Of course not, you dope. Scolding myself made me feel only half as silly for the double-time beat of my pulse.
Switching on the light – hooray for modern conveniences – I glanced at Gigi, who only seemed interested in exploring the corners for dust bunnies. I got to business, browsing titles for an encyclopaedia of plants. If the gardens had always been a big part of the manor’s reputation, surely there had to be something like that. The Davises, as I was coming to understand them, would want to keep that point of pride up.
I didn’t hurry, exactly. But I was anxious to get in, find a book and get out. There was no logic behind it. But it seemed there was no logic behind half the things I felt in the house.
Finally I located a shelf of DIY books from the seventies, including something called Antebellum Architecture, and Laura Ashley’s Guide to Style. I guess that would explain the Victorian striped wallpaper in the bathroom.
And then, The American Horticultural Society’s A to Z Guide to North American Plants. Success.
I pulled it from the shelf just as Gigi began to growl. My gaze snapped to the desk chair, wondering what she saw, but Gigi dashed for the exit. Book in hand, I barely managed to grab her. Momentum carried me out of the study, and I found myself at the French doors, where she must have been headed. The glass panes looked out on the woods, and I could hear – just barely – the familiar, tremulous wail.
It was so faint that I might not have noticed it if Gigi hadn’t alerted me. But she had, and as I stood listening, a movement in the moonlit clearing in front of the woods sent my heart thumping against my ribs.
Clutching Gigi tight with one hand, I pressed the other to the window and my nose to the pane. It was a girl-shaped something – Addie? No. I glimpsed long hair, and longer skirts. Even if she was wearing odd clothes, it was harder to change the way one moved. Then my breath clouded the cold glass, and I couldn’t see anything else.
I jerked back, because the glass was cold, and getting colder. Pulse hammering, I stared at the outline of my hand on the windowpane as the growing chill chased away the imprint. Frigid eddies brushed my bare arms, my toes, my face. My breath made thin curls of mist as I exhaled in shallow fear. I was standing in the watcher’s place.
Had I created this moment out of expectation and suggestion? Or if I stood there long enough, what would I see? The watcher? The Colonel?
Part of me wanted to confront it, but the larger part, the smarter part, knew my fragile brain might break whichever way it went, ghost or madness.
The smarter part seemed to be in control of my legs. Holding Gigi tight, I backed away.
Right into a tall, warm body. His arms came around me automatically, keeping me from falling as I spun round, off balance with fear. My scream never got past the knife-sharp inhale of panic as Rhys’s hard whisper reached through the ringing in my ears. ‘Sylvie, it’s me. It’s all right.’
‘Oh my God,’ I breathed, pressed against him, my face buried in his T-shirt. He felt warm and real and so right that I couldn’t move away. ‘You nearly scared me to death.’
His hands moved to my shoulders, as if to pry me off, but he stopped in surprise. ‘Your skin is like ice.’
He rubbed my arms to chase away the cold. There was a casual intimacy to his touch that made me shiver, nothing to do with the supernatural. ‘You feel that too? The chill?’
‘Yeah.’ He looked over my head, towards the window. ‘That’s a wicked draught. Come on.’
Rhys pulled me towards my room, closing the door before he steered me to sit in the upholstered chair. For once it felt good to be handled. It felt good to be handled by him; the brush of his skin and the way his scent filled my head evoked tempting ways to chase away ghosts, literal or figurative. At least for a little while.
Crap. I really was freaking out. Not because I was tempted to close the short distance between us as he leaned close to wrap the quilt from the bed around Gigi and me. But because I thought he might not object.
Gigi licked my face, her tongue warm on my skin. I curled my fingers into her fur, hiding the shaking of my hands. From the night I’d arrived, I’d been glimpsing the past of the house – servants in halls and guests arriving in carriages. The figure in the window. But not seeing anything had freaked me out exponentially worse, because I could feel it, incipient and awful.
Rhys sat in the desk chair and leaned forward, elbows on his knees, staying close. ‘What was all that about?’
I had to get a hold of myself, be analytical. Or at least coherent. ‘Did you see anything by the window?’ I asked.
