Six
“Your side’s hurting again?”
She didn’t even have to ask really; his arm was wrapped protectively across his middle as he took a steep step up to reach the top of the hill, his expression tight.
“Should not,” Ki’san grimaced, “shown you I am fast.”
“All the climbing probably wasn’t a great idea either.” Tara gestured at the pack he carried. “Don’t you have anything with you that might help? Something like what you used on my wrist yesterday?”
“Not bad pain. Not a bad hurting.”
“I think you mean ‘bad injury.’ And it looks like it’s hurting a lot.”
“Little power on the ship. These . . .” He indicated his pack. “Save for more need.”
“You know, some people might consider being stranded on a strange planet an actual emergency. But maybe this just happens to you a lot.”
“No.” He gave a huffing chuckle. “Even I, never before.”
“Why are you here Ki’san? The crash might have been sabotage but you didn’t come here by accident.”
“To see your Earth.” He raised his face to the woods, the clear sky, the mountains blue in the distance. “I am happy to see your Earth.”
“So you’re just a tourist, visiting a less advanced world for kicks?”
His brow creased. “G’hir do not come to hurt.”
“But your people have been here before?”
“Yes, but must never be seen. Humans must not know.”
“What about me? If your visits are so secret—” She folded her arms. “Aren’t you afraid I’ll tell people about you?”
“No.” His rumble was soft, his eyes sparkling in the sunlight. “I am not afraid you will tell, Tara.”
“Well . . .” She shifted. “You’re right. I won’t.” Then she narrowed her eyes. “You mean it though, about the g’hir not being here to hurt humans? You promise your people won’t invade the planet or enslave us or anything?”
“I promise this.”
“What about the other g’hir, the ones who sabotaged your ship? Do they mean us harm?”
“They want us not on Earth again.” His face worked for a moment. “Want to keep g’hir apart from humans.”
Something about the way he said that— “I guess these other g’hir don’t like humans much.”
“No,” he growled. “They do not.”
“If they sabotaged your ship so you’d crash, why bother to mess with some of your medical equipment?”
“To do more evil.” His fangs flashed. “To inflict great pain.”
She glanced at his bag again. “Is everything you have in there safe to use?” He gave a nod, but she persisted: “But how can you be sure?”
“I am sure. To know this is my task.” He looked with interest at something behind her, resting higher on the hill. “That is a shrine?”
“A shrine to the dead.”
Made of stone, it was a small, single story building with carved towers on all four corners. The arched entrance was high and elaborately decorated but the copper roof and double doors had long since gone green. Two grieving angels flanked the entrance, their wings folded somberly down. Surrounded by an iron gate as tall as Ki’san, each bar was topped with the three stalks of heather cast in that same metal.
“It’s a tomb, this kind is usually called a crypt.” She gestured for him to follow. “Do you want to see?”
“If does not offend.” His glance was anxious. “For one not human to see?”
“She’s already haunting the place. How much more offended could she get?” Tara stopped at the gate. She’d only been here only once before; of all the places around the estate, this was one that did give her the creeps. The foliage around the crypt was pretty overgrown; clearly William didn’t relish coming up here either. “See there, above the door? ‘Sacred to the memory of Rose Victoria Douglas,’” she read. “‘Consort of Allaster James Douglas who departed this life on September twenty-seventh, eighteen hundred and ninety-eight, in the twenty-second year of her age. Unable are the Loved to die, for Love is Immortality.’”
“Words of much beauty.”
“They should be. Emily Dickenson wrote them.” At his questioning look, she shrugged as they turned away. “She’s a very well-known poetess, now anyway.” Tara glanced back as they headed for the house. “I’m kind of surprised they’d even heard of—”
She gasped as his arm suddenly shot around her middle, plucking her off her feet as if she weighed nothing, swiftly concealing them both in the woods.
“Other,” he rumbled in her ear. “Male.”
“I don’t see—”
But then he ambled into view. At this distance only the white hair and that he was pushing a wheelbarrow along the path of the formal garden identified him.
“It’s okay.” She kept her voice low even though there was no way William could hear them from way down there. “He’s one of the estate’s caretakers.
And it’s broad daylight with him between us and the house. . .
Her glance went to the château. “If William’s back, Hannah is too. I don’t see her but she could be anywhere. In the house, around the side, up the lane. Damn it.”
“We go to the ship,” He caught her hand, already drawing her along back into the forest. “Until darkness.”
“Are you kidding?” She pulled him to a halt. “That’s what, eight hours from now?”
“We go now! He will detect us!”
