She felt rumpled by comparison, in her jeans and yellow knit shirt. Her hair was beginning to pull loose and fell in soft wisps around her face. Her books were in a backpack and weighed heavily on her arms and shoulders. Cole, watching her struggle, wordlessly took them from her, and carried them with comparative ease.
His car stood in the front of the lot, tastefully expensive and immaculately cared for. He opened the door for Claire first and went over to the driver’s side.
“What time do you need me to pick you up this afternoon?” He asked as they neared the campus.
“Oh, you don’t have to. I can catch a ride.”
“With who?” He grinned at her, his eyes light with humor. “I think we’ve gotten beyond the polite game. I’ll come and get you whenever you’re ready. I have some work in town I need to finish anyway, so I’ll be in the area.”
“Isn’t it hard to keep up your business while you’re away?”
“It’s getting harder. I really should fly out to New York soon to tie up some loose ends. I’m going to Denver over Thanksgiving.” He turned his attention back to the road as he skillfully dodged through traffic and pulled onto the main campus thoroughfare.
“Are you visiting family?”
“No, I don’t have any close family left. My mother passed on a few years ago, and my Grandmother is going to Florida for Thanksgiving.”
She had a hard time picturing him with a grandmother; a sweet gray-haired lady baking cookies and toting her tow-headed grandson to movies and baseball games.
“What are you smiling about?” Cole asked, interrupting her thoughts.
“Nothing, nothing at all.” She watched as they passed the several of the University buildings and pointed to a lot outside the education building. “You can just pull over here.”
He stopped the car in the space and switched off the engine, then turned to look her in the face. “You want me to pick you up here?” He asked, gesturing to the building. When she nodded, he asked what time.
She watched, amused, as a couple of her classmates passed, waving tentatively as they peered through the window.
“I’ll be done at noon. I can be back here at quarter after. Will that be alright?”
“Twelve fifteen it is.”
It was close to impossible to pay attention to class with so many concerns invading her mind. She took notes as best she could, finding herself sketching stained glass windows and wickedly pointed turrets on the margins of her paper, like a high school girl in Algebra class. When her last session was over, she walked quickly back to the lot. Several classmates accompanied her, showing unusual interest as they questioned her about the expensive car she had arrived in. She almost laughed to herself. It was strange how graduate students could suddenly behave like freshman coeds when a new man was in the picture.
To her surprise, Cole had already parked and was standing outside of the car, resting carelessly against the bumper.
Claire paused to admire him again. He looked polished, at ease and totally sure of himself. She was amazed at his composure considering the havoc the house had wrecked in his life and his business.
“Who is he?”
“Gorgeous!”
“He’s my ride,” Claire said, waving at him as he glanced her way. He moved toward them, his long strides eating up the pavement more quickly than their shorter ones. He reached for her bag automatically and responded politely to the introductions.
“Are you ready?”
She nodded and let him open the door for her. She waved as she passed the other girls, smiling to herself at their envious expressions. She was almost embarrassed at her response. Obviously, she wasn’t much more mature than they, but she was enjoying it and decided she would relish being petty for just a few more minutes.
“How was class?” he asked, turning towards her as they sat at a light, waiting for the traffic to move.
“Fine. Boring but fine. I guess I’ve lost interest in some of the classroom techniques used these days. I can’t picture dealing with some of the behavior problems they’re listing, much less disciplining the children.”
“You don’t sound too enthusiastic about teaching.”
“It’s what my mom did, and I guess I just fell into the groove. I don’t plan on it being my life long career. Just a jumping point, I suppose.”
“And what do you want to be when you grow up?”
She felt her cheeks heat and looked at him pointedly, unsure if she should be insulted by the lightly stated words.
“I don’t know. I hesitate to even admit this, but I’d like to be an author. Maybe write children’s books.”
“That sounds much more fitting for you, I think.”
“Why do you say that?”
“I just don’t picture you standing in front of a chalk board calling out names and spelling words. You seem much more introspective than that.”
She frowned, her mind racing. Was that how she looked from the outside? Thoughtful, serious? This last year had taken its toll on her. She felt like she had aged. She had finally concluded she wasn’t unstable. It hadn’t been her imagination. And now she was just trying to handle her new knowledge.
“I think I’m learning as I go along, figuring out what I want to do. I had always felt like it was just a given I would follow in my mother’s footsteps. It seemed natural. Now I’m just trying to look at it day at a time. It’s all I can do.”
He nodded his agreement and turned his attention back to the road.
By the time they pulled up in front of the house, Claire was starving. The workers were crowded into the bedrooms on the third floor, their efforts ringing loudly down the staircase. Cole explained they would finish out the week and not return until after the Christmas holidays. Hopefully something would be resolved by then.
Claire found Noel in the kitchen and as soon as Cole had them settled, he disappeared into the library.
“He’s changed since he’s been here. He’s gotten so, I don’t know, normal,” Noel said in a stage whisper after Cole had left the room.
