The Ghost of Hillcomb Hall: Darkly Enchanted Romance, #2

By Joshua Ian

England, 1910.

Landscape designer Jonas Laurence arrives at the cheerless and fog enswathed Hillcomb Hall, home to the Earl of Stanley and his family, to renovate their crumbling gardens. With a great storm crashing all around, his time is at the mercy of the house's odd and mysterious occupants. Captivated by the hauntingly attractive portrait of Lord Stanley's ancestor, which constantly seems to watch and taunt him, Jonas's dreams become weird and distressing. And his waking moments are consumed by the strange stories and weird atmosphere of the manor estate. Ghostly visits in the night leave Jonas no choice but to accept his attraction to the otherworldly spirit from the painting. But is this affaire de coeur real? Or is it all just a trick of the mind, a sinister game being played by the inhabitants of Hillcomb Hall?

 

About The Darkly Enchanted Romance Series 

 

Historical romance with a paranormal edge! The Darkly Enchanted Romance series takes its inspiration from mythology, fairy tales, folklore, and legend to give you sweet and sultry romances with just a touch of spookiness. Witches, ghosts, and mythical creatures - you know never what you might fall in love with in these enchanted stories.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Moody Boxfan Books
• Release date: Sep 23, 2020
• ISBN: 9781733480383

Joshua Ian

Joshua Ian can easily be captured by a witty turn of phrase or a low-bottomed electronic bassline. If you manage to combine the two, then you have his heart forever. He lives in New York City and is a keen cinema lover and self-proclaimed Dark Chocolate Expert. When not staring at a blank screen and cursing the futility of life, he can be found watching cozy mystery shows, daydreaming of his future kaftan collection, or scouring used book vendors to accumulate more vintage romances and mysteries than his shelves are actually capable of handling. One day he plans to travel the world - to see what each country has to offer in the way of used books, movie theatres and dark chocolate, naturally.

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

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England, 1910

THUNDER SHOOK THE SKY and the fat clouds, stained grey with threat, huddled closer together, crowding the heavens and looming with menace. When the rain fell, it was a torrent, a great wall of water on all sides of them, blocking sight and plunging them into near darkness.

Given the weather, Jonas Laurence congratulated himself on having the good sense to order an Austin with a roof covering. He sighed in frustration at the sudden gloom, closed the book he held, Gifts for the Sheikh, and placed it on the seat beside him. He hadn’t the mind to concentrate on reading, or much else now, and he felt despondent. Usually, at this point in a prospective job, his head would be full of ideas of what he might do with the client’s grounds. How he might transform something, implement the newest techniques he had learned, the sparks of imagination as he interpreted his latest preoccupations in art or fashion or architecture into flowers, shrubbery, borders, and features. His reputation as a landscape designer was buoyed in all the circles that talked of such things by his artistic flair. But there was no space at the moment in his mind for these ponderings.

Despite his efforts to ignore them, his thoughts were consumed by Pearson, and the mess he had made of that relationship. It was a particularly forlorn trip without Pearson, who often accompanied him posing as either a business partner or, most often, a valet or companion—which allowed for far more intimate moments during overnight stays. And having a valet in attendance when he visited aristocratic homes made him appear to be one of them, or at least, made him appear to be aspiring, and that was enough to satisfy their snobbery, in most cases. Of course, in London, they were discreet, but amongst their closest acquaintances and friends, there had been no illusions about their relationship. But one had to be especially careful outside the city. He glanced at the spot where he had placed the book and imagined Pearson sitting there. Any other trip, Pearson might have been reading himself or studying Jonas with a small smile teasing his lips. But no more. Pearson had declined Jonas’s invitation to accompany him on this outing—a last attempt by Jonas at reconciliation—and informed Jonas he would be gone when he returned. Pearson had found his own set of apartments, though he didn’t say where, and all Jonas had to look forward to now was an empty home and a cold hearth. It had made the weeks on the road even that much lonelier a task.

The car dipped and trembled, trying to maneuver the now malleable road. Jonas leaned forward to suggest they stop and wait out the storm when he saw Donaldson, the chauffeur, grab the steering column and yell out whoa now! as he might chastise a frightened horse. Jonas was tossed to the side as the car veered sharply and slammed to an abrupt stop.

He peeked out of the side of the automobile as Donaldson hopped out to right the vehicle. Jonas saw that the front left tire of the contraption had sunk into a hole in the road, which was filling with muddy water.

Are we quite stuck? he called out. Should I help push or something?

Inwardly, he shuddered at the thought. How would it look showing up at the grand home of his new clients soaked and covered in mud?

Won’t be a moment, sir, Donaldson bellowed back, cataracts of rain flowing off his cap. We’ll just give her some leverage shall we?

