A Good Heart is Hard to Find

by Trisha Ashley

  Dante’s face flashed across my mind like a meteorite. ‘No, there isn’t,’ I said firmly, and looked at him, feeling all at once sad and lonely: ‘I just think we’ve grown apart.’

  ‘Are you telling me you don’t love me?’ He looked incredulous, as though such a thing were impossible.

  ‘I don’t know any more,’ I said, because part of me did still love the man he once was – or the one I thought he was, anyway. ‘And all you’re offering me now is that we carry on as before when you come back, really, isn’t it?’

  ‘But we can spend time together freely, and I did say we’d discuss having a baby then, too,’ he reminded me.

  ‘Yes, when it might be too late. The clock’s ticking and I feel it’s probably now or never.’

  ‘Why not now, then?’ he said coolly, and to my complete astonishment tried to take me in his arms again.

  He can’t have been listening to a word I was saying, but that Viagra-fired light was in his eyes again, which might account for it: it had to be that, he hadn’t been this frisky for years.

  ‘Not with that revolting beard,’ I said, fending him off with revulsion, because suddenly I found the thought of sex with Max quite repugnant, like Rosemary would be in there with us.

  ‘What’s the matter with my beard?’ he demanded.

  ‘Everything. You know I’ve always hated beards, and that’s such a silly clipped one. Why don’t you shave it off?’

  ‘Certainly not!’ he said huffily. ‘It’s plain to me you’re just using it as an excuse. I don’t know what’s the matter with you, but if I’d known you were in this sort of mood I wouldn’t have bothered coming.’

  ‘Well, I certainly don’t intend sleeping with you just to make it worth your while.’

  ‘I can’t think what’s got into you, but I can’t see any point in carrying on this discussion. I don’t suppose you’ve got any decent food in the house either?’

  ‘No,’ I said shortly.

  He sighed long-sufferingly. ‘I’m not driving all the way home without eating something, so it had better be the pub, I suppose.’

  We walked to the King’s Arms in silence, two old, old lovers with nothing left to say, and I felt quite cold, empty and somehow bereft. There was a space inside me where I thought our eternal love had been burning, but the fire had definitely gone out and the embers were cooling.

  I was sure he’d loved me once, in his way, but then when he had overcome my resistance he started to take me more and more for granted, which probably happens in a lot of marriages too.

  Max clearly still found me desirable, especially after his absence, but not only would I have to contend with the horrid beard and the ghost in the bed, I found I didn’t particularly want sex without love when sober and in my right mind, whereas it didn’t seem to bother him in the least.

  It was a pity Orla didn’t find him attractive, because then he could just have transferred his casual attentions to her, thus fulfilling a useful purpose.

  She was sitting in the pub lounge with Jason and waved as we went in, but Jason scowled from under his bushy eyebrows like a grumpy and possibly dangerous brown bear.

  Max led the way to a table away from them, and without asking went to order food and drink. He did acknowledge the other two in passing, but that was all he ever did. He always said he wanted to be alone with me, to make the most of our time together, but perhaps he just couldn’t be bothered?

  It was early yet, so there were few customers in the lounge, and only the jingle of the fruit machine in the bar.

  Charles came in with his bundle of parish papers, beamed generally round, and settled himself in his usual seat. I didn’t think he noticed Max, possibly because his distance glasses were pushed up on top of his head. I gave him a wave to test if he could see me, but the only effect was on Jason, who brightened slightly and waved back.

  ‘Your boyfriend’s looking jealous,’ Max said, setting a glass of white wine in front of me. Clearly he’d forgotten I hate white wine. He seemed to have managed to forget almost everything I liked and disliked in only a few months’ absence. ‘You shouldn’t encourage him like that. He might think we want him to come and join us.’

  ‘I was waving at the vicar; and you know very well that Jason isn’t my boyfriend, so he has nothing to be jealous about.’

  ‘No, I suppose you aren’t very tempted by a man whose wife suddenly vanished without trace,’ he agreed. ‘You never know.’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’ I stared at him, astonished.

  ‘Isn’t that what you told me? She left her son behind and most of her things, and she’s not been heard of since? Very odd.’