“I couldn’t detect us!” She threw her hands out. “And I’m standing right here! He’s human, Ki’san, not g’hir. I think we have a couple minutes to make a plan.”
Tara climbed back to the forest’s edge to peer down at the mansion and the grounds. He followed, close enough she could feel the warmth of his body against her back.
“Okay,” she said finally. “We know where William is. That means I just need to find Hannah. As soon as you see me get them out of the way, get inside the house. I’ll meet you upstairs.”
He caught her arm as she turned away. “Not alone, Tara.”
“You know these people work for me, right? I mean I could tell them to pack their bags and get off my property, but that would be awful—and cruel. And if I did, that they’d probably have Brice down from New York by tomorrow morning to find out why I was suddenly acting so crazy. I’ll be fine. Your job is to get to the house.”
He hesitated then, as if forcing himself to it, he let her go.
She threw a reassuring smile over her shoulder. “See you inside.”
Tara skirted along the forest, using the woods to shield herself from view, then cut across the field, approaching the house from the west.
She waved as she pushed the gate open. “Will!”
The groundskeeper straightened, startled by her call. He waited, leaning on his shovel, as she approached.
“Miss Douglas.” He gave her a perplexed smile. “I thought you were up resting.”
“On a day like this? Hey, I’m here for some fresh air and sunshine.” When Tara stopped she made sure her back was to the château, so William had to turn toward the house to face her. “Isn’t it magnificent out today? Reminds me of Tuscany.”
“Best enjoy the weather now, Miss. I hear there’s another storm blowing up our way.”
“I’ll make sure to keep my umbrella by the door.” Tara nodded at the neat row of purple flowers he’d be tending. “Nearly done?”
William pulled the cloth from his back pocket and wiped the sweat from his brow. “Oh a bit more to do before I call it day.”
She glanced toward the house. “Is Hannah inside? I was hoping to have a word with her.”
“Nope, down at the lodge, cooking up dinner. But we brought back that pie you used to like from Dolly’s.”
“Chocolate turtle delight?”
“A whole pie waiting in the fridge for you right now.”
“I might just skip dinner and go right for dessert. Actually,” She smiled, shielding her eyes from the afternoon sun. “If you don’t mind walking down to the cottage with me right now, I’d like to have a word with you both.”
He sent a worried look at the plants. “Should get this finished first. And with a storm coming—”
“Oh,” She waved. “Call it an early day. You’ll make up the time setting things straight out here if the storm’s another bad one.”
“True enough.”
“Here, let me help you clear up.”
William wasn’t one to argue with his employer, but he didn’t look happy about knocking off early either. He let her help—sort of. Clearly a man who took pride in his work, he was as meticulous about taking care of his tools as he was about tending the estate’s grounds. Only when things were tidied to his standards did they head off for the lodge together.
Tara forced herself not to look toward the forest as they took the turn out of the garden, but she felt the weight of those otherworldly eyes the whole way.
“Well, hey there you two!” Hannah gave a surprised, faintly worried smile when Tara and William walked through the door of the lodge, her glance passed over her husband as she hurried to meet them. “Everything all right?”
“Absolutely.” Tara shut the door behind her. “I just wanted to have a quick word with both of you, so I talked Willian into walking down with me.”
“Well,” William said. “If you give me just a minute, I’ll get washed up.”
She offered Hannah an apologetic shrug as Will disappeared to the back of the cottage. “Sorry for dropping in like this. I promise not to make a habit of it.”
“Oh, not to worry,” Hannah waved it away. “You and Brice must have been in and out of this house a half-dozen times a day when you were kids. I miss the rumpus of having children about.”
“How are Lydia and the girls anyway? I haven’t had word since Christmas.”
Hannah beamed at mention of her daughter and granddaughters. “Just fine. She and Mark are still up in Virginia and the girls are growing like wildflowers.” The housekeeper hustled her over to the family photos on the mantle. “Taller every time I see them! It’s a day trip from here but with the girls in school . . .”
Tara’s gaze drifted over the pictures as Hannah talked. Some were posed school portraits and some candid shots at the beach, a birthday party—
“Who’s this?”
She reached past Hannah to pick up an old black and white photo. The eldest and stoutest of the three women in the picture had her hair drawn back, her expression as severe as her black, high-necked dress. The other two, standing beside her, were dressed in identical black dresses and white cuffs, with white starched aprons and caps. One had the same square face as the older woman, but the other sported a pert, impish smile and the rounded face of a teen.
“Ah, that’s my gran, Ebba O’Neil. She was housekeeper here at Heatherbell when it opened, and great-Aunt Madge beside her and—” Hannah flushed. “And the second Mrs. Douglas.”
