Wildewood

Chapter 7

ALEX

Alex wandered through corridor after corridor of Wildewood Hall. Just as she had in her dreams all her life.

She could hear laughter, the sound of music and chatter, of glasses raised in toasts. When she was little, that was all she’d heard, a party that never ended, and that she could never find. Children called out to her, to come and play, to hurry up.

She threw open door after door but it felt like they were always in the next room along.

Like they were hiding from her.

As she got older the nightmare changed. As she crept down the stairs, those sounds turned to gasps and moans, the unmistakable sound of people having sex.

Laughter rang out around her, laughter she remembered all too well.

And she wasn’t hearing the voices of children anymore. They were laughing at her, mocking her.

A voice murmured her name, his voice, inviting her to join them, knowing all the time that she wouldn’t.

She knew that voice. Knew it far too well.

She had been sixteen when she had first heard it clearly, the last time they came here, when Dad died.

It had haunted her ever since. But she didn’t have a name to go with it.

Alexandra, my beloved…

Her body ached for that darkly beautiful voice, to give in to it, to do whatever it asked. It knew things she did not, and promised her every secret thing she had ever desired.

She couldn’t help but follow it in all her nightmares ever since, down into the shadows, further and further beneath the house, deep underground. The earth pressed in around her. The stone walls and ceiling closed in around her like a tomb.

The air wrapped clammy hands around her, pulling her onwards.

Come on, Lexi. It’s not far. Go on, I dare you.

Was that Theo? It was the kind of thing he would have said.

But it didn’t sound like him. And he never called her Lexi.

She had been Lex to him. So much so that she had never let anyone else use the nickname.

Ever. The voice was girlish, an echo of the past, almost like her own voice but not quite.

More than one voice. Sometimes a chorus, taunting her, goading her on.

You’re not afraid, are you? Don’t be a baby! You’re a grown-up now. You can do this.

‘Run, Alex!’ Dad’s voice, desperate and terrified, strangled with shadows. And he was dying. She knew that. He was struggling and he was dying.

Dad’s hands fell still, limp on the rich and hungry earth.

The ground was cold and hard when he hit it, the thud he made dull and echoing. The trees crowded close around her and there was something moving among them, watching her, circling her as if she was prey.

And Dad was dead. He was lying on the forest floor, smothered in leaves and undergrowth, his body cold and unmoving. That was how she had found him. That was how…

The cold arched roof of stones closing over her and the stench of mulch. The darkness pressing in on her, suffocating her…

She caught sight of a gleam of gold beneath rotting foliage, a mouth hanging open, hungry and waiting, and the taste of blood and decay filled her mouth and throat.

Alex woke up with tears all over her face. Sunlight streamed through the gap in the curtains, poking a bright finger through the room and illuminating it in gold. It was a blessed relief after the dark corners of the dream.

Taking a long shower helped a bit and by the time she had dragged on her clothes, she was starting to feel almost human again.

Used to the noise of traffic and neighbours, Alex tried to ignore the quiet of the house, pretending that it didn’t bother her at all.

The portrait on the wall outside her room was still there, of course. She didn’t know why she thought it might not be. Perhaps she had just hoped it would vanish overnight.

The man in the picture was dressed in some kind of Regency garb and wouldn’t have looked out of place in a period drama. He’d probably have all the fans swooning over his looks. A classic rake, she decided. Perhaps the hero, perhaps the villain. Perhaps a bit of both.

He was… familiar. She couldn’t say why. She was sure it hadn’t been here before. But she knew him somehow. Not as a painting but as a… as a person, and that unsettled her. Everything unsettled her about Wildewood Hall.

Alex frowned back at the portrait. She couldn’t decide if his mouth was cruel or amused. Maybe both. It added to the feeling she had looking at him.

Set into the bottom of the frame was a small oval plaque with the name Blaise Chambers, and the dates 1784–1826.

