The Haunting of a Duke(73)

"I found it in the south wing. There was evidence that someone has been making frequent trips there. I believe this is what they were looking for."

Michael turned the pin over and over in his hand. Something about it tugged at his memory, but he could not place it. “And this fiend has been here, walking the halls of this house?"

Rhys nodded. “I need to search the passageways. This house has a rabbit warren of them. Elise knew them almost as well as we did. It would not be surprising to me that she might have shown them to her lovers as well. I've heard from Spencer. He's returned from the continent and will be arriving soon."

Michael nodded. In truth, he didn't want to see Spencer. They'd been the best of friends as children, but Spencer was ever disapproving of him and his reckless ways. Under the circumstances however, the assistance would be appreciated.

With a weary sigh, he picked up the brandy snifter that Rhys had refilled for him and took a hearty sip from it. As he did so, his eyes were drawn to movement in the garden. “Rhys, your wife is half-naked in the garden."

Rhys turned to the window and cursed. He unlocked the French doors and headed out into the garden. Curiosity had Michael following him. Emme had headed deeper into the garden, toward the maze. She was just entering the maze when Michael caught up to Rhys. Emme stopped before the entrance of the maze and turned back to look at them.

"Hello, Michael."

A chill raced across Michael's flesh as he stared at the woman before him. It was Emmaline's face, but the expression, the turn of her lips, the glint in her eyes; all of it belonged to Elise. The voice was Elise as well.

Sensing his distress, Rhys said, “Be calm, Michael. We simply have to see what message she has for us this time."

"Do I have to have a message, husband?” she asked haughtily.

Michael felt his hair standing on end. The taunting voice, the words that should have been innocent were twisted somehow, threatening—it was as if Elise herself were standing right in front of them.

She continued, furthering his unease. “Perhaps I am enjoying inhabiting a physical body again. What would it take, I wonder, to keep this body? There are ways... Eventually, I will find them. But then perhaps I won't want her body. She will have grown fat and heavy with that brat inside her."

Rhys didn't respond to the goading, to do so would only have encouraged more. “Why the garden, Elise? What are you leading us out here for?"

She laughed and the sound was cold and brittle. “So clever, my husband. You are always so clever. Not so clever to avoid being saddled with me and my little, imaginary bastard, were you?"

"Who is ‘A,’ Elise? Alistair or Ambrose Pommeroy? Or is it someone else altogether?"

"Identifying all my trysts? Don't forget Allerton. Lord Allerton. He was one of them. And then there was Adam, the footman. What a randy one he was! And then there was Alice, that lovely chambermaid. She didn't want to come to my party but I told her that if she didn't I would see her tossed out without a reference. We had such fun with her... So many and yet none of them were enough. I tried to seduce Ellersleigh there, but sadly he had greater moral fortitude than I anticipated. The Great Libertine,” she intoned dramatically, “and he was too scandalized to fuck his best friend's wife."

The obscenity coming from Elise was no surprise, but seeing Emme's face and hearing that language left Michael reeling. He couldn't imagine what it was doing to Rhys. He had once believed that he could not be shocked, that he was so debauched and so heavily inured in his ennui that nothing could shake his mask of cold, world-weary composure. He had been wrong.

Emme/Elise continued. While she spoke, she touched everything. The fabric of her chemise, the dampened leaves of the hedge rows—her fingers were never still. It as if she craved sensation. “I brought her to the garden because he comes here. He likes to come here and watch. Maybe he'd like to do more than watch for a change. Sometimes, he slips in through the open doors or windows and goes into those secret passages you love so much.” Her smile was cold and sharp, cunning. “He watched you yesterday, you and your little harlot of a wife. And to think, he and I used to pay for that privilege at the brothels and all this time there were peepholes throughout the whole house. Had I but known."

It was as before. Elise was there and suddenly, she was gone. Emme sank to the ground, her eyes closed, and her face relaxed as if she were merely sleeping, rather than having been possessed by a spirit.

Rhys removed his coat and draped it over her, then lifted her carefully.

Michael was behind him, his face more pale than it had been upon his arrival. “You've seen her before; Elise?"