The car rocked and Jonas fell back, sighing. The still falling rain felt threatening somehow. It had blackened the sky and erased any evidence of the wonderful early summer days they had been enjoying up to now. He had his partner at the architecture firm, Derrick, to blame for this particularly dreary sojourn. The inhabitants of Hillcomb Hall were somehow related to Derrick’s wife. Jonas admittedly didn’t listen very intently when Derrick had rattled off the seemingly endless list of relations. He seemed to have some sort of kinfolk, nobility or not, crammed into every corner of England. This household was headed by Cousin Graham and his wife, Vita, along with both of their mothers in residence. Cousin Graham was, of course, Graham Benson Grey, 5th Earl of Stanley, Viscount Nicolson. It all sounded lovely on a calling card, to be sure, but Jonas, frankly, could not care less about titles. So long as they had decent brandy on hand.

Derrick himself considered them an odd lot, apparently, and said any time spent with the trio in residence had given him a sort of queer feeling that he’d rather not revisit. His only  suggestion to the actual design process Jonas would employ being that of a hedge maze in which, hopefully, one could get lost for days, or forever, if their luck allowed.

The automobile bounced and Jonas was lifted from the seat.

I say, he exclaimed, clutching at the doorframe. The car jerked again and then lurched forward.

There we are, sir, Donaldson cried as he trotted around and swung into the driver’s seat, drenched. Right as rain.

Jonas settled back.

Not, perhaps, the most welcome simile, Donaldson, he said with lifted brow.

The chauffeur chuckled as he set the beast of a machine on the road again.

HILLCOMB HALL APPEARED to be a great medieval monstrosity of a thing, Jonas noted as the car got farther up the long and winding entry road cutting across the estate. It was, of course, only a century or two old but it had been constructed with the obvious intent of being commanding, in a historical fashion. The hall was surrounded by a deep forest of trees, ranging in type and size, and although they did not come very close to the house, they succeeded in helping to block out much of the sunlight. The driveway, crushed shell wet from the torrent, which made a discomforting slippery kind of noise under the car’s tires, was cut through a copse of tightly packed ancient trunks. From the plans he had seen, Jonas knew that behind the house was a swath of open ground that led down to a lake. But from the front, the whole property appeared hemmed in, cloistered from the rest of the world, and deeply shadowed like some decrepit castle from a storybook.  Though the rain had finally broken, and it was only yet mid-afternoon, the house sat in what resembled a cloud of night. A great blanket of fog clung close to the ground and the house almost seemed to float in his vision.

It was a forlorn and sad-making scene and reminded Jonas of the depth of loneliness he had been feeling of late.

Damn creepy, muttered Donaldson louder than he had intended. Beg pardon, sir.

Jonas inclined his head and thought he couldn’t have put it more succinctly if he tried. Damned creepy, indeed, and daunting besides. How in the world, he wondered, was he supposed to design a garden that gave any life or joy of light to such a dreary pile as this?

The home was built of a grey stone that had interspersed among it design elements made of a light yellow-brown plaster. Jonas imagined they had once been bright, and added some depth but over time, it had all faded into a cohesive façade of drabness. Even the wooden benches dotting its porticos and walkways had absorbed the weather and time to become dingy and colorless. On the whole, it was rather disquieting. The place itself was like a faded water-stained daguerreotype of an abandoned relic that had been hurled through time and left to decompose.

At the front of the house, there was built a stone overhang that appeared newer than the rest. It was a sort of porch, through which a carriage could drive up to the entrance of the place, itself visible through three large arched portals. Given the area’s apparent temperament for a deluge, Jonas thought this a very smart addition.

Through one of the arches he saw the door was open and, just in the frame, a man appeared like some haint emerging from the shadows. The door had not seemed to move, rather to materialize as an open mouth at the front of the house with the tall and thin creature hovering at its side. He wondered if the man might spread his arms and suddenly disappear back into the blackness as if by magic. He shook his head, chiding himself that he ought to get his imagination under control. Too many books read in the back seat during his travels, to be sure. He was at a lovely grand manor home at the end of a rainstorm, nothing more. Still, as the car came to a halt, he could not shake a sense of foreboding that had begun to unfold in him. He gazed at the dense forest all around and studied the trees, trying to convince himself that he had no reason for such emotion.

The man in the door was, of course, the butler. Up close he was less some weird apparition than a distinguished-looking middle-aged man. He was gaunt but stolid rather than dour, and Jonas felt relieved. He had been bracing himself, he realized, for some sort of gargoyle of a man straight out of The Castle of Otranto. The butler did however seem, much like the house itself, awfully faded. Despite his lack of great age, his hair was silver throughout, his skin was pale and ashen, and his eyes were more steely than blue.

As he stepped out of the car, Jonas was jolted by a sudden loud shriek from the woods, which sounded like a woman screaming in horror. He tried not to jump, but he couldn’t help glance over his shoulder, rattled.

You’ll forgive the noise, sir, said the butler. It’s the foxes. The lord and her ladyship are not keen on hunts so they’ve quite overrun the forest.