Silent Night: A Lady Julia Christmas Novella. Deanna Raybourn

She broke off suddenly, darting a quick glance to my father.

      Brisbane noted it. He turned to Aunt Hermia. “You are having troubles with the locals? But you have always hired in from the village.”

      “Never again,” Father thundered. “I will not have a pack of cowardly, pudding-hearted—”

      Aunt Hermia raised a hand. “That will do, Hector.” She spoke to Brisbane. “But he is not wrong. In the last few days, it has become impossible to entice them to work at the Abbey.”

      “What reason do they give?” Brisbane enquired. I smiled to myself. He regularly worked on behalf of her Majesty’s government in essential and secretive ways, and yet he could take a healthy interest in domestic dramas.

      “They say the place is haunted!” Father’s expression was disgusted.

      “It has always been haunted,” I protested. “Everyone knows that.”

      “That is precisely the point,” he returned. “We have always had our share of ghosts and they’ve always worked here in spite of it.”

      “What has changed?” Brisbane asked, his black gaze thoughtful as it rested on the contents of his glass.

      “There has been a fresh sighting inside the Abbey,” Aunt Hermia replied. “When the staff fell ill, I brought in a few new maids from the village. One of them saw a ghost on the servants’ stair and ran screaming home in the middle of the night. She has the busiest tongue in the village. They cannot help they are superstitious, Hector,” she added. “They haven’t the benefit of our education.”

      He snorted by way of reply. Brisbane said nothing, and I knew we were both thinking of our previous investigation at the Abbey. A ghost had figured prominently in that adventure.

      Father turned abruptly to Brisbane. “I suppose you are still capering about in the private enquiry business?”

      Before Brisbane could reply, Aunt Hermia jumped up and took a crystal dish from the mantel. “Brisbane, you must try these sweetmeats. The stillroom maid and I concocted them, and I would know if I had too heavy a hand with the rosewater.”

      Brisbane, ever courteous where ladies were concerned, took one while I breathed out a small sigh that the moment had been got past. Father and Brisbane had quarrelled dreadfully during our last investigation, largely over my safety, and hard words had been spoken. I had hoped they had been forgot, but Father apparently still nursed a grudge, as evidenced by his pointed remarks towards my husband. I could not entirely blame him. I had suffered considerable injuries at the conclusion of the case—through my own rash actions, to be sure—and Father and Brisbane had almost taken each other apart in their worry and despair. I smiled brightly from one to the other, but Father had lapsed into his chair, glowering, while Brisbane merely sat, graceful and lethal as a panther as he regarded Father with his inscrutable, witch-black eyes. I sighed. It was going to be a very long holiday indeed.

      “I think I should do something to cheer Father up,” I told Brisbane later that evening as we prepared for bed.

      Brisbane said nothing, but I heard the thud as a boot hit the floor.

      “Aunt Hermia believes he is feeling a trifle downcast that so many of the family shan’t be here. Most of the children are keeping Christmas at home and only coming for the revels. It will be Plum and Portia and us for Christmas,” I said. “Benedick will come up from the Home Farm with his family, but that still makes only half of us.” The other boot hit the floor and I went on. “I thought of asking a special guest, someone Father would really enjoy seeing.”