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“Cuthbert,” I repeated. “Found in flagrante delicto with the countess by the earl. They were quite into what they were doing, didn’t know he’d come upon them. He had time to get hold of a dagger, and then he gutted old Cuthbert in his cuckold’s bed while his wife watched in horror, before he turned the dagger on her.”
“Poor Cuthbert.”
“And poor Lady Joan,” I added. “Her blood pooled with Cuthbert’s as she bled to death beside him in that bed.”
“Yes,” Lou replied. “Poor Lady Joan.”
“Four people have hung themselves in that house,” I carried on. “At least two have died in duels in the forest surrounding it, though there could be more. After that practice was outlawed, it still went on. And then there’s what happened to Dorothy Clifton in the twenties.”
Lore had it that Duncroft was possessed of more than one ghost.
Dorothy Clifton, it was said, was the angriest spirit of the lot.
I could tell Lou was warming to my theme when she spoke.
Then again, I suspected she would. She was always trying to get me to cuddle up with popcorn and ice cream and watch things like Get Out and The Shining and It. She loved that kind of thing.
I hated it. That would be hated it, with a passion.
It took a while for me to love her, but eventually I did. I wasn’t as ugly about it in the beginning as Portia, but Dad marrying someone I could be friends with in the manner we were actually contemporaries was not fun.
Then we became friends, and things changed.
“What I don’t understand is, why the secrecy?” she asked. “From what I know, never, not once have they opened the house to the public. By invitation only. And those invitations have been scarce. Every generation, rabid privacy. It’s really unusual in a heritage home in England like Duncroft.”
“I know, right?”
“It’s like they’re hiding something.”
It totally was.
“I guess we’re going to find out,” she noted. “Ten days there, plenty of time to see a ghost.”
“Yes,” I replied. “Plenty of time. Plenty of time to uncover secrets too.”
“Yes,” she whispered, again sounding off, and I almost didn’t hear it when she finished, “Secrets.”
I didn’t push further on that either, though I thought it was weird, regardless of the fact I knew Lou had secrets.
We all did.
I didn’t dig for hers, mostly so she would return the favor.
As for what we were soon to face, I’d caved in watching Get Out and The Shining, because they were classics and I liked films. And I would admit I thought they were both really good. I put my foot down on such as It and The Ring (and others).
But I wasn’t concerned about Duncroft’s supposed ghosts because I didn’t believe in ghosts.
I was an avid member of the National Trust. I’d been in many a manor and castle in that country (and others). The mustiness. The draftiness. The dank darkness or shadowed corners or secret passageways. I could absolutely see how people could convince themselves they’d experienced a haunting.
But that didn’t make it real.
No, I was more worried about the patrician Richard. The withdrawn Jane. The ne’er-do-well Daniel.
The womanizer Ian.
And secrets.
Theirs.
