Chapter 6 #2
“Jessica kicked her out of her AirBnB. Isn’t that rude?” His sister shot him a wicked, knowing look. “Apparently she didn’t want a Cullraven under her roof. Probably afraid she’d get her eyes pecked out.”
Nadine looked between them nervously. “She said she double-booked.”
“I see.” Cal felt a flicker of amusement as he remembered the threatening email Jessica had sent him in response to his list of code violations. Self-preservation was a very useful tool.
“Isn’t she a liar?” Odessa’s eyes glinted like a crow’s.
“I’m pretty sure that lying isn’t Christian.
I should join that stupid little bible study group of theirs just so I can tell them that.
In fact, I’m pretty sure there’s a quote in their book about that.
They have quotes for everything. It’s like Pinterest for sanctimonious people. ”
Noelle hadn’t been religious but it occurred to Cal that her uptight little sister might be. She wore a necklace around her delicate throat but he was fairly certain it wasn’t a cross.
“Proverbs 12:22,” he said, and Nadine’s eyes snapped to his. “The Lord detests lying lips, but delights in people who are trustworthy.”
“Ooh, I like that,” Odessa said. “Lying lips. Doesn’t that sound sexy, Nadine? I knew there was a reason people spend so much time on their knees in church.”
Her gloating should have annoyed him but he was distracted momentarily by the thought of Nadine on her knees. “You two need to leave,” he said. “I’m about to have a meeting with a client. If you insist on discussing fellation and blasphemy, you’ll have to do it elsewhere.”
“Yes, Daddy.” She flashed a conspiratorial grin at Nadine. “Baby Cal became a real stiff in law school. He used to be quite the jock, but then they brain-washed him at his fancy little Ivy League and now he just acts cross and makes stupid money by yelling at people all day.”
“Stop fucking with me or you’ll be next,” he warned. “And don’t ever call me Daddy again.”
“What about Nadine?” Her grin was feral, cat-like. “Can she call you Daddy?”
Cal slammed the door on her, just missing her snub nose. But not before he noticed the rather interesting expression on Nadine’s face.
Not disgust—panic. Like she’d been caught out.
His sister’s voice picked up again, muted by the wood; it was floating away in the opposite direction, punctuated by the creak of the floorboards.
That would have been Nadine. The boards creaked on purpose, like nightingale floors.
The original Caledon was a hunter through and through, and had designed his house so that no one but him and those he favored could slink around undetected.
There were stories of how he had used to hunt his staff through the many halls and back corridors in what his father referred to wistfully as “the glory days.” Back when families were quietly paid off for their trouble, he meant, and it was an easier task to make people disappear.
Cal unmuted his client and listened to the man’s outrageous demands as he mentally tracked Nadine’s progress through the house, trying to figure out which room they had placed her in.
If the lack of interest in his voice was obvious to him, his client was probably picking up on it as well.
Maybe that was why he chose to linger as long as he did, asking the same questions repeatedly.
They could sense when they weren’t wanted.
His mind drifted again—towards the house and its many dangers, hidden and not.
As long as Nadine stayed with Odessa, she would be safe enough, but Odessa was nobody’s guardian and Ben saw her presence here as a challenge to his authority.
It would be more difficult for her to nose around undetected, but he still needed to keep an eye on her, and setting her free amongst the townsfolk might still be worse.
As soon as he ended the call with his client, Cal slipped on his shoes and left the office.
The air was cooler in the main part of the library, but humid. It was causing the blue flocked wallpaper to peel, tinged with that sweet molder of old paint and rotting wood. Ravensgate was poorly insulated and full of long back corridors.
The rot, like the past, always came back.
He encountered Thomas in the main hallway. He was carrying a basket of potatoes that must have been dredged up from the cellar. Cal pulled him aside before he could make it to the kitchen, ignoring his grimace and slight flinch. “Where did my sister take Nadine?”
“Miss Cullraven put her in the bridal suite, sir.” Cal didn’t think he imagined the disapproval, though it was difficult to tell whether it was directed at him, her, or the location. Not that he needed to explain himself to a servant.
“Treat her like family,” he instructed. “Whatever she wants—you tell her yes, and then you come to me. Not my father and not to Ben. Is that clear?”
