6. Chapter 6 #2
“She said she was bored. And she’s in great spirits.
All of the time.” He stared at me without blinking, entirely drained of colour.
“Continuously. Constantly. It’s never ending, really, sire.
She does not seem to present as a threat to herself, let alone anyone else for that matter.
That and also adding the lack of any true mass of muscle, a weak grip that contributed to—” He checked his notepad “—four broken plates, one cup, and two saucers. Though she did manually break the second saucer because ‘you cannot break things in odd numbers.’” He set the pad back in his pocket.
“The generous fear she has shown for pigeons every time they fly past the window also contributes to her being a considerable hazard rather than hazardous. However, I did ask for Rupert to stand in close proximity at all times. In case she sets a bigger fire in the kitchen next time.” He took a deep breath.
“I suspect there will be a next time, sire. She seemed very enthusiastic about the prospect of burning more baked goods.”
Lowering my head, I ran a hand over my face in an attempt to wipe away my smile.
“There were a few things being said,” Christof went on, draping my coat over his forearm. “The lady kept questioning Theodora about if there are any doctors in service of her kind here in Mortdale.”
I slipped the cigarette tin back in my pocket, heading for the stairs. “Is she feeling sick?”
“Doesn’t seem like it, no,” he said, and I paused in the middle of the foyer, feeling my nerves prick the bottom of my fingertips. “It seemed to be a question in regard to her community. She wanted to know if her kind is being looked after here in Mortdale.”
“What did you tell her?”
“That you are barbaric monsters with no care for anyone else but yourselves.” He blinked once. “I told her the truth, sire. That there is medical assistance provided to anyone in need of it.”
Perfect. Barely a week in and her fresh attitude was already rubbing off on my staff. How long before she had my soldiers organised in a coup against the entire nation?
I glanced up the stairs. “She is not in her room, is she?” Despite only knowing her for just a little over six days, I was very well aware of her curious, disobedient nature.
“No,” Christof answered, handing me a glass of whiskey. “Per her request, Rupert built her a swing in the apple tree out in the garden last night. She is there.”
A swing? How the Hell had she convinced one of my men to do that when I’d spent an entire week trying to get them to not sneeze at the mention of a witch? All of them were ordered to not speak to or engage with her in any manner and keep watch over her at all times.
“At this hour?” I asked, rushing to the back doors that lead to the gardens.
This mansion was the safest place in the whole of Mortdale, but the scent of a witch could still attract a lunatic from miles away.
Her blood would have some deprived creature of night thinking it was worth trespassing on my property.
That was without accounting for the fact that many people were now aware of what she was and would look for any way to make the world a witch less.
I stopped midway down the rose garden.
There she was.
A blanket was draped around her shoulders, her head resting against one of the ropes as she gently swayed back and forth on the swing. Pale grey hair, loose and long, cascaded down her back and reflected so many shades of the moonlight.
“You shouldn’t be out here,” I said.
Her head whipped back in my direction, and she screeched a little before losing her balance on the swing, dropping face down on the wet grass.
Shaking away the fact I’d just scared my wife of a week out of her mind, I went to pick her up. Her limbs felt so light and fragile in my hands that I wondered if Agnes had agreed to hand me a glass doll so she could be easily broken and escape me as soon as possible.
“You’re back,” she said, stumbling a small step away from me and pushing hair out of her eyes. “They said…they said you wouldn’t be back for a while.”
“Happy to see you, too, wife.”
“Really? You look awfully pissed. And awful.” Her dark eyes skimmed my face corner to corner, growing wider and wider the more she studied me.
I couldn’t tell if she had missed me or if she wanted to crack my head open to see what was in it—the curiosity in them always threw me off. “You need a shave and some sleep.”
Probably the second.
“I can see why people get married. Nothing like a bit of warm, welcoming affection.”
“Right? It’s fun.” She cleared her throat. “Considering you vanished for a good few days, I should probably skim my fingers down the collar of your shirt and find some mysterious hair or a lipstick mark. Slap you across the face and stomp away. Divorce you and get all your money.”
“Is that what you’ve been reading at the library?”
Her dark eyes paced between mine for a moment. And I waited for a quick, curt reply before she’d fly off and lock herself in her room; as she’d done ever since our wedding. But she stayed, licked her lips, and asked, “What’s in that?”