  ‘Not odd at all,’ I said, leaping to Jason’s defence. ‘She and Jason were always rowing, and if you’d ever seen her son you’d understand how she could leave him behind, because anyone would. It wasn’t like she left a sweet little toddler, he was a big spotty adolescent. Besides, Jason might have a quick temper, but he wouldn’t have harmed her!’

  ‘You were quick enough to suspect me of harming Rosemary!’

  ‘Not of killing her – it’s just that there was that guilt, so I feel sure you know something you aren’t telling me about.’

  And I wasn’t about to tell Max that Orla and I had discussed whether Jason might have accidentally done something to Tanya in a fit of rage, because he was so uniformly nice to his awful son that the foul youth must be holding some dark secret over his father’s head.

  ‘I think you should seriously consider what you want from life, Cassy,’ Max said sententiously. ‘Perhaps you will have come to your senses by the time I get back.’

  Not unless he shaved that beard off, I wouldn’t, and probably not ever where he was concerned if coming to my senses meant believing all his lies again.

  Part of me wished my spell had not been broken by Rosemary’s chill breath of suspicion, but it had, and there was no going back.

  He sat there looking huffy and pompous, and I looked away, fighting for control, as tears began to well.

  At that moment the Demon Prince walked through the door like dark thoughts had conjured him up. His eyes met and held mine, shining the cold greeny-blue of something on a collision course with the Titanic.

  ‘What are you staring at?’ demanded Max, affronted. ‘Didn’t you hear what I said?’

  I wrenched my gaze away with an effort and half-turned towards Max. ‘Nothing. I—’

  ‘Good evening, Cass,’ said Dante’s slightly gravelly voice behind me, and he rested his large hand intimately on the nape of my neck for a moment, like he was about to measure it for a collar.

  Startled, I twisted round indignantly (although I must admit my timbers shivered prow to stern and back again), but before I could say anything he added politely: ‘Is this your father?’ And taking Max’s limp hand he shook it enthusiastically.

  Tall and gaunt Dante might be, and dressed in baggy sweater, jeans and the leather jacket that was so scuffed it was practically suede, but Max looked like a desiccated old man in his Sunday suit in comparison.

  And whatever Dante’s rating on the Richter scale, aftershocks were still rippling up and down my spine.

  ‘I’m Dante Chase, and very pleased to meet you, sir,’ he continued, not giving Max a chance to say a word. ‘You have a lovely daughter. Did she tell you about that amazing night we spent together? I can tell you now, it was something I’ll never forget! But I’ll leave you two alone, because I’m sure you must have lots to talk about. Catch up with you later, Cass!’

  He walked away, leaving Max looking as if he’d been stuffed with cactus and me speechless between anger and a hysterical desire to laugh.

  ‘Who the hell is that? What did he mean?’ demanded Max, fixing me with an accusing stare.

  ‘Nothing,’ I said weakly. ‘He’s inherited Kedge Hall, and I – er …’

  ‘Spent the night with him? Hence your lack of interest in me? I see!’

  ‘I met him while I was out gho
st-hunting, that’s all,’ I said hastily, but probably looking as guilty as hell, mainly, I suppose, because I was as guilty as hell.

  ‘You seem on very friendly terms. Intimate, even,’ he said nastily.

  ‘Not really. In fact, I don’t even like him. He came over simply to try and annoy me, because he wants to hire me to haunt the Hall and I won’t.’

  My eyes met Dante’s again where he now sat next to Orla, and he raised his glass and grinned like a shark.

  ‘Haunt the Hall?’ Max said incredulously, dividing a jealous gaze between me and Dante as if he was quick enough he might find us communicating with mirrors.

  ‘You know, like the Crypt-ograms, only without the singing? Or the teeth. To frighten his guests.’

  ‘Darling Cassy,’ Max said softly, moving his chair up close to mine and taking my hand in his dry, warm clasp. ‘All this business with poor, unbalanced Rosemary has preyed on your mind, hasn’t it? And perhaps I was a bit insensitive not realizing that, but it has all been so difficult. But you know how much I’ve missed you since I’ve been away, Cassy, don’t you? I feel sure that when this has blown over a bit you could come and spend a week or two in California with me, and we can sort things out.’

