The Lost Treasure of Lorne

Chapter Three

"They're here, aren't they?" Michael asked. Before taking ownership of the castle, he had scoffed at the idea that all the dead Lorimers of Lorne still lived here. It was, after all, the eighteenth century; nearly the nineteenth. Superstitions such as ghosts were for the credulous, not for rational English gentlemen, even those with a preference for kilts.

His incredulity had lasted all of three nights. The first and second night, he had been convinced he was victim of a practical joke. On the third, he had so booby-trapped his bedchamber that the least mouse could not have entered to play ghost. When they appeared anyway, he had been sure he was going insane. Only when he realised that John and Caitlin saw much the same as him did he accept that the Lorne ghosts were real.

The ghosts—most of them—were outraged to have a Normington living in the castle, and managed to make their hostility known without words. The few young women whose love for Normington men had brought them (and usually their sweethearts) to an early death were even more importunate. If only Michael could understand the message they tried so hard to convey.

"The girls were watching you bathe," Caitlin told him, with stiff disapproval, and he felt a spurt of triumph. He was not quite idiot enough to point out she must have been watching herself to see what the ghosts were doing, but his grin must have conveyed the message because she went all Mrs Morgan on him.

"Here is a towel, Your Grace. If you will come inside, Master John, we can do better than well water for your wash, and dinner shall be in an hour. Is that saddle bag all you have?"

She bustled away, sweeping John with her as he explained he had ridden ahead but his curricle would follow within the hour, driven by the manservant who performed all the duties of groom, valet, footman and friend.

Michael followed more slowly, but he had better not delay his own change. In her current mood, Caitlin would order dinner served without him if he were not at table. He might be the duke, but everyone obeyed Caitlin, even his butler. Even the ghosts.

It was just the three of them at dinner. That had been a fight he'd won long ago, when John was old enough to join him for meals. Caitlin would eat with them unless they had guests, and even then she would make up the numbers if they were uneven. It was not hard to make sure they were uneven.

Michael knew what the ton thought about the housekeeper who travelled from house to house with him and ate at his table as if she were family. He refused to forgo the pleasure of keeping her close, even for Caitlin's sake; even when John came home from school with a black eye after fighting for his beloved Morgie's honour.

She was not his mistress, as any servant in any of his houses knew. Why should they act as if they were guilty of something? Even if they once had been. Even if he would be again. In a moment, if Caitlin would allow it.

And if Caitlin wanted to stop the rumours, she could accept his proposal, damn it.

He went down to dinner in a belligerent mood, but the pleasure of sharing his evening with the only two people in the world he counted as family soon dispelled it. John seemed to have spent most of his month away following Viscount Radcliffe, his friend's father, around the man's experimental farm. Stories of mishaps and blunders kept Caitlin and Michael laughing right through dinner, but could not mask John's real enthusiasm for such mysteries as crop rotation and the correct season for manuring.

In another year, he would be apprenticed to Michael's chief steward. The man wanted to retire, and had agreed to stay on until John was ready to take over. Of course, if Michael's hunt was successful, John would one day be the duke, and not just the duke's steward.

The servants were withdrawing now, anxious to quit the castle before darkness fell.

John and Michael brought their port through into the drawing room, and Caitlin excused herself, to return a few minutes later with a tray of tea fixings.

"Are you still hunting for the treasure, Father?" John asked.

Caitlin shared a laughing glance with the lad. "He has been digging in the moat."

"It seemed too good a chance to miss," Michael explained. "No one here has ever seen it so dry."

"It is like this all over the country, Father. It will be a poor harvest, Radcliffe says, and many will lack food and fuel for the winter. He is expecting his poorer tenants to have trouble paying the rent. It's something we should think about, too. You, I mean, sir."

Michael had already spoken to the steward about how they could help, but he encouraged John to share his ideas. What a duke the boy would make.

One by one, various ghosts filtered into the room. Not Fiona. He saw her rarely, and then only in his bed chamber. He had disappointed her, he was sure, in not finding the papers that would establish her son as his heir. Certainly, each time she appeared she seemed more and more distressed.

Her first appearance was the same day as his monthly proposal to Caitlin. He had woken that evening from a deep sleep to find her pacing the room, bristling with indignation to the tips of her nimbus of pale hair. That had been one indication she was a ghost, and not a dream. In life, and when he dreamt of his youthful passion, her hair was a glorious red, bright as flame rather than Caitlin's more subdued copper.

He had assumed she was angry at his courtship, but she nodded vigorously when he pointed out she was seventeen and dead; that he had been a widower for close on twenty years and was far too old for her; that Caitlin would make a wonderful duchess. Whatever her current role in his life, whatever her origins. The surrounding country cast up the Lorimer looks in all sorts of humble families, and he suspected that Caitlin was the offspring of an illicit foray by one of the men of the castle. But bastard and peasant or not, she was every bit fit to be his duchess, and Fiona's vigorous nods made it clear she agreed.

The ghost was upset about something else, and it was to do with his search. Nonetheless, after that he had made his monthly proposal outside of the castle.

Recently, her agitation had spread to the other ghosts. Even the men, who had been hostile since the day he took up residence, now seemed to be asking him for something. And he had no idea what.