28. Piper in Shock
Chapter twenty-eight
Piper in Shock
Justin MacLeod brings me a stool. That’s the first thing my mind decides to understand.
Not the blood on Tristan’s mouth or the fact that he has fangs. Not what I saw and cannot possibly unsee.
Not Justin's shirt sleeve rolled up or the red lines on his wrist, or the terrible tenderness in the way he looks at the man kneeling before him.
The stool. Small. Wooden. Worn smooth at the edges. One leg slightly shorter than the others, so it rocks when he sets it down beside me.
"Sit, lass," Justin says gently as Tristan stands frozen.
I do not sit, but my knees decide for me. I drop onto it so hard the wood scrapes against the stone floor, a horrible little sound in the quiet room.
Justin disappears for a moment. Or perhaps he only moves two feet away. I don’t know. The stable has gone strange around the edges, as if the walls have pulled back from me and left me sitting alone in the middle of a nightmare with a stupid glass of water appearing in my hand.
"Drink that," Justin says.
His voice is calm. That makes it worse. No one is screaming or running. No one is acting as if I have just watched Lord Tristan Sinclair, elegant dinner-maker, Murphy-approved castle laird in a waistcoat, drink blood from another man.
Justin's hand closes around mine and guides the glass upward. I stare at him. At the place on his wrist that has fang marks.
"You're bleeding," I whisper.
"Aye," he says, as if I have pointed out it is raining.
I lurch backward, and water spills over my fingers.
Tristan moves. Not quickly. Not like a monster. Not like whatever he is. Slowly. Carefully. He lowers himself to one knee beside me, keeping his hands visible.
That restraint almost breaks me.
"Piper," he says. His voice is low, rougher than usual. Not the voice from dinner or the library. Not the voice from the Observatory. There's something raw beneath it now, something stripped of manners.
I look at his mouth. There’s no blood on it now. Of course there isn't. He’s wiped it away. Because God forbid Lord Tristan Sinclair be untidy while destroying my understanding of reality.
"It's all right," he says softly.
A laugh tears out of me. It’s not a nice laugh. It’s not sane.
"Is it?"
His eyes close briefly.
Justin shifts near the table. "Miss Monroe—"
"Don't." My voice cracks. "Do not!"
Both men go silent.
I grip the glass until my fingers ache. My pulse is everywhere. In my throat. My wrists. Behind my eyes. Hammering so loudly I cannot understand how either of them can hear anything else.
Then I realize Tristan can probably hear it. If the tales about vampires are true.
I shove the glass at Justin. He takes it before it falls. Tristan doesn't move.
"Piper," he says again.
"Don't say my name."
He flinches. It’s small, barely visible, but I see it. I hate that I see it. I hate that some stupid, traitorous part of me still cares that I may have hurt him.
"I can explain," he says. "Please, let me."
"No." I stand too quickly and the stool topples.
Pain crosses his face. Why does he look hurt? Why do either of them get to look hurt?
I back toward the door. Tristan remains on his knee. That’s the part that follows me. Not the blood or fangs I saw, not the awful silence in the stables. Tristan on his knee, one hand braced against the floor, watching me helplessly.
"Piper," he says, so softly this time I almost don't hear it. "You are safe."
That’s when I turn and run. I run to the castle, my safe haven, as if the stables are on fire.
I run through the entry, down the corridor, past the portraits, past the paneled walls, past a suit of armor that looms from an alcove like some ridiculous medieval witness to my humiliation.
My boots skid on the runner. My hand slams into the wall.
Pain blooms in my palm, sharp and welcome, because pain is ordinary. Pain makes sense.
Blood does not.
Fangs do not.
Men who make perfect poached eggs and quote poems and carry my tired dog up staircases do not press their mouths to another man's wrist to drink blood.
I take a turn too fast and almost crash into a sideboard. A vase rattles. I don't stop. Somewhere behind me, a door opens. No footsteps follow. That’s worse, too. He doesn’t chase me.
Somehow, I want him to. But somehow, I’m grateful he doesn't.
I reach the main hall and stop because my body cannot keep going. The great staircase rises in front of me, dark wood and carved stone and faded grandeur. The house is silent. Mrs. MacLeod isn’t there.
Glenhaven Castle is the kind of place that watches you have a breakdown and politely waits to see if you'll apologize afterward.
My hand grips the newel post. I breathe. Once. Twice.
No one appears and says this is a prank, a performance, a very elaborate Scottish wellness treatment involving aristocrats and iron deficiency.
