Chapter Fifteen #2
With a daunting throb in my heart, I realised I would soon be as wealthy as Eugenie, perhaps more so. It crossed my mind for a moment that I might gain the same attitude one day; to take life’s luxuries for granted.
“Were you...frightened?”
“God, no. I’m a seasoned London girl. You learn to put up with this sort of shit from time to time. Besides, I was due an upgrade. That Audi was gathering dust. Probably why it caught fire so easily,” she said, with an airy chuckle.
?
It was Christmas eve, the night of the ball.
The night we would be announcing our engagement. Announcing my place, officially, in the Crowthorne family tree.
I felt like I was floating, suspended in the most blissful dream.
I walked the gardens as dusk fell, running my fingers through the icy-cold water at the base of the fountain, tracing the smooth dependable stone of the graves in the family cemetery.
It brought tears to my eyes to know that I would belong here, in this manor, in this funeral home. In this paradise, with him.
My breaths came in a white mist as I trod over the frosted ground, wrapping my arms around myself for warmth. Soon Eugenie would arrive to help me dress, almost as nervous as I was to make my debut as Nick’s wife-to-be.
There came a sudden movement.
Quick as a whip, I ducked and caught it in my arms, all hot fur and a rapidly pumping heart. It bucked and squirmed determinedly in my arms, but I had it in the nook of my elbow. I crushed it against my body while I grabbed it by the scruff. Its eyes were wide and alive, its terror evident.
The rabbit kicked and kicked, but I wouldn’t loosen my grip.
I wouldn’t let it suffer. Not for long.
“Out doing more pest control?” came a severe voice.
I turned, my heart beating wildly with the Rabbit’s, to the source of the voice I recognised. Shame flooded my face with heat, dismayed to have been discovered. Mercifully the sinking blue of dusk would hide my colour.
Margaret watched me darkly, her eyes blackened and narrow. She wore a wool coat with a gilet beneath it, and a pair of thick gardening gloves. In her hands was a mesh sack of kindling for the drawing room fire, where we’d be having the party.
“I thought it looked injured,” I said, my voice meek.
Margaret snorted. “I’ve been finding a lot of mortally injured animals around here recently. Would you know anything about that?”
The rabbit bit down on my arm so hard that I screamed. It dropped from my arms and fled into the night.
Maggie chuckled as I rubbed the two bleeding dots it left behind, as if I’d gotten what I deserved.
“I liked you, you know. I felt sorry for you. That was before I realised you’re as much of a trouble maker as the last one,” she said, shaking her head.
Night was falling fast, and Maggie was already little more than a vague human shape in the darkness, as if someone had thrown a cloak over her.
The wound pulsed, irritating me, giving me fire in my belly as I responded.
“The only person making any trouble is you! And as for that stunt with the drapes – the minute Nick comes to his senses – ”
“That wasn’t me, Grace,” said Maggie in a clipped tone of voice. “I’ve no reason or desire to hurt you, despite what I might think of your...fascinations.”
“What was it then?” I snapped. “A ghost? I’m haunted by enough of those. Nick and I have that in common, amongst so many other things, and you can’t stand it, can you? You’re jealous. Jealous of the bond we have.”
“No, you stupid girl! I’m trying to prevent you from learning the hard way. At least I was, until I realised you’ve got a few screws loose yourself,” she said, straining her voice as if to be heard over the darkness.
“There’s nothing wrong with me. I’m where I belong. I can feel it in every inch of my body, in ways I never felt at Heather House, the place I was supposed to call home. I’m skilled, I’m quick to learn, and he loves me. What else is there?”
“You are just like L – ”
“I don’t care!” I bellowed in a cloud of white mist. “I know I resemble her. I’ve seen it, I’ve understood it, and I’ve decided it doesn’t matter. He’s mine, now, not hers. She can’t get to him from where she is now.”
“Can’t she?” asked Margaret.
A silence fell between us. She wanted to tell me something, but I didn’t want to know it.
I thought of my dreams of my mother, and the little ways I was reminded of my father, his body, on our living room floor.
I knew the dead had ways of communicating.
I knew, somehow, that Margaret was telling the truth – she really didn’t open my shutters and pull back the curtains to cause me pain.
Someone else did.
Perhaps something else did.
“I don’t know what you’re getting at, but I think it’s you who’s insane, talking of dead women as if they could climb up out of their graves and claim back their old flames. She may have been his fiancé, Margaret, but I’ll be his wife,” I said, indignantly.
