Free The Strange Visitation at Wolffe Hall by Catherine Coulter Page A

found it in a pile Max had purchased from a pawn shop in a small town in Sussex. I was pleased because at least I could do something. I was ready to return it to his family, but he came to me again, more mumbling, more whirling around me, then shouted in my face, ‘ Find Major Houston! ‘ and I shouted back that there was no question of finding the major, he was long dead, bones and dust now, but I had found his medal and I would take it to his family. I even called the spirit Major Houston. I told him he could stop his spirit visitations, but he didn’t stop.” The Great looked at each of them again. “There, you now know my awful secret. I carry the guilt around on my shoulders every single day. Yes, I am convinced the spirit is Major Houston—there can be no other.
    “But I cannot understand why he continues with this harassment and why he keeps telling me to find him! It makes no sense. It’s got to be about his medal. What I do not understand is that although Major Houston was a very young man, he was honorable, straight-thinking, he was brave. He wouldn’t have ever threatened another, and in such a horrific manner.”
    “Last night, he screamed at you again?” Miranda asked.
    The Great nodded. “I kept reassuring him, swore to him yet again that I would take the medal to his family.” The Great fell silent and stared down at his plate. “There, I have told you the lot of it. There is no more.” He looked suddenly tired, at the end of his tether. “It is all my fault. I killed him and now I must pay. With my life? I suppose it is fair. After all, I have had more years given me than that poor young man did. But it is not right that I pay with your lives as well.
    “Miranda, I do not know what will happen now, so tomorrow morning I believe it best that you take Palonia Chiara and leave this place. I cannot and will not take a chance with your safety.” He turned to Grayson. “I ask that you take my granddaughter-in-law and Palonia Chiara to Belhaven tonight and protect them. I don’t wish any harm to come to them.”

CHAPTER TWELVE
    Grayson nodded. “Of course. But, sir, first I would appreciate your telling me more about the major’s family.”
    The Great raised an eyebrow, but he said readily enough, “His father was the vicar in the town of Witchery-Tyne. Evarard Houston was his name, serving for more than thirty years. I have kept in touch with Mrs. Houston, but I have not informed her of her dead son’s visits to me, his attacks on Miranda and Palonia Chiara. I doubt they would believe me, in any case.”
    “And Major Houston?”
    “Major Houston’s first name was Charles, and he was made a major at the age of twenty at the battle of Badajoz for his outstanding bravery. When he died at Waterloo, he was only twenty-three. He was a young man to admire, to trust.
    “But now his spirit—he’s changed, he’s different, he has turned spiteful and violent. As I told you, he wasn’t like that in life.”
    Grayson said, “Sir, why did the major’s spirit wait nearly twenty-five years to come to you?”
    “I have wondered the same thing, Mr. Sherbrooke. I have no answer. You say, sir, you know about otherworldly beings, so how do you explain what his spirit is now doing? Why he has changed so much?”
    Grayson said, “There is only one logical conclusion, sir. Major Houston isn’t dead. It isn’t his spirit.”
    The house shuddered.
    Miranda jumped to her feet. “Who are you?”
    There was one more shudder, then it stopped. Everything was quiet.
    “Oh my,” Suggs said, but didn’t move.
    “No!” Miranda ran toward the window where the curtains were billowing madly. The black funnel was slowly forming, whipping itself up—turning toward Grayson. Miranda ran directly at the black funnel. Grayson lifted her out of its path and moved to stand in front of it. He felt warmth coming from that madly whirling funnel, and something else—what? An urgency, he felt that, and a plea. He