Chapter Eighteen
Chapter
Eighteen
Turns out it’s distinctly odd being in a castle all on your own at midnight.
I packed Lestat off home with my mother for his own good an hour or so back.
If he stays here any longer he’s entirely likely to either go in for another rumble in the jungle with Goliath the pug slayer or explode from the amount of food he’s being fed in the castle kitchen.
He was last seen being rolled toward my mother’s Pontiac like a keg of beer, and then hoisted between the three women and thrown onto the backseat like they’d just purchased a heavy bag of potatoes from a dodgy roadside van.
They sort of swung him back and forth a few times to gather momentum before letting go, and then my gran and Glenda had a restrained lady fight about who was going to climb into the back with him.
It goes without saying that Glenda won. I wouldn’t bet against her, even if she was fighting Wonder Woman.
I locked the massive front doors behind them and laid the key on the table, then perched on one of the armchairs and just sort of gazed around me in the silence.
I don’t really go in for words like eerie, but I was suddenly very aware that I was on my own.
Across the castle forecourt I could see a light on in the far turret; Leo must still be awake.
I won’t lie. I toyed with the idea of wandering across and asking to sleep on their sofa, but then what would that say about me?
One thing it wouldn’t say is badass businesswoman, and that is very much the image I want the world to see of me these days.
What would the creepy twins think in the morning if they found me passed out in their lounge?
I’d have to do the walk of shame back to the castle, even though I’d have done nothing to be ashamed of besides proving myself to be a lily-livered scaredy-cat.
My mind’s made up for me when the light in the turret winks off and all I can see through the front window is unending darkness.
“Night night, Leo,” I murmur into the silence. “Night, creepy twins with murderous tendencies.”
I make the only possible decision I can in the circumstances. I pour myself a large brandy from the decanter in the corner of the main reception hall and head on up the stairs to bed.“I miss brandy.”
I’m startled by the sound of Britannia’s voice next to me as I make my way down the long hallway toward the Princess Suite.
“Yes, I think I’d miss it too,” I say after a beat as she follows me into my room—into her room. “Were you with Leo this evening?”
“For a while.” She sits down on the bed and sighs. “Before Bohemia came hunting for me, and then Dino, of course.”
“Can I ask you something?” I say, kicking off my Converse. I don’t mind her being here; in truth, I’m quite glad for the company.
“If I can ask you something in return,” she says, ever the coquette, even with me.
I shrug. “Okay.” I pause and sip my brandy while I decide how to frame my question. “So, Leo. Can you touch him?”
Ghosts don’t blush, but I fancy she would if she could. “Not yet, but I’m hoping I might be able to soon.”
This is good news. I’d assumed that she’d achieved contact by now given the blood on Leo’s hands in the ballroom, but it’s an incredibly difficult thing to master and she’s obviously struggling to control it.
“My turn to ask a question,” she says. “Do you love him?”
“Leo?” I have to clarify whom she means because he’s not the first man who came to mind when she asked her question. Let’s just ignore that fact and hope it goes away. Britannia nods and I struggle to figure out the subtext behind her question. Is she trying to decide if I’m her love rival?
“Leo and I were together for quite a while, but that was a long time ago now. I guess you could say that we’re trying to be friends these days, professionally at least.”
She mulls that over quietly while I head into the bathroom and brush my teeth. When I go back through, she’s moved to the tall, broad old chest of drawers beside the chimney breast.
“Look in here,” she says, suddenly childlike and excited.
I humor her and cross to join her in front of the drawers.
She taps the second drawer down. “This one, I think.”
I grasp the faceted crystal knobs and slide it open, and inside I see layers of silk, satin, and crisp cotton.
“My trousseau,” she says. “Pull this one out.”
She gestures toward a snowy white broderie anglaise nightgown. I indulge her, lifting it out and shaking it straight. I have to concede that it’s a very beautiful thing.
“Spanish lace,” she says as I admire the needlework and tiny shell buttons on the pin-tuck bodice.
I’m reminded of the sweet baby romper Marina and I found in the turret and I’m set to ask her about it when the look in her eyes pulls me up short. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone look so wistful.
“Try it on?”
I look up sharply.
“Please?” she whines, suddenly like a little girl who misses her most favorite doll. “It’s the next best thing to wearing it myself again. I just want to see it.”
I automatically go to refuse, but why, really?
What harm is there in going along with it for her?
Perhaps she’ll reveal something while she’s unguarded like this.
Besides, my single secret girly chromosome really fancies a spot of fancy dress, even if all of the others are saying put your Snoopy onesie on and go to bed.
“Oh go on then,” I mutter, and roll my eyes to show her that I’m not entirely sure this is a good idea.
“Wait there.” I feel compelled to add that because she’s more than likely to trail me into the en suite.
I strip off in the bathroom and slide the nightgown over my head.
As I pull the front together and button it, it hugs and boosts my chest. It’s very fitted with a scoop neck and delicate cap sleeves; it brings to mind serving wenches and bodice rippers.
The mirror shows me cleavage and curves, and I’m glad and sad at the same time that no one else can see me.
The skirt falls to just above my knees; it’s sort of filthy demure, like I should thread daisies in my hair and wear it with wellies at a festival and then dance around a campfire barefoot in the evening.
All this from a nightie! Too much champagne has done things to my brain.
I wander out to show Britannia, but when I get back into the bedroom a sudden almighty banging downstairs starts up and she flees in wide-eyed panic.
Oh shitty-shitty-shit-bollocks, what the hell am I supposed to do now?
Sodding Dino! I might need to lie down. God, how I wish Marina was here, and I want my mum.
No, what I really wish is that Glenda sodding Jackson was still here.
But they aren’t here. None of them are. I’m all on my own in this seventeen-bedroom haunted castle and the racket has just started up again now, loud and more horribly, ominously insistent.
I look for my cellphone on the bedside table but find it dead.
Thump, thump. Thump, thump. Ohmagod, really loud thump.
Oh crap, it’s no good. It seems Dino wants this out with me right now, and he’s not going to let me rest until I’ve been down there.
I tiptoe down the hallway and pause at the top of the sweeping staircase, keeping myself pressed against the wall in case Dino decides to try and play a game of “let’s push Melody down the stairs.
” It’s not usually the case that ghosts can physically touch the living but given Leo’s bloody hands episode earlier in the ballroom, I’m not taking any chances.
I frown, groping for the light switches and finding nothing.
My heart is beating so hard it’s painful.
“Britannia?” I whisper her name in the hope she’s still around somewhere, but she doesn’t appear.
Of course she doesn’t. One thing I’ve learned about ghosts is you can’t rely on them to help you in a crisis.
I tiptoe slowly down the dark staircase.
The banging has stopped and everything has fallen eye-of-the-storm quiet and still.
I could go back to bed. A sensible person would scamper back up there right now and pull the covers over their head until daylight, but I think we’ve already established that I’m not a sensible person.
I’m halfway up and halfway down the stairs when the banging starts again. After a few seconds of being sure I’m about to have to face down a malevolent poltergeist, realization finally dawns on me. It’s not a ghost making trouble this time.
There’s somebody at the door.