by Tamara Berry
Nicholas gently clears his throat. It’s an obvious warning to anyone who knows him, but the general isn’t easily put off.
“Well? That castle roof has been leaking for the past seventy years, at the very least. A little rain obviously doesn’t bother your lot.”
I smother a laugh. Nicholas would happily and gratefully overhaul that castle from its dungeons to its rafters, but the only thing Vivian hates more than houseguests is domestic upheaval, waning moon or not.
I reach for the general’s hand and give it a squeeze. “Thank you for your offer, General. It’s sweet of you to look out for me, it really is, but there’s no way I can allow them to finish under these conditions. When the moon stops waxing, I’ll give your sister’s nephew a call and have them return.”
He laughs. “That’s what you think. The roof’s half off now—if you kick them to the curb, you’ll be floating along like Noah in his great ark by nightfall. And they’re all paid up, so nothing’s going to stop them until they’re done. A stickler for duty, Harry is. He was a soldier just like me.”
I cast a bewildered glance at Nicholas, but he’s watching General von Cleve with an intent look. “Was he? Just like you?”
The general’s mustache droops, but he turns to me with a smile and a clip of his heels. “I hope you don’t mind, but I helped myself and the boys to some tea while you were out for your walk. You’re out of the green sort.”
“Oh, of course.” I can’t think of a polite way to protest either the intrusion or the roofers currently making my home a habitable one. Not only was it an incredibly generous gesture for the general to arrange and pay for this, but he wasn’t kidding about Noah’s ark. If those dark clouds hanging overhead decide they’d like to drop their burden anytime soon, I’m going to have to transform myself into a mermaid. “I’ll pick some up the next time I’m in the village. I didn’t realize it was your favorite.”
“Picked up the habit in Korea,” the general says by way of explanation. “Some things are impossible to shake.”
“And about the roof,” I add, somewhat uneasily. “I can’t let you pay for it. When they’re done, please send me the total, and I’ll—”
I’m not sure how to finish that sentence in a way that doesn’t involve a life of crime or the wholesale bargaining of my organs, so it’s for the best that the general draws himself up to his full stature and glares at me.
“I’ll do no such thing, young lady, and I resent the implication that I’d order a job done and pass the bill off to you. This roof is a gift, and I’ll thank you to remember it as such.”
There’s so much dignity in him, he’s almost impossible to refuse. Still, I have to do it. If I won’t accept a roof from the man I’m dating, I can hardly accept one from a kindly old military man I barely know. Before I can figure out how, he opens his mouth again.
“I never had a daughter, you see,” he says, his voice firm. “My best years were given over to Her Majesty’s Service. I don’t regret my sacrifice—not by a long shot—but by the time I found myself ready to settle down, my ways were too set to change. And from what I can tell, you don’t have much in the way of family yourself. Seems like taking care of each other is the least we can do.”
That comment is the final nail in my coffin—or in the thatch, as the case may be. Taking care of each other is the one thing village life is supposed to be about, the one thing that continues to elude me no matter how hard I try to grab hold. But here it is, being offered to me with no strings attached.
At least, not any strings that I can see yet.
“Thank you, General von Cleve.” I lean in and press a kiss on his cheek, the brush of his mustache prickly against my skin. “I appreciate this more than you know. You’re a sweetheart to be thinking of me.”
His face flushes with color, and he coughs heavily before pulling away. “Yes, well. You’re one of us now, aren’t you? Nicholas, always a pleasure. Send your mother my love.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” he says in his usual urbane tone. “But what am I saying? That’s navy, isn’t it?”
The general’s mustache gives another one of those strange twitches before he turns away. He calls out a few more instructions to the roofers—including the need to watch their step or risk breaking through to the bathroom—before taking himself off down the drive.
We watch him go, Nicholas and I, waiting only until his bulldog-like tread takes him out of our line of sight before speaking.