I leaned against the old pear tree and lit my cigarette. “Whiskey,” I said, lifting the glass in her direction.
She got up from the swing and stopped in front of me, close enough I could see each small, odd dark hair between her pale grey lashes. Pressing her parted lips to the edge of the glass, she waited as I tipped it forward just slightly.
She nodded to herself, untucking some hair from behind her ear and letting it cover the side of her face. “You smell a bit different. Liam said you visit the Blood Houses in the afternoons. I guess you were there.”
I was going to dig his throat out of his ears.
“What else did he say?”
“Not much. He barely looks me in the eyes these days. He’s not very open to any kind of conversation. I tried apologising to him, but he wasn’t having it.”
He was getting his ears cut off first.
“Liam saw you talking to the dead.”
Silence echoed for a bit before blood trickled from her nose.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.
” She quickly pressed her sleeve to her nose, her words coming out all muffled and stuffy.
“I’m insane. I talk to myself. I should probably see an alienist.” A few moments later, she lowered the bloodied sleeve down to her side and sighed. “You don’t seem too surprised.”
“I am not. But vampires are traditional creatures. Superstitious. Liam’s just scared.”
She hummed. “I thought he was one of your big, brave killer soldiers.”
“His position is more of an apprenticeship at the moment, but he is no less skilled than the rest.”
“In killing, that is.”
“Why else would a man hold a weapon if not to kill?”
“To entertain. And a jester is much preferred to a killer. Especially if that weapon is on fire and he can swallow it down his throat. People go mad for that stuff.”
“I’ll let him know.”
She watched me bring the whiskey glass to my lips and then back to hers, letting her have another sip. “What were you reading?”
She smacked the book to my chest. “All yours. I’ve already read it twice.”
My fingers briefly got tangled in her warm ones as I grabbed the book.
Vampires in Furs?
“I’ve highlighted all the best parts,” she threw over her shoulder. “Have fun.”
I ran a hand up and down my throat, watching her disappear inside the mansion. “Would you like to have a drink with me?” I called out to her.
She paused in the middle of the foyer, her lashes fluttering fast. “A drink?”
“I collect liquor,” I said, for some stupid reason.
She followed closely after me as I led her to the smoking room just across the foyer.
I watched her take everything in, from the books on the shelves to the baubles I’d been collecting from my years in the naval regiments when I was younger.
Raking her fingers over the brown brocade wallpaper, feeling each dent and dip before she moved to brush them over the burgundy leather armchairs.
“Impressive,” she mumbled. “There isn’t a grain of dust anywhere. Christof should be awarded a medal.”
“I pay him enough sterlings per month to surpass the value of any medal,” I said, handing her a tumbler filled with two fingers of whiskey.
A few warm chuckles left her lips, and she slowly reached to take the glass tumbler from my hands, her delicate warm fingers brushing against mine. “You’re stingy for a lord,” she said, shaking the liquor in her tumbler.
“It isn’t wine, Willow.”
She sniffed the drink, her nose wrinkling as she carefully took a sip.
And before I could tell her whiskey was meant to be sipped, her head tipped back and the liquor had disappeared from the glass.
“Doesn’t taste as bad as it smells,” she said, smacking her lips as she handed the empty glass back to me.
Taking her time, she touched and picked up anything she could get her curious fingers on.
She did that a lot—felt everything with her hands and dissected everything with her eyes.
I could tell when she was pulling things apart in her head, slicing them open and digging for answers, from the way she got lost in her head, ignoring every sound and motion around her.
After a week of watching her from afar I’d found out her biggest flaw and strength were the same—her curiosity was a weapon, but also a weakness of hers.
She became near blind when she dug her teeth into the next best thing after a corpse.
Dropping onto an armchair, she tipped her head against the headrest to look at the room. “You should call Henry and Arthur to come and have a drink with us,” she said, tucking her feet under her thighs and leaning on her hand. “I hear you three share everything together.”
They were so fucking dead.
My tongue pushed against my fangs. “Not everything.”
She swallowed. “I heard that, too.”
My teeth scraped against my knuckles. “Having fun testing me?”
“Having fun following me around?” Her head tipped to the side. “Ghosts are good gossip.”