The elderly gentleman standing in the doorway wore the black coat and gray striped trousers of the traditional, efficient English butler, but there the image ended. Gold-rimmed spectacles hung precariously on the end of his nose, and the few wisps of white hair that adorned his bald pate waved back and forth as his head nodded up and down in gentle agitation. His bowed shoulders shook, and his knees trembled as he stared at Elizabeth, and without a sound his mouth opened and closed like a starving goldfish.

Alarmed, Elizabeth rose from her chair. Martin had served the Earls of Wellsborough since before the turn of the century. Determined that he should continue to do so as long as he so desired, she and Violet went to great pains to convince him his services were still essential to the running of the Manor House.

She largely ignored his occasional lapses into senility as well as his tendency to dwell in the past, but looking at his stricken face, seemingly even more wrinkled and pasty than usual, Elizabeth sensed that whatever had caused his distress this time was more than a simple misunderstanding, which was often the case.

Martin had been unsettled by the American officers being quartered at the Manor House, but since he saw little of them and was largely oblivious to their presence, he’d appeared to accept the situation. Nevertheless, something had upset the old gentleman.

Stepping up to him, Elizabeth laid a hand on his frail shoulder. “Martin? What is it?”

Martin shuddered beneath her fingers. He finally spoke, and his voice sounded as dry and cracked as burned leather. “The master,” he whispered. “I saw him in the great hall.”

“That’s nonsense,” Violet snapped, apparently unsettled herself by the old man’s obvious distress. “You know very well, Martin, that Lord Hartleigh passed away two years ago. You put flowers on his grave just last week.”

Martin drew himself up as straight as was physically possible, and his voice regained strength as he stared at Violet. “His body may be buried in that grave,” he said hoarsely, “but I just saw his ghost walking down the great hall. I’d stake my life on it.”