“Wait, what?” Tara peered closer to the photo. She was younger here than in the painting that hung in the parlor, but this girl had the same heart-shaped face. “My great-grandmother was one of the maids?”
“Many respectable young women were in service then.” Stiffly Hannah took the frame from her hands, placing it back on the mantle.
“God, she looks about fifteen! Allaster had to have been at least twenty years older than she was! And her boss.” Tara put her hands on her hips. “What an utter creep!”
“If I recall rightly,” the housekeeper said, her iciness melting, “she was nearly eighteen when she married Mr. Douglas, not so young for those days. And she became lady of the house.” Hannah smiled. “A real Cinderella story.”
“If Cinderella should have been in high school when she was scrubbing floors for the prince.”
“It was a different time,” Hannah reminded.
“If your grandmother was housekeeper then,” Tara glanced at the dour-faced woman in the photo, “Mrs. O’Neil must have had a word or two to say about Leta marrying the boss.”
“Oh.” Hannah sighed. “That old story,”
Tara blinked. “What old story?”
“Foolishness.” The housekeeper shook her head. “Silly gossip from a hundred years ago.”
“I’d like to hear it.” Better to err on the side of caution and give Ki’san extra time to get into the house; the longer Hannah’s story was, the better. “No matter how silly.”
“Well, it was all long before I was born of course, but . . . When I was a little girl great aunt Madge used to tell me about the grand parties they had up at the house, champagne fountains and chocolate swans and such. Only that time, instead of dances and petit fours, she started on about how Miss Rose had been too delicate on account of the tubercular to be a ‘proper wife’ to any man—I didn’t know what she meant then, of course. When Gran caught a bit of what Madge was saying, the poor woman face turned red as a beet. Threatened to box Auntie Madge’s ears, said our family owed everything to Miss Rose. My mother pushed me outside into the garden just as the real row started.”
“But why would your family owe everything to Rose?” Tara shook her head. “I mean, why her in particular?”
“A lot of Irish women were in service then, but good wages were hard to come by, and I always got the impression Miss Rose was kind to the staff.” Hannah shrugged. “Besides, Gran and Aunt Madge were with Miss Rose from the start, came down from New York with her. As did the second Mrs. Douglas.”
“What else did great aunt Madge say? There must have been something that set your grandmother to threatening to boxing ears and all.”
“Well . . .” Hannah lowered her voice, as if the long-gone Mrs. O’Neil might still overhear. “About Miss Rose being entombed quickly and real quiet-like. And how the same day the first Mrs. Douglas was laid to rest Mr. Douglas left Heatherbell for Europe. He didn’t go alone of course; ‘that Leta Kelly’—as Madge called her—went with him. She said Mr. Douglas married Leta before Miss Rose was even cold. And Mr. Douglas sent instructions from London, directing Gran to dismiss the whole staff immediately and replace the lot of them.”
“I guess he didn’t want anyone who’d worked with Leta when she was a maid around when she became the lady of the house.”
“Well, great aunt Madge had married and moved down to Brittle Bridge by that time. But the way she told it, when Mr. and Mrs. Douglas returned from Europe the next year, they had young Master Charles with them.”
“My grandfather was born while they were overseas? I guess that makes sense if they were gone long enough.”
“But she said when they brought little Charlie to Heatherbell he was already sitting up, with front teeth already cut. The only way that could be is—”
“If Leta was pregnant when they left Heatherbell.” She didn’t have much experience with babies, but from the look on Hannah’s face . . . “And pretty far along too.”
“For all of that it seems Mr. Douglas and the second Mrs. Douglas weren’t very happy either. They had your grandfather, of course, but no other children after him. Madge said it was all because of Miss Rose.”
“Because of her how?”
“Now that I can’t tell you,” Hannah gave a faint smile. “Aunt Madge was just getting to that part when Gran caught her. But Mr. Douglas wouldn’t allow anyone into Rose’s room, not even to clean it, save my gran, and my mother after her. They say the second Mrs. Douglas never set foot in there after she was married.”
“I went in once when I was a kid. Grandpapa was white as a sheet when he saw me in her room.” She raised her eyebrows. “Jeez, Hannah, the place has twelve bedrooms, why did you put me in that room?”
The housekeeper flushed again. “But this was all so long ago and it seemed a waste, what with the new mattress and the bath updated now. You can see the gardens and the mountains from every window, even from the bed. And I thought—I thought—”
“Yeah.” She passed her hand over her eyes. “I know what you thought.”
