Free All for You by Lynn Kurland

start,” Fulbert conceded. “We’ll see how events proceed.”
    Stephen could hardly wait.
    Because David Preston was a reprobate with no morals or scruples, his sister, Irene, had a list of men she intended to bag like helpless fowl—a list he himself headed, actually, to her brother’s disgust—and Kenneworth House was large enough to accommodate all manner of paranormal participants.
    He looked at his ghostly companions. “Tell me you aren’t planning to come along.”
    Fulbert sat back down stiffly. “I daresay you won’t know,” he said ominously, “
unless
ye stray from the path we’ve laid out for ye.”
    Stephen sighed.
    It was shaping up to be a fabulous weekend.

Chapter 5
    P
eaches
was beginning to think she should have taken Tess up on the offer to use her little runabout to drive north. The weather was awful and growing worse by the moment. That would certainly have been less of an issue if she hadn’t been out in it.
    But taking Tess’s car had been more charity than she’d been able to accept. Tess had been serious when she had insisted that Peaches crash at Sedgwick indefinitely because she had given Peaches her own set of keys to everything. That had been followed by the discovery of clothes suitable for a country house party, along with a ball gown with the tag still on. Peaches had tried to protest, but Tess had ignored her. By the time she’d dug through her things at Holly’s only to find a wallet full of cash and a note telling her not to argue with its origin, she had given up fighting her sister.
    The trip north had started out well enough. The train ride had been pleasant, so she’d had no complaints there. Her suitcase had wheels, making it easy enough to pull around behind her. Holly had fed her something that morning that had almost made it past the butterflies in her stomach.
    Her first indication that Fate might be throwing a monkey wrench into the gears of her perfect fairy-tale weekend was getting off the train and realizing that the station was in the middle of a village that was at least ten miles from Kenneworth House.
    She had assumed she would be able to get a taxi, or take a bus, or perhaps even find a chauffeur holding up a card with her name on it at the station. Unfortunately, all those methods of transportation seemed to have been otherwise engaged.
    She’d managed to hitch a ride for the first five miles in a little wagon being pulled by a bicycle, a wagon that had apparently most recently transported ripe compost. She’d pulled her suitcase behind the cart that was being pulled behind the bicycle and hoped that no one important would drive by and notice her.
    That had been about four miles ago based on her rate of trudging, which she figured left her a mile still before she reached any sort of shelter. It was only the thought of a hot shower and an equally hot fire that had kept her slogging through what had been freezing rain and had now just turned into a bitter chill that reminded her of being in a walk-in freezer. She’d never been in a walk-in freezer, but she had a good imagination and time on her hands, so she had no trouble making the comparison.
    She pushed a lock of frozen hair out of her face, ignoring the faint crackling sound, and looked up to find a hint of Kenneworth House in front of her. It was shrouded in a very nasty fog, but the outline was still there, which was almost enough to leave her needing to take a brief seat on her suitcase to recover from her relief. She looked behind her to judge the condition of her suitcase, but saw that it was barely staving off the effects of the elements. It was definitely not up to the task of providing her any meaningful support.
    She could only hope the blasted thing was waterproof. If it wasn’t, her clothes were going to need some serious attention once she was in what she could only assume based on the invitation would be an embarrassingly opulent room.
    She took another look around, just to see if