The House on Blackberry Hill: Jewell Cove #1 (Jewel Cove) (11 page)

He cleared his throat. “I’ll bet if we looked, we could find a servant’s stairway that leads right down to the old kitchens.”

“Old kitchens?” Her nose wrinkled as she frowned. It looked adorable. She even had a few little freckles across the bridge, making her look younger than he knew she must be.

The tense moment passed and Tom let out a slow breath of gratitude, willing his thoughts to stay on task. “You haven’t been down there yet, either? Where did you think they cooked the meals? Certainly not on the main floor in that tiny, cramped space. The basement will be where the old kitchens are. And the staff wouldn’t have used the main staircase, either. Come on. It’s got to be here somewhere.”

They found the door behind a large set of bookshelves that were piled with games, magazines, and sewing supplies. For several minutes they emptied the shelves and then Tom braced his hands on the sides. “It’s too big to lift. We’re going to have to push it out of the way.”

Inch by inch they moved it along the wall. Tom’s muscles strained as he put his shoulder into it. Finally they got past the door hinges and he tried the knob. Locked.

“Dammit,” he said, panting.

“Wait here. I’ll be right back.” Abby rushed off but within moments her feet pounded on the stairs again.

“Keys!” she announced, triumphantly shaking a ring holding a cluster of old keys. “I found them in a drawer downstairs. I’ll bet one of these will fit.” Breathless, she handed him the ring.

He hit pay dirt on the third try. The lock snicked back and the door swung open to reveal a small landing and then a staircase that turned and disappeared. He held out his hand. “You coming?”

“There are spiders in there.”

“Probably. I’ll kill them for you.” He grinned at her. God, he loved old houses. And the little boy in him was thrilled with secret passages and sea chests, even if the only treasure uncovered so far was some old dresses. It reminded him of the old days when he and Josh and Bryce had thought to go looking for the legendary buried treasure at Fiddler’s Rock. “Come on, Abby, where’s your sense of adventure?” He wiggled his fingers.

She seemed to consider for a long moment, but finally put her hand in his. Her fingers were soft and cool to the touch. Her hand was a lady’s hand, and something dark and forbidden seemed to curl through him as he led her through the doorway to the landing and the steps beyond. It was cool and dark in the stairway, utterly silent except for the sound of their steps and it felt ridiculously like sneaking around. It was the kind of hidden place that lent itself to forbidden kisses and late-night liaisons. The farther down they went, the tighter her fingers grasped his. This was the second time he’d held Abby’s hand and he couldn’t remember the last time he’d done something as simple as hold hands with a woman before Miss Abigail Foster came to town. When was the last time he’d been so very aware of a woman?

He wanted her house. He did not want her, he reminded himself. Except that he did. In the confined darkness of the stairway, he wanted to press her body into the cool wall and feel her slowly melt against him. He wanted to bury his fingers in her sweet-smelling hair and taste her soft, unpainted lips.

Jesus, he had to stop thinking this way. He planned to work for her. Besides, Abby wasn’t the type of girl you seduced and walked away from, and after Erin, he wasn’t ready to take the risk of something more. Especially on someone who had made it clear that she wasn’t hanging around.

Unsettled, he led on until they reached the bottom of the stairs and were faced with another broad door. He reached inside his pocket for the key ring and searched for the right one.

With a breath of relief, Tom swung the door open and pulled Abby into the musty kitchen.

*   *   *

Abby’s relief at being out of the claustrophobic column of the stairwell was brief. As Tom turned to lead her into the kitchen, her heart stopped. Over Tom’s shoulder she saw a woman standing in front of the fireplace. Sad eyes watched her from a pale face. Dark hair curled around her shoulders and her simple, pale blue dress fell just to her knee.

Before Abby could make a sound, the image faded for just a moment. This was impossible. It had to be a trick of light, something in her imagination. Because the other alternative was that Abby was looking at a ghost, and just thinking the word was completely ludicrous. Yet as her eyes adjusted to the light in the room, the figure was still there, faint but there just the same. Standing there watching her with a look of expectation on her face. A shiver crept up Abby’s spine as the moment spun out. The woman’s expression changed. Her eyes flashed, her lips thinned, and the air in the room chilled in a cold, frustrated wave.

