Read Online Memory and Desire by Lillian Stewart Carl - Free Book Online Page B

though the foam scraps on its sides were prophetic tealeaves. “Maybe. I saw her myself a time or two—mind you, for nothing more than a few laughs. When I realized she'd gone missing I rang Blake. His lads found her car by the reservoir. That's all I know, little as it is."
    His hazel eyes were clear and guileless. No, Claire thought, she shouldn't expect Alec to have been immune to Melinda's beauty. Neither should she take him off her list of suspects, pleasant though it was sitting next to him ... Rebound, she reminded herself.
    The delectable odor of beef stew filled the air, warring with an aroma of perfume and hair spray. A woman set two casserole dishes capped with browned mashed potatoes onto the table. Tomato and cress salads and thick slices of bread edged the plates beneath. She nudged Alec's elbow with her hip. “Hullo, Constable. In mufti tonight, I see."
    With great presence of mind, Alec lifted his eyes from the low-cut blouse right in front of his nose. “Diana, this is Claire Godwin. Claire, Diana Jackman."
    “Hullo,” Diana said, with an up and down appraisal that counted every freckle and measured each curve. She folded her arms beneath her impressively cantilevered breasts. “You're the needleworker, then. Melinda's pal. Sarita told me you were letting her flat."
    “Yes, that's me. Nice to meet you.” Claire craned her neck to look Diana in the face. So this was the woman who'd played Elizabeth Spenser before Melinda came along. Melinda might have been ten years older than the nineteen-year-old Elizabeth, but Diana was twenty years older, and those years were gaining on her. Although growing older gracefully was not a concept she seemed to place much faith in.
    Her hair was permed into an anxious blond frizz. She wore as much eye make-up and lipstick as a Kabuki dancer. That the cosmetics, like her tight blouse and pants, only emphasized her middle age seemed not to have occurred to her. Wishful thinking at its best, Claire thought. Not that it was any business of hers what face Diana chose to present to the world.
    “I've mended a few tapestries meself over the years,” Diana said. “Went to work for old Miss Cranbourne when I first came here to Somerstowe, before Rob and me opened up the pub. She said I did the finest work she'd ever seen, including Elizabeth Spenser's. Have you met the Hall ghosts yet?"
    Claire's brain lost traction for a second. “Ghosts? Plural ghosts?"
    “Proper ghosts they are, and no mistake. Sometimes just a bit of light in the air, sometimes solid as this table. Elizabeth Spenser and her cat. Her familiar. Little calico beggar."
    “Her cat?” Come on. But why should the ghost of a cat be any more unbelievable than the ghost of a human being? And Claire knew darn well she'd seen both the solid cat and the shimmering woman, even if she wasn't quite ready to admit either was an actual ghost. “You aren't pulling a tourist's leg, are you?"
    Diana laughed. “You've seen them, haven't you? I can smell the fear on you."
    “Not fear, exactly. Just—surprise. I mean, if the Hall didn't have a ghost then some supernatural registry agency is missing a bet."
    “There's nothing to be frightened of,” Alec said. “Old places like Somerstowe Hall have ghost stories because the human mind senses the emotions that are trapped there. And there were enough emotions during Elizabeth's day to provide stories for a dozen houses. The question is whether the ghost is simply a—well, a psychic video playing inside your head, or whether it's an actual external presence."
    “Whether the ghosts can see you back again, he means. I think they can, they've come on more substantial recently."
    Alec picked up his fork. “No surprise there, with folk in and out of the Hall all day long. Stirred them up a bit, I expect."
    Okay, Claire told herself, everyone believes in ghosts here. Until she got a better explanation—joke, illusion, whatever—she was just about ready to believe in them