Chapter Eight
Nicholas
I stroked the head of the carved wooden crow and watched the lightning from my attic room window. Since that moment in the library, I’d thought of nothing else but her, battling my conflicting thoughts of what I did, versus what I so desperately wanted to do.
Could this other-worldly woman really want me, like that?
I smiled to myself as I paced, chucking back my glass of port and leaving the small cut glass on the night-stand. If anything could do that to a woman, it was the gift of her own private library.
An ache infused the joy that lit up my heart to think of Grace’s face, when she’d adjusted to the light and seen row upon row of books. Louisa had felt the same way about the library. Louisa, who I’d assured Grace had nothing to do with it.
Only I knew she did.
Not for the reasons Grace suspected, that they merely looked alike...but the fact remained that her resemblance did play a part in it. Their likeness was impossible to ignore at first.
I was a coward for denying it.
Only now that I was getting to know Grace on a more personal level could I see past it. Now her uniqueness set her apart, and I no longer saw Louisa in her. I saw the strange and unusual Grace, who was bewitching me with every word uttered, and every stolen glance.
I groaned and leaned my arm on the bedpost, resting my forehead against it, as I remembered the night of the fire.
Twenty years had passed, and still I remembered it clearly.
I’d battled the stairway to get to Louisa, but it was no use.
The smoke was acrid and choking, and far too thick to see through.
The heat alone repelled me, forcing me back.
My parents, gone. My brother, Alexander, gone in a blaze of terror.
Louisa. My darling, precious girl.
“All gone,” I murmured, shaking my head.
To this day, I struggled to believe it had really happened. That the day had come where my life as I knew it turned to little more than ashes in my hands.
Grace knew the rumours. Yet still, she wanted me. But what would she say, and what would she feel, if she ever knew the truth? She would look at me and rightly see a monster. A ghoul. She would run from Crowthorne House as if it were haunted and never return.
How long before we entered the wrong space – a local pub, maybe, or a function for funeral directors, many of which I’d spoken at over the years – and Grace saw for herself the looks of disdain I drew?
The whispering, the gossip. She was hardened by her own cruel experiences of life, but I had no reason to think her mind couldn’t be changed about me.
Especially if she learned the truth.
For now I would keep her at a distance, and protect her from herself. I’d protect her from her own childish admiration for me. She was too young to understand that her affection for me, which she had made so evident, was bound up in her view of me as her rescuer.
In a few short years, once she was twenty-five, she would start to see me as I really am: bad news. Grace deserved a younger man who could give her everything; all that I had, and more. Especially honesty.
Love was built on honest foundations, after all, and without it, they would crumble and turn to dust.
It was very late, and time I got to bed, though I so dreaded sleeping.
No matter how comfortable I made my own bed, my back ached and my sciatica flared up, and then there were the nightmares, besides.
I dreamed of fire. I poured myself another small glass of port and downed it, before untying my cravat and unbuttoning my shirt.
On the next crash of lightning, a scream echoed up to me from the first-floor hall. I recognised it instantly as Grace.
Without waiting another moment, I fled from my room and took the stairs two at a time, my heavy steps thundering as I descended.
A pale figure in a long white gown came running, her hair flailing wildly around her stricken face.
I caught her in my arms and smoothed the strands of hair back from her damp forehead, hushing her, urging her to calm down. She panted and whimpered as if utterly terrified.
“What is it, Grace?” I asked her, shaking her gently when she wouldn’t respond. Her eyes were wild, looking all around us. “I’ve got you, Grace. Don’t be afraid. What is it?”
“A woman – a woman’s face at the window!”
My blood ran cold.
“A figment of your imagination. You were dreaming. The storm woke you – ”
Grace cried into my chest. “I know what I saw!”
I took my phone from my pocket while she shivered against my chest. I rolled back the CCTV footage – there were cameras all around the outside of the house – and saw no sign of anyone, anywhere. Only a fox who had been picking around the garden, looking for food. I relaxed a little.
“There is a clear view of your balcony here, Grace, look – there was nobody there,” I said, hoping to reassure her.
She shook her head.
“I was in the library. I couldn’t sleep, so I – ”
Damn it, I thought. There were no cameras aimed at the balcony outside the library. In any case, there was no ladder access to it, and no way for any intruders to be creeping around there.
I explained that to Grace, but her panic persisted.
“There’ve been other things. I saw a man. A man I know, in the park, following me,” she said breathlessly.
I folded her into my arms, eager to make her feel safe and secure.
“This is all so new to you,” I murmured into her hair.
I rocked her gently from side to side, which seemed to soothe her a little.
“Your mind is torturing you, you poor thing. I know what that’s like.
I haven’t slept in years. But I can assure you there was nobody at the library window.
Now – what of this man you saw in the park?
Is there a man who might want to do you harm? ”
She stiffened in my arms, thought about it, and then shook her head.
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
I decided I wouldn’t press her, but I took her at her word. After a few moments, I attempted to guide her back to her bedroom, but she shook violently in my arms, and wailed in such desperation that I pulled her back into my embrace.
“Please, I can’t go in there. I don’t want to be alone,” she said.
I brushed her cheek with my thumb and found it damp from her tears. She was terrified.
“The parlour, maybe. My office..?”
“I don’t want to be alone,” she said again.
