“How quaint,” Hillary said. “And really lovely, in an agrarian way.” She laughed.
“I saw a guy at the far end of the orchard,” Matthew said. “I thought he must be the orchard keeper or whatever you call it, so I detoured into the orchard to ask him about it. But he disappeared over a hill. I guess that means there are more houses on the other side of the orchard. I’m really not sure how big this property is.”
“Want me to look when I go to the village to do something about beds?” Hillary asked.
“What, you don’t like roughing it?” Matthew asked, nudging her with his shoulder.
She laughed. “Have you met me?”
He looked at her, his blue eyes shining with amusement. “Fortunately for me…yes,” he said, and kissed her. It was more than he’d done in weeks. In fact, Hillary thought as he went to get milk for her, that she couldn’t remember the last time they’d really kissed.
They puttered around after breakfast, making a list of things she needed to get. As she picked up the keys to leave, Matthew said, “Thanks, Hill.”
She paused. “For what?”
“For this,” Matthew said, gesturing to the house. “For being a sport. I just want to do some work and get it ready to sell. It gives me…it gives me something useful to do,” he admitted sheepishly.
Hillary smiled and lovingly touched his cheek. “I’ll see you later.”
Matthew turned his face into her hand and kissed her palm. “Be careful. Remember to look right, and that they drive on the wrong side of the road.”
Hillary laughed. She went up on her toes and kissed Matthew’s mouth, lingering there, and feeling, for a moment, like she could wrap herself into him like she used to do.
In the village, Hillary found a little housing goods shop which happened to have a double bed in stock, as well as a couple of used arm chairs. “Can have that delivered today if you’d like,” the man behind the counter said. His nametag read Stan.
“Thank God,” Hillary said with a laugh. “Do you know the Whitstone House?”
“Sure I do. Are you staying near there, then?”
“We’re actually at the Whitstone House.”
Stan stopped writing the invoice and looked up. “Do you mean you’ve let it?”
“Actually, my husband inherited it,” Hillary said. “Just like that, out of the blue.” She laughed at Stan’s astonishment. “He didn’t know his mother had it or was even connected to the Whitstones. Talk about a surprise.”
“I can see that it would be.” Stan looked down at his invoice once again. “Been years since anyone’s lived there.”
“Right. Why is that, do you think? Is it too far from Tadcaster?”
“Oh, perhaps. But, you know, they say it’s haunted. That might have something to do with it. People round here can be bloody superstitious.”
Hillary’s gaze locked on the shopkeeper. “Excuse me?”
He looked up. “You haven’t heard it, then? Oh, pay me no mind, miss. They say that about all the old houses round here. This one or that one died, and therefore it’s haunted.” He grinned at her. “I wouldn’t fret too much about it.”
Hillary would have laughed along with him had she not seen that face in the window. “How would I find out about the house? I mean, who lived there before?”
“Now I’ve gone and scared you. I’m sorry for that, it was not my intent. But you can ask the librarian. She keeps a room of local records. Now then—I can have the bed and the two chairs delivered by four o’clock if that suits?”
“Perfectly,” Hillary said. She didn’t believe in ghosts. She wasn’t going to let what he said rattle her in the least. What she’d seen in the window was some sort of weird shadow and light thing—it was not a ghost for heaven’s sake. And the fact that there was even a tiny niggle of doubt in her mind told her that she had watched far too much late night cable TV.
At the library, Hillary met Mrs. Browning, the librarian, who, she quickly realized, also happened to be Matthew’s estate agent. “Not a lot of buying and selling here,” she explained with an infectious laugh. “One needs an occupation outside of it.” She was a cheerful woman who wore a thick, cable-knit sweater in spite of the mild summer temperatures. She wore her gray-streaked hair in a ponytail.
“Ah, the Whitstone House. How did you find it? One of the treasures in this county, isn’t it? The original structure was built in the seventeen hundreds, although it’s been added to over the years.”