“Fiancé,” she repeated, without a question. “I see.”
I didn’t like the way she sounded, like something had finally clicked into place for her.
“What are you saying?” I asked impatiently.
Her breaths were short and sharp in the darkness, as if her heart was pounding faster than her lungs could keep up with.
“Come with me,” she said finally, adjusting the bag of kindling under one arm. “It’s time to put a stop to this nonsense. I should never have let it get this far.”
She turned and I watched her shadow walk away from me, fading into the darkness, outlined by the slightest silver glow of moonlight against her cheek and shoulder. I stormed after her, determined to get to Nick first, though I didn’t know what on earth I would say.
We found in him the drawing room, directing the caterers to the table at the back.
He looked pale, speckled with a dewy sweat, his hair looking lank and miserable.
It dawned on me how dreadful he looked. He looked stressed, tortured, even, and I’d never seen him looking that way before.
This was supposed to be a happy time, and clearly he was in the choke-hold of something he had no intention of sharing with me.
I felt sick, then, the room swaying. I had been so distracted by the party preparations that I hadn’t seen how far he had deteriorated.
“Louisa,” Margaret barked, making Nick’s shoulders twitch. “Your fiancé, was she?”
“Margaret, not now,” he growled.
“Are you going to tell her before the guests arrive, or shall I?” She pressed on.
“This is neither the time nor the place – ”
Margaret pointed an accusing finger at his sickly-looking face, dropping the bag of logs at her feet.
“You’ve brought this on yourself, Nicholas. I warned you not to go there. You and your penchant for troubled little girls!”
Tears sprang up in my eyes to see a lack of defiance in Nick. Instead he looked scared, weak, unable to meet neither Maggie’s eyes nor mine. In the hours before our engagement announcement, his own troubled mind had finally worn him down.
“Nick?” I asked in a small, smothered voice. “What is she talking about?”
He stuttered, running a hand through his tangle of hair, his brow creasing as he looked pained and desperate, until I almost felt sad for him, sad that he could be in this predicament. Only I didn’t understand what the problem was.
Maggie turned to me, her mouth a small grim gash in her face, her eyes like two empty black holes.
“Are you ready to learn the truth?”
I swallowed hard, clenching my fists, awaiting whatever awful thing she had to tell me. It had started to rain, coming down hard at the windows. Thunder rumbled some distance away.
The doorbell chimed, making the three of us flinch, our heads snapping toward the front door.
“They’re early,” said Nick under his breath, with a definite sigh of relief. He threw back the hair from his forehead and adjusted his cravat, before marching toward the doorway. “You’ll stir-up nothing more, Margaret, or I’ll throw you out into the downpour myself.”
I hurried after him, pawing at his arm. Maggie followed, shouting at our backs.
“What is she talking about, sir? What does she mean?”
“We are announcing our engagement,” said Nick, monotonously, his hand reaching for the door knob. “We are continuing with the annual party and we are going to have a wonderful – ”
On a bright flash of lightning, two silhouettes were illuminated, stretching long and ghastly, against the stone floor of Crowthorne House. Tom’s bitter, weather-beaten face was revealed to us, along with a small, hunched figure by his side.
“Grace,” he said, his voice making my skin prickle, my heart heave. “I learned you were having a party tonight to celebrate your engagement.”
“Away,” said Nick, stepping in front of me, protecting me from Tom. “Get away immediately.”
“But I’ve brought a guest for you, Nicholas – one you almost forgot to invite.
She was very upset to hear that, when I told her, but she cooperated just fine once I promised to bring her to you,” he said, pushing his way into the foyer.
The small, hunched figure was held under his arm, cowering against him, their raincoat drenched and leaking onto the floor.
“Oh god, no,” said Margaret under her breath, holding her hands to her mouth.
“You might want to question their security and safeguarding protocols at that hospital, Crowthorne. You’re wasting your money. They let me walk right in to see her. I’m your nephew, aren’t I, sweetheart?”
He waited. The hunched figure moved, as if nodding to themselves.
“She’s quite sedated. Quite settled. We wanted to be well enough to attend the party,” said Tom.
“You might want to do away with your groundskeeper, by the way. Marcus talks a lot for a man who’s worked for you for so long.
I only needed to spark up a conversation about the horses, and off he went, talking about the owner and his lovely young apprentice.
They’re getting married, he said! But there’s a bit of a problem with that, ain’t there, Nicholas? ”