I looked up toward the ceiling and mentally begged God not to do this to me. But there was nothing else for it. She was scared, and she was adamant.
I tucked her against my chest and ascended the stairs to my room with her.
She flinched as I let the door creak open, revealing my dimly lit space and the bed with one inviting corner flipped open.
I was grateful to have a housekeeper in that moment, and glad that I was a generally neat and tidy person.
I would have hated for Grace to seek comfort in my room and find something filthy and unpleasant, like so many lonely men’s rooms were.
She paused and looked about the space, taking it all in.
“Do you feel a little safer now?” I asked.
She smiled weakly and nodded that she did.
She climbed the bed immediately and settled beneath the covers, laying her head on my pillow.
I took off my shirt quietly and laid it over my chair, before taking off my shoes and belt.
I left my trousers on. I turned out the light.
Only the glow of the moon outside filtered in through a small gap in the curtains.
As I approached the bed, I prayed she was already asleep.
When my body sank beside hers, she murmured, shimmying closer to me.
“Please, hold me,” she whispered.
“Grace, it’s not that I don’t want to. Quite the opposite.”
“I’m sorry.” She sobbed.
I could sense her still shivering. Whatever she saw, it was clearly very real to her.
It was all too easy, then, to wind my arm around her waist and pull her close to me; close enough to bury my nose in her hair.
She felt so good in my arms. So right. She relaxed a little.
We shared a long silence, and very gradually I felt her body loosen up, the tension leaving her muscles.
When she spoke, there was no longer a quiver to her voice.
“Nick,” she said into the darkness. “Have you...in this bed, has there ever been...anyone else?”
“No,” I said. “This is my bed. Nobody else has been in it.”
“I mean with you, you know, like that.”
I did know. Again, I confirmed I’d never shared this bed with anyone else.
“In twenty years, you’ve never..?”
I tensed up, feeling ashamed, knowing my answer.
I had been with women, of course I had. I had needs just as any man did.
They weren’t the kind of women I would marry.
They weren’t the kind of women looking for marriage.
Beyond the contents of my wallet, they were interested in little else but the exchange.
“I have,” I said uneasily. “But not here.”
“Who?”
“Grace, go to sleep.”
She nuzzled in closer to me, holding her hand over mine, lacing our fingers.
I was glad there was a bedspread and coverlet between us, or else she’d feel something I didn’t want her to feel.
She did turn, though, and her hands found my face before I could move away, feeling my features in the darkness.
She stroked along my jaw, felt my lips, and felt the shape of my nose.
One hand smoothed the hair away from my forehead, while the other held my chin.
I knew in my heart that I ought to pull away, for her sake, as well as my own. But I couldn’t.
Her soft, warm lips covered mine, and before I knew it, I was embracing her, pressing her face and lips hard against mine.
Her curious tongue opened my mouth and met mine, gliding over it, as if tasting a rare fruit for the first time.
The naivety in her softness, the curiosity in her wanting lips, was too much for me to resist. Her need to seek comfort fed my need to protect her, and I was flooded with a curious euphoria with every press of her lips.
Her hands roamed, and I grabbed them, forcing them back up to my neck. Grace moaned softly in my arms as we kissed, and I found my hands stroking her back, caressing her, my lips sinking into hers with equal need.
When I awoke in the morning, Grace was gone already. I almost thought I’d dreamt it, but there I was above the bedclothes, dressed in my trousers and vest, and Grace’s side of the bed was rumpled.
Grace’s side of the bed.
I felt ashamed to let my heart tie itself in knots at the notion of Grace’s side of the bed.
A knock came, then, at the door. I couldn’t believe it was time for breakfast already; that Maggie was here with the tray. Had I really slept all night with Grace in my arms? Soundly, with no sudden waking, my heart tearing in my chest from another nightmare.
I opened the door and let Maggie in, wiping a hand over my tired face. I was exhausted, for once, from too much sleep. I hadn’t slept so well in twenty years.
Maggie’s face was dark, stern. She knew something was different. She set about pouring the tea and presenting me with my usual breakfast – poached eggs and a little smoked salmon on a seeded bagel. She clattered about with the cutlery, dropping the tea-spoon and over-pouring the tea.
“What’s wrong, Margaret?” I asked.
She looked up at me, her lips pursed, and set the teapot down with a thump that rattled the lid.
“When I went into Grace’s room this morning, she wasn’t there. She hurried in moments later, looking lovesick, with stubble rash burning around her mouth.”
Maggie spat the words like they were filthy, and I pinched the bridge of my nose, closing my eyes in shame. Heat flooded my face and neck.
“I promise you, nothing happened. She was frightened, she begged me to comfort her. It was the only right thing to do.”
“I told you already. I’ve seen the way you look at her, and the way she looks at you. I told you not to touch that girl,” she said through gritted teeth.
“Now, look – ”
“Nicholas. You know why. Nothing good could ever come of this. Especially for her!”
Margaret was right, of course she was, and I knew she was. Grace needed our help, our support. Not to be bedded and taken advantage of by a man old enough to be her father. But there was more to it than that. Something neither of us wanted to say out loud.
“I promise you, nothing happened,” I said, holding up my hands in capitulation. “It never will. I held her because she was afraid, because she asked me to.”
“It had better not, Nicholas,” said Maggie. “Or on your head be it when it all falls apart.”