He shook his head. ‘No. Did you?’ His tone was neutral, though serious, as if we were comparing notes.
‘No.’ It was the truth, though I would have lied to keep from sounding nuts. ‘But you felt the cold, right?’
Slowly, he nodded. ‘I felt a draught. And I felt how chilled you were. Will you tell me what happened? What has you so upset?’
No matter what I admitted to myself, there was no way I could say aloud, not to him, not to anyone, that I was experiencing these things. That I was moving through a morning routine that wasn’t mine, and smelling flowers that weren’t there. That an empty spot in the park plunged me into an icy well of despair. That I felt such bone-deep horror at the inexplicable chill and the building pressure in the air … It touched too close to my psyche, to the part of me rocked off my already shaky foundation.
So I shook my head, answering his question – Will you tell me? – even as I lied. ‘Creaky, draughty old house and an overactive imagination, I guess.’
Rhys sat back with a sigh, running a hand over his hair. He sounded almost disappointed. ‘All right. I don’t guess I’ve given you reason to trust me.’
No. I barely knew him. But here I was, sitting in my pyjamas, in a bedroom – again – talking about extraordinary things. ‘I don’t know why you’re always around when I get spooked.’
‘Probably because it keeps happening right outside my door,’ he said wryly.
‘I’ll try and have my next meltdown somewhere else.’
It was a darker joke than he could know, but Rhys smiled, grudgingly, then ran his hands over the knees of his jeans before speaking again. ‘Listen, Dad and I are leaving before the break of dawn tomorrow—’
‘For good?’ My voice rose in way more distress than I meant to show.
‘No, no,’ he assured me, as if it weren’t odd that a girl he barely knew was upset by his departure. ‘A field trip to the northeast corner of the state. I think Dad mentioned it.’
‘Oh, yeah. Ancient fortress.’ The discussion – had it only been this morning? – seemed distant from the weirdness in the hallway. Which was welcome, as it grounded me in the real world, and I took the opportunity to break the tension by needling him a little. ‘Isn’t it kind of Anglocentric to think Native Americans couldn’t build forts as well as the Welsh?’
‘I would be Celt-centric, to think that,’ he corrected me with some humour, allowing himself to be distracted for a moment. ‘But we don’t. Different isn’t the same as better. But that’s beside the point.’ He took a breath, getting serious again. ‘I want to try and be back tomorrow night, but you’ve seen how my dad is. If he finds a kindred spirit, we’ll be there until next week.’
‘Not that I won’t miss these scintillating late-night visits, Rhys’ – and I would, for several reasons I didn’t examine too closely, but which might have to do with how his knee bumped mine when he shifted in his chair – ’ but what does this have to do with me?’
Again, he drew a breath, like he was bracing himself. I knew dancers who did that before a difficult step or jump. Eventually they broke the habit, or they passed out. ‘I want you to promise you won’t go wandering about after dark.’
‘Oh for heaven’s sake.’ I shrugged off the quilt, because I’d definitely warmed up. ‘This again?’
‘Just tomorrow.’ He raised his hands as if warding off my anger. Or possibly just my raised voice.
??
?Why tomorrow?’ I demanded more softly, resorting to sarcasm to try to get some answers. ‘Is the moon full? Do the vampires and werewolves prowl for young maidens?’
He looked at me askance. ‘You really do have a lurid imagination.’
I made an exasperated sound and stood up, plopping Gigi on the bed, where she watched with interest as I paced the tiny room. The thing was, I didn’t want to go outside after dark. But he was hiding something and it was pissing me off.
‘Give me a good reason why,’ I challenged, ‘and I’ll think about it.’
Rhys stood up too, and the room suddenly seemed that much smaller as he looked down at me from an intimately close distance, his green eyes appearing very dark in the indirect light of the lamp. I had to check the instinct to step back, because my senses were again full of him, and I was trying to stay focused.
‘Because,’ he said distinctly, as if I weren’t very bright, ‘even if you arrived in Alabama as ignorant as a newly hatched chick, you must see by now that there are, as my dad would say, strange dealings afoot.’
