Chapter 33
ALEX
It was hours before Nick came back. She’d waited up, scanning through the diary, drinking the wine by herself.
Don’t follow me.
No arguing with that. He’d looked ready to snap so all Alex could do was watch him vanish into the night. She wanted to follow him, to make sure he was all right, but she didn’t dare.
They had made love. There was no other word for it. Better than any of her dreams. She’d never felt so fulfilled, so perfectly in tune with another human being.
And then… then he’d said Sally’s name.
The house was horribly still and quiet without him in it.
That was probably a good thing. She didn’t want to think about ghosts.
She didn’t want to think about Theo warning Nick away, rightly so considering what had happened.
Or of Nick fleeing into the night rather than face another intimate moment with her.
But she still couldn’t shake off the feeling that they had both been set up somehow.
When she finally heard him come back something in her unwound with relief. She didn’t know what she’d say to him. She couldn’t find the words. But surely something would come to her.
Nick didn’t come to find her though. Not at first. She stared at the fire, listening to the soft sounds of his movement down in the kitchen and in the hallway. And she certainly wasn’t going to go looking for him. She had to have some pride left.
Instead, she turned to her research. It had to be good for something.
Using her phone Alex photographed the notebook, each and every page.
The light would just have to be enough. She sent the lot to Arnold with a brief description of what had happened.
Very brief. No mention of sex. Or a man running away from her into the darkness.
She must have dozed off in the chair. She woke to him tucking a blanket over her.
‘Alex?’ Nick’s voice was soft and cautious. But it was his voice again. That edge of panic was gone. ‘I – I owe you an apology.’
She blinked herself to wakefulness. He was kneeling down beside her. There were leaves in his hair and dirt on his beautiful face. She reached out absently to touch him and this time he didn’t pull away. It was almost as if he leaned into her hand, as she brushed his cheekbone.
The scent of the woods was everywhere about him. But so too was the peace.
‘Are you – are you all right?’ she asked.
As if running off into the night was the most normal thing ever. Maybe it was here. There seemed to be nothing normal about Wildewood Hall. Or the woods.
He nodded, although his eyes still looked troubled. They were so deep a brown, but in those depths she could see flecks of gold as well, and… and green… She could get lost in his eyes.
She didn’t know what she’d said or done. She didn’t know how to ask. She pushed herself up to sit straighter in the armchair and her body protested.
‘I was worried. When you took off. I’m sorry, Nick. I didn’t mean—’
He smiled, as if nothing had happened, as if he hadn’t fled her company just hours earlier. It was like a different man. ‘Not your fault, Alex. You should go back to sleep. Why not take the sofa? Or my room, if you want.’
Go up those stairs on her own? No. And, she noticed, he didn’t suggest for a moment she go up to the master bedroom where Chambers’ portrait clung stubbornly to the wall outside the door. For that she was grateful.
‘Where will you sleep?’
‘Here,’ he said, and settled down by the fire with one of the blankets.
Far enough away from her to be safe. Still close enough to guard her. Her guardian…
She would have to leave it at that. It had been a mistake. A terrible mistake. Better to leave it be and never touch it again.
Never touch him again.
Alex had ended up sleeping through breakfast, curled up on the sofa.
Nick was nowhere to be found and so she had set to work analysing the recordings of last night.
Now she’d missed lunch too. She wasn’t entirely sure how or why.
She hadn’t nodded off, but she’d been so engrossed in her work that time just skipped by her.
She had downloaded the data from the cameras and run them through the filtering software but they showed nothing of any use.
Nothing beyond shadows and dust reflecting the light, all of which could be easily explained.
The other recorders had picked up some noises which might be whispers or sighs, or might be nothing more than the building itself settling, or Nick moving around somewhere below.
Certainly nothing like the voice the two of them had heard.
She forced herself to ignore the way her body still craved him. Even knowing he still wanted a woman who was two years dead. She cocooned herself in work. In research. In what she knew.
She sent all her data through to Eduardo. He was a genius when it came to this kind of work. And Eduardo would tell her the truth, no matter what it was.
The email she got back from Arnold was worse than she imagined.
I read up on Blaise Chambers. He was a real piece of work. Is he your ghost? Daphne says watch out for him. She thinks he’s the one who attacked her. Ran what they called a Hellfire Club but was more like a cult. Your grandfather says Chambers built a temple under the house.
Under the house? There was only the cellar and that wasn’t that big. A teeny tiny temple then, surrounded by wine bottles.
But the professor thought it was contained, that he had it sealed away. After your father died. But… he says Chambers wanted you back in the house, to wake it again. Pretty lurid stuff here, Alex. You need to be careful.
Arnold still wasn’t finished. Alex read the rest of the message and her throat seemed to weld itself shut.
You may need an exorcism. Remember what to do? I can send a crib sheet.
Oh good, Alex thought. And no, she didn’t need an exorcism crib sheet. She’d seen Arnold do endless exorcisms and blessings. It was all hokum anyway.
Or at least that was what she was going to tell herself.
Her hand strayed to the circle of twigs and flowers that Maeve had made for her. Perhaps she ought to keep it with her permanently. Protection, the girl had said. The wood’s protection. Keeping her safe from the house.
Her own grandfather had been afraid of it. That much was clear from his writings. He blamed it for the loss of his wife, and his son. He blamed it for everything. And yet it had its claws into him as deeply as was possible.
To the last.
And now, Alex was afraid it was working on her as well.