“Abby? Hey, are you listening?”

She whipped eyes back to Tom, still standing in front of her, staring at her strangely. “Are you okay? I said your name like three times.”

Confusion tangled her thoughts. “Did you see that?” She looked back toward the fireplace but there was nothing there. She pressed her lips together. She hadn’t imagined it. She
hadn’t
. The feeling had been the same as when she’d passed the bottom of the stairs the first time she’d come in the house. Heavy and sad. Oppressive.

Desperate,
she realized, and her stomach tumbled nervously. But how could that be?

“See what?”

And if she breathed a word of it to Tom he’d think she was out to lunch and rightfully so. She’d fall over laughing herself—if she hadn’t seen it with her own eyes. She shook her head. “N … nothing. Looks like you were right. The stairs did come right down to the kitchens. It’s cold down here.” She wrapped her arms around herself.

“It would have been hot as hell with the ovens going, especially in the middle of summer,” Tom remarked. “Damp down here now, though. I don’t think Marian used it much from the looks of it.” He pointed at the door at the other end of the room and frowned. “That was barred from this side so no one could come down. And the bookcase upstairs hid the only other way in.” Tom went over to an old wood table and examined it. “Except mice, it seems. There are droppings here. You really do need to get someone in to take care of that. I’ll give you a name.”

The entries were barred from both ends, but Abby was sure she’d just seen someone, logical or not. And she got the feeling that that someone was Edith Foster. It was the woman in the picture on the mantel in the dining room. The dress was much plainer, but the face was the same.

If it was Edith Foster, it did indeed mean Abby was seeing ghosts.

Which was just flipping crazy. She hadn’t just inherited a mansion, she’d inherited a haunted one. Holy shit. The old-timers were right.

Oblivious, Tom continued on. “If you plan on using this part of the house again, I’ll have to factor that into the quote,” she caught him saying, but she struggled to register the words in her brain.

“I don’t know. I’ll have to think about it.”

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

“It’s just eerie down here. No wonder Marian closed it up. Let’s go back upstairs.”

Wasting no time, she led the way back through the door, up the stairs and into the attic. Tom followed behind, more slowly as he stopped to lock the kitchen door and then the servant’s entrance. It had to be Abby’s mind playing tricks on her, that was all. The house was large and old and it had only taken one mention of ghosts that first night at the pub to set off Abby’s overactive imagination. It had been a shadow, nothing more, probably from going from the darkness of the stairs into the watery light of the kitchen. Perhaps if she told herself that enough, she’d believe it.

Except there were other things she couldn’t explain. Feelings, glimpses in her peripheral vision. The stairs in particular. And Isabel Frost’s strange facial expression when she spoke of Edith falling down the stairs.

She spent the next hour going over plans with Tom, listening to his ideas for the kitchen and downstairs bath with half an ear, along with his promises to send along the names of local companies he could subcontract for the other necessary jobs.

But when he was gone she put on a pair of gloves, went outside and started pulling weeds from the back garden. She needed the sun and the feel of the warm breeze on her face to chase away the coldness of the basement.

There was more to Edith’s death than an accidental fall. Abby had gotten that feeling by what Isabel hadn’t said at the café, and she was doubly sure of it now. It wasn’t even a matter of believing if it was or wasn’t true. She’d seen it. And everything within her said that Edith had some unfinished business when she’d died and left a husband and two daughters behind.

Two sisters who were then separated for the rest of their lives.

C
HAPTER
8

Tom’s quote came in, and while the number seemed unbearably large, Abby knew two things: it was fair considering the amount of work involved, and she trusted him to do the job he said he would. It was in the way he looked at things, touched them. He appreciated the house and what it represented, so she gave him the green light to get the ball rolling. Within twenty-four hours he’d begun ordering materials, booked the roofers, and had started fixing up the verandah—replacing the floor, railings, and spools.

Abby kept wondering if she’d see the mysterious figure again, but there’d been nothing out of the ordinary and she was starting to wonder if she’d imagined it. She’d gone through several of the boxes and chests upstairs but hadn’t found any family clues—yet. The boxes had only been filled with clothing, table linens, and an old set of Royal Albert china, which Abby carefully carried downstairs, washed, and put in the china cabinet in the great hall. It was an enormous job going through everything, and she managed a box at a time in her spare moments, hoping that at some point she’d find something that told her more about the Foster family story.

