Read Online Murder at Newstead Abbey by Joan Smith - Free Book Online

“Creepy, innit?” Grace said, huddling closer to him. It was not the way Lady Lorraine would phrase it, and certainly not in that accent, but the emotion was right.
    “Vastly creepy,” he agreed, gazing down at her pale face and the moonlight reflected in her great dark eyes. Really it was unfair that this enchanting creature had been born into the lower classes. She ought to be wearing a tiara, not a shabby shawl clutched around her head and shivering shoulders. She should smell of violets or muguet des bois, not onions. A definite odor of onions came from her when she opened her rosebud lips, which was sufficient deterrent to any danger of romantic advances.
    “Well, you can see plain as day there’s no ghosts here,” she said. “Do you want to go back, or look somewheres else?”
    “Where else do you suggest?”
    “Rose, the scullery maid, said she once seen a ghost down by the lake, but she’s ignorant as Paddy’s pig. Everybody knows there’s mist off the water when it’s cold out.”
    “I don’t relish a trip to the lake tonight. Let us just stroll about and see where fate takes us.” He took a step forward.
    “Wait!” she said, and clutched his elbow. “Did you hear that?”
    He stopped and listened. At first he heard nothing, but when the moaning of the wind subsided, he heard in the distance the muffled sound of footsteps. He looked down the length of the shadowed cloister, but saw no one. It was phantom footsteps!
    “There!” she said, pointing ahead. “Don’t you see that dark shape. It’s moving!” He looked, but saw only the shadowy streaks against the wall. “Not there,” she scolded, and pointed to the end of the cloister. “Gorblimey, it’s got red eyes. It’s coming right at us!”
    Prance looked where she pointed and froze to the spot. She was right! There was some dark, spectral form there. An amorphous shape, moving. He stared, and saw not two red eyes but one large yellow one. As he looked, the eye blinked and disappeared.
    At the same moment, the phantom footsteps grew louder, advancing at a fast pace. Panic seized him. He grabbed Grace’s hand and was about to dart off when the shot rang out. Grace wrenched her hand free and fled. Prance hesitated when he realized that, whatever else ghosts did, they had never in the history of ghost lore been known to fire a shot.
    He leapt behind one of the cloister columns, heart banging against his ribs, and listened. The footsteps moved again. Not phantom footsteps, but the ordinary sound of flying feet. But who was fleeing? Was it the man who had fired the shot, or his intended victim? If the victim, then the man with the gun was still there. Oh dear lord, was he himself the intended victim? Prance stood in a panic, trembling behind the safety of the pillar, praying as hard as he could, though in daylight he believed himself to be an agnostic.
    Before he made up his mind, he heard a door being flung open and running footsteps coming from the building. The household had heard the shots and help was on its way! Emboldened by this rescue, and wanting to appear a hero in case Byron was one of the rescuers, he strode forth from his place of concealment.
    “Put that gun away. Don’t shoot, you fool.” He recognized some echo of Byron’s phrases from the shot in the spinney had popped unbidden into his head.
    He spotted a dark hump on the ground. It moved, and a head rose from what looked like a pile of leaves. “It’s me, Reg,” Coffen said. “Someone took a shot at me. He turned tail and ran when he heard you coming. What the deuce are you doing here anyhow?”
    “Are you shot?” Prance asked, kneeling down to offer assistance.
    “No. He missed me by inches. I heard him and jumped down just in time. I gave my shoulder a bang against the post but I’m all right. Let’s go after him.” He massaged his shoulder and tried to stand up.
    Byron and Luten came pelting forward. Byron cried, “Was that a shot? Is anyone hurt? Prance