The Ghosts of Tullybrae House Read Free

enough to hold the clothes which she needed to hang. The single chest of drawers, equally scarred and nicked, gave her plenty of room to store the rest. The bedside table could hold her makeup and toiletries, and it had a shelf at the base that she could store her books on.
    The walls were unadorned. They had once been white, but the years had turned the paint to buttercream yellow. In the corner where the armoire was, the plaster had crumbled, revealing horizontal slats of wood that made up the frame of the wall. The oak floor was slightly warped, the widths of the individual planks non-uniform.
    How many pairs of feet had stumbled across these planks on cold mornings? Instinctively, she traced a forefinger over the rough, dented grain. A wistful half-smile tugged at her lips.
    With a quick, satisfied breath and a glance to where the plastered ceiling met the wall, Emmie left the room, walked briskly along the corridor of the servants’ quarters, and pattered lightly down the stairs. She took care to mind their uneven heights. From her time as a history major in university, she knew that the long, heavy skirts of the Victorian maid were not the only reason so many of them fell to their deaths. It was the stairs themselves. High and narrow, there was no thought to uniformity, and some stairs were shallower than others. That, added to a platform that wasn’t even half the length of a typical foot, and long hours of physical labour, it was no wonder stairs had been so fatal back then.
    She’d been worried about Lamb when they’d come up here. She liked the stoic old butler on sight. And besides, no matter how enamoured with all things history she might have been, witnessing one of those historic fatalities was one experience Emmie was happy to forego.
    Outside in the sunshine, she pulled open the rear hatch of the boxy, ugly blue car she’d picked up three days ago. She’d spent a week in Glasgow after her flight out of Newfoundland (from which she’d had to make a maddeningly delayed connecting flight in Toronto), and had taken the opportunity to peruse used car lots for something that was both sturdy and budget-friendly.
    Unfortunately sturdy was too pricey. She’d had to settle for a demure, rinky-dink ‘city’ car.
    Fiat Panda. And powder blue at that. The GMC Sierra pickup truck her brother drove would steam roll right over it without so much as a hiccup.
    Emmie struggled to dislodge her bags, which she’d packed into the back with the precision of an engineer. She’d paid a mint to have all this stuff flown over, but it was an expense she was willing to bear. Scotland would be her home now for the next few years at least, assuming she didn’t do anything to displease Lord and Lady Rotherham… like calling Lady Rotherham’s late lamented father Lord Cranberry to her face. Three enormous suitcases were stashed in the back, and another one was squeezed into the passenger seat. An oversized and overstuffed gym bag was wedged under the dashboard on the passenger side, on top of which sat her purse.
    Her most valued books were being shipped directly to Tullybrae from Corner Brook. She was glad she’d made that snap decision. She never would have been able to find room for them in the Panda.
    It took Emmie three trips to lug her baggage up to her room on the third floor. Once they were carefully ordered beside the lone wooden chair, she went to work unpacking. Removing items one by one, with the care of someone who had saved her money to buy every precious piece, she began assigning them to their appropriate places. Jackets and blazers that had been neatly folded for the flight were put to one side of the bed; they would likely need dry cleaning to remove the wrinkles. Her silk and satin blouses, too. Knit and cashmere sweaters were stacked snugly in the drawers, and her cotton dress pants and skirts were slipped onto wooden hangers and hung in the armoire.
    Each article of her wardrobe had been chosen