Belmary House Book One (19 page)

He didn’t look sad about that, in fact his eyes grew hard at the mention of her, and his dimple melted away.

A silence settled over them that threatened to become uncomfortable and she cast around for something to say, settling on the worst possible thing. She could have mentioned the long journey, spoke of the mild weather, even asked to see the cherry trees that were so all-fired important.

“I’m sorry about your wife,” she said instead, causing him to jerk slightly in his chair. He turned his serious eyes on her.

“Ashford spoke to you of Camilla?” he asked, voice rich with disbelief.

“Yes, that’s why we’re here, actually. He’s supposed to get some information about her.”

She felt uneasy, as if she said too much, but how could Kostya not want to know if someone knew something about his wife? Honestly, why wasn’t it the first thing he and Ashford spoke about to each other?

Kostya emitted a short, bitter sound. He got up and paced to the window, looking out at the darkening estate. Now that she noticed it, the room had grown darker as well. There were unlit lamps by the door and along the walls, and the furniture cast long shadows across the glossy wood floor. She wished Ashford would hurry up and return, feeling oppressed in the gloomy room.

“Ah, for a moment I thought he might have come to his senses,” Kostya said, turning back to her. “But he’s still looking.”

“Looking for Camilla, you mean?” Tilly asked, confused at his hard tone of voice. “Shouldn’t he be?”

Kostya closed his eyes before speaking, his voice coming out ragged. “Camilla was on her way to France when fire overtook her ship and it sank. There were no survivors. My wife is dead.”

***

Tilly sat in stunned silence, only able to stare aghast at Kostya. Too many questions tumbled through her mind to land on one and she swallowed hard, trying to force something out of her mouth. She’d only known Ashford for a week, but she’d trusted him implicitly. Had he lied to her, or was he delusional?

She didn’t like the notion of either, and the sweet pear taste in her mouth turned sour. She squeezed the rose stems in her hand, gasping as one of the thorns pierced the base of her thumb. Turning her trembling hand over, she saw a drop of blood welling up, and quickly pressed a napkin against it.

Kostya looked tormented. There was no way she could ask him anything more, not with the look on his face. With a bow and apologetic shake of his head, he left the room, seemingly as unable to continue talking as she was. She sat alone in the room, staring out the window until a servant came in and lit the lamps and closed the curtains.

Feeling a sense of suffocation with the flickering light in the closed up room, she got up and threw them back open, startled to see her anguished reflection in the window. A shadowy figure loomed behind her, and stifling a shriek, she whirled around with her hands up, ready to knock whoever it was in the face.

Ashford smiled inquiringly at her and she quickly assumed a less defensive pose, but was unable to hide her mood. Her heart raced and her mind was in turmoil over what she’d learned.

“What’s wrong?” Ashford asked, leading her back to the settee. Instead of sitting in a chair opposite, he sat beside her, too close for comfort. “Kostya looked a bit unhinged when I passed him a few minutes ago, refused to speak to me.”

Nothing had seemed real up to this point. Not the threat of a madman hunting them, not the possibility that she may never get back to her own time again. She’d been distracted by Ashford’s aristocratic beauty and trying to whittle past his closed up nature, distracted by posh carriages and lush countryside, the accents and costumes, as if it had all been a big production for her amusement. She’d been on a real life adventure to save someone. Now she saw the truth of it.

She was lost with a man who couldn’t get past his grief, who was doomed to travel through the ages, never able to have a real relationship with anyone, probably as insane as the person who wanted to kill him. A tear slid down her cheek, followed by others, and she pressed hard against the spot the thorn had pricked her, trying to feel that pain and not the other, worse pain of it all crashing in on her.

“Matilda.” Ashford awkwardly took her hand and turned it over, running his thumb over the tiny red spot. “Are you unwell?”

“He says Camilla’s dead.” She flinched at the pain in his eyes and wished she’d eased into it more. He let go of her and ran his hands over his face. “He said her ship sank on the way to France. I don’t think he’s lying about it. Why would he lie about his wife being dead?” She couldn’t stop the shrill tone her voice had risen to.

“He’s not lying.” He sounded exhausted and resigned.

She realized she had nowhere to go, couldn’t even leave the room as she hadn’t been shown anywhere else in the house, hadn’t been given a chamber of her own yet. “I want to go home,” she said miserably.

“I shall try to get you home,” he said, taking her hand again. “With everything I have, I’ll try.” She didn’t want his touch to be so comforting, but it was. “But what can I do right now to make you stop crying? Would you like some more cheese?”

She snorted through her tears, and scrubbed at her cheeks, the familiar irritation at him bubbling up through her fear and sorrow.

“How about you tell me the truth? Everything, the whole story. I don’t care if it takes all night, but I’m sick and tired of not knowing what’s really going on. If Kostya’s not lying, then are you? And why?”

He got a look as if she’d asked him to clean a row of urinals with his bare hands, and she scoffed at him. Of course having to speak for more than two minutes straight with no obfuscation would cause him physical pain. But he was about to feel more if he didn’t start talking.

“Kostya isn’t lying about Camilla. It’s what he believes to be true. There was a ship, and it did go down, and there were no reported survivors. This was five months ago. He’s been very patient with me, hasn’t even put up a stone in the family cemetery.”

“But?” she prodded mercilessly, when he paused for a long moment.

He sighed, and his eyes were so full of grief she almost relented, but kept still, and stared at him expectantly.

“From the beginning?” he asked. She nodded, and he continued with another put upon sigh. “When I first fell into the portal, my sister cried for three days straight, knowing I was in danger but not knowing why. When we were children, she always lied and said she did something I did, because she rarely got a beating and I always would, but she said it hurt her just as much so it was worth it to her to take the blame. When we were seven, she broke her ankle and I couldn’t walk home from my tutor’s house, my own leg hurt so badly. I knew she was in love with Kostya before she admitted it to herself. She used to write letters for me because she knew my feelings better than I did, and could express them better. She was always spot on. When Lucy died I felt her grief as keenly as my own. Have you ever heard of anything such as all that?”

