Free The Romance by M. C. Beaton, Marion Chesney

Beverley is only interested in you because of her ambitions to live here again,’ sneered Mirabel.
    Saint Clair leaned back in his chair, a drunken smile on his lips as he remembered that glimpse of pink stocking. ‘Thash where you’re wrong, old boy,’ he drawled. ‘Thash where you’re wrong!’

CHAPTER THREE
    ‘There’s been an accident!’ they said,
‘Your servant’s cut in half; he’s dead!’
‘Indeed!’ said Mr. Jones, ‘and please
Send me the half that’s got my keys.’
    —HARRY GRAHAM
    Mrs. Ingram could not sleep because she was suddenly very hungry. She had eaten very little at dinner because that was the fashion. Ladies were supposed to pick at their food. It was two in the morning. Always considerate of servants, she decided not to ring the bell, but to make her way down to the kitchens and forage for something. She climbed down from the high old bed and pulled on a wrapper. She lit a bed candle and by the light of its wavering flame made her way out into the long corridor which led to the central staircase. As she walked carefully down to the first landing, holding on to the banister as she went and holding her candle high, eerie shadows flew away from her and up the walls.
    And then, just as she reached the first landing, she became aware that the air was suddenly full of jingling, tinkling sounds like elfin laughter. She froze. Then she realized the sound was coming from the chandelier which hung over the great hall. Some lazy servant must have left a door or window open. But as she stood looking at the chandelier, which wasat eye-level with the landing, she saw with fear that it was revolving a half turn one way, and then a half turn the other. She held her candle out. The steel cords which had been secured to the chandelier the day before had snapped. And as the crystals tinkled, she became aware of a feeling of brooding menace which seemed to emanate from the very walls. Dropping her candle, she scrambled back up the staircase, fled to her room, plunged into bed and pulled the covers tightly over her head.
    Her maid awoke her in the morning and drew back the curtains to reveal a perfect sunny day.
    Struggling up against the pillows, Mrs. Ingram remembered her terror of the night before. It all seemed so ridiculous now.
    She said to her maid, ‘Agnes, do run downstairs and find me something to eat. I tried to go down to the kitchens during the night and was frightened back upstairs by that wretched chandelier…What is the matter?’ For Agnes had let out a little scream.
    ‘Oh, madam, they do say the house is haunted and that one of the previous owners, Mr. Judd, did hang himself from that very chandelier, and that during the night those steel cords did snap clean through.’
    ‘Fiddle. Probably not secured properly.’
    ‘Snapped clean through,’ repeated Agnes firmly. ‘We should leave, madam, before one of those ghosts catches us.’
    ‘Ghosts? More than one?’
    ‘Oh, yes. The servants do say that sometimes they see a drowned face in the lake, the face of a Mr. Cater, a sugar planter who was courting Rachel Beverley.’
    ‘I refuse to believe in ghosts. What have they planned for us today?’
    ‘You are to be ready by eleven o’clock. Lord St. Clair’s organizing a boating party on the lake.’
    ‘What an early hour to go rowing. Very well, fetch me some food to sustain me.’
    *      *      *
    At that moment, the Honourable Peregrine Vane was making his way to the lake with a thin saw hidden inside one of his boots. He resented the way St. Clair had ordered him like a servant to make sure there were enough boats for the whole party. He had been about to protest, but then he had hit on a wonderful plan. Saint Clair would no doubt take Belinda Beverley in the best boat. He got into the newest rowing-boat, which was tied up at the small wooden jetty, untied the painter, and rowed to a low grassy bank on the farther shore. There he pulled the boat clear of the water