Chapter 24
I’m glad you’re here because I needed to tell you something…,” I told Nin.
As we walked together, I dug the envelope from my skirts and handed it to him. “This was in the master’s trash. I mailed it from the store when the master took me into town, but clearly it was never sent, and he’s read the contents. It was a letter to my teacher at the hospital.”
“Hmm…” Nin handed the envelope back to me. “He’s monitoring you more closely than I thought. Did he learn anything from this letter?”
I hung my head and pulled my wool shawl tighter across my shoulders. “I basically accused the master of witchcraft, said the servants had abused me and that I’d found a boy chained in the basement.”
Nin made a choking sound, and I immediately felt his gaze on me. “You wrote all this to your teacher in the city?”
I nodded, letting embarrassment wash over me. “I’m so sorry. I wish I’d never sent the letter now, but I was desperate.”
He didn’t say anything right away, and that was almost worse than being scolded. We walked in tandem a few steps, and then he said, “Tell me exactly what your letter said.”
I couldn’t quite remember it all word for word, so I gave him a summary.
After listening and thinking, he said, “So he knows you suspected him from the start. That doesn’t put you in a safe position.”
“No, I guess it doesn’t. What should I do? Pretend as if I never found the envelope? Play dumb?”
“Might not be the worst thing, playing dumb. It’s exactly what he’s doing. But you’ll have to be more careful than you have been, Molly.”
“ ‘Careful’ is my middle name.”
“That’s funny. I thought it was ‘stubborn.’ ”
I huffed out a laugh. “I do believe you’re teasing me now.”
A hint of a smile lifted his cheeks as his eyes darted toward mine. “Perhaps I am.”
That made me remarkably happy. I didn’t want to ruin it, so I didn’t reply.
The sun shone bright upon our faces as we crunched over dried leaves, hiking up a hill that would block any sight of us from the manor.
Once over the hill, we walked together in companionable silence until we neared the big doors of the carriage house.
“Tell me why we’re here,” Nin said, gaze skimming the old building.
“I’m looking for the ghost of Charles Voss,” I explained.
“Bethany has seen a wandering spirit, but she can’t remember where it was.
And I’ve never met the coachman, so—” I stopped in front of the big doors.
“Why are you looking at me like that? Oh! Of course.” I shook my head, feeling foolish, and whispered, “We can’t have the coachman seeing you. Do you want to stay out here while I…”
I stopped talking because Nin was looking at me as if I’d lost the plot.
“What?” I asked.
“There’s no one inside the carriage house.”
Okay…? Then why was he acting so strange? “I guess I’ll have to come back later, when the coachman is here. I wonder where he could be? Maybe gone into town, perhaps.”
Nin shook his head and said, “Follow me.” Then he unlatched one of the doors and swung it open far enough for us to enter.
Scents of old hay and manure wafted as I stepped onto a dusty dirt floor.
The carriage house was nicer than most of the ones I’d been inside; it had a lofty space with a wagon and three coaches parked near the left wall.
Past them, at the back wall, were stalls for the horses.
Several windows let in light that shone on riding tack and various tools that hung alongside wagon wheels and whips.
“Hello?” I called out, but no reply came.
Only the soft shuffling of horse feet from the stalls in the back.
I could spy a couple of black steeds from where we stood, and through the window, a couple more grazed in a nearby paddock.
I could see through the back windows, even, where the woodpile sat.
“There is no one here,” Nin said as we walked past the open door to the coachman’s quarters—one room with a bed, table, and fireplace.
“Huh, guess you’re right. Here’s the coach I’ve ridden inside, this big, fancy one,” I said as we walked around the side of it. “Wonder where the coachman is?”
As I glanced up toward the driver’s bench at the front of the carriage, I was shocked to see the coachman sitting in black, dressed for duty. But no horses were attached. “Oh!” I said, hand to my chest. “You frightened me. Hello, sir. I don’t believe we’ve… we’ve…”
“Molly, wait.” Nin picked up an iron rod that sat on the floor and reached up with it to push back the coachman’s heavy hood.
In the place where the coachman’s head should’ve been sat an animal’s skull.
I stumbled backward in horror. “W-what is this?”
“A crude magic spell,” Nin said calmly, tossing the iron bar to the ground. “Your master created a golem from bones to drive the carriage.”
I stood in shock, gaze flicking over the lumpy shape of the coachman. Just clothes filled with bones? “How? And why? I mean, why not just hire a coachman?”
“This one has the advantage of being able to go in and out through the aegis border without needing to be in contact with any sort of magical key—which I suppose is that hourglass that Kesh told you about.”
I don’t know why this alarmed me so much, given everything I’d seen over the past few weeks. But I felt a little sick to my stomach. “The master is riding to town in a pumpkin coach like Cinderella?”
“I doubt he’s going to any balls,” Nin quipped.
But as we stood together, staring at the monstrous, empty coachman, I couldn’t help but think of Nin’s story about how he’d been summoned into a mysterious ballroom that didn’t seem to exist. “You said you saw Charles Voss’s ghost when you were first summoned here.
If he’s still wandering around the manor, he’d likely be in that ballroom you saw. ”
“Yes…”
“But there isn’t a ballroom.”
“Not that I’ve found.”
“But that makes no sense. How many houses as big as this one don’t have a ballroom? They have this enormous carriage house, smoking rooms… There’s got to be a ballroom in there somewhere. When I first arrived, the servants told me they’d shuttered parts of the house in preparation for winter.”
