Free Rose 4: Rose and the Silver Ghost by Holly Webb

‘Yes, she is so very like you.’
    ‘Did she run away with the gardener’s boy?’ Bella asked curiously. ‘Gus told us that was nonsense, but Aunt Fay said she did.’
    Miss Fell’s eyebrows drew together haughtily. ‘Your Aunt Fay, Isabella Fountain, is a gossip, and a hoyden, and gallivants with her footmen. And I’m quite certain that story wasn’t meant for your ears, miss.’ Then she nodded, very slightly. ‘Unfortunately, in this instance, she had the story right. Except that he was one of the under-gardeners. A most handsome young man, and a good worker. John Garnet, he was called.’
    ‘You didn’t know?’ Rose murmured. John Garnet . Her father. The name sounded…good. A solid, honest name.
    ‘No. They must have been so careful. I suppose she knew even at the start that it would never have been permitted. Oh, I knew something was different, and I suspected that she might be pining for someone, but I assumed it was one of the boys she had met in London – she had been presented for her first season, you see.’
    Rose nodded, although she had very little idea what that really meant.
    Miss Fell was staring at her again, searching her face. ‘Seeing you in Venice, I told myself it was just a chance resemblance. Some strange quirk of nature. But then, when I heard your history, I couldn’t help but wonder. Perhaps I should have said something then, but I wasn’t sure, not at all. And you seemed contented, Rose, I wondered if you were better off without the truth – such as it is.’
    ‘I wanted to be.’ Rose picked at the lace cuff of her nightgown. ‘I’d always thought I was happy not knowing, but the magic seemed to make everything different. I wanted to know where it had come from, all this strangeness.’
    ‘When I gave you that painting of Fell Hall…’ Miss Fell closed her eyes. ‘It was a test. My curiosity got the better of me, Rose, I couldn’t resist seeing what would happen. I thought almost certainly nothing. You had never been there, after all, why should you react? And then you painted her. Miranda loved those peacocks. She would wander up and down the lawn for hours, slipping them crumbs. She called that wrap her peacock shawl, and swore they were feather patterns.’ She sighed. ‘I still don’t know how you did it.’
    ‘I didn’t,’ Rose muttered. ‘It just happened.’
    ‘Unconscious magic can be the strongest of all. At any rate, it proved to me who you were. I shouldn’t have reacted the way I did, but then I never went back, you see. I haven’t been to Fell Hall in eleven years.’
    ‘Why ever not?’ Freddie demanded in surprise, and then looked guilty. ‘Sorry, ma’am, I didn’t mean…’
    Miss Fell gave him a very small smile. ‘I quarrelled with my brother, Frederick.’ She patted Rose’s hand again, but this time it felt almost like a warning. ‘When your grandfather, my brother, found out that Miranda had run away with a servant, he disowned her. He changed his will, and left everything to a charity that provides meat for stray cats.’
    Gus coughed appreciatively. Miss Fell nodded. ‘Quite. But this was not in a spirit of generosity, or out of any love for your race, my dear. He was purely furious. He was ashamed that a daughter of his should have done such a thing, and then that she had the gall to hide so well that he couldn’t find her and drag her back. I tried to dissuade him, and he made it very clear that Miranda would not be welcome there ever again, and that if I persisted in taking her side, neither would I.’ She sighed. ‘And so I left. I had my own money, from my mother, so I came to live in London, and I travelled, and I looked for her wherever I went. I was almost grateful to Miranda, when I wasn’t furious with her for disappearing without telling me. I had always longed to go abroad, but Fell Hall… Well, it has some strange magic of its own. Leaving it can be very difficult. Which only proves, Rose, how much your mother