid I ever saw.”
Hyacinth cleaned the sand from her skirts and shoes, humming Lucas’s song as she worked.
“Eleanor,” Hyacinth said, lifting her beloved orchid and holding her head close to the flower’s bloom, “I believe I’ve fallen for Mr. Lucas Harding.”
Was it the confession or simply saying his name aloud that made Hyacinth smile? She tried speaking the sentence a few more times but was unable to make a distinction between possible causes.
Very well, she thought. I’ll replicate the experiment as often as possible.
As the evening’s silence fell over the manor, she placed Eleanor’s pot carefully on the dressing table and wrapped herself in her shawl. “Good night, dearest,” she said to the orchid. “Time for me to open a few closed doors.” With a candle and two matches in her hand, she closed the door quietly behind her.
As she tiptoed down the steps of the grand staircase, she wondered how careful she needed to be. Would Mrs. Carter watch from a corner of the entryway to see if Hyacinth disobeyed her rules?
“Really,” Hyacinth murmured to herself, “the woman is far too busy to sit in darkness trying to catch me out.” Even so, she did not light her candle as she moved from the south staircase to the north.
A newly familiar sense of adventure accompanied her as she walked up the forbidden staircase, made her way to the second door on the right, and pulled a pin from her hair. With practiced motion, she brought the pin toward the mechanism, only to have the door open under her touch. It was unlocked.
How strange. Would Mrs. Carter have neglected to lock this door after going inside? And what might she have needed from within the room?
Hyacinth stepped in and pulled the door closed behind her. With a strike of the match on the door’s wooden molding, a spark ignited, and she lit her candle, eager to explore the room.
She sucked in a gasp. This was not a room Mrs. Carter had entered and left unlocked. This was chaos. She could barely make sense of what lay before her. Holland covers were pulled from the furnishings and cast on the floor. Framed paintings hung at precarious angles. An armoire was pulled open, drawers emptied and discarded. Instead of the pile of boxes she’d seen in the other room, there was a tumbled mess of books, papers, and small decorative items. It looked as if someone had pulled the crates down, searching for something inside.
This could not be the work of Mrs. Carter. If she needed to find a book or a document, she would move methodically through the boxes instead of creating messes she’d need to clear up herself.
As Hyacinth moved deeper into the room, she noticed a familiar but misplaced lingering smell of tobacco smoke.
Had the man who entered her bedroom been in the house again tonight? In this very room? The thought made her skin crawl. If he’d caused this destruction, what was he looking for?
Hyacinth picked up a few of the clothes from the pile on the floor. Woolens. Thick stockings. Winter wear. Things the family would not need for their new life in the tropics. But nothing an intruder would be interested in. She doubted the prowler was hoping to find a child’s jumper.
And she felt certain he was looking for something.
But what?
She turned slowly around the tumbled room, holding her candle out in front of her, searching for understanding. Data. Information.
Her mind raced through possibilities, and she felt a shiver of surprise when a new thought occurred to her. Could a ghost make a mess like this?
Had Rosa Carter assaulted the room in this way? And if so, why?
What could a spirit gain by such destruction? Was she seeking the notice of her mother, perhaps? For at some point, Mrs. Carter would enter and see this disaster.
Hyacinth’s mind took hold of this hypothesis, and she knew she had to test it.
Was there a method to this ruin? Did it continue in other rooms?
She moved to leave, to check the state of the next room, and then saw a lone sheet of paper on the floor by the door. She had not noticed it when she had come in, surprised as she was by the state of the room. Seeing it now, she wondered if the message was meant for her.
Large, blocky letters spelled out the words, “Speak to no one.”
Despite her tendency to ignore commands, Hyacinth shuddered as she read the warning. She lifted the paper from the ground, turning it over. She found nothing to explain the instruction. Speak to no one about what?
Had Rosa managed to write this message? Could a spirit hold a pencil?
Again, Hyacinth wished she knew more ghost lore.
Closing the door softly behind her, Hyacinth stepped out into the dark hallway. Midway down the north wing, she stopped walking and called in a tentative voice. “Rosa?”
When she realized she was straining to listen for any sound of supernatural movement, Hyacinth almost laughed. What did she expect? The rustling of a ghostly gown? Rosa hadn’t made noise before. Except for her voice.
She called again. “Rosa? Are you here? It’s Hyacinth.”
We’re both flowers, she realized.
Would she appear if Hyacinth said she needed her? She believed so. Admittedly, Hyacinth had no evidence to support such an impression, but she had an idea that spirits lingered because they still had work to do. Unfinished business.
Maybe she could use this. “Rosa, I have a question. Can you help me?”
She moved farther down the hall, calling softly.
“If you help me, I will be able to help you,” she said.
Nothing answered. When she was outside the door through which she’d spoken to the ghost before, Hyacinth asked her question again.
“There is so much I don’t know. I believe you can see more than I see in this house. Can you help me understand?”
There. A rustling behind the door.
“Can you let me inside? May I open the door?”
Hyacinth waited for a reply but heard nothing. She ought not invade the privacy of this spirit, so she wouldn’t push her way in. But neither would she leave.
“Why must you be a secret?”
Was that a sigh?
Hyacinth stopped. Waited.
After a long pause, the raspy, ravaged voice spoke. “Safer this way.”
“Safer for whom?” Hyacinth asked.
“All of us. Everyone.”
“Is there danger here, then?”
Perhaps Rosa knew about the man. Perhaps she feared his presence. If so, she did not admit it to Hyacinth.
“Can you tell me if someone has been prowling through the manor? Someone who doesn’t belong here?”
