Bonfire Night by Deanna Raybourn Read Free Book Online Page A

but that is not my father’s way at his home in the country, nor is it mine.”
    Her lips worked silently as she digested this morsel of information. I extended my hand. “I do not believe you told me your name.”
    She wiped her perfectly clean hand upon her skirt and took mine with deference. “It’s Mrs. Ninch, my lady.”
    “Mrs. Ninch. A pleasure to make your acquaintance.”
    From behind me came a male voice. “And another of the manor family graces us with her presence! This one even more charming than the other.” I turned to find an extremely handsome young man in clerical garb smiling down at me. “I am the vicar, Mr. Belton. I have just been making the acquaintance of your sister, I believe. Lady Bettiscombe?”
    “Yes,” I said, putting out my hand. “I am Lady Julia Brisbane. Lady Bettiscombe is indeed my sister. How do you do, Mr. Belton?”
    His hand lingered over mine. “Very well indeed,” he said, his voice warm and marked approval twinkling in his eyes. He glanced to the postmistress. “Now, Mrs. Ninch, I do hope you haven’t been filling Lady Julia’s head with superstitious nonsense about the local ghosts,” he said.
    She bristled. “I’ve not said a word to the lady of such things.”
    He gave a nod of approbation. “I am glad to hear it. There is far too much of such talk going around the village these days. And I am at fault myself,” he said with a confiding smile. “I believe I quite alarmed your sister with my silly tales.”
    “Then you do not know my sister,” I returned. He laughed, and I saw that he had very good teeth, even and white. His laughter was merry, and I found myself smiling.
    “I observed your party coming from the Haunted Wood,” he said, pitching his voice low. “I am particularly glad Mrs. Ninch said nothing to you of that place, for it is a most convenient shortcut from the manor to the village, and I shouldn’t like you to be made uncomfortable.”
    “But why should I be uncomfortable?” I ventured.
    He leaned closer, his posture one of intimacy, and I caught a whiff of expensive scent, a masculine concoction of bay rum and leather. It was deliciously heady stuff, and I very nearly asked him what it was so I could buy Brisbane a bottle. “Well, there are folk who say the wood is haunted by ghostly lights—the spirits of witches who used to hold their pagan rites within the shelter of those very trees before they were driven out and hanged on the village green.”
    Something about his familiarity grated in spite of his good looks.
    “Lights? Is that all?” I smiled sweetly. “I’m afraid your local ghosts will have to do a good deal better than that if they mean to frighten us.”
    I turned to Mrs. Ninch and inclined my head. “Good day, Mrs. Ninch. Vicar.” I gave him a quick nod as well and emerged from the post office into the warm autumn sunshine. And behind me, the vicar laughed.
    * * *
    Portia caught me up just as I stepped away from the post office. “Was that the vicar I saw you chatting with?” she asked. “Did he tell you about the plague cottages?”
    “Plague cottages? No, he said the Haunted Wood is home to ghostly lights—the remnants of witches hanged on the village green. What plague cottages?”
    Portia pointed to a narrow row of cottages at the edge of the village, hovering just at the end of the path through the wood. “Those. Haunted by the ghosts of folk who died of the plague. When they first fell ill, the rest of the villagers boarded them in without food or medical care to keep the contagion from spreading. They were too ill to break their way out and when the villagers eventually removed the boards, they found scratches on them where the victims had tried to claw their way free.”
    I shuddered. “I should haunt them too if they did such to me. So, you have plague cottages and I have ghostly lights. I wonder what tales our menfolk have collected?”
    As it happened, we did not have long to find out. Brisbane