“You were a little rude to the general, don’t you think?” I ask.
Nicholas’s brows raise. “Was I?”
“I know he’s a bit of a wartime relic, but his heart is in the right place.”
“I’m sure his heart is as pure as the driven snow, but Reginald von Cleve has not now, nor has he ever, seen anything of war.”
I turn to glance up at Nicholas, sure that in this, as in most things, he’s being ironic. But there’s a firm set to his jaw that indicates he’s one hundred percent in earnest. “What are you talking about?” I ask. “He’s a general—or, rather, he was. He was a POW in Korea. He told me so himself.”
“And you always believe what someone tells you? For shame, Madame Eleanor. I thought you were more cynical than that.”
I was. I am. At least . . . I used to be.
“No,” I breathe. “Really?”
He inclines his head in an assent. “It’s not common knowledge in the village, but it’s my understanding that he spent most of his youth in a Swiss sanatorium. Oh, not for his own health—that man has the constitution of a horse. But his mother was sickly, or so she believed. She dragged him all over Europe seeking cures for her various nervous conditions. By the time she finally succumbed to one of them, it was too late. He couldn’t go to university, couldn’t join the armed forces, was unable to pursue any real kind of career. A shame, really.”
“So he manufactured an illustrious military past instead?”
Nicholas hunches his shoulders in an elegant half shrug. “Why not? All it takes is a few jackets and medals picked up from the nearest surplus store.”
“Well, really,” I say. Even though the general has long since walked out of our range of sight, I find my gaze drawn to the empty lane. “He must have known that the only way to make a lie like that stick is to make it believable. A generalship is flying awfully high. He should have stopped at captain. Or major, if he absolutely couldn’t help himself.”
A slight snort escapes my beloved. “Is that a Madame Eleanor trade secret? Only sell the lie if it’s a believable one?”
“Laugh all you want, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it comes around to bite him one of these days. How many people know?”
“Other than you and I? None, I imagine. Reginald predates almost everyone who lives in the village. My mother knows, naturally, since the pair of them were schoolchildren together, but I doubt she knows she knows it. He could have claimed a pioneering trip to Mars and she’d have accepted it as truth, just as long as she wasn’t required to participate in any way.”
“Your mother is too pure for this world.”
“My mother is a plague and a menace.” Nicholas places a hand on the small of my back and propels me toward the house. “All the women in my life are. I wouldn’t know what to do with myself otherwise.”
* * *
I fill Nicholas in on the current state of my investigation over breakfast.
One of his greatest skills in this world is manufacturing culinary delights out of the barest of ingredients. He claims it’s the inevitable result of growing up in a house where food is considered a luxury rather than a right, but I suspect he enjoys the task more than he lets on. No one puts sprigs of parsley on a plate unless they’re showing off.
“You could have saved me a lot of trouble if you’d just told me that Lewis King is a financial tapeworm,” I say around a mouthful of scrambled eggs. I have no idea what he’s done to them, but after two minutes of poking around in the garden, he managed to find
something to transform them into magic. “I wasted at least two days snooping around his past.”
He pauses long enough to chew and swallow. “I didn’t know that Lewis King is a financial tapeworm.”
I put my fork down and stare at him. “What are you talking about? Both you and Annis acted as though you’d fallen into a tar pit the moment he entered the conversation, and your mother told me all about the financial schemes he’s invested in using his aunt’s money. I thought that was why you disliked him so much.”
The sounds of footsteps and men shouting overhead force Nicholas to pause longer than he normally would, which is why it’s so disappointing when the cacophony stops and all he says is, “I don’t dislike Lewis King.”
I pick up my fork again, but this time, it’s to point it at him. “You do too. I saw it in your face that day in the pub.”
“You saw it in my face?”
“Yes.”
“Any particular part of it? My nose, perhaps? Or my chin?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. It was everywhere, like reading a newspaper headline. Nicholas Hartford the Third, unruffled by ghosts and witches and men falling through roofs, seriously dislikes Lewis King.”
