Belmary House Book One (18 page)

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Emma had zero luck at any of the psychics, though one had asked her enough questions to make her resolve to investigate the old woman’s background. She’d been too eager, and had known things about the house that seemed too close to be the general guesses of a fake psychic. Perhaps Mistress Kopecky had a real gift, after all. At this point, Emma would believe anything anyone told her.

She was so tired, she almost fell asleep in the parking garage of her flat and dragged herself to the lift, punching the number and trying to decide if she’d learned anything useful. She’d never been so grateful not to have a job to go to the next day, knowing as soon as she got a few hours sleep, she’d be on her way to Oxford again.

She didn’t know why she’d lied to Dexter and said she’d only gone once. It seemed a silly thing to do, but something about her constant need to be close to the place, her old self, Dahlia, seemed wrong. Something she knew she shouldn’t do, and not just because Ashford had warned her against it. It felt like it was sapping something from her every time she went, and the growing contempt she’d been feeling for her old self worried her and made her feel unclean.

As she pulled the curtains shut to block out the late afternoon light, and slid between her cool sheets, she told herself she wouldn’t go. But as her heavy eyelids drifted shut, she wondered what the harm would be in just one more trip. She didn’t have anything else to cling to, and seeing Dahlia’s chubby baby face was worth the sickness and pain.

When the carriage laboriously rolled over the final hill and Ashford tapped her shoulder to show her, Tilly goggled out the window, almost putting her head out like a dog to see the monster mansion they were heading towards.

“Wow,” she gasped, not caring about inflating his already healthy ego. “I thought Belmary was big. Is it a castle? Is it a mansion? What do you call that? It’s huge.”

“We call it a house,” he said with a smirk.

She stared at the massive brick building as they made their way up the tree lined drive. Rows and rows of windows winked back at her as the late afternoon sun reflected off them. Lush dark ivy that looked like it had spent a lifetime trying to devour the place, trailed over more than half the walls, and she squinted to see what looked to be a fountain in a white stone circular court.

A man working in a decorative rose garden took off running when he saw them, and Tilly longed to be out of the carriage. As they were so close, Ashford had been extra stingy with pit stops and her legs and back ached from sitting for the final haul.

She found herself bouncing in her seat, and breathed deeply as they passed the roses, her nose filling with the spicy scents.

“So pretty,” she sighed.

Ashford knocked on the carriage roof, and they lumbered to a halt. “Shall we walk the rest of the way? I’m sure they’re scrambling to greet us properly, and it seems you—”

Tilly was already out of the carriage, stretching her arms over her head and inhaling the fresh air until her lungs almost exploded.

“Is this heaven?” she asked, turning to smile at him.

He’d been aggravatingly close-mouthed the whole day, but now she forgave everything, surrounded as she was by fragrant blooms of every color imaginable.

He tipped his head to the side, the look of bewilderment back on his face, as if he couldn’t figure her out at all. He leaned over a basket that the gardener had abandoned in his haste to tell of their arrival, and handed her three pale pink blooms, barely open atop their leggy stems.

“Mind the thorns,” he said, bowing as if he were a suitor. She felt her cheeks heat up at the wishful thought, and took them with a nod. So lovely to have a man hand her flowers in such a manner, even if it didn’t mean anything. “They match your cheeks.” The smile he gave her put lie to his words, as she felt her face get even hotter, probably turning a purple unmatched by anything in nature.

“Thanks,” she said, looking down at the dewy petals. “For the walk, too. I’m a little nervous to meet your brother-in-law.”

She felt more than nervous, awkward and intrusive, just showing up on his doorstep when his life was in upheaval.

Ashford continued to bowl her over by offering his arm. If he kept acting chivalrous and sweet like this, she was going to be in serious danger. She almost felt she should turn the conversation to his murderous enemy, Wodge, or remind him of her bleak chance of getting home, but the setting sun and the gorgeous garden, not to mention being free of the carriage at last, kept her obstinately positive.