“Like a twin bond? I guess so.”

“Yes, a twin bond. We have that.”

“Well, it sounds terrible for the most part,” she said pityingly.

“It is,” he assured her. “But it’s still there. I still feel it. It isn’t broken.”

She started to waver. “That’s why you think she’s alive? What exactly do you feel?”

He grabbed her hands again, clearly relieved she continued to listen. “At first I thought it was just a shadow of me remembering her. But it kept changing. First flashes of anger, then fear, then sadness. A cycle of emotions that had nothing to do with what I myself felt at the time, which is how we’d always been our whole lives and learned to ignore it unless it was very strong. Then we’d check on each other if we needed to. Wherever she is, she’s in a very dark place. It eats me up to feel it. That couldn’t still happen if she was really gone, don’t you think?”

She looked up in alarm at how seriously he asked her opinion. She couldn’t possibly know something like that. It all seemed so mysterious. She had only ever known one set of twins and they were very good at communicating with just glances, but she didn’t know them well enough to know if they ever had such a deep psychic bond. And Ashford’s family did have that magical bloodline from way back. Maybe that added to it. He squeezed her hand impatiently and she nodded.

“I suppose not,” she said slowly, believing he felt what he said he did. At least he wasn’t crazy, or a liar. “I just don’t understand why she wouldn’t be able to get in touch with you somehow after all this time.”

He frowned, looking defeated once more. “Someone may have a hold on her. I hated to think it was one of Kostya’s—” he stopped, pressing his lips together, but it was too late.

“One of Kostya’s what?” she demanded. “Oh no you don’t. I was just starting to understand, please don’t clam up now.”

“Kostya’s family,” he said begrudgingly. “Our last resort.”

“Kostya’s family? Our last resort? The witches, you mean?”

He smiled at her parrot act, and looked around sheepishly as if someone might be listening. It gave her a chill down her spine and she edged closer to him.

“I don’t wish you to think ill of Kostya. He’s a good chap, definitely one of us. He’s suffered as much as anyone by their hands. But those people, the Povest coven—” he paused, embarrassed. “If you’ll forgive my use of the word coven, but I don’t know what else to call them. They’re incredibly powerful, and if you’ll forgive me again, just complete assholes.”

She cracked up from the use of his modern swear word. It was a small relief to her frazzled nerves. The deadly serious look on his face made her stop laughing as soon as she started.

“Why would this coven want your sister?” she asked, fairly alarmed that she could use the strange word so easily.

She was speaking of witch covens in the year 1814 with a table still laden with food sitting in front of her. To ease the shock, she reached for a flaky meat pie and took a bite.

“She’s very powerful, as I mentioned before.” He rolled his shoulders and stood, pacing across the room and back. “It goes back quite a ways.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” she said around her mouthful of pastry. He narrowed his eyes at her and shrugged.

“Up until my mother, my family was actually, er, a coven of quite some repute. My great-grandmother was extremely good at the craft, or so I’ve heard, as well as my great-uncle and a few of his offspring, all long dead.”

“From old age or the witchy stuff?”

“A bit of both, I think. My grandmother dabbled, but never did much more than help the crops along or keep people from getting divorced. It was a peaceful time in the village while she was alive, due to her little spells.”

“Your mother couldn’t do it, though?” Tilly asked, thinking about his well-meaning meddler grandma with a slight smile.

“On the contrary, it turned out she was probably the most powerful of them in a long time, but she didn’t do anything after Camilla and I were born.” He stopped and shook his head. “That’s not entirely true. Once when we were about nine or so, there was a bad drought, and people in the village were losing crops, animals were dying. The old ones who remembered came and harassed her almost every day. I never understood why they thought she could do anything about it. Even I knew our wealth couldn’t change the weather.” He sat back down in the chair opposite her and leaned forward, eager now to finish his tale. “At around the same time, Camilla fell gravely ill. It looked as if she might die of the fever, and my mum dragged me to a cellar room I never knew existed and pulled out a large book.”

“A spell book?” Tilly breathed, when he paused for effect. A light shone in his silvery eyes as he remembered back.

“Yes, that’s what it was. It was huge.” He held out his hands about two feet apart, adjusting them slightly to take into account how much smaller he was back when he saw it. “Leatherbound and probably ancient. She stared at it for the longest time and finally said ‘sod it’ and opened it up. She flipped through and muttered for a while, finally sending me to fetch some herbs and bizarre things like a crow feather, white rocks from the east bank of the river— I remember she warned me not to cheat. I was to actually cross the river and take them from the proper side.”

She closed her eyes and tried to imagine Ashford as a young boy, running to find the items to save his sister’s life.

“Your mother quit, but started back up again to heal Camilla?”

“Aye, and she ended the drought while she was at it, and then she never did anything else that I can recall. But it was enough to get the Povest’s attention again. Even from so far away, they kept tabs on anyone who did magic. It was why she stopped in the first place, to keep their filthy eyes off of us.”

At that moment, Serena poked her head into the room. “Are you still in here?” she asked, her sunny smile deflating when Ashford turned a fierce glare on her.

Tilly couldn’t help but feel glad she wasn’t the only one who got such looks, and especially glad that the Disney princess from next door was the recipient of this one.

“Supper will be served soon,” she said hesitantly. “All your favorites.”

Ashford looked quite wild. “Give us a moment, please. We’re in the middle of something.”

She retreated in a hurry at his snapping tone, and Tilly felt bad, shaking her head at Ashford. “You’re just mean to everyone, aren’t you?”