Lady Clara’s Ghost
Jennifer Ashley
On a ghostly night in Highgate Cemetery, Lady Clara Griffin is startled by an unearthly moan from deep in the mists. As she investigates, she collides with Lord Alden Carlisle, her handsome but irritable neighbor from nearby Hampstead Heath, who insists on helping her. What they find changes both their lives and gives Alden hope that the misery he’s been existing in will finally end.
Chapter One
October 1850
Lady Clara Griffinraised her head at the mournful wail and scanned the mists that floated between her and the rest of the tombs in Highgate. Her pencil stilled in her fingers as she searched for the source of the puzzling sound.
Not a ghost, because they, of course, did not exist. She’d heard all the stories about Highgate Cemetery, which she’d lived near most of her life, having been born before the burial ground even came to be. Sensational stories were all the rage, people enjoying them on a gloomy evening, when shadows gathered and darkness was deep. Her sister Emily loved them.
The wail came again, trailing off into a whimper. Clara straightened from the marker from which she was taking a rubbing for her aunt’s collection, and scanned the swirling fog.
Whatever made the sound was most likely living, Clara decided, and needed help.
She pulled her long coat closer around her and set off in the direction from which she believed the cry had come.
Two strides later, something massive loomed from the mists and slammed straight into her.
Clara stumbled backward, trying to right herself, before a pair of strong, gloved hands seized her arms and steadied her on her feet.
“Have a care,” a male voice growled. “What do you mean by barging around without looking where you’re going?”
Clara wrested herself free of a large man with a hard face under his tall hat, eyes of deep brown, and dark hair now damp with mist. She recognized him, as most people did, before they got out of his way with a murmured “Good afternoon, your lordship.”
Whenever Clara’s sisters or friends spied him, they declared him the handsomest man to walk the Heath, perhaps the handsomest in all of England.
At the moment, that gentleman was glowering at Clara as though she were the most annoying of females he had the misfortune to deal with this day.
“You, sir, ran into me,” Clara returned with all the dignity she could muster.
“I think you’ll find I did not. I came around a corner, and there you were, careening directly into me.” He leaned to peer at her more closely. “You’re one of those Griffin girls, are you not?”
“You know full well that I am,” Clara said. “As we have been neighbors for years, Lord Alden. You see? I know your exact name, while you are struggling for mine.”
“Ah, she has you there.” Another voice loomed from the fog, which parted to reveal a gentleman in well-fitted greatcoat and fashionably high top hat. Clara did not recognize him, but he was the sort of dandy who sometimes visited Lord Alden Carlisle, only son of the Marquess of Ravensmoor.
The marquess dwelled in a grand house in Mayfair when he was in Town, but his son leased their residence at Hamstead Heath, where he was a bit of a recluse. Clara’s father, a peer himself who loved the Heath, was cordial to Lord Alden, who lived three houses over, behind a gate that was most often closed.
Clara and her sisters sometimes beheld Lord Alden striding about the Heath like a lovestruck hero from romantic poetry. At least, Clara’s younger sisters dubbed him that. Clara believed he was simply a bad-tempered misanthrope.
Her conviction was reinforced as he continued to scowl down at her. He didn’t even acknowledge his friend—Lord Alden did have them, and they visited him from time to time, to stride upon the Heath with him.
They all seemed far more good-natured than Lord Alden, including this gentleman, whom Lord Alden did not bother to introduce.
“Lady Clara,” Clara told Lord Alden with exaggerated patience. “The eldest daughter. Hardly a girl anymore, though I do recallyouas an unruly lad.”
The friend guffawed, but Lord Alden studiously ignored him. “Very well. Lady Clara, why are you rushing about in this thick fog? You’ll come to grief, as you nearly caused me to.”
“I heard a noise I wished to investigate,” Clara answered steadily. “Before I ran into the wall that was you, sir.”
“Idolike her.” The friend peered around the taller Lord Alden. “I am called Piers Forsythe, by the bye, my lady, since he will never mention my name.”
Clara gave the man a dignified nod. Mr. Forsythe had twinkling brown eyes and hair a lighter shade than Lord Alden’s. He looked as though he had a sense of humor while Lord Alden decidedly did not.
Before Clara could thank Mr. Forsythe for his manners, Lord Alden interrupted. “What noise? I heard nothing.”