Another long pause. Hyacinth would wait for her answer.
“Do you or I belong here?” The voice spoke quietly. Sadly.
Was this a test? Did she need to prove something to Rosa’s ghost?
“Of course we do. I was invited to come. And you followed your family. At least, that’s how it seems. Did you come here after your mother took over the housekeeper job this summer?”
She might be asking too much, she knew.
“I can’t talk about that,” the voice said, but it sounded closer to the door. “Too much must remain secret. Please go to your room. I fear you’re not safe wandering the manor like this.”
“I’m not afraid,” Hyacinth said, but the tapered candle trembled in her hands. “Who else walks these halls?”
No answer.
“Is he looking for me? I think he’s been in my room.”
A moan.
“Don’t worry. No one will hurt me. I’ll be safe.”
A ragged whisper came through the door. “Please go to your room. And lock the door.”
“Do you go into my room as well?” Hyacinth asked. She didn’t want the ghost to feel threatened, so she added, “You are welcome there.”
Hyacinth listened closely, her ear pressed to the door. She heard a sound of assent.
Suddenly she thought of a flower. A seashell. Strawberries in a pewter bowl. “Have you left me gifts?”
“I am glad to share this house with you.”
It wasn’t an answer, exactly, but Hyacinth understood. Those small items left on her nightstand, the figure in the hall, the piano music in the night, the flicker of white at her door and at the hothouse—it was all Rosa.
“I am glad as well.”
“But now you must go,” the voice said faintly. “Please. Lock your door and sleep.”
Hyacinth was unlikely to sleep any time soon, but she had no intention of upsetting the ghost. “If you wish it,” she said. “Good night, Rosa.”
She heard a whispered echo in return. “Good night, Rosa.”
That was strange. Perhaps she repeated Hyacinth’s farewell because it had been so long since anyone had spoken to her. Maybe she had missed conversation, the sound of her own name. Hyacinth laid her hand on the door, then returned, albeit unwillingly, to her room.
As she lay in bed waiting for sleep to find her, she thought of mentioning Rosa during a conversation with Lucas. Or with Mrs. Carter. It seemed only fair that if she could see the ghost of someone they loved, they ought to be able to as well.
She drifted off with a smile, considering how sweet it would be for her to have another chance to speak to her mother. Mrs. Carter must feel the same way about the ghost of her girl.
One more morning of sunshine and Hyacinth might stop believing in ghosts altogether. Good thing she had constant proof on her side.
Hyacinth spent the day debating how to speak to Lucas about her visits with Rosa’s ghost. Could she simply ask him if he had seen her? Or must she be more delicate? He could be helpful in increasing her own understanding of Rosa’s life and death. In whatever way she chose to do it, however, she knew she must tell him about the spirit in the halls of Ashthorne.
This was not simply a haunting in an old manor house. Not any ghost from a story. She was his cousin. Even though Rosa seemed sure she must remain a secret, she could not intend to hide from her family.
And Hyacinth must tell Lucas a man moved through the house. He needed to know.
Hyacinth wondered if she had misread the note she found on the ransacked room’s floor. She knew the words, of course, but might they have come from the prowler instead of the spirit?
She must speak to Lucas about all of it, despite the warnings.
But when he met her on the path through the grove that afternoon, he seemed unaware of the need for investigation or the revelation of secrets.
“Ah, Miss Hyacinth Bell, you are the best part of my day by far. The sight of you is enough to turn around even the most discouraging mood.”
The smile that bloomed across his face thrilled her more than the blossoming of the most precious flower.
“Has your work been difficult today?” she asked.
He kept his smile, though she could see a strain behind it. “I’ve had my fill of troubles, right to the top. There is room for no more.” He shook his head playfully. “I will hear nothing but happiness today, thank you.”
After he had been so open with her about the bouts of darkness that clouded his heart and mind, how could she trouble him with her concerns?
Of course, they were his concerns as well, or they soon would be.
But seeing him so eager for her company and ready to be pleased, she knew her worries could wait.
Lucas took her arm. “How are the orchids faring today?”
She pushed her anxious thoughts from her mind with effort. “Everything in this place feels bigger and stronger than I expected,” she said.
“I can explain that,” he said. “We credit it to fresh Cornish breezes and love.”
Was it so simple for him to speak the word “love”? Could she do the same? “Breezes and love, is it? I don’t believe those are listed in any of the gardening articles I’ve read lately.”
“New information is always presenting itself,” Lucas said.
Oh, how she adored his smile.
“And your evidence?” she asked, using the question as an excuse to study his face.
Tightening his arm around her, he asked, “Are you trying to make a scientist of me? I assure you, I have loads of evidence. Look at the bloom in your cheeks. You might be part flower for how well you’re growing here in the west.”
She nodded. “Right. With the breezes. And the love.”
He leaned close to her ear. “If our experiment requires us to change a variable, it must be the breezes. For there is no chance now that we can test anything without the love. I fear it’s no longer variable. What do you call the parts that don’t change?”
Why was breathing such a challenge? “Constants,” she said, the word coming out on a whisper of air.
“Ah, constant. Indeed. I shall be exceedingly constant.”
The way he looked at her made her believe he truly would be.
He continued, “But perhaps we need more data. I think the best results come with repetition of the experiment. Are you willing to make another trial? For the sake of science?”
“Are we still discussing flowers?” she asked, though she knew the answer.
“Would you be sorry if we were not?” His question came with a tilt of his head and a very suggestive smile.
“To repeat our previous experiment? I would not be sorry in the least. We must gather all the evidence we can. For science.”
Additional evidence was inconclusive, but, undaunted, they continued to investigate.