“You needn’t be nervous. This is my home, and you are welcome here.”

“Kostya knows about what you do? Or should I still pretend to be your mistress?”

He leered down at her and she felt magical rose garden Ashford slipping away, replaced by normal exasperating Ashford.

“He knows, but the servants don’t. Some of the old folk remember what my grandmother could do, and the rest of the villagers suspect we’re odd, but don’t know anything for certain.” He pointed off to the west, where all she could see was an orchard of trees, and more hills in the distance. “My neighbor that way, Miss Serena McPherson, will most likely be visiting within minutes of hearing about our arrival, and she doesn’t know.”

Tilly pictured a staid old battleaxe looking through an eyeglass at her and then sticking her nose in the air, and her nerves faltered. She found herself walking more slowly and Ashford patted her hand, matching her pace.

“Couldn’t I be your secretary or something?” she asked without hope.

“They’ll just think what they want to think no matter what I say. The villagers are a nice enough lot, and while they like to talk, I don’t think they truly care one way or another what I do. Kostya’s been running this place for years.”

“He must be sick about Camilla,” she said, wondering for the first time why the woman’s husband wasn’t scouring the country for her. “Especially after losing their daughter. What’s he doing to help find her?”

Ashford stopped abruptly and raised his eyes heavenward, then looked at her hard for a long moment before shaking his head. They began walking again, but he didn’t answer the question, making her curiosity and her temper flare. Before she could decide how to ask the same question in a different way, something she’d learned to do in order to get people to better describe faces for her police sketches, he steered her around a tall hedge and nodded ahead of him.

“And there they all are,” he said in a resigned voice. Definitely not the voice of someone who was happy to be home after a long absence.

Still a fair way in the distance, she could see a crowd of uniformed servants standing in a row in front of the tall double doors, a man and woman standing slightly ahead of them. He looked down at her hand resting on his sleeve and she instinctively dropped it to her side. His lip quirked apologetically.

“Let’s be on, shall we? I’ll wager there’s a feast waiting. The cook here is quite good, she’ll make you fresh fruit tarts every morning if she likes you.”

“I’ll endeavor to suck up to her, then, for I do love a fresh fruit tart,” she said in her best Downton Abbey voice, making him laugh, and for an instant erasing the lines of apprehension from his face.

“The things you say,” he told her, “quite take me by surprise.”

The man who stood ahead of the servants waved and hallooed. As they grew nearer she saw that Ashford’s brother-in-law Kostya was only a few inches taller than her, slight of build, with a fine-boned, well proportioned face, almost more pretty than handsome, like a manga prince or fairy king. He had an edge about him, and though his smile was kind and friendly, his deep brown eyes held a well of sadness.

After Ashford clapped him on the shoulder and hugged him heartily, she took his offered hand and curtsied. As she rose, she was distracted from his warm welcome by Ashford picking up the beautiful blonde woman who stood next to Kostya, and twirling her around.

“Word must have traveled faster than I thought if you’re already here,” he said, putting the dainty porcelain doll of a woman back on her feet. Her blue eyes sparkled as she gazed up at him, and she wrinkled her pert nose.

“Are you sorry for it?” she said, her voice like a bell.

“Never,” Ashford replied.

Synapses fired in Tilly’s brain. It did not compute. She’d never seen Ashford look so delighted. What was the burning feeling in her chest area? Was she feeling jealousy? No, that was ridiculous. Ashford remembered her existence and waved at her.

“Serena McPherson, please allow me to introduce my secretary Miss Matilda Jacobs. She’s American.”

He moved like a young boy behind Serena’s shoulder and winked at her as he introduced her as his secretary. Serena cast her eyes heavenward and turned to look at Ashford, as if to catch him teasing her. They must have known each other a very long time. She barely glanced at Tilly, her smile and nod perfunctory. She would have prefered the judgemental battleaxe and looked to Kostya for a possible ally. He smiled affectionately at their antics, clearly used to them.

