Chapter 7 #2
“I notice a lot of things.” His fingers continued their slow trace of his mother’s embroidery.
It was very fine work: roses, hellebore, and datura, vined with careful leafy stems. His mother had done it years ago, back when her hands were steadier, as part of her bridal trousseau.
Her nerves made such tasks impossible now. “It’s why I’m so good at what I do.”
Nadine was watching his hands. When she spoke, her voice was cold and missish. “I hope you don’t also notice people while they’re sleeping.”
Cal took his hands away, surprised. Did she know? Had she been awake, after all?
“Nadine,” he said, “if you really don’t feel safe around me, perhaps you should lock your door—unless you enjoy putting yourself at my mercy.” He rose from the bed. “Now that you’re decent, why not come downstairs with me? And then I’ll give you the grand tour.”
“Are there gaslights on this tour?” she snapped. “Because you seem fond of those.”
She is amusing, he thought, as she went with him gamely enough despite her bluster.
But jumpy. She stayed close beside him, her steps uncertain as they navigated through the halls of the house.
Every time she trod on one of the loose boards, he had to fight the impulse to correct her, because of course, she would want to know why and that would have been impossible to explain.
Most of the windows in Ravensgate faced away from the sun, making the house stingy with light, and the tall walls of evergreens at the edge of the property provided a perpetual curtain of shade.
His great-grandfather had handpicked the wallpaper from China, as his mother was so fond of mentioning on the odd tour, but the dark colors showed none of that prized metallic glitter in the gloom and made the choked hallways feel as narrow as a gasping throat.
Can she feel it, too? he wondered, watching the breath leave her as they made it to the kitchen, her body relaxing for the first time since he’d happened upon her in her room. Does she know that she’s being hunted?
He had made arrangements with the kitchen to prepare her meals in advance, and the look of conflicted gratitude on her face when she received her breakfast made the effort well worth it. Satisfied, he leaned back against the counter to sip his coffee as he watched her eat.
It was far too easy to imagine her here, at his side. She would make a very pretty wife. Of course, if she were his wife, he’d serve her himself in their own rooms so he could enjoy her while she still looked freshly-fucked en dishabille.
She glanced up suddenly, as if she had heard that thought. He set his coffee cup aside and smiled. “Ready to see the house?”
“No tricks?” she said.
“No promises,” was his gentle retort. “But I’ll try to behave. Since you’ve already seen most of this floor, we can start at the top and work our way down.”
She immediately tripped as they were going up the stairs and he caught her, looping an arm around her waist with one hand on the banister to stabilize them both. Nadine squirmed away, her eyes averted. “Careful,” Cal said, giving her shoulder a warning squeeze.
“There was something there,” Nadine blurted, looking at the runner. This time, she didn’t shrug him off. “But I don’t see anything.”
“There’s a lot of loose boards in this house. They tend to jump out at you.”
“Why don’t you fix them?”
“A lot of it’s dimensional lumber. Nonstandard. But also, it’s the way of these old houses to wear down and grow old. It’s considered tasteless to restore them unless absolutely necessary.”
Nadine scoffed, but there was a hint of a smile playing at the corner of her tempting mouth. “Who decides that? The old house police?”
“You wouldn’t laugh if you saw the company my parents keep. The ladies ruling the historical society would throw people in jail in a heartbeat, if they could make ill-thought renovations illegal. I suppose we’re just lucky that they don’t use guns to enforce their point.”
Nadine made a small noise—it took him a moment to recognize it as a laugh, swallowed back before it could fully escape. Her smile was heartstoppingly lovely; it lit up her face, softening the tense lines of her jaw and making her eyes glow like sunlit rainclouds.
“You’re smiling,” he said, a little surprised.
She ducked her head. “Because you’re ridiculous.”
“I was wrong.” Still studying her face, he clarified, “At the wedding, I said you only might be prettier than your sister. But when you smile, there’s simply no question. It lights you up.”
Nadine’s face looked somber now. “That’s an awful thing to say while she’s missing.”
“I know. But I still thought you should know.”
