the sun’s touch transforming the ordinary brown into sunshine.
Yet what he recalled most clearly was a slim hand stained reddish-purple with blackberry juice, and the guilty way she had hidden it behind her when she saw him. He smiled to himself.
Sir Barnabas was also glad Nerissa wanted to ride. Miles would be helping her to mount, lifting her down, picking her up when she fell. Nothing could be more conducive to intimacy, he thought, drifting homeward behind her.
Later they would ride together, though, beyond his reach, for he wasn’t going to try to keep up with a horse ever again. Still, winter was coming. They’d not get up to much mischief out of doors. He congratulated himself on being clever enough to die in the autumn.
He blinked as his vision blurred. A lingering patch of mist? No, he could see quite well to either side.
He recalled his sight blurring as he died, before he reopened his eyes on his new existence. Never say he was going to leave this spectral state before he saw his last wishes carried out! He blinked again, hard.
Something dangled just before his face. Squinting, he focussed on it. A spider? The ghost of a spider! The reproachful gaze of eight eyes told him as clearly as words that the unfortunate arachnid blamed him for its demise, squashed to death somewhere in Nerissa’s undergarments.
Being haunted by a spider was peculiarly disconcerting, especially as he was a ghost himself. He hit out at it.
His hand went right through it. Though, with an effort, he was able to move material objects, it seemed to be impossible for a ghost to move a ghost. He turned his head to one side. The spider, its palps twitching, still hung two inches in front of his nose.
Slowly it began to swing back and forth, a handsbreadth this way, a handsbreadth the other, constructing an invisible web.
Sir Barnabas arrived back at the manor an hour later, dizzy, cross-eyed, and in a frightful temper.
Chapter 8
Washed, dressed in her blue-striped dimity, and with her hair properly pinned up, Nerissa went down to the breakfast room. Despite her unwonted exercise she was not particularly hungry after her bread-and-butter and blackberries, but she was ready for a cup of tea.
She was also ready to face the family. Yesterday’s fatigue forgotten, invigorated by the walk, she was ashamed of the way she had let their unfriendliness intimidate her.
Nonetheless, she rather hoped to find Miles in the breakfast room before her.
No one was there but Raymond Reece. He jumped to his feet, bidding her “Good morning,” and bustled around the table to seat her opposite himself. Nerissa almost laughed aloud. Had not Miles declared that the parson would be the first to see where his best interests lay?
“Tea, if you please, sir,” she said in answer to his query, “and those apples look delicious.”
“Permit me to peel it for you, ma’am. But come, you must call me Cousin Raymond, for that is our relation, is it not? ‘Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity.’“ He smiled as he set a cup of tea before her and picked up a fruit knife, but his eyes were coolly assessing.
She politely accepted the apple he peeled and quartered. Desperately seeking a subject of conversation that could not possibly lead to either the theatre or her inheritance, she asked him about his parish.
Somewhat to her surprise, he seemed well acquainted with all his parishioners and their trials and tribulations. Indeed, he described them to her in what she considered quite unnecessary detail. Gammer Smithson had lost all her teeth and could only eat sops; Ted Carter’s feckless wife was expecting her ninth though she couldn’t clothe the first eight; Jos Bedford invariably drank up all his wages at the village tavern, which rejoiced in the name of the Addled Egg; Old Amos, who had lost his leg at Trafalgar, suffered from dreadful rheumaticks in wet weather....
“Of course,” said Cousin
Yet what he recalled most clearly was a slim hand stained reddish-purple with blackberry juice, and the guilty way she had hidden it behind her when she saw him. He smiled to himself.
Sir Barnabas was also glad Nerissa wanted to ride. Miles would be helping her to mount, lifting her down, picking her up when she fell. Nothing could be more conducive to intimacy, he thought, drifting homeward behind her.
Later they would ride together, though, beyond his reach, for he wasn’t going to try to keep up with a horse ever again. Still, winter was coming. They’d not get up to much mischief out of doors. He congratulated himself on being clever enough to die in the autumn.
He blinked as his vision blurred. A lingering patch of mist? No, he could see quite well to either side.
He recalled his sight blurring as he died, before he reopened his eyes on his new existence. Never say he was going to leave this spectral state before he saw his last wishes carried out! He blinked again, hard.
Something dangled just before his face. Squinting, he focussed on it. A spider? The ghost of a spider! The reproachful gaze of eight eyes told him as clearly as words that the unfortunate arachnid blamed him for its demise, squashed to death somewhere in Nerissa’s undergarments.
Being haunted by a spider was peculiarly disconcerting, especially as he was a ghost himself. He hit out at it.
His hand went right through it. Though, with an effort, he was able to move material objects, it seemed to be impossible for a ghost to move a ghost. He turned his head to one side. The spider, its palps twitching, still hung two inches in front of his nose.
Slowly it began to swing back and forth, a handsbreadth this way, a handsbreadth the other, constructing an invisible web.
Sir Barnabas arrived back at the manor an hour later, dizzy, cross-eyed, and in a frightful temper.
Chapter 8
Washed, dressed in her blue-striped dimity, and with her hair properly pinned up, Nerissa went down to the breakfast room. Despite her unwonted exercise she was not particularly hungry after her bread-and-butter and blackberries, but she was ready for a cup of tea.
She was also ready to face the family. Yesterday’s fatigue forgotten, invigorated by the walk, she was ashamed of the way she had let their unfriendliness intimidate her.
Nonetheless, she rather hoped to find Miles in the breakfast room before her.
No one was there but Raymond Reece. He jumped to his feet, bidding her “Good morning,” and bustled around the table to seat her opposite himself. Nerissa almost laughed aloud. Had not Miles declared that the parson would be the first to see where his best interests lay?
“Tea, if you please, sir,” she said in answer to his query, “and those apples look delicious.”
“Permit me to peel it for you, ma’am. But come, you must call me Cousin Raymond, for that is our relation, is it not? ‘Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity.’“ He smiled as he set a cup of tea before her and picked up a fruit knife, but his eyes were coolly assessing.
She politely accepted the apple he peeled and quartered. Desperately seeking a subject of conversation that could not possibly lead to either the theatre or her inheritance, she asked him about his parish.
Somewhat to her surprise, he seemed well acquainted with all his parishioners and their trials and tribulations. Indeed, he described them to her in what she considered quite unnecessary detail. Gammer Smithson had lost all her teeth and could only eat sops; Ted Carter’s feckless wife was expecting her ninth though she couldn’t clothe the first eight; Jos Bedford invariably drank up all his wages at the village tavern, which rejoiced in the name of the Addled Egg; Old Amos, who had lost his leg at Trafalgar, suffered from dreadful rheumaticks in wet weather....
“Of course,” said Cousin
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