Chapter 15 #2
Grabbing Severin’s phone, I slip it into my dress pocket. Without the password or Face ID, his phone is useless, but maybe I could get close enough to him to unlock it…
My heart beats in an irregular rhythm just thinking about that. There’s no way I would ever get close enough, not unless I let him kiss me again.
Oh, you would love that, wouldn’t you? Nell hisses. Because it just wouldn’t be a kiss.
My body feels too hot all of a sudden, tight in my old dress.
“Leave me alone!”
Nell seems to listen because I wander through the dreary corridors of the house in silence, at least in my head.
On the other side of the misty glass, through the tall windows, dark clouds roll in across the sky in the distance. It’s getting ready to bellow again. But a helicopter in the distance grows louder, drowning out everything else.
Dawn.
Severin said the helicopter would come here at dawn to take Tobias Ragg away. I clutch his business card gingerly, in my dress pocket, where it’s already starting to burn holes.
It was nice to chat with the journalist for a little while.
Someone who doesn’t look at me like I shouldn’t be here.
It turns out his mother and mine know each other, as they are both in the Wych Women’s Society.
He’s also been to our family bakery a few times, tried my mother’s famous pies, and loved them.
Not while I was working there, of course.
When you get past his passion for his job, Tobias Ragg is surprisingly easy to talk to: he absorbs every word, looks at you while you speak, doesn’t interrupt, and actually listens. But I didn’t really get a chance to talk to him properly, last night.
Not with Severin watching us.
I swear that man can read minds.
I was too afraid to ask Tobias about Nell at the time, but this might be my last chance now.
When I get to the helicopter pad, Mundel is there talking to the pilot, holding his hat against the wind, but Tobias Ragg is nowhere to be found.
I stay near the treeline, watching, but he never materializes. Soon, the helicopter lifts up, hovering so precariously that it looks like it might smash into the trees. But it rights itself and then flies off.
Mundel turns to see me at the edge of the helipad.
His eyes narrow. “Are you lost?”
“I was just…er…looking for...”
“Looking for who?”
I’m tempted to say Severin, but who am I kidding? “Um, the journalist. Tobias?”
Mundel’s face darkens. “You just missed him.”
“Really? I didn’t see—”
“He’s gone.”
“Right, I’ll head back then.” I take a few steps the way I came. But as I glance over my shoulder, Mundel, forgotten about me already, has gone off in the opposite direction, deeper into the woods. He’s not looking, so I have a split second to decide if I’m following him or not.
Ignoring the way my pulse surges, I hurry after him, slipping among the trees into which he vanished.
But stalking someone through the woods in a dress isn’t easy; twigs snap under my feet, and my skirt catches in brambles all too often.
Once or twice, he looks back, though I quickly have sense to dart behind a tree, breath held, blowing only the smallest puffs of icy air out.
But I quickly lose Mundel. I’m too far away to keep sight of him in his camouflage jacket, and I’m not wearing the right clothes or outerwear.
I did bring my cardigan this time, but it’s no use when the downpour suddenly buckets through the canopy.
I’m drenched in seconds, shivering and miserable.
I really need to go shopping. I should have at least grabbed a coat from the boot room.
As I trudge back to the house, there’s the sound of neighing. I look up past the helipad. A horse is prancing on a hill. I squint to see if there’s a rider, but the rain in my face makes it hard to see, and then it disappears.
Severin has horses?
Having missed my chance with Tobias, I hike around the helipad to where I can only assume the horse went, ignoring the damp grass leaking through my boots. I don’t really know why, except I’m not quite ready to go back to the house.
Over the crest, there’s a crop of outbuildings—stables to be exact.
I enter the yard, and there’s an American barn.
It looks to have been recently renovated, with its bottom ash black, and the rest stark white, as if it were burned down to a shell and then rebuilt.
My eyes catch on an old brass plaque mounted on the central beam above the large barn door.
Although it’s what’s written underneath on a shiny new one that stops me dead:
SWANLEY FARM STUD
Est. 1847
In memory of those we’ve lost.
My breath stutters. Why would Severin keep the Swanley plaque and add a memorial beneath it? Could it be he’s making a gesture? Or is he…mourning his own family. Shaking off the way the hairs at the back of my neck stand on end, I haul open the huge doors.
I shouldn’t think of Troy Severin as the lost Swanley heir. Not until I know for sure. And even if he is, it doesn’t matter. I’m here for Nell; he took her from me, and that’s what I need to prove.