Words ran along the bottom of the picture, painted in the shadows, just above the frame, in black against the already dark colours so you could only see them when the light hit it in a certain way.

The script was small and difficult to read.

She put the torch on her phone to illuminate it but that didn’t really help.

Instead, she took a photo, brought up the image and zoomed in – an old trick of Eduardo’s.

Omnes contra omnes, quos amabant, convertam, et meam, corpus et animam, faciam.

Latin. Of course it was Latin. It only took a moment for the phone to translate it though.

I will set all of them against all of those they have loved, and I will make them mine, body and soul.

Alex scrunched up her face, as if she’d just tasted something acidic and foul. Charming.

She’d ask Nick and see if he knew who this was. And get him to switch the painting maybe. Something pretty and calming. Anything to get rid of Lord Let-Me-Ravish-You, with his creepy message and watching eyes.

There had to be a perfectly innocuous painting around here somewhere.

She made her way right down to the kitchen. The house echoed around her and noise travelled strangely. She had the impression of people just having left the stairs or the hall ahead of her, or of eyes high overhead on the upper floor, watching her go down.

Humming reached her ears as she approached the kitchen, a deep, soft voice, unexpectedly melodic, which put all thoughts of paintings out of her mind.

It sent an unanticipated shiver down her spine and she froze, hand on the doorframe.

Nick was taking something out of the oven.

Freshly baked bread. The aroma wrapped itself around her, drawing her into the room.

There was coffee on the stove too. It smelled divine.

Nick moved through the kitchen effortlessly, still humming to himself, unaware of his audience.

Alex just stared. She couldn’t help herself. She had never seen anyone so perfectly at ease with himself, with what he was doing. Last night he’d been grumpy and distant. This was like an entirely different man.

Then he turned around to put the bread on the cooling rack on the table and saw her. And frowned.

She took a step back from the hostility in that expression.

‘I have the dining room all set up for you for breakfast,’ he told her in a curt tone.

‘The what?’ she managed.

‘The dining room. For breakfast. I thought—’

Oh no, he was not banishing her from the kitchen and dictating where she went in her own house.

‘Why would I eat on my own in a dining room like that? Did Theo eat up there?’

Nick’s face flushed, what she could see of it beneath the beard anyway. ‘Well, no but Theo was—’

Alex pointedly grabbed one of the sturdy wooden chairs at the large kitchen table and pulled it out. She sat herself down and glared back at him.

‘Theo was what?’

‘Family,’ he murmured awkwardly and turned away.

Family. He didn’t mean a de Wilde. Not this time. Theo was Nick’s family, that was clearly how he thought of her brother. She suddenly felt very alone. Like Theo hadn’t been hers at all, not anymore.

Before her brother had died, she’d barely been back to Ireland in ten years.

Alex had thrown herself into her studies.

Undergraduate, Master’s, PhD in quick succession, living in halls and focused only on that.

The moment things had taken off in the US she hadn’t visited once.

Too busy with her stellar career, her celebrity status.

Her brother had teased her about it relentlessly.

And she’d called him a tree-hugging hippie.

God, she missed him, like part of her had been ripped away.

And she had abandoned Theo here. She had refused to come back and help him. And now he was dead. The report had never made sense. He was young and fit. He shouldn’t have died, not here, not in the woods. She needed to find out what had happened, now she was here. She owed him that much.

Nick just looked perplexed. Perhaps the pain of it showed on her face.

She hastily looked away again and folded her arms in front of her.

How on earth was she meant to ask him about Theo just out of the blue?

What happened to my brother? Did you find him?

How did he die? What kind of accident was it?

‘Sorry, I thought…’ Nick’s voice trailed off.

‘It was what we had planned for guests staying in the house. Theo’s plan for it, I mean.

To let out rooms, bed and breakfast in the big house, that kind of thing.

I shouldn’t have presumed.’ He plucked a mug down from where they hung in a neat row on the dresser. ‘Coffee? Or can I make you tea?’

