Chapter 38
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Sleep engulfs me. Uninterrupted, dense, and heavy sleep.
I can’t recall the last time I slept so well, no dreams, no night visitors. When I wake, it’s to foreign sheets, an unfamiliar room, and the warmth of a body next to me.
Valdemar is sitting up, resting his back against the headboard, the sheet covering his legs, his chest bare and brazen. Suddenly aware of my nakedness, I tug the sheet up to cover my breasts as I sit up, moving slightly away from him.
He puts his phone on the bedside table and regards me with curiosity, like he’s trying to work out whether I’m going to pounce on him or run a mile. I do neither. Instead, I search my brain for how I’ve ended up here, naked and beside him in bed, when the reason I visited him last night was for something entirely different.
“What time is it?” I glance around the room for a clock.
“Do you have somewhere to be?” he asks.
“No. I’ve booked a few days off work, but that doesn’t mean I should be here.”
“I was right, then,” he says, folding his arms.
“About what?”
“The guilt. The shame. You’re already berating yourself for ending up in my bed.”
“You held a knife to my throat,” I remind him.
“So, you’ve no reason to feel bad; I gave you no choice.”
I shake my head. “We both know that’s a lie.”
“We lie to ourselves all the time. Why should this be any different?”
“This is not what I came here for last night.”
“Then why did you come here?” he asks.
“You know why. I’ve still been unable to talk to my brother. The dreams didn’t work.” I feel I’ve lost sight of this these last few weeks.
“No, and I’m sorry about that, but I said I would try, and I did.”
“Then you need to try again,” I insist.
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”
“Why not?” I ask.
“After the last dream?”
The cold metal of the gun in my hand, Ed pleading with me to shoot him, Valdemar stepping in to take the gun from me, my eyes closing as the explosion shatters the dream.
“You ended up in my dream again, and although I got to you just in time, I don’t want you to have to go through that again. No one should have to go through that,” he says.
“Why does this keep happening? The other dreams weren’t like that. They were memories.”
“I don’t understand it either. No one has ever managed to step over into my dreams,” he tells me.
“Then what do you suggest?” I ask.
His face stills, but I feel that beneath the furious darkness, the cogs are working double time.
“I don’t know,” he says at last.
“Then there’s no reason for me to be here.” Clutching the sheet to my chest, I shimmy my way off the bed, leaving a naked Valdemar in my wake.
He’s hard, and he gives his cock one long stroke. “You can’t expect me not to be turned on by the sight of you.”
Squeezing my eyes shut and gulping hard, I find my voice. “Where’s my dress and underwear?”
“Where you left them.” He’s still teasing me, running his hand up and down his shaft, slowly, smoothly as if it’s the easiest thing in the world. “In the library.”
I take a step towards the door, and Valdemar takes the hint, throwing his legs off the bed and pulling on some boxer shorts he fishes off the floor, the tight material doing nothing to hide his arousal.
“So, are you just going to fuck me and leave?” he says.
“I shouldn’t have even done that, let alone still be here.” I wave a hand over the room.
He puts his hand on his chest. “I’m hurt.”
I scoff. “I doubt that. I’m sure before going to prison you fucked women and walked out on them all the time.”
Something drapes itself across the room, a darkness like someone has closed the curtains. I stare at Valdemar, his expression swimming with anger.
“For the record, I don’t, and I’m getting annoyed that you think I’m some heartless caveman who has no idea what emotions are.”
“You said last night that you haven’t had a woman in ten years, so forgive me for thinking that I just happened to be the first one you came across who was stupid enough to fall for your mind games and your pretty face.” My anger at him isn’t justified. I’m angry with myself for letting him in, for being swayed by him and forgetting what he did and why I came here in the first place—Ed. This has always been about Ed, but I need a punching bag, and Valdemar is the closest thing.
With the sheet wrapped around my body, I go to leave, but Valdemar beats me to it, standing in front of the large oak door.
Glaring at him, I ask, “Are you going to stop me from leaving?”
“No, but I’m going to make you listen to me before you do.” He places the flat of his hand against the door and scowls. “I’m not some fucking playboy. I don’t fuck women who don’t mean something to me. I may look like a complete bastard, but I’m not. And I didn’t ask to feel the way I do about you. In fact, it’s made things rather complicated. You’re the last person I would have dreamt of pursuing, but you don’t get to choose who you’re attracted to. Fuck, it’s not even attraction; it’s something else. It’s like there’s this energy coming from you, and I can’t help but gravitate towards it.”
I bite my bottom lip to stop its trembling.
I should be arguing with him, but despite my sensible brain trying to bulldoze all my emotions, what he’s saying makes perfect sense, and I’m relieved it isn’t just me who feels this invisible pull.
“My life has been on hold for ten years, and I thought I wanted it to be over, but last night when you made your choice to not stick that knife into me, I made a promise that I wasn’t going to waste the life you were giving back to me.” His hand drops from the door. “I will not keep you here, but I would very much like for you to stay.”
Something releases inside me, something I’ve been holding in, and my shoulders drop.
“I didn’t mean to make assumptions about your character, but all I have to go on is that you’re the head of a notorious vigilante group and have murdered several people, including my brother,” I say.
“I’m ruthless, angel, but not when it comes to you.”