I almost laugh again. Instead I run. My legs can’t handle the stairs to my room so I choose another direction. I don't know where I am going until I find myself in the library.
Of course. Of all the rooms in this castle, I run to the one that smells most like him. The one where we meet every afternoon for tea. It smells of woodsmoke, old paper, tea, leather, rain. And Tristan.
I shut the door behind me and press my back against it. Then I slide down until I am sitting on the floor like a woman in a Victorian novel who has just discovered her husband keeps his first wife in the attic.
Except no. That would be easier. At least first wives are human.
My breath comes too fast. I set a hand over my chest, as if I can physically press myself back into order.
Think. I’m good at thinking. I make lists.
I make plans. I solve problems. I take houses other people have ruined or let die, and figure out what can be saved.
Rot under floorboards? Find the source. Water damage behind plaster?
Strip it back. Faulty wiring? Shut off the power before it kills someone.
This is not wiring. This is Tristan's mouth on Justin's wrist.
I squeeze my eyes shut but that’s a mistake. The image is worse in the dark. Justin seated on that stool. His head turned away, his arm out. Tristan’s mouth on his wrist, drinking, drawing blood.
Tristan's fingers curled around Justin's wrist, not forcing him down, not holding him there. Holding on. Like he needed something to steady him.
Justin saying, "It's all right, my lord” when I arrived, before I could register what I was seeing. His voice was not terrified or trapped or pleading.
My eyes open. I stare at the carpet. It's all right, my lord. Justin had said it as if this had happened before. As if he knew what to expect. As if he had agreed to it.
I press both hands over my face. I don’t want nuance right now.
I want one clean emotion. Fear would be useful. Anger would be better. Anger has direction. Anger gets you out the door, into your car, down the hill, onto a plane, back to a sensible country where men only disappoint you in normal ways.
But fear keeps catching on memory.
Tristan bringing Murphy to my room that first night because he knew I needed the tired dog more than I knew how to ask.
Tristan setting a cup of tea beside me and remembering I take milk and two sugars.
Tristan in the Observatory, showing me Saturn's rings through the telescope, his face softened by starlight.
Tristan laughing in the kitchen as he cooked for me, when I accused his castle of being emotionally manipulative.
Tristan playing piano for me.
Tristan kneeling just now.
You are safe, he said.
I make a sound that’s almost a sob and almost fury. "Am I? Am I really?”
The library doesn’t answer. Rude. It usually has opinions.
I drag myself upright using the side of a reading chair. My hands shake. There’s still water drying between my fingers from the glass Justin gave me.
Justin.
I see him again in my mind’s eye. Not as victim. His face had been a little pale, yes. But not panicked or horrified. He looked worried about Tristan. That’s the part my brain refuses to let go.
I pace. Three steps toward the fireplace. Turn. Three steps back. Turn again.
The fire is low but the room still holds warmth. On the table beside Tristan's usual chair sits a book with a ribbon marking his place. Beside it, the pen I gave him.
And I see my list of questions about Glenhaven Castle next to it:
Original builder?
No entry to dungeon?
East wing fire?
Moira portrait?
Why everyone talks in riddles?
"Great work, Piper. Excellent instincts. Really nailed the vibe."
My voice sounds too loud. I clamp a hand over my mouth.
Somewhere deep inside the walls, a pipe knocks. Rain taps against the window. The clock on the mantel ticks with absolute indifference.
I go to the window and look out over the grounds.
The courtyard is silvered with rain. The fountain glistens. Beyond it, the stable stands. Somewhere there is Justin MacLeod, maybe bandaging his wrist, maybe drinking tea, maybe laughing at the American woman who finally noticed what everyone else already knew.
Everyone else. The thought comes before I can stop it.
Mrs. MacLeod knows. Duncan knows. The village knows. Of course they know.
The woman in the bookshop who told me some old places still have teeth. The librarian and her hints. The comments in the bakery. The man at the pub who went quiet when I asked too many questions about Lord Sinclair. Every careful look. Every unfinished sentence.
I wasn't exploring a mystery. I was being kept outside one.
I can forgive secrets from a man I recently met. Maybe. Eventually. After screaming into a pillow and researching several legal definitions of fraud. Maybe.
But the kindness? The shared meals? The way Mrs. MacLeod smiled when she set tea between us. The way Justin called me lass and gave Murphy scraps. The way Duncan watched Tristan as if waiting for disaster.
