"Welcome home, Your Grace,” said the man, bowing in deference to his employer. “I trust your trip went well?"
"It did indeed," said Zhi. "We have guests. This is Lark Voorhees and …” Zhi turned to Spin, eyeing her curiously. “You know, I don't know your real name.”
"Neither do I," said Lark. "I've known her over a year, and she’s only ever gone by Spin d’Elle. Don’t bother trying to get it out of her. She’s a master at evasive techniques. I tell her she should’ve been a magician, but I secretly think she’s in the Witness Protection Program.”
Spin ignored them and instead climbed the steps, neatly evading the topic of conversation. The front door was thrown open by a woman dressed in a black and white maid’s uniform. She smiled with interest at Spin.
Inside, the house was grand. Something out of a dusty fairytale book. Old but not exactly out of date. The furniture looked as though it had been around since before the Victorian age. It was well kept, but signs of wear and tear were visible if you knew where to look, which Spin did.
"May I help you with your luggage, miss?" said the maid who’d opened the door.
"I got it," said Spin. "You don't have to wait on me."
The woman smiled jovially. Her hair was in a perfect bun making Spin wonder just how good she was at cleaning all day if she didn’t have a hair out of place. “It's my job and my pleasure. Miss …"
“DJ Spin d’Elle. Or you can just call me Spin."
"Oh, how clever," said the maid. “Spindle like the spinning wheel needle."
Coming up from behind her, Zhi let out a laugh. "I didn't get that. It is clever."
Why did his praise warm her? Why did his smiles send tingles down her spine?
He walked up to Spin. Swaggered was more like it. She felt like a doe caught in the sight of a lean and hungry tiger. He held out his hand to her. Spin’s instinct was to clasp her hand with his and not let go.
“I’ll take my property back now,” he said.
Cold dread wash over her. Her hand immediately went to the jewel at her neck. “I didn't take anything."
He grinned, showing his incisors. "Yes, my lady, you did.”
Spin gulped. Instinct warned her to take a step back, to run. But her body was immobile, trapped under his gaze.
“My phone,” Zhi said.
She swallowed and then had to swallow again before she could speak. “Don’t call me a lady.” She slapped his phone into the palm of his outstretched hand. “And don't go on social media without my permission.”
He let out a low laugh. A sound that Spin was sure a hungry tiger toying with his food would make. Then he bowed and turned on his heel. His steps were regal as he walked through his domain.
Chapter Thirteen
Zhi ran his thumb over his phone. Parker’s Instagram profile smiled back at him. It was the longest he’d held her gaze since they’d met. Typically, by this time with any other interaction, a woman was already sliding into his various social media inboxes. But all his alerts were silent.
He had the urge to press his pursuit by tapping the little paper airplane icon in the corner of the app. But Spin’s glare and waggling finger arrested his actions. He’d never thought about waiting to contact a woman for a prescribed period. He also had never chased after a woman. Or slid into her DM for that matter. He was usually the one responding, not launching the airplane icon.
Women had always been available to him. He honestly had expected to be bringing Parker home to meet his mom today rather than a DJ to tutor him on how to communicate with the woman he was interested in.
Zhi depressed his thumb, swiping off Parker's profile. He tapped the magnifying glass icon and did a search for his new house guest. Because he didn’t know her real name, he typed in her stage moniker.
He tried DJ Spin but got a large number of results. Placing the cursor at the end, he added d’Elle. No picture of a woman popped up, but he knew he had found her.
There was a picture of a turntable and her hands. He wasn’t sure how he knew, but he knew those were her hands. They’d been on his skin briefly, but they’d left an imprint. Enough for his mind to identify the slender digits in a grainy photograph.
Zhi tore his gaze away from her hands and glanced at the information of her profile. There were hardly any details about her. In fact, there were none. No birth date. No hometown. No school. No relationship. It was like she was a digital ghost.