His candour surprised me, and I was too pleased that he’d acknowledged that much to be irked by his tone. ‘When you say “strange dealings” …’
A smile turned up the corner of his mouth. ‘Well, I don’t mean werewolves or vampires. Or pirate treasure,’ he added, when I drew a breath.
I wanted to keep it light, but I was getting worried. ‘Seriously, Rhys, if someone is doing something illegal—’
There was a flash of hurt in his eyes, quickly covered by anger. ‘If someone was doing something illegal, I would go to the police.’
The way he fired back made my ears burn, as if I’d accused him unfairly. But I didn’t back down. ‘Then why are you being so cagey? Maybe you don’t trust me.’
His quickly shuttered expression spoke volumes. The flush ran out of my cheeks, and hurt jabbed me in the heart.
‘I keep forgetting we just met,’ I said softly.
‘I know.’ His admission surprised me, and eased some of the irrational pang. The confession seemed to take him a bit off guard too, and he stuck his hands in his pockets, like he didn’t know what to do with them.
‘Look, Sylvie,’ he said, ‘you’re not telling me everything either.’
I started to deny it, then, after a pause, decided on a measure of honesty. ‘Maybe not. But that’s personal.’
‘So is my problem.’ Again he caught my gaze and held it. ‘And I can’t tell you more than that just yet.’
It was the ‘yet’ that convinced me to let it go, for now. ‘All right,’ I said. ‘I’ll stay inside. Anything else?’
He smiled a little sheepishly. ‘Just be careful whom you trust.’
It didn’t take a huge leap to guess who – whom – he meant. ‘Are you saying don’t trust Shawn?’ That wasn’t a surprise, given their animosity. But I was a little disappointed in Rhys for getting in digs when his opponent wasn’t there to defend himself.
‘I am saying,’ Rhys clarified carefully, ‘he’s a very charming guy.’
‘And you don’t like that,’ I prompted. Which made me a hypocrite, since a moment ago I had been annoyed he was running Shawn down. But I wanted his thoughts on something.
He shrugged, not as casually, I think, as he intended. ‘I think charm is overrated.’
That made me laugh, and it wasn’t even bitter or sarcastic. ‘You would say that, Mr Sunshine.’
He drew himself up, so offended that I laughed again, and covered my mouth before the sound made Gigi bark. Slowly, Rhys acknowledged my point with a smile that chased away my irritation and left only the pull of attraction.
We stood that way for a long, ridiculous moment, until my out-of-practice grin faded, and there was nothing left to say but goodbye. But the longer he didn’t say it, the more I didn’t want him to.
I certainly couldn’t. My tongue had tied itself in knots. Maybe because I was suddenly very aware that we were in my bedroom, and I was wearing my camisole and pink pyjama pants with bright yellow ducks. Which hadn’t seemed like such a big deal until we shared that smile.
‘Are you all right now?’ he asked, and I hoped he was asking because he didn’t want to go either. Maybe it was wishful thinking that it wasn’t just me remembering that moment he’d held me securely against him, the way his hands had rubbed the chill from my skin. Wondering how it would feel if he touched my arm for no reason but that he wanted to. If he brushed back my hair and traced the line of my neck.
It would be magic. I knew it like I knew my own name. And that was as crazy as any other thought that had entered my brain since I’d arrived in Cahaba. Maybe it was a good thing he was leaving for at least a day.
I remembered he’d asked me a question, and figured out how to make my tongue work again. ‘I’m fine. Right as rain.’
Great. Babbling clichés was always impressive.
Rhys smiled, like he knew me well enough to follow my thoughts. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow night.’
I opened the door for him, offering more inanities. ‘Safe journey. Remember – drive on the right side of the road.’
He didn’t dignify that with a laugh, just a wry ‘Got it. Right side.’ But his hand brushed my arm as he left, a seemingly unconscious gesture of farewell that had no less – maybe even more – impact for how natural it was.
Shutting the door, I turned to find Gigi looking at me, cocking her head in confusion at this uncharacteristic flush of giddy girliness. ‘I know. It’s my arm, for God’s sake.’
Get a grip, Sylvie. There are strange dealings afoot.