Nothing else.
Inside, several equine heads peer out over the stalls. A roan-colored horse in the nearest stall nickers at me, so I stop to stroke him first, even as the cold air from outside blows in the barn and right through me.
“Hey, horse.”
The big roan nuzzles my damp cardigan, looking for treats.
Of course, I have none. But he doesn’t seem to mind nibbling my hands gently, blowing on my palms, warming me up inside and out.
His coat steams from the recent ride, and the familiar scent of hay and leather brings an unexpected pang of longing.
I used to ride before I got sick. Nell did too, but she was really good at it, while I never really got over my first fall from the saddle.
I much preferred being on the ground, grooming or mucking out.
“My sister loved horses,” I tell the roan, and he snorts in response and wedges his head against mine as I hug him. It feels nice to talk to someone, anyone.
An ally on this ghastly island.
I end up telling the horse everything I know so far about Severin, every scrap of evidence I have—even my crazy suspicion about him being the heir of the Swanley family. Saying it out loud sounds ridiculous, so I whisper it into his coat, and I feel better for it.
The cold inside me thaws, just enough, so I’m less frozen and corpse-like. More human.
“I know he’s horrid, and I should stab him the first chance I get. But I pity him more than anything. I’ve no idea how I’m meant to do it anyway. Maybe I should just bake him a poison cake?” The horse seems to agree because he snorts.
But then, something primitive in my brain sounds an alarm, and the horses around me suddenly go quiet. Never a good sign. Heart thudding in my ears, I slip into the stall and crouch down by the door, my nerves leaving me when I actually hear footsteps.
“Talking to yourself again, are we?”
I recoil at the voice and look up.
Troy Severin leans over the stall door, blocking my only exit. At the sight of him, my insides flip, and not in a good way.
“No, I…I was talking to the horse.” As I straighten, getting to my feet, I gnaw at my bottom lip. My mind races to think back on what he might have heard.
“Talking to the horse?” He raises a brow; his voice is silk over steel. “About stabbing me? Pitying me? Or baking me a poison cake?”
I swallow, unsure how to answer that.
His brow furrows, but his mouth curls slightly. “This barn is off-limits, just like the terrace. I’m starting to think you have a problem with boundaries.”
Luckily, I don’t have to reply. The wind blows through the said barn, making the big roan behind me paw nervously.
“Easy, girl,” Troy murmurs at the horse. His gaze flicks to it and then to me. “Don’t move.”
Slowly, he enters the stall and advances on the large animal, which is snorting loudly. The space feels impossibly small now. I really want to get out and give him room, and my eye strays to the unguarded stall door. Now would be a good time to leave.
But Troy told you not to move, Nell offers, unhelpfully.
And, of course, I haven’t. Even though the wind is howling louder, and the horse in the stall with us is pacing in dangerous circles. Without warning, it bucks, mane flying, its hooves kick straight for me.
I’m rooted to the spot.
Troy shoves me roughly against the side of the stall, blocking me with his body. The force of it slams my arm into the wall and takes my breath away.
“Alright?” He barely darts a look over his shoulder as the horse shies away. He’s so close; his cologne makes my stomach tangle.
I nod.
But that’s all. Behind us, the large barn doors fly open, and the wind screams furiously through the middle of the building, unsettling all the horses.
His eyes snap back to me. “Then get out and close that damn door.”
I scramble out of his arms, and the stall, and hurry to do as he says.
Gusts of wind bang the unlatched door repeatedly until I grab at it, my bruised arm jarring against the wood.
I’m still trying to close the heavy door, getting soaked from the rain lashing at me through the opening, when I hear him seethe, “Anytime soon would be nice.”
“Saying please would be nice, too,” I mutter back.
As soon as I get the barn sealed and the chaos dies down, the spooked horse retreats to the corner, sides heaving. I walk back to the stall, and then I can’t help but watch as Troy approaches slowly, whispering soft words as he runs his hands over its neck and back.
“Easy, girl, easy.”
The horse blows out but doesn’t move away, letting him go through the motions, checking each leg for injury.
“Good girl, Comet. That’s it.”
I’m aware I’m holding my breath, afraid any movement will scare the big roan, or remind Troy I’m here. But he seems to have forgotten, too absorbed in his charge. His eyes are downward, focused. I draw in a lungful of air, trying to calm my own heart in the process.