And yet he was allowing this woman to dictate the course of his life. His thumb traveled back to the top of the phone screen. He gave the paper airplane icon a decisive tap.
Are you in the DJ witness protection program?
A few seconds later her reply came back. That's something a creepy stalker would ask.
Zhi chuckled and put his phone away. She could keep her secrets. Goodness knew he had his own under lock and key.
He knocked lightly on his mother's door. After her gentle acknowledgment, he let himself in. She was sitting in her favorite chair; a royal blue wingback with gold trim. He could tell he’d woken her from the glazed look in her eyes.
"You're back."
"I am," he said. "I think I found a solution."
Her petite form straightened in the chair, but she was still small inside its large cushioned wings. "Another bank?"
Zhi hesitated to go into details. He wasn’t trying to trick Parker. He was truly trying to find a common ground that they might build a future on. If it turned out that ground was just a few rocky pebbles, then he’d … he wasn’t sure what he’d do.
"I've made some new friends,” he settled on. “I think one might be able to help. In fact, I brought a couple of new friends home to help me … figure some things out.”
“We have guests?” She sat up even taller. “You haven’t brought any of your guy friends over in a long while.”
“They’re not guys. They’re two women.”
Now her brows rose. Zhi had never brought a female home, friend or more.
“It’s not like that mǔqīn. It’s … they’re helping me with something. Anyway, you get back to your rest while the beast is at bay.”
“Don't call him that," his mother snapped. She came to her feet, all four foot eight of her.
Zhi backed down. His mother might be small, but she was a lioness when it came to those she loved. Regardless of whether they deserved it or not.
"He is your father,” she said, her quiet voice a low roar that brooked no argument unless he wanted his head bit off. “He's kept a roof over your head, clothes on your back, and food in your belly all these years."
Zhi couldn’t help it. The only way he’d swallow that falsity was if his head were removed from his body. “He is the reason all that may be taken away now."
“You will still respect him.” His mother's soft voice was firm. Her dark eyes were hard as flint.
Zhi was too tired to argue. He let his head bow, and then he took his mother’s outstretched hand. He helped her climb onto her massive bed that she’d always slept in alone. His father’s former chambers adjoined this room as he preferred to keep separate quarters. Zhi pulled the covers up and around his mother and kissed her forehead. With that duty done, he left the room.
A warm shower, a change of clothes, and a glass of wine later, he felt almost like himself. Oswald entered his rooms and showed him the new list of things that needed his attention. Staring at the list, Zhi wished his father was in charge of the mess he’d made, and he could simply be a kid again. But that ship had sailed.
Zhi rolled up his sleeves and got to work, making certain to steer clear of the second floor where his guests were resting. It was midday when Zhi sat the list aside and snuck into the music room.
The room was sparsely decorated. Just white walls, shelves upon shelves of records, CDs, and sheet music. At the center of the large room was a grand piano.
Zhi walked over to it as though it was an oasis, and he was moving across a desert. Playing had always been an escape for him.
For his mother as well. They’d both always wound up here after one of his father’s rages. The man never came into the room. It was as though he were the Wicked Witch of the West, and he wouldn’t breach the barrier of their oasis.
Zhi ran his fingers over the keys. He didn’t plan what he’d play. He never did. He simply let his fingers lead. He wasn’t surprised that the melody that came from him was the fugue he’d heard the other night aboard the cruise ship.
Only this time, there was no pulsing beat beneath it. Just the sound of the sharps and flats of the grand instrument. There had always been something about the repetition of the notes that calmed him. When the song circled back around and ended as it began, Zhi felt a sense of serenity wash over him, much like after his mother played in the aftermath of one of his father’s violent storms.
The silence as the last note died was a comfort. But he knew that he wasn’t alone. Knowing his mother was sound asleep, and that none of the staff ever intruded when either he or his mother played, Zhi knew it had to be one of his guests.