He leans across the kitchen table, thrusting his face toward mine. His lids come down halfway over his steely eyes in the way common among kids when they’re preparing for a staring contest. “I had no idea you were so talented. What’s my face saying right now?”
“That you’re a stubborn jerk who won’t admit when he’s wrong.” I lean forward to meet him halfway, dropping a quick kiss on his lips so he won’t take offense at that jerk bit. “And like I said, it wasn’t just you. Annis had a negative reaction to him, too, but she wouldn’t tell me why. Only that he was unpleasant as a kid.”
“He was.”
“You do realize that I can place him in the village on the night of Sarah’s murder, right?” I start ticking off on my fingers. “He had the timeline. He had motive, since he needed money, even if he didn’t know his aunt was going to give it all to the tennis people. He had access to the poison, or easily could have by cutting through Margaret’s garden cage.”
“And?” Nicholas asks.
I pause. “How do you know there’s more?”
“Because, Eleanor.” He’s given up on all pretense of eating by this time, still leaning close enough to hear me over the sound of the roofers. Clasping my hands in his, he gives them a squeeze. “Unlike you, I really can read your face. There’s something you’re not saying.”
He’s right. There is. But telling a man as determinedly realistic as this one that there’s a werewolf on the loose isn’t as easy as one might hope. Especially since the only real proof I have is a dead cat on a hill, a mauled pig in the woods, and a man who’s a little hairier and sweatier than the norm.
I’m also unwilling to admit how uneasy I am about my own cat’s disappearance. Not because Nicholas won’t be sympathetic, of course, but because he will. He’ll whisk me into his arms and tell me not to worry and stand watch outside to ensure my sleep is safely guarded. All of which sounds delightful at first, but will seriously impede my progress on this case.
And I need to solve this case. If not for my missing Beast, then for the people of this village. They deserve better than to live in fear. They shouldn’t have to lock their pets up at night and their children during the day.
“So you admit that Lewis King was unpleasant as a child?” I ask, determined to focus on the few facts I have. “What do you mean? What did he do?”
Nicholas pulls himself away and returns his attention to his meal. “One of these days, my dear, there’s not going to be a murder to solve, and you and I are going to have a long chat about your priorities.”
“Does this mean you’re not going to tell me about Lewis?”
He sighs. “There’s not much to tell, to be honest. He wasn’t the sort of boy who made it easy to like him, that’s all. He didn’t participate in sports, he made it a point to go telling tales to his aunt every time there was a disagreement, and his behavior could be erratic at times.”
“At what times?” I ask sharply.
“When things didn’t go his way, usually.”
“There wasn’t a pattern to it?” I persist. “A cyclical pattern, perhaps? Every few weeks? Or . . . monthly?”
There’s a dawning look of recognition in Nicholas’s eye, but he holds it at bay while he contemplates my question. “Not that I can recall, no. But I wasn’t a burgeoning mystic who tracked the moon’s cycle, so there’s no way to know for sure.”
“I never said anything about the moon.”
“You didn’t have to. I heard about the wolfsbane.”
Well, there it is. It’s out in the open now. Nicholas knows that I’m pursuing a werewolf, that I’ve thrown all common sense out the window and am committing to the supernatural. I shift my gaze to a more comfortable spot above his shoulder. “Your mother seems to think he has health issues of some sort. She said he needed his aunt’s money for his medical condition.”
“Is this where you ask me if I ever saw him foaming at the mouth?”
“That depends. Did you?”
He laughs and relaxes against his chair back. “I’ll say this for you, Eleanor Wilde. There’s never a dull moment when you’re around.”
“I’m taking that as a no.”
“Alas, he never transformed into his werewolf form around me. I never saw him sprout hair or catch mice in his teeth. I never saw him loping around the playground on all fours. He did always have a strange body odor, but so did his brother, Richard. And it doesn’t seem to have prevented the latter’s success in this world.”
