Murder at Newstead Abbey by Joan Smith Page B

passed between them spoke volumes — that of course Villier would wait up, that a warming pan would be in his bed and a posset waiting for him after his vigil in the cold, that Prance knew all this and appreciated it.
    Coffen had no such loving ties with his gentleman’s gentleman. His dark-visaged man, Raven, had been foisted on him by his groom. There was no sign of Raven when Coffen went abovestairs. Likely playing cards somewhere with the other servants, or seducing one of the pretty maids. Coffen’s afternoon buckskins were thrown across the seat of the chair, unbrushed, with the jacket on top. His nightshirt had not been laid out. His bag had been unpacked, his jackets hung up, and his shirts and small clothes dumped in a heap in the dressers drawers. Lord Byron’s servants were better trained. A half empty decanter of wine and a glass sat on the bedside table. Coffen was grateful that Raven had left him half the bottle. Pity he hadn’t rinsed out the glass. He wiped it off with his handkerchief, poured himself a glass and sat a moment, rubbing his aching knee and thinking about the best place to find a ghost. The Monks’ Avenue seemed a good bet.
    Grace had asked Prance to wait for her outside the kitchen door so the others servants wouldn’t see him, “For that lot’d be bound to think the worst. Especially that Sally.”
    He left by a side door and after a long and rather frightening circuit in the dark around the enormous building, his heart jumping in fright at a dozen spectral shadows and moving branches, he spotted a lighted window which indicated the kitchen. He didn’t have to wait long. Almost immediately a dainty figure wrapped in a dark shawl came slipping out the door.
    “Lord, I thought Cook would never leave the kitchen,” Grace complained. “I’ve been crouching behind the door at the bottom of the back stairs till me knees ache. I don’t know how I’m to get back in without her seeing me.”
    “We shall contrive something, never fear,” Prance said, and taking her elbow, he said, “Lead on. You are my Cicerone this evening, my dear.”
    “I don’t know about that,” she said, casting a suspicious eye at him.
    “My guide, Grace.” He flung out a hand. “Lead me to the ghosts of Newstead Abbey.”
    “Where folks see the monk is along this way,” she said, and set off at a quick pace, as if she were eager to have it over with.
    Prance took careful note of the lugubrious details as they hastened along. He might begin his tale with just this setting — the half moon playing hide and seek behind tattered clouds cast a watery light on the perishing battlements of St. Justin’s Abbey. Perhaps he’d re-arrange the geography of the place to make use of that ruined west wall, and let the moon shine through the open ogee arch. The wind would sough through dripping oaks and elms, just as it was doing. Lady Lorraine would have been ordered to meet her persecutor there to retrieve some necessary article. A letter, perhaps, that would prove her lover innocent of some dastardly crime? No, that was too trite. Some important document or object must be invented.
    Around the corner, a cloistered walk suddenly appeared. Lovely the way the moonlight cast long, menacing shadows against the inner wall. Who would have thought moonlight strong enough to cast such shadows? He mentally added Shadows in the Moonlight to his list of possible titles. Or were those elongated dark marks on the wall just the accumulated grime of centuries? No matter, in his novel they would be shadows, streaking the weathered walls like the bars in a cell, to indicate the castle was a prison to Lady Lorraine. He stopped to watch and listen. No choir sounded through the cloister but only the moaning wind, which was probably what the ignorant and superstitious had mistaken for a choir. He looked all around, soaking up the atmosphere.
    His contemplation was interrupted by that soft voice, whose language grated on his nerves.