He looked up to find DJ Spin leaning against the door jamb. Her cell phone was held up in her hand, aimed at him. But he didn’t see a button to indicate that the video record function was engaged.
“What are you doing?" he asked.
"Sampling you,” she said as she walked in the room.
"Don't you need my permission?"
"No one own sounds." She smirked, never taking her eyes off her phone as she took a spot on the bench next to him.
"Music is copyrighted."
Now she glanced up at him. “Did you get Bach’s permission to play that song?"
Zhi leaned his elbow on top of the piano and turned his body to face her. “For someone who plays underground clubs, you certainly have a grasp of chamber music.”
“It’s music.” She shrugged. "It's all music. I don't believe in labeling sounds."
"Not even polka?” Zhi’s shoulders shuddered even as he spoke the offensive word.
"What have you got against polka?”
Instead of waiting for his response, she pushed a button on her phone. Before he could stop her, the heavy, high-winded beats began.
Zhi groaned like a child being told to eat his vegetables. He would prefer the most cruciferous of veggies to the torment of the Polish pandemonium. But then Spin’s hands went to the keys of the piano.
Her fingers glided over the blacks and whites perfectly executing the fugue he’d just finished. Somehow, she timed it to the beat of the polka. He watched her, enthralled, amazed, disbelieving what he was hearing. Until she stopped abruptly.
Zhi wanted to protest. Before he could, she turned to him and clapped her hands. She clapped once. And then twice more in half the time. She repeated the one-one-two clapping in succession. All while gazing expectantly at him.
It took him a second to realize she wanted him to clap his own hands to the beat. He did so, adding another layer of sound. Once he did, she returned to her playing.
Somehow, the three different strands of music blended into … something new. She was truly a translation genius if she could take polka, classical, and hand clapping and play them all together into harmony. He felt pulled in by the music notes swirling around them, pulling them into a melody all their own.
Her eyes shut as she played. A grin tugged at the corner of her lips. She looked like she was in heaven. She looked like an angel. She opened her eyes to catch him staring.
Suddenly, Zhi felt thirsty and hungry at the same time. When was the last time something sweet had passed his mouth? When was the last time he’d had his belly filled with a satisfying morsel?
His errant thoughts caused him to miss the beat. Her finger skipped a key, hitting the wrong note. They both jerked their hands down to their sides at the same time. There was an awkward moment of silence that stretched a second too long.
Finally, Spin rose. “Sounds like you need to get this thing tuned."
"Yeah," he said.
She nodded. Then without another word, she turned on her heel and headed out the room.
Zhi glanced down at the keys. He’d never played for anyone other than his mother. But he’d just made music with Spin. It felt exhilarating. But it also left him feeling a little exposed.
He reached down and pulled the keyboard cover shut. He would need to tune the instrument. Just another thing to add to his ever growing to do list.
Chapter Fourteen
Spin slumped down on the bed. A plume of dust came up from the pillows. She frowned down at the small particles making a mess of the noble air.
She had taken a nap after being shown to the room she would spend the night in. Lark was next door, likely still fast asleep. But Spin had been a light sleeper all her life, and so she’d been up and about in just an hour.
The sound of music had lulled her to the music room. She hadn’t been entirely surprised to find the lord of the manor seated at the grand piano. She had been surprised at the wrong note she struck on the magnificent instrument.
Surely, they'd have had it tuned on a regular basis. The keys had sounded off as Zhi had been playing, but the passion he’d put into the simple song had been so compelling. The piano was likely well-loved and well used.
His playing had been so haunting. So layered. She wanted to pull back the man’s layers, stanza by stanza, to get to the heart of him.
Spin shook herself of the ridiculous notion. She wasn't pulling anything off the Duke of Mondego. She wasn't getting underneath anything.
The guy was interested in the heart of another woman. Spin wasn't trying to give her heart to anyone. Especially someone of the noble class. They were all scoundrels and liars, the lot of them.