I liked that phrase. It encompassed a lot. Natural, unnatural … But it didn’t settle my mind as I tried to get to sleep.
Chapter 14
At breakfast the next morning, Clara introduced me to hominy grits. I finally discovered why God put cheese and butter on the earth.
Not even the delicious treat – which I gathered wasn’t everyday fare – was enough to cheer up Addie, however. She stirred the grits in her bowl and said in her most peevish voice, ‘These are loaded with fat, Mom. Why don’t I just paint them on my thighs.’
‘That would be an interesting fashion choice,’ I said. Pretty mildly, I thought, but she pinned me with a glare like an icicle.
‘Why are you even hanging around here? Shawn’s not picking me up today – he’s done with classes.’
‘Yeah.’ I drew the word out sardonically. ‘Because I’m definitely building my day around a guy I’ve met three times.’ Although I let a guy I’d only known for three days into my room. So maybe I shouldn’t have been so quick to get on my high horse.
I left Addie to her sulk, and collected Gigi from her crate, where she’d been eating her own breakfast. As Paula had predicted, I found some basic gardening tools on the porch, including gloves. My hands had healed remarkably quickly – they’d stung in the bath last night, but I was surprised this morning that the skin was just a little pink, no blisters or scabs at all. Still, I’d learned my lesson: respect the greenery.
In the knot garden, I dove into weeding with an enthusiasm that lasted a solid thirty minutes. I’d only thought I grasped the difficulty of the project. Or maybe I’d thought, because I was my father’s daughter, my knees wouldn’t hurt and my leg wouldn’t ache.
But it wasn’t as if I had to be done tomorrow. I slowed down a bit, enjoying the soft earth and the quiet calm of the plants. Whatever else was going on at Bluestone Hill, I loved the feeling that I shared this spot with Dad, him in his time, and me in mine.
Paula came out after I’d been at it about an hour. I could see her checking over my work, which, I had to admit, didn’t look that impressive. ‘Well, bless your heart, just look at that. I didn’t even remember there was a bench there.’
That was how overgrown the place was. The first thing I’d done was rather haphazardly yank greenery out from around the wrought-iron bench, and tether Gigi to it. Otherwise she would have wanted to help me weed, and she couldn’t d
istinguish the difference between a dandelion and a daffodil.
Sadly, I wasn’t sure I was much better. I’d had to refer a few times to the horticultural society’s A to Z guide to plants. I’d found it in front of my door that morning. Rhys must have put it there, since I was pretty sure I’d dropped it in the hall.
Paula picked her way over the uneven path. She wore a salmon-coloured sweater set and a flowing floral skirt. Not exactly paint-the-front-bedroom clothes. ‘You look very nice,’ I said, curious what had prompted this costume change. ‘That colour suits you.’
She looked pleased with the compliment, though she made a this-old-thing face as she smoothed the front of her sweater. ‘Thank you. I have an appointment in Selma and will probably be gone for lunch.’
‘Is “appointment” the Southern way of saying “hot date”?’ I asked, fishing for details with an attempt at humour.
Her sideways look was the most droll I’d seen her. ‘No. It’s a meeting about money. Refurbishment is expensive.’
‘Oh.’ I felt a little awkward, since I hadn’t thought about finances. Looking at the grand old Southern house and the acres of land, I assumed there was grand old Southern money to go with it. I tried not to visibly wince when I remembered telling Rhys that I had no designs on the place because Dad had left me well off. But he had.
‘If you’re going back inside,’ I said, glossing over my own awkwardness, ‘would you tell Clara not to trouble herself to make lunch if you’re not going to be here? I’ll just heat up some of yesterday’s quiche.’
‘I’ll do my best to convince her.’
‘Seriously. She feeds me like I’m an underweight turkey in September.’ Clara’s food was like Dad’s allowance – wonderful to have, but more than I needed.
Paula made her exasperated face, her mouth tightening in annoyance. ‘Well, Sylvie, honey, that’s how we take care of people down here in the South. Don’t be ungrateful.’
‘I’m not!’ I protested, irritated that the one time I wasn’t being snarky, I still caught flak for it. Gigi barked, echoing my objection.