“You’ve made your feelings pretty clear, and I won’t lie, you make me feel things I haven’t ever felt before, but realistically, where do you see this going?”
“What do you mean?” he asks.
“Do you see us dating? How would that even work? I can see it now—bringing you to my work Christmas party. ‘Hey, guys, this is my new fella. You know, the guy who killed my brother.’ And God forbid, if we were to get married and have kids, how would I even begin to tell them that their dad killed their uncle? And even if there was a remote chance of us ever being together, I can’t imagine a day would go by that I didn’t look at you and see the man who murdered the other half of me. Even after everything you’ve told me, that’s who you are and who you will be, and I don’t see that ever changing.”
“And if I hadn’t killed your brother?”
The intensity of his stare is too much, his anger gone, replaced with a terrifying sadness. I drop my eyes but am only met with his solid chest and the raven that appears to be circling me.
“Then I would be falling at your feet.” My eyes meet his, and my heart cracks. “But you did kill him.”
Before I have a chance to change my mind, I open the door and force myself down the corridor, trying to remember the way we came last night.
To my relief, I find the stairs and descend, the sheet tangling around my ankles as if it’s trying to stop me from leaving.
In the light of day, the place looks different, with no shadows dancing against the walls, nothing hiding from the moonlight, but I still feel the presence of this house, like something is living in the walls and has been for centuries.
Finding the library, I breathe a sigh of relief and look for my clothes. There’s no rescuing the underwear Valdemar cut from me, the memory of which makes me shiver, desire already pooling between my legs. Shaking it off, I slip my bra on and then my dress.
The door opens, and I try to ignore the tension that’s arrived with Valdemar.
“Shit,” I curse while ducking down to search under the chairs for my shoes. When I stand, he’s in front of me, holding both of them.
“Thanks.” I tug them onto my feet, then rake my fingers through my hair as I give the room one last glance.
“I have something for you.” Valdemar moves over to the bookcase and scans the shelves before selecting a small red book that he hands to me.
It looks old, with no title on the plain front cover. “What is it?” I ask, turning the book over to reveal the title embossed in gold on the spine.
The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe.
“It was Ed’s.”
I glance up at Valdemar. “I don’t recognise it.”
“He found it after I met him, when he was about nineteen,” he explains. “It was one of the only possessions of his that I kept. He took it everywhere. For some reason, it was important to him.”
That was the time when Ed had already closed himself off to the world and I had begun to feel like we were two different people rather than the one I’d always been used to. It breaks me to think he treasured something I didn’t even know existed. And also to think that he kept it from me. What else had he been keeping from me?
The spine cracks as I flip open the book, the yellowing pages smelling musty, like they’ve just been shaved from the oldest tree.
“Do you know the poem?” Valdemar asks, breaking my train of thought.
“Only what I can remember from being at school. I don’t understand why….” My words trail off as I land on the title page, the letters resembling an old typewriter font. Underneath the title, there’s a handwritten dedication, the copperplate-style lettering fancy and ornate.
To my own darling Lenore, for whom my love shall burn forever more. ER
“My mother’s name was Lenore.” My eyes shoot up to meet Valdemar’s. “This book was given to my mother.”
“That would explain why Ed cherished it,” he says.
“I don’t understand, though. The inscription suggests it was given to her by my father, but the initials don’t match.” I thrust the book towards him.
“ER,” he reads.
“My father’s name is William. William Bransby. So, who the hell is ER, and why was he sending my mother a book?”
“You’re the journalist. Maybe you need to do some digging,” he suggests.
I clutch the book to my chest as Valdemar continues, “Just be careful how far you dig. Some things are better left buried.”
His warning should send a chill down my spine, but the sadness on his face indicates pain and suffering rather than fear.
A weariness drapes itself over my shoulders as I head for the door leading to the Great Hall. Unsure of what to say, I opt for silence as Valdemar follows, opening the door for me.
It’s strange, stepping into the empty hall, the darkness that shrouds it during the day signifying that this isn’t a room to be used in daylight. Gone are the disdainful stares, the wide eyes that tracked my every move. Only Valdemar and I—and the ghosts—the remain.
“I’ll get Abel to run you home,” he says.
“There’s no need. I can get a taxi.”
“I insist.”
There’s no point in arguing with him, and I’d rather leave now than have to wait for a taxi anyway.
“You have my number,” he says as we reach the main entrance.
I hadn’t appreciated how heavy the doors were last night or the intricate detail of the woodwork.
“Yes.” I hesitate, wondering if my next words will make things easier or harder. “I wish things could be different.” And I mean it. I wish, more than anything, that my brother’s blood wasn’t on his hands and that those hands were now holding me.
“So do I.” His eyes dim, the darkness mixing with regret.
“Would you tell my brother something?” I ask, trying not to linger in his sorrowful eyes.
“Of course.”
“Tell him I miss him.” It’s a whisper, a fragment of all the things I want to say.
Valdemar bows his head.
I turn and begin my descent, my footsteps heavy, my heart even heavier, and I don’t know why I feel this pain now. Is it the knowledge that Valdemar doesn’t seem willing to try to help me anymore, or is it the pain of having felt I might belong with someone after such a long time while knowing it can never be?
His question echoes inside my head.
“ And if I hadn’t killed your brother?”
My reply burns in my chest.
“Then I would be falling at your feet.”