They all knew what I was standing beside. They let me sit across from him. Laugh with him. Trust him.
Fall in—
No. I stop pacing. I do not finish that sentence. Absolutely not.
I am many things. Impulsive, stubborn, occasionally dramatic, possibly the kind of woman who buys castles on the internet without enough supervision. But I’m not stupid enough to fall in love with a vampire in Scotland.
Vampire. V. A. M. P. I. R. E.
The word is absurd. It belongs on Halloween candy bags and terrible late-night movies and paperback covers with shirtless men brooding near fog. It belongs on romantic television shows.
It does not belong in my new world in Scotland.
It does not belong in Glenhaven Castle.
Except it does. Of course it does.
That’s the worst part. The moment I put the word there, the castle seems to exhale around it. It’s not surprised or offended.
I turn slowly and look at the shelves.
History presses close on every side. Centuries of it. Leather spines. Family records. Maps. Letters. Ledgers. Names in ink, names in dust, names cut into stone below our feet.
What kind of man has hundreds of years of secrets?
I swallow. An immortal does. I know he’s lived here alone for a long time. What kind of loneliness does that require? How old is he anyway?
"No," I say again, because apparently that’s my favorite word tonight. I will not feel sorry for him. Not yet. Maybe never.
He lied to me. He stood in front of me with those deep, solemn eyes and let me think he was merely strange. He let me think the closed rooms were family grief. He let me think the villagers were superstitious.
He let me think he was human.
A soft scratch comes at the door. I freeze. Another scratch. Then a familiar whine. Murphy!
I cross the room too fast and open the door.
My dog stands there, tail thumping cautiously, eyes worried. Behind him, no one. No Tristan. No Justin. No Mrs. MacLeod. Just Murphy, enormous and damp around the paws, with an expression that says the humans are behaving badly and you seem sad and he would like formal recognition of his patience.
I drop to my knees and wrap my arms around his neck. He leans into me with his full seventy-pound lack of emotional subtlety.
"Hey, boy," I whisper into his fur.
He smells like dog, rain, kitchen smoke, and something that might be ham.
"You knew, didn't you?" I whisper. Murphy licks my chin. "But you aren’t afraid of him." His tail thumps harder.
I sit back against the door with him pressed against me, my fingers buried in his coat. The panic ebbs, not gone, but no longer swallowing the room whole. Murphy huffs, circles twice, then flops half on my lap as if he can pin me into sanity.
For several minutes, I let him. Then I see the note tied loosely to his collar with a strip of cream ribbon.
I freeze and stare at it.
No, absolutely not!
This is too much. It’s the sort of thing a tragic Gothic hero does when he has ruined a woman's life and still has impeccable stationery.
I untie the ribbon anyway. The paper is folded once. My name is written across the front.
Piper. Not Miss Monroe. Not my lady.
His handwriting is elegant and controlled. Of course it is. Even his panic has excellent penmanship. I unfold it.
There are only two lines.
Murphy was distressed.
I will not come to you unless you ask.
That’s it.
No explanation. No apology. No plea. Just worry about Murphy. And just the choice, my choice.
My vision blurs.
"Damn him," I whisper.
Murphy lifts his head. He licks my cheek and then lowers his head again, apparently satisfied.
I read the note twice more.
I will not come to you unless you ask.
The fear inside me shifts, just a little. If he was what the stories say he should be, would he wait? Would he write such a note? Would my dog trust him?
If he were a monster, would he kneel?
If he were dangerous, would Justin have brought me water and tried to comfort me?
I don't know. That’s the most honest thing I have. I don't know. And I hate it.
I want simple.
I want him to be good or evil. Safe or unsafe. Man or monster.
But Glenhaven Castle has never offered me simple. Not from the first moment I saw it on the internet to buy. Not since I caught sight of its roofline through the rain. This place is all layers. Stone over bone. Beauty over grief. Secrets under polished wood.
And Tristan—
I close my eyes. Tristan may be the deepest secret in it.
Murphy sighs heavily.
"Don't start," I mutter. "You're biased. He gives you bacon and chicken."
But my hand tightens around the note. Across the hall, the castle clock begins to strike the hour. The sound rolls through the walls, deep and patient, as if marking something ancient.
As if nothing has ended. As if something has only begun.
I sit on the library floor with my dog against my side, Tristan's note in my shaking hand, and the truth waiting.
And God help me, I decide I‘m going to figure this out. I’m not running, at least not tonight.
Not yet.