Once Ashford accepted the welcome of the servants and assured them they needn’t go out of their way at all for him, they went inside the imposing manor house and settled in a front sitting room that looked like an explosion at a doily factory. She had barely settled into the crushed velvet settee when a servant brought a cart laden with cakes, meats and cheeses, fruit, and hot tea.

“Miss Jacobs was unfortunate to have all of her belongings stolen the moment she set foot on our shores,” he said, loading up a plate and handing it to Serena. “I hope I can impose on you to take her to the dressmaker?”

“How terrible,” Serena said, nibbling a corner of biscuit.

“It’s not old Mrs. Begbie, anymore,” Kostya said. “She retired. There’s a new young lass who’ll come here.”

“Ah, even better, then.” Ashford filled another plate, and began eating from it. “Help yourself, Miss Jacobs,” he said. “The way you complained so heartily about starving the last few hours of our journey, I would think you would have tucked in by now.”

To her credit, Serena didn’t snicker out loud, but the look on her face told Tilly she was snickering inwardly. Tilly laid the roses across her lap and glared down at them, trying to remember that fleeting moment Ashford had acted human. She wanted to throw them at him for ruining her appetite when there was a delicious spread in front of her, for making her seem like a destitute charity case again, and stupidly, for not fixing her a plate. And for being right about the secretary thing.

He’d said the word, but she knew Serena didn’t believe him. It was clear from the way she kept gazing at him that she was in love with him, but she didn’t seem the least bit threatened by Tilly’s existence. As if she was used to Ashford’s foibles, and forgave them, knowing who would be the last in his heart. Now she wanted to throw the roses at Serena, and felt like the worst person in the world for being so petty. She was nothing to Ashford, just an obligation who would be gone from his life soon, and she had no right to feel the way she did right now.

She tried to get her feelings and her face in order so Ashford wouldn’t have any reason to call her on bad behavior, but when Serena jumped up and told Ashford he simply had to go see the new cherry trees before it got too dark, she felt herself wrinkling up like a prune.

“You’ll take care of Miss Jacobs?” he asked Kostya, already halfway out the door, practically clinging to Serena’s frothy pale yellow sleeve.

Kostya handed her a plate of sliced pears. “We grow these here,” he said. “They’re especially good this year.”

She took a bite, the nice gesture and the sweetness of the fruit returning some of the good mood she’d had in the rose garden.

“You’re not really Julian’s secretary, are you, Miss Jacobs?” Kostya asked abruptly, giving her a considering look with his slightly cat-like eyes.

“No,” she said, feeling better and better. “And I’m not his mistress either.”

He laughed and nodded understandingly. “I wouldn’t have thought so, no. You came through Belmary House, then, I assume, and not from America? Julian does love to tell his stories.”

She leaned into the stiff cushions of the settee, relieved her secret was out in the open, but wondering what he meant about not thinking she was Ashford’s mistress. Not ten minutes earlier she hadn’t wanted Kostya to think she was, and now she was offended that he didn’t think it at all, quite the opposite apparently. Was she that clearly not Ashford’s type? She needed to calm down, and stop caring about stupid things.

“Yes, but I really am from America, too. I was visiting my cousin, when I, uh,
went through the house
.” She placed the same emphasis on the words as he did and he seemed content that they were on the same page.

“We can speak freely, then.”

“Yes, let’s, please. And please call me Tilly. I’ll go mad if Ashford starts up that Miss Jacobs nonsense again.”

“If we’re doing away with formalities, then you must call me Kostya.” His smile revealed a dimple in his left cheek.

“Thank you, it’s an interesting name. I’ve never heard it before. It’s not Scottish, is it?”

“I’m from a small village in Moldavia. It’s a shortened version of Konstantin, which no one has ever called me save my grandmother.” He frowned and shook his head. “And I never see her anymore.”