Several of the renovation jobs would require subcontractors, and one of the first things to happen was a visit from pest control. Abby couldn’t ignore the truth—she heard the scratching in the walls and saw the evidence. While the exterminator did his work, Abby made a trip into Portland, her car loaded down with rugs to be professionally cleaned. Once they were dropped off, she stopped at a department store and stocked up on linens—new sheets for the beds and towels for the bathrooms in colors that would coordinate with the new paint choices she’d made. Considerably lighter in her wallet and hungry, she had a fast-food salad before she headed back to Jewell Cove.

She spent the afternoon indulging in the luxury of shopping, wandering through town and finally taking the time to pop into several of the colorful shops on the streets above the harbor. There was the soap-and-scent store, Bubbles, where she splurged on several handmade bars: cranberry and lilac and, of course, the local blueberry. She went into the Leaf and Grind, a quirky little shop full of dark wood shelves, aromatic coffee beans, and glass jars of tea leaves lined up behind an old-fashioned counter. She treated herself to several kinds of loose tea and a new teapot and cups in cream and crimson, the perfect colors to complement the drawing room or library. At the pottery store she bought a gorgeous set of serving bowls for the kitchen, picturing them on the corner shelf Tom had suggested she add.

At first it seemed foolish to spend the money on such things, considering she wasn’t going to remain in the house, but she rationalized the purchases because she’d want the house to show to best advantage when the time came to sell.

Arms filled with shopping bags, Abby stowed everything in her trunk before heading to the market to pick up a few days’ worth of groceries. On the way there, however, she spotted one more store on the corner. It was hard to resist the mauve-colored building with the darker purple trim—especially when she looked up at the street name and saw that the store was appropriately situated on the corner of Lilac Lane and Main. The oval sign out front said
TREASURES
. She climbed the wood steps to the building and followed the flower-lined boardwalk path to the door.

The shrill buzz of a saw reached her ears, followed by a quick moment of silence and then the whine of a power drill. She paused at the steps to the wide deck that was under construction. Her lips fell open at the sight of Tom in a T-shirt, on his knees on the floor of the deck. He set a screw and then pulled the trigger on the drill, anchoring the decking board to the two-by-six beneath. As he reached into his pouch for another screw, the muscles beneath his shirt shifted. Abby licked her suddenly dry lips and debated whether she should turn and go back the way she came. But that was silly. Why should seeing him keep her from going into a store, for Pete’s sake?

“Hi,” she said, gripping the strap of her purse.

Tom looked up and pushed back the ball cap on his head. She noticed his slightly shaggy hair curled around the edge of the cap, giving him a youthful, roguish appearance. Oh, boy. She had to stop noticing things like that.

“Hey yourself.” He smiled, putting the drill down on the deck floor. “Out shopping?”

“I didn’t want to hang around while the Orkin man did his thing,” she admitted. “I took the rugs to that place you recommended in Portland, and then thought I’d browse around town. I’ve been here over a week and I’ve hardly seen anything.”

He watched her carefully. “No stop at the Realtor’s?”

She shrugged. “Not much point until the renovations are completed, is there?”

He nodded briefly and sat back on his heels. “This’s my cousin Jess’s place,” he said. “Just finishing a new deck for her and putting up a pergola on that side for her to display some summer stuff. Figured I’d get it done now that your veranda is usable and while I wait for materials to start arriving for your place. Speaking of, we should go over countertop and cupboard samples for the kitchen so you can decide what you want. That stuff has to be special-ordered so the sooner the better.”

She swallowed, thinking about poring over granite and stain samples with Tom, standing close to him and smelling the spicy scent of his aftershave. Something had happened that day in the attic, something more than finding some clothes or discovering the back staircase. The air between them had crackled with attraction. Standing there looking at Tom now, his shirt damp with sweat, Abby could almost believe she’d imagined it all and more than once she’d considered that it was all one-sided. After all, Tom Arseneault was incredibly gorgeous. She’d have to be blind not to notice. He could probably crook his finger and have any woman in town. She bit down on her lip. He probably had a girlfriend. She had no business thinking about him that way, in a secret staircase or anywhere else for that matter.