Hemlock Veils (28 page)

“Mine was on the house, Ms. Ashton, and the deal was one of us.”

She threw an exasperated glare at him and extended them in his direction.

“Fine,” he sighed, not taking them. “But I think it’ll mean more coming from you.”

She followed him out the door and across the street, meeting Arne and the Maybach. Arne stood against it, doing a crossword puzzle. He looked up, showing slight surprise that she was here, and then with a nod opened Henry’s door.

As Henry got in, he nodded at her. “Good day, Ms. Ashton.” Again, a hint of a smile, the almost-boyish kind that made her smile in return.

“Mr. Clayton,” she said, keeping it professional. Once Arne had closed Henry’s door, she met Arne’s eyes and extended the coffee and pastry in his direction. “If you won’t come in and join us, I figured I’d bring it to you.”

He seemed speechless, and still didn’t take them.

“And though I’d rather have you join us inside…here.” She handed them to him.

“That’s very sweet of you, Elizabeth. I admit I’ve been anxious to try it.” He looked around before bending and lowering his voice to a whisper. “Elizabeth, Mr. Clayton doesn’t feel comfortable asking you himself, but it seems he left some tools at your house yesterday.”

She had almost forgotten about the tool belt she’d found by her bathtub last night. “Oh, yes. I’m sorry I forgot to bring them today.”

He lifted a hand. “All is well, Elizabeth. But can you bring them by this afternoon? After Mr. Clayton and I return? He won’t be available, but I’ll be there.”

“Of course.” She wondered what he needed them for, but mostly why Henry was too uncomfortable to ask her for them himself.

“Good,” Arne smiled, his eyes twinkling. He moved back to his door, his tone still secretive. “The gate will be unlocked, so come right in, whenever you get around to it.” He opened the door with her gifts in hand and raised his voice to normal. “And thank you again. I look forward to devouring these.”

Chapter 17

The elegant J and C stared down at Elizabeth, telling her she was unworthy. Despite the initials on watch, the wrought iron barrier had been cracked a mere inch for her. Its high-tech monitor was lifeless, reflecting the low evening sun.

With Henry’s tool belt slung over her shoulder, she released a slow breath.

The Maybach had passed by the shop thirty minutes before, when she was closing up, and now no more than an hour of sunlight remained. Awkwardly, she looked around to make sure she was alone as she pushed the mansion’s gate open.

Its hinges whined and she worried it would give her away, regardless of the fact that she was invited. Sunlight shot through trees at low angles, shedding heavenly-looking beams on the landscape. Her feet crunched over gravel as she took the path to the front door, and when she ascended the wide steps, she felt a weight of a hundred pounds in her chest. She took a deep breath, telling herself it was just a house. Just Henry’s house. Would he be angry if he knew Arne had invited her, or angry at Elizabeth for coming?

Hesitating only briefly, she reached out to the large, ornately carved, wooden door and knocked. It was silly to expect anyone from within to hear. The knock was so small she almost didn’t hear it herself. But she couldn’t find a doorbell or even a door knocker. She waited a moment, knocked again, then waited some more. No answer.

She stepped off the porch and looked around, even up to the vast peaked eaves, where birds dove playfully from point to point. She thought about leaving the tool belt on the doorstep, but the narrow path
did
continue, winding through more rhododendrons and hemlocks before disappearing behind the house.

Before she could stop herself, she was walking it. It was so solemn and secluded here that if it wasn’t for the trimmed grass and meticulous pathway, she would have bet no soul had set foot on this side of the mansion in years. The pathway led to a tall rock wall, the same she’d seen from her back porch. It crawled with vines and appeared to fence off the entire rear of the estate. Back here, the wrought iron fence stopped where this robust and secretive barricade took over.

The pathway led through a narrow opening in the wall, one just big enough for a person to fit through, and even though she thought she shouldn’t, she went in, moving aside vines that hung in her way.

And back here…

Back here lived a different world entirely, even with a different feel to the air. The stone wall fenced no more than an acre of land—land quite the opposite of the maintained landscape outside it. It used to be some sort of garden: planned, straight rows bordered with granite, stone pathways disappearing within unkempt plant life, and strategically placed stone benches. The largest path, running through the middle and dividing the garden symmetrically, traveled right to the steps of the mansion’s back door. The steps were just as intimidating as the ones out front, but the door was all glass—double doors, actually, with large golden handles.