Claire grinned back. Noel had regained a great deal of her composure since last night. Her hair was slicked back in a shiny cap of bright red and her newly applied lipstick matched exactly. Her jeans were a well-worn purple with a white long sleeve shirt. Her shoes had enormous rubber heels, which increased her already respectable height.
“I think he’s looking better since he added a few pounds. His clothes definitely fit better. He’s got that businessman look on today.”
“I can’t complain,” Claire agreed, her voice a little wistful.
“Did he ever tell you about what happened? If he was sick or in an accident? I mean, the limp is better, but you can still tell something bad happened to him.”
Claire shook her head. “Are you kidding? This is the most conversation I’ve gotten out of him since we met. H’s never said what he was doing before coming to the house. But I just have this feeling...”
“What do you mean?”
“I think something happened to make him want to come back here. Maybe even to start the project. He’s blown a lot of money on this place and hasn’t gotten a very big positive response.”
“Well, I don’t know what his purpose is, but after last night I’ve definitely gained a lot of respect for him,” Noel responded, starting to put dirty plates and silverware in the dishwasher.
“Last night? What do you mean?”
“He could have buried the whole thing. With his kind of money, he could have covered up the incident and gotten rid of us, or just shut the thing down and scrapped the project. Instead, he’s listening to us and seems to be truly concerned.”
Claire nodded thoughtfully. She was having a little difficulty being objective since she had realized her feelings for him. She certainly wasn’t going to call it love, but she did care for him, more than she was comfortable with.
“You really like him, don’t you?” Noel said, noticing her expression.
&
nbsp; “Who wouldn’t? He’s a nice guy,” Claire said lightly.
“It’s something more than that,” Noel scolded. “I’ve known you long enough to tell when you’re getting serious.”
“I can’t be serious. Not right now with all this going on and not with him. He is so far out of my league.”
Noel frowned at her. “Don’t put yourself down. I think maybe you’d better let Cole decide if you’re his type. And from what little I’ve seen, I think it would be safe to say he’s considering it.”
Claire shook her head and stood up, visually shaking herself out of her mood.
“So, what are we doing today?” she asked, purposefully changing the subject.
“Well, we have a key, we have a ghost giving us a message; I say we chase it down.”
Claire agreed and went upstairs to her room to retrieve the key. Her jeans, forgotten since the day before, were now laid out neatly on the bed, the key taken from the pocket and placed on her pillow. Her church dress was again laid out with matching shoes and even undergarments. The soft floral smell of her perfume filtered through the air.
She took the key, and bidding her new caretaker a silent thanks, went back downstairs. Noel met her on the stairs, a pad of paper in hand.
“We’ll have to start on one floor and do each door separately. I’m guessing each lock was keyed separately, but maybe not. This house was constructed with such unusual style, I can never figure out if they stuck with tradition or decided to go their own way.”
“Let’s start on the top floor,” Claire responded firmly.
“In the attic?”
“No, the fourth floor. Those rooms are the least disturbed, and I just have a feeling the maid would have had her room up there.”
“Of course,” Noel responded enthusiastically. “I had just assumed the key was for someone else, but the maid would have had a key for her own room.”
The fourth floor had minimal lighting, cast by bare bulbs hastily screwed in by workmen. The doors were mostly closed, the scuffed wooden floors still heavily soiled and thick cobwebs hanging in tattered loops from carved crown molding. The wallpaper appeared to have been replaced more than once, and the existing paper was a sickly green with reptilian vines snaking up from the floorboards and curling at the crown molding.
They started at the far end, opening doors and trying the key in the locks. After a few minutes, they discovered the key was not only too large for the locks, all the doors were unlocked anyway.
“Well, now what?” Claire asked, pushing a strand of hair out of her eyes with dirty hands.
“It has to be to some door around here. Let’s make sure we haven’t skipped anything.” Noel led the way back down the hall to the elaborate door that lead to the turret room. Although the rooms on the fourth floor were all smaller than the ones downstairs, and mostly empty with the exception of a few tipsy pieces of furniture that hadn't withstood the passage of time gracefully, the turret rooms were both fully furnished. The door was unlocked and opened into a room like a fairytale chamber. The floor was cleaned and covered with a large area rug, and the walls were newly painted. The windows had been scrubbed, and a shade had been hung at one to shut out the strongest of the morning sun. The furniture was spartan with a single chair and table centered by the far window, a few books and papers scattered on the surface of the scarred tabletop. Claire spied a door at the far end of the room.
“What is this, a closet?” she asked.
Noel quickly pulled the door open, revealing an even smaller room. “No, just some extra space.” She stood thoughtfully. “Let’s see if there is another one of these in the other turret.”
Their search revealed the second one in the other turret, a small, oddly shaped room apparently a result of the angle of the turret walls. This one was remarkable because it had the only locked door. The key fit the lock, the catch turning grudgingly.
Noel could barely contain her excitement. The adventure seemed to be bringing out the sleuth in her because she went through the contents of both rooms with special care. At her insistence, they returned to the first room and found it contained little else but an old sewing machine and piles of dry rotted fabric, which shredded at a touch.