  His soft, mesmerizing voice and earnest hazel eyes gazing into mine were exerting their usual effect … almost. If his persuasive lips hadn’t been surrounded by topiary hairclippings it might just have worked – or maybe not.

  Perhaps it was the quick glance over his shoulder of dog-in-the-manger possessiveness to check how Dante and Jason were taking our closeness that ruined the beginnings of the familiar spell.

  ‘Look, if we left now we would still have time to go back to the cottage and spend some quality time tog—’

  ‘No!’

  It came out flatter and way louder than I intended and he recoiled.

  ‘Sorry, but I need space to think, Max. Time to work things out.’

  His lips went all tight and he pushed his chair back, so I could once more see Dante’s sardonic face watching us. It was strangely unnerving.

  We walked back to the cottage soon after that and Max, angry and ruffled, got into his car and drove away: unsatisfied, unsated, and unloved.

  I walked on up to the graveyard, which suited my mood admirably, plotting to thwart and punish both Sylvanus and Vlad no end in the next chapter as a sort of general revenge on all mankind.

  If they weren’t already dead I’d have killed them.

  13

  Dead Again

  Cass Leigh keeps them coming thick and fast, with another new release in April, Shock to the Spirits. The covers are quite tasteful compared to the content, and this one certainly gives no inkling of the horrors lurking inside. You either love them or loathe them.

  Bookseller

  Even after a considerable period of reflection in the peaceful solitude of the graveyard I was still just one seething pit of dark writhing emotions, so instead of going home to work I returned to the pub.

  It was still quite early after all, the hours of the night being infinitely more elastic than those of the day.

  I put my head round the door of the lounge carefully, but there was no sign of either Dante, Jason, or even Charles; only Orla, earnestly perusing the lonely hearts page of Private Eye. She looked up, her predatory mauve claws marking a particularly luscious advert.

  ‘Have they gone?’

  ‘What, Jason and Dante? Yes, they formed a sort of uneasy alliance after you came in with Max – nice suit, by the way. Armani? – and Jason confessed that he’d bought some miniatures from Jack Craig a couple of weeks ago which he now realized might be from Kedge Hall.’

  ‘I thought he was looking shifty about something.’

  ‘They’ve gone off to look at them, and Dante says he will buy them back at whatever price Jason paid for them if they are his, which is very fair of him, isn’t it?’

  ‘Very.’

  ‘So, how is Max? Things looked a bit sticky between you two even before Dante stopped by and spoke to you – and if you don’t tell me what he said to make Max look so furious I will die of curiosity!’

  So I told her, and when she giggled I saw the funny side too, although it didn’t mean I wasn’t still angry with Dante.

  ‘Max’s face!’ I said. ‘But just wait until I get my hands on Dante Chase, insinuating we’d spent the night together. What was he playing at?’

  ‘Simple jealousy, I’d say, Cass – and probably with cause! And don’t tell me you two didn’t get up to something that night at the Hall, because it was absolutely obvious from the moment I saw you together.’

  ‘Oh hell, was it?’ I said ruefully.

  ‘It was to me. And then when you were asking me the other day about being attracted to men you didn’t like, I was quite sure.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Did you, you lucky dog?’

  ‘Yes, though I just don’t understand how it happened, except that we’d been drinking this brandy he’d found in the cellar – and I’m certainly never touching the stuff again! – and I must have dozed off on his bed.’

  ‘On his bed? What were you doing in his bedroom?’

  ‘I’m not sure, but I have a vague feeling I might have left my bag up there earlier in the evening and gone up to fetch it before I left for home. Then I woke up in the early hours under a duvet with Dante, with some blurry memories of having had one of my ghostly dreams in the night; and I have a horrible suspicion that what started out with Dante comforting me turned into me practically jumping on him.’

  ‘Who wouldn’t?’ she said generously.

  ‘Yes, but we took an instant dislike to each other!’