She didn’t respond but she didn’t rebuke him, either.
And Cal knew her well enough to suspect that she would have, if she had truly been offended.
She seemed very inclined to fairness, perhaps because she hadn’t received much of it herself.
Losing her parents so young, always living in her sister’s shadow: a casualty to the whims of fate.
The wallpaper gleamed darkly in the electric lights, the bronze powder adding layers of luminescence to the shadowy fan palms, if none of the sparkle.
Cal imagined that the effect would have been even more intense back when the house had still used gas lamps and the dance of flickering flames would have added motion and depth.
Nadine stayed close as he led her through the house, nearly pressing up against him. He rather liked that, even if her trust were unwarranted. It made him want to protect her.
“This is my father’s room.” He stopped outside the master bedroom. “I think he’s in there now, so we won’t go in. But traditionally, it has always belonged to the Master of Ravensgate. The family crest hangs over the walls—Venari, dormire: in hoc est salus. To hunt, to sleep: that is the life.”
Caledon Cullraven had wanted everyone to be reminded of who—and what—he was.
“I’ve seen it.” Nadine stared at the door warily. “I went in by mistake.”
She didn’t elaborate, but her face was wan as she looked away from the door.
“Have you,” he said grimly. “You move quickly, then.” And so does he.
“This is Mother’s room,” he went on, urging her down the hall.
“Though she keeps her apartments locked during the day. Not even the maids are allowed in. She doesn’t like being disturbed. ”
“What about your father?” she asked presciently.
“He has a master key.”
His siblings’ rooms were no less opulent, and these, he opened to give Nadine a quick look.
Odessa’s room had once been the nursery but it had been remodeled in the 1930s to reflect a more art deco flair.
In another house, the swan lamps and tapestry might have been charming, but not even fairytale splendor was exempt from the pall of Ravensgate, and in the darkness, the glass eyes of the molded swans looked like the dead.
Ben’s room was much more traditional with its heavy mahogany furniture and dark gold jacquard and black color scheme.
Some of his projects were laid out on the desk with the blue pencils he custom-ordered from Japan.
A few of his late wife’s things were still in the room, which Nadine immediately zeroed in on.
She picked up one of the dresses—it was the nightgown Noelle had been wearing beneath her robe the night that she’d happened upon him in the library.
He thought about that night often, wondering what he might have said to dissuade Noelle from the path that would ultimately lead her to her death.
Nadine’s fingers closed around the thin fabric, bunching it. Then she let the silk slip through her fingers. “Where are the rest of her things? Nathaniel said her room used to be mine.”
“They’re in storage.”
“Already?”
Cal said nothing.
“I might like to go through them,” she said, almost like a threat.
“Of course. I can take you there later.”
He saw no problem with taking her up to the attic. The secrets in this house tended to fall downward like sinking stones.
She stopped him again in the hall, putting her palm on the varnished surface of one of the servants’ doors. “Why are these doors closed?”
“We keep a lot of them sealed to save on heating. The insulation is very poor. It gets drafty. A lot of these doors just lead to the old servants’ corridors anyway. Back in the day, it was considered in better taste not to see the help. That a house should run itself.”
“That’s pretty shitty,” she said mutinously.
“I agree.” She looked up, shocked—what a cad she thought he was. His smile, when it came this time, felt thin. “That surprises you?”
“I don’t really know you well enough to be surprised by anything you do.”
“I doubt that. You have this air of anxious wonder that makes me suspect I could shock you all night long.”
Nadine stared at him, mouth agape.
“You seem speechless, Nadine. Are you?”
“You don’t need to keep saying my name every two seconds,” she shot back.
“True. You could be saying mine. And on that note—” he swung open the door dramatically, and the squeak of hinges mirrored her little squawk of outrage “—this is my bedroom.”
Teasing aside, he was proud of this room.
It had been decorated by him and he had consulted many auction catalogues trying to get the look of the furnishings just right.
The bed was one of the original pieces of furniture that had been passed down through generations and it was hard to find good, gothic mahogany that wasn’t imitation or fake. Quality was always worth the wait.