Worse yet, she still had the nagging feeling the Zhi was hiding something. She didn't care to find out what. She’d take advantage of his food and lodging while she planned her next move.
A creak overhead forced her to sit upright. She stared at the ceiling, uncertain if what she’d just heard was an animal moaning as though it were in pain? Or just the bones of an old house settling its weight.
The wail sounded again. That was not the sound of joints and floorboards digging into the earth. That was the sound of something very much alive clinging to life.
Spin put her feet on the floor and heard the creek again. She paused. Uncertainty racing down her spine.
Maybe that had come from her weight on the floorboards? But she was a connoisseur of sound. She felt certain it had come from above. Maybe someone was walking above on the forbidden third floor?
But there was another sound. This time in the walls. It sounded to her like the twisting of metal, perhaps a faulty pipe?
She listened intently but didn’t hear the life-like groan again. Just the clanging of pipes and the creaking of floorboards. It was probably just all in her head, like the thought that the duke was about to lean down and kiss her back in the music room.
Spin shook herself, trying to divest her wild imagination from that thought. As her body shuddered with the heat of that irrational impossibility, she shifted her weight from foot to foot. The creaking sound was definitely coming from her added weight on the floor. The sounds of monsters in the walls, the thoughts of royal kisses, they were all in her head.
Still, it was strange. She would never in her wildest dreams go for a guy like Zhi Mondego. He was a duke. Spin hated the noble class, especially after what they did to her family.
She’d gotten her revenge, though. And she’d never give them a chance to take it from her. The only way that beast would ever get his hands on her was over her cold dead body.
Unfortunately for her, the blue bloods had long memories and deep pockets. She knew they would never stop looking for her to retrieve what they thought was theirs. Spin pressed the necklace to her heart.
Another low moan sounded from overhead. It was not the floorboards. It was not the pipes. It was not her belly. There was something, or someone, up there.
She reached f
or the door. Yanking it open she let out a high pitched squeal. "You scared me."
Lark stood there. Hand raised as though poised to knock. She lowered her hand and regarded Spin with concern. "What's wrong? You look like you've seen a ghost."
"I just …” Spin looked up, then down, then at the walls. All was silent in the hall. “I just thought I heard something."
"Old house," said one of the maids.
She was standing just behind Lark. She gave Spin a curtsey which had Spin grimacing. Spin was staunch in her beliefs that no human should ever bow to another. But she held her tongue as the pretty young maid introduced herself as Allana, the sister to Lin.
“There are lots of noises in this old house,” Allana said. “I don’t think I could sleep in silence after living here.”
The woman smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes. Yup, there was definitely something out of the ordinary going on here in House Mondego. But Spin decided she didn't want to know what. She was only here for one day, and then she’d be gone. The house and its occupants could keep their secrets. Goodness knew she had enough of her own to worry about.
“There are repairs going on above,” Allana continued. “That’s why it’s best to stay to this floor."
"I got lost,” said Lark. “Allana and Mathis here found me."
Spin hadn’t noticed the young boy lurking at the corner of the hall. He came forward. It was easy to tell the boy was the offspring of the butler. They had the same dark hair and eyes.
"I find that funny," said Mathis. “A magician getting lost. Can't you just magic yourself where you want to be?”
"I'm a magician’s assistant,” Lark corrected.
"She does all the work." Spin corrected her friend. “The magician waves his hands, but his assistant is truly the one behind all the tricks."
"Isn't that always the way of it," muttered Allana. “I’d love to see a show where it was all turned around. You know, where the magician bumbles about, but you can see the assistant is the one with the real magic."
Lark’s gaze perked up at that. She was unusually silent, lost in thought as the foursome walked down the great hall. Spin hoped she was seriously considering the idea. Lark deserved her own show, especially one where it was clear that she was the brains of the operation.
The Duke and the DJ: a Sweet Royal Romance (The Rebel Royals Series Book 3) Page 7