There was something beautiful in the garden’s unruly, wild abandon. Green exploded everywhere, spilling over stone walls and intruding on pathways, and amongst it, red popped to life. Rosebushes traveled up the walls, tangled amidst vines and foliage. Every corner overflowed with the roses, and every bench was backed by them—rosebushes so large they appeared to have started life hundreds of years ago.

She stopped before one that grew so high it almost reached the top of the wall. Every rose adorning it was perfect, far more bloomed than she would have expected for April, and she found herself reaching out to one, just to make sure it was real. Its petals were a rich blood red, and silky to the touch. She grazed the back of her finger over it.

“Ms. Ashton?”

With a sharp inhalation she turned, dropping the tool belt in the process. Henry stood with bare chest and a drink in his hand. His brows pulled together, as though her being here was an enigma he couldn’t grasp. He stepped closer, narrowing his eyes. She couldn’t tell if he was angry or just surprised. Perhaps both.

It took her a moment to process coherent words, with the way adrenaline made her heart race. But it raced from more than her surprise. It raced at the sight of him, eyes on fire and torso shirtless. She’d almost forgotten how stunningly sculpted he was, or maybe she had just been too preoccupied to fully appreciate it before. It seemed every muscle had been chiseled with great care, from his broad shoulders, pectorals, and biceps, down to a most appealing cobblestone eight-pack. A trace of dark hair trailed downward from his naval until it disappeared beneath the low waist of his pants. He appeared shapelier without clothing, taller and larger. Below he was barefoot, standing on the wild, weed-bearing grass.

“I—I’m sorry, Mr. Clayton,” she said, trying to divert her eyes as she bent and retrieved the tool belt. Her eyes instead found the fist-sized dark spot over his right pectoral, just below his collarbone—the one she hadn’t been able to make out beneath his shirt before, on the morning with Brian and the rain. A tattoo. She needed a better look, but he wasn’t close enough, and she didn’t want to stare. Her eyes shot to his, off his nakedness. Warmth flooded her, from chest to cheeks.

“How did you get in here?” he asked, his tone as clipped as she’d ever heard. A lock of dark hair fell between his eyes.

“The gate was open and—”

“The gate is never open.”

“It was—”

“Even if it was, you think that gives you the right to trespass?”

She released a breath through her teeth. “Mr. Clayton, I wasn’t trespassing. Arne told me to come by, said he would leave the gate open for me.”

He seemed surprised.

“This morning, before you left Jean’s.”

“He did, did he?” He ground his teeth.

“I wouldn’t have come, but he asked if I would bring your tools by. I knocked on the front door, but…”

He sighed. Looking to the ground with a troubled brow, he pondered. That was when Arne emerged from the glass doors, smiling as though letting people in Henry’s gate was an everyday occurrence. “Elizabeth!” he said, lifting his hands. “Glad to see you let yourself in.”

Henry turned on him. “Ms. Ashton says you left the gate open.”

“Of course, Mr. Clayton. I wouldn’t have heard her otherwise.”

“You
didn’t
hear her.”

As Arne waved a hand, Elizabeth closed in on them, avoiding a tempting glance at Henry’s magnificent physic and his mysterious tattoo. She placed the tool belt on the stone bench beside him. “I’m sorry to have intruded. I’ll let myself out.”

“I don’t know what Arne told you, but I don’t want the tools, Ms. Ashton.”

She paused, confused.

“I left them there on purpose, in case you might need them again.”

“That’s…um, thank you. But I really—”

“Oh dear,” Arne said. “I’m sorry for the mix up, Elizabeth. I must have misunderstood. I thought Mr. Clayton needed them back.”

“It’s…all right.” It wasn’t difficult to understand what was going on here, what Arne was trying to do. And Henry knew it, too. He placed his glass on the bench, next to the tool belt—just a trace of caramel-colored liquid resting within ice.

“Well, now that we have that cleared up,” he said, still throwing Arne daggers as he folded his arms. Arne didn’t appear the slightest bit affected.

