The Uninvited. Heather GrahamЧитать онлайн книгу.
sons, please, if they’re too inquisitive.”
“No such thing in this house,” Allison assured him. But she stepped back to include her whole group. “All right, everyone, gather around and I’ll give you all the grisly details on some of the sad and tragic occurrences here, since it seems the ghost story guides are beating us to it.”
She told them about the soldiers, then reminded them, “In the past, many women died in childbirth. It was the norm to have your baby at home, so several of them died here. Many family members died of illness or simply of old age. Remember, all human beings are mortal and leave this world in some fashion!” She tried to speak lightly, looking at Todd. “Now, we’re going down the rear steps to the old food preparation room, and then we’ll head to the back to see the outbuildings.”
Allison managed to get her group out to the yard. The property still consisted of about an acre, with the majority of the grounds in the back. The kitchen stood off to her left, behind the dining room, with a covered path between them. It was a one-room kitchen, large with a massive hearth and spit and a multitude of rafters from which pans and cooking utensils hung. Glass-frosted cupboards showcased the family’s fine china and several sets of silverware, and one of her group murmured that it was probably the most complete example of an upper-class Colonial kitchen she’d ever seen.
They went across another, broader path to the carriage house. There were no horses now, but there were stalls and tack and three eighteenth-century carriages. As Allison let the group look at them more closely, Haley Dixon came up to her.
“There’s a ghost horse here, too, or so they said last night,” she told Allison, sounding a little apologetic.
Allison sighed. “Firewalker. He brought Stewart Douglas racing back to the house, heedless of the British after he heard that Bradley had threatened Lucy. Stewart was the man she really loved. She’d urged him to take the horse after he snuck into the city to see her once, because Firewalker was such an exceptional stallion he could sail through enemy lines. Firewalker was born and bred on the property, and carried Lucy Tarleton on many of her journeys in the middle of the night, when she rode out to bring information to the Revolutionary troops. He survived the war and lived to a ripe old age, then died here in the arms of Lucy’s sister, which means, of course, that we have a ghost horse. We have a ghost hound, too. With the imaginative name of Robert. He was Lucy’s, and when Bradley went to kill her, the hound tried to kill him. Naturally, the dog died, as well. We probably even have haunted squirrels,” Allison said.
Haley Dixon laughed. “I guess. It’s strange. The house is strange because so much happened in it. I’m not sure I could hang around here alone at night.”
Allison shrugged, smiling. “You get used to it, really.”
She announced to her group that she’d show them the graveyard next.
The family burial ground was a popular destination. Lucy Tarleton herself lay in a handsome private Tarleton crypt in a beautifully sculpted tomb. Allison described the workmanship and explained that it was common for wealthy families to have their own graveyards. She noted that Todd didn’t want to be in the cemetery; she was shocked to realize that she was anxious to end the tour herself.
It was finally time to usher her people out, but Allison was still disturbed by the way Todd looked at her as he left with his family. They were the last ones out the back gate, and he lingered. “A ghost can’t follow you home, can it?” he asked in a whisper.
“I don’t think so. I mean, if we do have ghosts, I imagine they’d just hang around here. Have fun tonight! Pinch a tavern wench somewhere, okay?”
He grinned at her. “You don’t mean that.”
“No. She’d slap you. But go forth and have fun and be a kid!”
When they were gone at last, she hurried into the house through the back door. She found Jason Lawrence in their small employee quarters behind the main pantry.
He had removed his Colonial garb and was wearing jeans and a T-shirt that promoted his favorite band.
“Hey, you holding up okay?” he asked her.
“Yes, but it’s nice when four people actually work on the busy days,” Allison said. “We could’ve used Julian. I understand why Annette had to go—poor thing. She looked like she was in so much pain.”
Jason was an attractive young man, about three years her junior at the ripe old age of twenty-four. They’d been friends since they’d met, and although they had great chemistry together, it wasn’t sexual. They were friends. He raised his brows and let out a sigh. “We may all love him for being a clown and a prankster, but Julian can also be a total pain in the ass,” he said. “He thinks he’s going to get rich and famous—and that we’re all going to be grateful just to have known him. But you have to speak to him or to Sarah or someone else on the board, because this isn’t fair.”
“I’ll try talking to him first,” Allison said. “And then, if he doesn’t start acting more responsible, I will talk to Sarah.”
Jason nodded. “Mind if I scoot?”
“Hot date?”
“I hope so.”
“Go.”
“I hate to leave you alone…”
“I’ll make a run-through and set the alarm as I head out.”
“I’ll lock the back door. The back gate’s locked, right?”
“Yep. I can just hit the alarm and dash out the front.”
He gave her a kiss on the cheek and she heard his footsteps on the hardwood floor as he went to lock up. She heard him as he moved through the house, and she heard the front door close as he left.
To her annoyance, she was suddenly frightened in the house. She silently chastised herself. Todd was at the age when he wanted to be a sexual lothario one minute, and a kid spooked by a campfire tale the next. She wanted to rip off her dress and stomacher and change into her comfortable jeans; instead, she decided to hurry up and check the house, then get out of there.
She glanced over the room and went out, locking the door. She walked past the dining room and the grand salon and returned to the foyer. Looking up the stairs, she knew she wasn’t going up to make sure she’d left no scared toddler or would-be ghost hunter in the house. She knew that every man, woman and child on her tour had departed through the back gate.
A sense of something dark and evil seemed to have drifted over her, and she wished she could call Jason back. As she crossed the foyer, she stopped.
She’d heard a sound. A ticking or a…scrape or…
It was coming from Angus Tarleton’s study.
She didn’t want to look. She wanted to rush to the front door, hit the alarm and run home, run out of the house screaming....
How ridiculous!
It might have been an air-conditioning vent or…wood settling. There were probably dozens of technical or architectural things it could be.
She closed her eyes, shaking her head, annoyed again that Todd had managed to unnerve her like this. She was a sensible and responsible human being, a historian.
She walked to the room and looked in.
And a scream, shrill and horrified, tore from her throat.
Julian Mitchell had returned to the Tarleton-Dandridge House.
2
Tyler Montague’s first impression of Allison Leigh was not a good one.
But then, the woman had apparently been at the house where a friend had died—either accidentally or through a very bizarre form of murder—for hours before coming down to the police station to deal with more paperwork.
She hadn’t been accused