What was clear was that the butler did not approve of this at all, but he nodded stiffly, though the very outline of him seemed to grow sharper with displeasure. “She has a food allergy, sir.”
Cal looked at the potatoes. “Those should be fine. Check the herbs just to be sure. The potted rabbit, as well. We can’t have her getting sick at the table.”
“She wants to eat in her room.”
Cal considered this. That looked an awful lot like running away and it wouldn’t do to have her looking like easy game so early in her stay—but it was a better option than having her wandering around like unclaimed quarry while her throat begged for a knife.
“I think we can make an exception this once, don’t you?”
“Master Cullraven won’t like it.”
“She’s here at my behest,” Cal reminded the other man. “Not his.”
“Very good, sir.” The butler shifted his basket of potatoes and continued en route for the kitchen, no trace of warmth in his tone, only the upward inflection of reluctant compliance.
Sir.
His father was “Master Cullraven” and his brother was “Mister.” The servants addressed him like a stranger in his own home.
But it’s not yours, is it? The imagined voice could have been a Greek chorus, whispered by those ancestral portraits with the watching eyes that followed him all the way up the stairs to his bedroom. It’s not yours—and it never will be. Not while Ben lives to breathe.
Fuck Ben, Cal thought wearily.
After the trying day he’d had, eating in his room, alone, sounded like a rather good idea, but his father demanded their continued presence whenever they were under this roof.
His mother made them dress up and in this one small sphere, his father indulged her authority, perhaps enjoying the pageantry himself.
Cal did up the buttons of his silk shirt, head canted as he listened for sounds from next door. On the other side of the medieval tapestry draped over his wall was a secret door, which led right into the bridal suite. He could feel faint stirrings, as if she were walking. Or pacing.
Given her smugness, and Nadine’s hapless confusion, Cal suspected that his older sister had not bothered to inform their guest that her bedroom led right into his when the doors were unlocked.
She was playing matchmaker. He stepped into his slacks, smoothing his fingers over imaginary wrinkles. This would have to stop. If she continued to flaunt Nadine in front of his brother and father for her own amusement, that would force his hand before he was ready.
He wanted to take his time.
The table was already set for dinner. Beneath the carved chandelier of deer antlers, candles flickering in their depths to throw stark shadows over the striped walls, the crystal glassware and silver cutlery glittered almost violently.
Odessa was on time for once, wearing a pearled headband to tame the dark falls of her rich locks. Beside her was Ben, who was disheveled and unshaved, and then his mother. She was wan, but she tended to look that way whenever his father was home.
“I hear we have a guest,” she said.
“Yes, Noelle’s sister.” Cal seated himself, dragging the linen napkin over his lap. “She’ll be staying with us for a while. It seems her accommodations fell through.”
“How unfortunate,” Odessa said.
“It would have been nice if you had consulted with me, first,” Ben said, pouring himself a full glass of wine, “seeing as how she’s the sister of my late bride.”
His mother looked up in alarm. “Hush.”
“Don’t worry.” Cal gave his brother a smile like razor wire. “She’s having dinner in her rooms. That ought to give you some time to practice working on your slips.”
Ben blanched angrily. “Spare me the cross-exmaination.”
“If this were a cross-examination, I’d charge you as a hostile witness.”
“But I’m not the one on trial right now, am I?” Ben hissed. “She is.”
“Yes. Timid thing, isn’t she?” Nathaniel Cullraven strolled through the doorway like he’d been peeled from the very walls of Ravensgate, sitting down at the head of the table.
He had another, expensive-looking bottle of wine cradled in his hands.
Despite the somber mood of the room, he appeared to be in good spirits.
“I had a run-in with the girl upstairs. Thought she was going to jump right out of her skin from a single look at me.”
He sounded pleased by the thought. Cal glanced at his mother’s drawn face and said nothing while his father sloshed wine as red as blood into his crystal glass. “At least this one eats meat,” he commented. “That’s an improvement.”
“Cal’s interested in her,” Ben said. “He’s been quite protective since the wedding. I was just about to inform him that that’s out of the question.”
“Well, it’s far too early for him to be thinking about settling down.” His father swirled the glass, scrutinizing the contents, before taking a long drink. “You remember what happened the last time you were carnal with the wildlife, don’t you, boy?”
“How could I not?” Cal reached for his father’s bottle and filled his own glass. “You keep reminding me.”