The second was more promising with two trunks pushed against the far wall. Both were locked, and Claire ran to the hall below to search for a hammer. It took several strikes to knock the locks off, but the trunks themselves were no worse for it.
Noel lifted the lid on the first one and momentarily paused, fascinated by the mess. Fabrics of dirty yellow and brown made up the first layer, a blanket of some kind. Beneath were books, hard covers with brittle pages that stuck together in places. At the bottom was a small wooden box, painted black. When opened it revealed a stack of letters, some tied together with ribbon.
The handwriting was elegant with strong loops and slants. A man’s hand, Claire had no doubt.
The second trunk was almost empty with a wooden tray at the bottom. Packed in coarse linen were bottles of all shapes and sizes, their labels little more than symbols painted onto the corks of the bottles.
“What do you suppose these were?” Noel asked, holding one up to the weak light shed by the bare bulb.
“Don’t know. Spices, medicine maybe. I don’t think I’d open it until we know what’s inside. Could be an ancient poison.”
“Or love potion,” Noel added, grinning.
“Um, yeah. Maybe I need that,” Claire said, catching the bottle between blackened fingers.
“Let’s take a few down and the letters too. Look for any notes or anything in the books. We can take this stuff to the music room.”
“Far away from your friendly ghosts,” Claire agreed.
Noel stopped, her expression growing serious. “What about Cole? All of this is his. Maybe we should let him read the letters.”
“I’ll tell him what we found. We’ll let him decide if he wants to do this himself. We may want to get cleaned up before we settle down.”
Noel agreed and they carried out armloads of material, closing the trunks again before heading down the stairs. At the foot of the staircase, they dropped the things in the hallway on loose newspapers. Parting, Noel went back upstairs to her room, and Claire crossed to the door leading into the library. Cautiously she knocked, noting how filthy her hands looked.
“Come in.”
She eased the door open, watching him for a moment as he typed quickly on the computer. His desk was covered with documents, stacks of papers piled neatly.
“I need a secretary,” he said grimly, turning around. His eyes widened in amazement as he looked at her. “Good Lord, what happened to you?”
“We’ve been looking around and, well, we found where the key fit. And we found some other things, a couple of trunks with some old letters.”
He got up, slowly approaching her, his smile widening until his amusement touched his eyes. He lifted one hand and pulled a long twist of web from her dusty hair. “What’s this on your face?” His fingers carefully slid down her hot cheek.
“Dirt. Dust I suppose. We just wanted to make sure you were alright with us going through your things.”
“Whatever you want. Take the place apart if you think it well help. But take care of yourselves and stay out of the dangerous rooms. If you find something good, let me know.”
“We thought we’d use the music room.”
“That’s fine,” he paused, his eyes darkened as his thoughts turned to more serious issues. “Are you staying here tonight, or do you want to go back to the hotel?”
“I’m fine here. Really. I’ll let you know if anything else happens.” She backed out of the room, feeling as though her face was afire. Here she was, being threatened by spirits, her life turned upside down and all she could think about was his concern for her. And his touch.
After a quick shower, she took extra care with her makeup, twisting her wet hair into an intricate knot at the nap of her neck. She pulled on jeans and a top
and hurried to meet Noel. She was acutely aware of the time, knowing she would be going home for the Thanksgiving holiday in several days. Would she even want to return after that? Exams would be fast approaching and after that, Christmas break.
Noel looked up from the mess on the floor as Claire entered. The papers had been spread out on the floor and Noel was sorting them.
“Letters,” Noel said, gesturing to a stack, “bills, ads and some legal stuff.”
Claire looked puzzled. “Why would a maid have stuff like this?”
“This wasn’t the maid’s. I’m willing to bet money these belonged to the first mistress of this house. The letters are all addressed to Beatrice and look at the date, 1854. That’s when this was first built. And from the sound of the letters, it seemed our lady had a boyfriend.”
“A boyfriend?”
“Definitely a lover, and he wasn’t her husband. Listen to this, ‘I worry that one day he will discover us and in his rage, I am uncertain what he may do’.”
“So, she was having an affair,” Claire said, leaning over Noel’s shoulder to look at the stained paper.
“And how. This stack is full of letters from him, and he even mentions the maid. Listen. ‘Have Etta place your next correspondence at the Inn, for I fear our current place is becoming too dangerous.’”
Claire sat still, picturing the lady’s maid as she carried the letters back and forth between the lovers. Had she hidden them then, after her mistress had left? It made sense. Claire said as much to Noel.
“Covering for her. Yeah, it follows. They had a steamy affair, and when they finally left, Etta took the letters and hid them in her room.”
“Do you think the turret room was Etta’s? I was wondering if maybe it was the lovers’ meeting place. It’s too nice a room to give a servant, but if her mistress was using it as sitting room, or a romantic hideaway...” Claire paused and looked appreciatively out the window to admire the panoramic view outside. It would be that much more impressive from above.
“Then Etta could just keep the key after they left and hide their things in the closet room.”
Talitha Page 17