I blow out a long breath. As pleasant as it’s been to spend time with Nicholas, this conversation hasn’t been as productive as I’d hoped. All signs still point to Lewis King as the culprit, but I can’t shake the feeling that he’s no guiltier than I am. The murderer is capable of causing terrible agony—of slaughtering animals and leaving them behind for poor, defenseless women like me to find. Lewis’s behavior is odd, yes, but it’s less like that of a killer and more like that of a man on the edge—maybe even a man in pain. In fact, of everyone in the village, he’s the only one who actually seems to care that Sarah Blackthorne is gone.
“Well, Madame Eleanor?” Nicholas asks, an inquisitive lift to his brow. “Short of catching Lewis in the act of transformation, how are we going to prove or disprove your theory?”
It’s on the tip of my tongue to tell him that there’s no we about it—that Lenora and Rachel would be all too happy to set a late-night trap that would lure Lewis out into the open—but even I have to balk at such a plan. For one, Lenora still has to go to school in the morning.
For another, I just realized there’s a much easier way to get the answers I seek.
“Finish your breakfast,” I say, ignoring the thump of the roofers overhead. “You and I have an errand to run in the village.”
Chapter 13
“Oh, I’ll wait out here, thanks.” I cross my legs demurely at the ankle and fold my hands in my lap, looking the picture of innocence in the waiting room of the small clinic where Dr. MacDougal plies her trade. “I don’t want to intrude.”
The pained martyrdom on Nicholas’s face practically begs me to intrude, but that would defeat the entire purpose of my plan. From the moment we walked into the clinic, dripping apologies for showing up without an appointment, Oona has been eating out of the palm of Nicholas’s hand. It might distress me, the adulation showered upon this man by a well-educated, respectable woman who should know better, but she’s behaving exactly as I expected her to.
Besides—poor Nicholas is going to need all the pandering he can get after this. You’d think I’d asked him to fake leprosy for all the dust he kicked up.
“I’m only here in a supportive capacity,” I add with a wave of my hand. “Pretend I’m invisible.”
More than happy to be rid of me, Oona gestures toward the sw
inging door behind her. “Come along, Mr. Hartford,” she says with all the respect and geniality one would expect of a professional in her position. “I’m sure we’ll have you feeling as good as new in no time. Tell me, how did you find your mother this morning?”
I’m guessing he did his best not to find her at all, but he makes good on his promise and lays on his most charming smile as he follows Dr. MacDougal to the examination room. He has explicit instructions to keep her back there for at least ten minutes. The medical exam should only take about half that, seeing as how he’s never been in better health, but I’m counting on Oona’s social ambitions to take care of the rest.
I might not be willing to use the Hartfords to give me a financial leg up in this world, but I’m not above leveraging petty snobbery to solve a murder.
I sit back and assess the waiting room, which is empty save for me and the receptionist behind the desk. I’d hoped that, in arriving unannounced, Nicholas’s presence would have thrown the office off kilter enough to allow me access to the medical files I can see lining the wall behind the front desk. However, the receptionist looks to be firmly installed, a pair of cat-eye glasses perched on the end of her nose and a stack of paperwork by her side that should keep her busy from now until the end of days.
Or until a witch intervenes.
“Hello,” I say as I saunter up to the desk, my smile bright and innocuous. “It’s Zahra, right?”
“Uh, yes?”
“I thought you’d be here today. It was foretold in the stars.”
A wary look descends upon the woman, her dark brown eyes wide behind their plastic rims. I recognize both the woman and the expression from the many times I’ve seen her around the village. She’s youngish—in her early thirties, is my guess—and pretty in a retro, brainiac sort of way, as evidenced by her choice of eyewear. However, no glasses are able to hide the wrinkled lines of exhaustion that make me think she doesn’t get nearly enough sleep at night.