‘You don’t need to wait on me, Nick. That’s not your job.

And I’m not a guest.’ But she was already sitting down.

And she had no idea where anything was. He was standing there with a mug, waiting.

‘All right, fine. Coffee please. But then can we just start again? I’m not lady of the manor or a paying guest. I’m not here to lord it over anyone.

As soon as I can get the legal situation sorted out, I’m gone. ’

His back was turned to her as he poured the coffee, but she clearly saw his shoulders flinch beneath the material of his black t-shirt.

Oh, he knew. He knew what she had planned and when it went through he wouldn’t have a job or a place to live anymore.

Had he been trying to butter her up? Was that what this was all about?

A little less of the grumpiness would help with that then.

Or was he just hoping she’d give up and go away? If so, he really didn’t know her.

Well, of course he didn’t. They had only just met.

His silence bored into her, making her talk. The man could work for the FBI.

‘You asked if I had a fortune,’ she said, more gently this time.

This had to be hard for him too. Theo had tried to make sure it was secure for him and he must have relied on that.

Here she was, undoing all of it. ‘I don’t.

I have enough to live on, and an income from…

my work, sure, but no real capital. All I have is this house.

And I don’t want it. There’s a hotel chain interested already.

They want to renovate the whole house and landscape the grounds.

The plans are amazing, a total transformation, golf course, spa, the works.

It would be a huge boon for the community too. ’

The kitchen was a big room but it suddenly felt small, as if the walls had closed in around her. Nick had turned around again and was staring at her like she was promising to murder kittens or something.

A chill snaked down her back and she was suddenly sure something else was watching her too, something that made her skin crawl.

She twisted around, examining the kitchen again.

In the corner a strange little door caught her attention.

It was firmly closed, a huge black key jutting out of the ornate keyhole and bolts at the top and bottom.

The way to the cellar. She’d never been allowed in there.

It was where her grandfather had kept his wine.

Above the stone doorframe, which looked to be part of the original building, there was a wreath of dried straw and flowers, old and faded, covered in dust. Long forgotten. Still, it caught her attention.

‘For protection,’ Gran had said. Like Brigid’s crosses and corn dollies, something so old the purpose didn’t make sense anymore. How long had that one been there? she wondered. It looked ancient.

Nick still said nothing about her plans, just set the perfect coffee down in front of her and carried on getting milk, butter and what looked like home-made jam for her. A plate of fresh scones came next.

‘Would you prefer a fry-up?’ he asked, as if he hadn’t already produced an entire breakfast for her far superior to what she’d normally eat.

‘This isn’t your j—’

His voice was unexpectedly sharp. ‘It is my job, Dr O’Neill.

I manage the house and the estate. Mostly it’s the estate, obviously, but this is part of it.

We have cleaners come in, but there isn’t anyone else.

And this house needs someone to look after it.

Not to scrape out the insides and make it into some soulless hotel like any other.

And as for the grounds—’ His tone rose in anger for a moment before he caught himself.

He glared at the table, took in a deep breath, and then looked up again, his temper – because that was his temper she’d seen – a little more under control again.

‘It doesn’t need landscaping. It is a landscape.

A beautiful one. Now if you’ll excuse me, I do have other things to attend to this morning. ’

‘I can’t pay you,’ she blurted out, and wished she hadn’t.

His face went white and his eyes burned. For a moment he didn’t say anything and she thought she had mortally offended him.

He drew in another steadying breath. ‘That’s already taken care of.

I’m paid from the estate. Theo arranged it.

The income is more than you’d think. I can show you the books when you’re ready or you can sit down with the accountants.

Farmland’s rented out and gives a good return.

We even have bees and sell their honey. There are grants for the rewilding.

It’s all a going concern, a living place, a rich ecosystem.

No hotel chain is going to do right by it.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do. ’

He grabbed a jacket hanging by the back door and left as fast as he could, slamming it behind him.