Elizabeth wasn’t sure she could handle another second of tension between him and Henry, or between herself and Henry. “I should get going then.”

“Nonsense!” Arne said. “You just arrived. Please, Elizabeth, stay a short while. I’ll get us some iced tea. I do owe you after the drink on your porch the other day.”

“Arne, it was only water,” she said, almost laughing. “Besides, you helped me move in. If anything, I still owe
you
.”

“You already paid me this morning with that delicious coffee. Now, you stay here and I’ll fetch the tea.” He looked at Henry, as though
he
was the master here. “Mr. Clayton, why don’t you show her around the gardens while I do?”

“Why don’t
I
fetch the tea for you and Ms. Ashton?”

“We both know you make a poor batch of tea, Mr. Clayton.” They engaged in a stare-down, and Elizabeth wondered if they would notice her sneaking out.

“I’m barely—”

“I’ll bring you a shirt.”

Another stare-down. Really, she could have left three times now without them noticing. Why hadn’t she?

Arne left, back inside those glass doors.

“Really, Mr. Clayton, I can go…”

“It’s all right, Ms. Ashton. Arne might poison my food if I allow it.”

She chuckled, and he smiled ever so subtly. And before she knew it her curiosity won out, allowing her eyes to travel to the tattoo. It shouldn’t have surprised her, but it did, so much so that a tiny electrical jolt ran through her chest. It was a monster—a fearsome cartoon-version of his nighttime self, down to the ears and eyes and ridge of fur. It actually looked similar to Eustace’s drawing, the one he had shown her that first night. Only this tattoo, a lot like Eustace’s drawing, was pure evil—something truly gruesome and frightful, like a demon character from a comic book, with extended claws and gnashing fangs. It was him, or his interpretation of who he was. He had branded himself. Perhaps as a reminder?

Then, on the skin of his right arm, over his curved triceps, she spotted a pink, fresh scar, recently healed. Like a forgotten memory suddenly recalled, she knew this was where Eustace had shot him that first night, when her distraction had so unfairly allowed it—the first time Eustace had ever been successful. Again, like she had then, she absorbed the blame. That scar was on his arm because of her. But she had to admit, as guilty as she felt, she was more awed that it appeared so healthy after such a short amount of time.

He must have noticed her staring because he turned that side of him away from her and began to walk. The way he walked slowly down the broadest path told her she was welcome to walk beside him. “Well, Ms. Ashton,” he said, both their strides casual, “as painful as it is for me to admit, it would appear Arne is trying to play matchmaker.”

Her face warmed, but she chuckled. “I suppose I should have picked up on that when he told me the gate would be open and you wouldn’t be available.”

He chuckled too, shaking his head. After a moment, when the path led them beneath a canopy of trees that cut them off from the rest of the modern world and made the atmosphere itself appear green, he said, “I’m…sorry for overreacting. I shouldn’t have expected you trespassed. I don’t often have guests here. Ever, to be exact.”

She paused briefly before picking her steps up again, surprised the words “I’m sorry” had left Henry’s mouth. He began talking before she could. “I don’t know why he calls them gardens. They haven’t been for many years.”

“It’s lovely like this,” she said, glancing up at the trees singing with birds, only the slightest, threadlike beams of sunlight breaking through. “Untamed, overgrown…it’s quite picturesque.”

He looked at her with a severe brow and put his hands behind his back. His feet were still bare and he walked them over the terrain with an ease that said he was used to shoeless walks. “Yes, but…your idea of beauty is peculiar.”

“Don’t they say beauty is in the eye of the beholder?”

“Ah, back to ‘perspective is reality.’”

She faltered at his words, since the perspective vs. reality talk had been between her and the beast. He didn’t seem to notice his mishap and she quickly recovered. “You disagree?”

They paused and he gazed into her eyes a few seconds before looking away, squinting against a shard of sunlight. It was moments like that, with his eyes pulling magnetically to hers, she found herself desperate to open him up. “I think things that are truly beautiful are beautiful to everyone.”

She gave a short laugh and kept walking. He got back into stride with her.

“What do you find so unbelievable about that?”

“Everything. I don’t think a statement has ever been more false.”

He lifted a brow as though amused at her challenge.