“I’m sorry, Miss Douglas. I’ll move your things to the green room right—”
“No, it’s fine.” Tara sighed. “Well, now I know why Rose is haunting the place. I’d be pissed too if my husband ditched me for a teenager with a feather duster.”
“You’ve seen—” Hannah stared. “You think you’ve seen Rose?”
“I haven’t seen her, no.” She smiled. “But I wouldn’t mind. When I was a kid sometimes I’d get a spooky feeling but no glowing orbs or anything.” She tilted her head. “Have you ever seen her, Hannah?”
“No.” The housekeeper gave an embarrassed shrug. “But sometimes I get that eerie feeling too, when I’m in the upper hall.”
“Did your grandmother ever say anything about Rose or Allaster or Leta?”
“Oh Gran wouldn’t hear a word said against the first Mrs. Douglas! But Auntie Madge said none of the staff she chatted up liked the second Mrs. Douglas, and old Mr. Douglas could rub anyone the wrong way.” Hannah’s eyes widened. “Oh! I didn’t mean to speak against your folk—”
“There’s plenty of people who’d be right to say far worse about us. A camel and the eye of the needle and all that.”
“Come on,” Hannah said kindly, drawing her along. “I’ll put some tea on. Then you can tell me and William what you wanted to talk to us about.”
Sitting with them at their tidy kitchen table, Tara managed to keep them chatting through a couple cups of tea and a small stack of cookies, asking more about Brittle Bridge, hearing how the place had changed from a road stop to a scenic town with two of those frou-frou coffee shops.
When a peek at the clock on the stove showed Ki’san would have made it to the house even if he’d strolled the whole way there, Tara took a last sip of oolong and stood. “Well, I should get out of your way, let you enjoy your supper in peace.”
They exchanged a look and William cleared his throat. “You said . . . there was something you wanted to talk to us about, Miss Douglas?”
“Yes. Right.” Crap! She’d completely forgotten about her excuse to get William down here to the cottage. “I uh, I just wanted to ask if you’re both happy here.”
Their widened eyes and barely concealed alarm made her wince inwardly.
“I mean we’re so happy with your work and—and you two are the heart and soul of Heatherbell. What you’ve done with the place is just amazing. Brice and I would hate to lose you—”
Their relief was nearly palpable.
“So,” Tara spread her hands. “I just wanted to know if you two needed anything. You know, from our end.”
“Well,” Hannah shifted in her seat, exchanging a look with her husband. “If it’s possible, you might consider bringing someone on to assist Will a bit with the heavy work. Not full time, of course, but—”
“Did you have anyone in mind?”
“We were thinking—” They exchanged another glance. “Well, Mark, Lydia’s husband, is out of work right now and. . . Well, I could start training Lydia to be housekeeper.”
“I hadn’t thought—” Tara’s gaze went to the mantle, to the old photo there. “But your family has lived here at the lodge for generations. It’s a tradition.”
“Well, we could try it out.” Hannah said hopefully. “Once the girls are out of school.”
It was the first week of May now. Summer break wouldn’t be for weeks.
His people will have come for him long before then, and I won’t see another winter . . .
“Well, I want you to be happy.” She managed a smile. “’Course, if they’re all here at the lodge with you, you’ll have more rumpus than you can handle.”
“Well, it’s been pretty quiet around here.” William smiled. “We could do with more visitors.”
Tara’s burst of half-hysterical laughter earned her astonished looks, and she quickly clamped her hand over her mouth. She retreated toward the front door. “I should go—”
“Wait!” Hannah called. “Your supper!”
“You made me dinner again?” Tara stopped. “You didn’t have to do that, Hannah.”
“Wasn’t a bit of trouble! I just put your Shepherd’s pie in at the same time as ours. Now it’s in glass so you can heat this in the microwave or in the oven at three-fifty. Remember if you put it in the oven to put foil over the edges so they don’t get too browned.”
On the path back to the château, warm pie in hand, Tara let her shoulders relax. The caretakers looked to be comfortably settled in their cottage for the evening, and Ki’san was safely inside the house by now. Thanks to Hannah, they wouldn’t be stuck choosing between either spaghetti or scrambled eggs for dinner—the only two meals Tara knew she could reliably be trusted to cook without setting the kitchen afire. She headed for the closer, front door and smiled to herself, recalling that she could offer him the turtle pie from Dolly’s Diner for dessert too.
I wonder if he’s ever had chocolate . . ..
Tara stopped short, her smiled fading as the uniformed pair on the wide porch turned toward her, the late afternoon sun reflecting off the white and gray sheriff’s car.