“If it were merely a shuttered door, I’d be able to see past it. Likely it’s been warded with magic to hide it. Someone who can construct the aegis border can surely cloak a few rooms inside the house.”
That was possible? Then again, when I looked at the animal skull that had convinced me it was a human coachman, my heart knew that anything was possible.
“Okay, then,” I said, pacing around the carriage. “Let me think. A ballroom warded with magic… Well, it wouldn’t be upstairs, we know that much. No one builds a ballroom on the second floor. You want your guests on the first floor. What are we missing here—”
“Molly!” Nin whispered loudly, jerking me out of my thoughts. “Hoffmann comes!”
What?! What was the valet doing out here? And why hadn’t Nin noticed him earlier? I stood motionless between the side of the carriage and the wall, utterly panicked, not knowing if I should hide or try to escape.
One of the big doors began opening.
There goes my chance to escape…
I glanced behind me, expecting Nin to have vanished, but he was discreetly slipping around to my side of the carriage.
It was heavily shadowed back here, but I wasn’t sure it was dark enough to hide us.
I peered around the corner of the carriage.
The valet was entering the carriage house door, talking to himself.
“… if that cook left this open again, I swear…”
He didn’t suspect me, and he hadn’t seen Nin. That was good!
I backed up and hit Nin’s chest, mouthing, Sorry. He shook his head once, dismissive, and we jostled around each other for a moment.
Until the sounds of Hoffmann’s slow footfalls began approaching, and we both stilled.
Nin gripped my shoulder firmly to peer around my head, leaning until he caught a glimpse of the valet, and quickly ducked back.
Panic coursed through me. I still didn’t know how dangerous the servant was, or even what he was, but it was probably better to face him than continue hiding.
“Is anyone here?” Hoffmann called out, his voice echoing around the big space.
Dammit!
We couldn’t get caught. We just couldn’t. God only knew what the master would do if he realized Nin could leave the trap in the crypt. I might never see Nin again, and that thought scared me more than Hoffmann.
I turned to Nin and mouthed, Go! Leave! I’ve got this.
At first, I didn’t think he’d understood me. Then his gaze flicked around the space, searching, until it fell upon the carriage itself.
Moving stealthily like a big cat, he quietly opened the carriage door and urged me inside with one firm hand on my back. Then he slipped inside behind me, sitting on my skirts that had caught on the velvet bench seat, and closed the door.
The interior of the carriage was oppressively dark and still.
Brocaded curtains covered the entire back window, but the curtains were only partially drawn on the side windows.
Hunching low on the bench, I peered through the exposed glass near me.
I’d just caught a glimpse of Hoffmann bending down to peer under the belly of a wagon parked in front of us when Nin reached across me to jerk the curtains closed.
I gave him a sharp look that hopefully told him that I didn’t appreciate being treated like a child. He merely arched a dark brow as if to say, What are you going to do about it?
Frustrated, I tugged at my skirts that were snagged underneath his legs, trying to get them loose, but he immediately put a forceful hand on mine to stop me.
No, he mouthed.
I understood that well enough.
Hoffmann called out again, “Hello?” Far too close. The servant’s shadow crossed the window. Three more steps and I’d be looking at him.
I flattened against the seat, glanced at Nin’s face, and saw him make some kind of internal decision. Then, before I could agree or protest, he pulled me down with him onto the seat, covering my body with his.
I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t shocked.
But at the same time, I understood what Nin was doing, trying to keep us out of view of the side window.
I could feel that he was straining to hold himself up, to keep our bodies separated, supporting himself with one elbow near my shoulder and one knee between mine on the edge of the bench.
The bright smell of oranges enveloped me, mixing with the fresh, floral scent that wafted from the lily in his boutonniere that currently sat against my breast. We lay upon the bench together, chests rising and falling.
Until the valet stopped in front of the carriage door.
I closed my eyes.
Nin’s weight sank against me, slowly, slowly… I didn’t mind. He was impossibly heavy, but it was a good kind of heavy, one that felt solid. And protective.
I dared to rest my hand on his back. When I did, Nin’s warm cheek nestled against mine.
His lips brushed against my ear, causing a ripple of tingles across my skin when he whispered something in a foreign tongue.
Words I couldn’t comprehend, low and melodic.
So quiet that maybe they weren’t words at all.
Maybe I dreamed them. But I didn’t dream the steady thump of his heart, competing with mine.
It sounded human.
Slowly, so slowly, I let my cheek fall against his. And when I did, he didn’t move away.
He inhaled a shuddering breath, and I felt his hips fall against mine. And then I felt something more.
A little zing of pleasure went through me.
I shouldn’t be enjoying this. I shouldn’t, I shouldn’t, I shouldn’t…
A voice ripped me out of my reverie. “Mr. Hoffmann? Are you in here?”
Filomena, and judging from the distance of her voice, she’d just entered the carriage house. Hoffmann’s answer came from the other side of the carriage door. “Over here.”
Nin tensed. I squeezed my eyes shut, praying until Filomena called out again. “Mrs. Culpepper needs petty cash to pay the delivery boy out front, and the master is asleep.”
The valet grunted. “Fine, fine,” he said as his limping footfalls moved away from the carriage. “You run ahead and tell her I’m coming.” And after Filomena ran off, he grumbled, “I’m too old for this” before the carriage house door creaked shut.