  ‘But it didn’t stop you fancying the pants – literally as it turned out! – off him, did it?’ she pointed out. ‘And you don’t remember him trying to fight you off, do you?’

  ‘Well, no. No, I don’t remember any signs of resistance at all. And he was fathoms deep in sleep looking terribly relaxed and peaceful when I sneaked out.’

  ‘Cass, if you didn’t even leave him a note saying “thanks, you were great – let’s do it again some time” he’s probably extremely piqued. I’m sure he only came in here that first night to try and find you.’

  ‘But he didn’t come and find me,’ I pointed out.

  ‘No, but that was probably because I told him about Max. And then when you two did meet again you both seemed to be pretending that you hardly knew each other, and you were digging your heels in about an absolutely easy, well-paid haunting.’

  ‘I was trying to put the whole sorry episode out of my mind. Not only was there Max to consider, but Dante isn’t my type, and he’s absolutely eaten by the trauma of seeing his friend killed, and then the guilt about his wife.’

  ‘He’s got a wife? I thought he was a widower?’

  ‘He is. I meant he was guilty about his wife because she was pregnant and died while he was a hostage.’

  ‘Oh well, if she’s dead,’ Orla said expansively, ‘what does she matter?’

  ‘Dead wives seem to be more trouble than living ones – look at Rosemary,’ I pointed out bitterly, and then, abandoning the troublesome – and troubling – Dante, told her more or less everything that had passed between Max and me earlier.

  ‘He did look like an old goat in that beard – it’s definitely a mistake,’ she agreed. ‘And if you’re convinced that Rosemary was telling the truth in her letter, then he’s been lying to you all down the line. You’re going to have to cut loose, Cass – you simply don’t love him any more, do you?’

  ‘But there were moments when he almost had me believing him again, and I could have – I mean, if it weren’t for that beard—’

  ‘He’s too mercenary even to marry you after all these years together. And face it, Cass, if he agreed that you could try for a baby and you still turned him down flat, you not only don’t fancy him any more, you positively dislike him!’

  I sighed. ‘Yes, you’re right, but things are never
that simple, are they? The worst bit was when he first arrived and wanted me to jump straight into bed with him! I felt all shy and embarrassed at the idea, because he was just like a stranger, and a stranger I didn’t even fancy, at that. And he couldn’t understand how awful I felt about poor Rosemary either, or even want to try and understand it. And then, of course, he didn’t know what I’d done with Dante, either.’

  ‘Yes he was a stranger, but apparently a stranger you fancied,’ she said. ‘Hard to explain to Max, that.’

  ‘Hard to explain to me, never mind Max.’

  ‘Ye-es,’ Orla looked pensively down at her immaculate fingernails. ‘With Dante, Cass, you did take precautions, didn’t you?’

  ‘I thought of that – too late! – and I shouldn’t think so. But I’m not an adolescent, likely to get pregnant from a one-night stand. Anyway, according to the Predictova thing I probably didn’t ovulate this month, so that’s that.’

  ‘He’s young, though – around thirty-five, six, do you think? Good stud material! If you really want to try for a baby, he’s your man.’

  ‘He’s not my man, he’s a drunken aberration, and now he knows about Max he probably thinks I sleep around whenever my lover’s away, so I’m just a tart. I’m going to put that night right out of my head, and I’m not going to do his haunting, either.’

  ‘Of course he won’t think you’re a tart!’ she said indignantly. ‘And that night you spent together, what I’d really like to know—’

  ‘No, you wouldn’t,’ I said firmly. ‘And even if you would, I’m not going to tell you. Even if I remembered.’

  ‘Spoilsport! And it’s sod’s law that you get the only available decent man, when you’ve already got a lover. Or had a lover, perhaps I should say. Isn’t it odd how everyone we know seems to have lost their spouse?’

  I thought about it, and had to agree: ‘Yes, Max, Dante and Jason have all lost their wives in one way or another.’

  ‘And I lost a husband, don’t forget,’ Orla said. ‘There’s Mike.’

  ‘At least you know where Mike is. He ran off with that busty blonde exec with the big briefcase.’