Gwen mounted each stair, testing it with her toes before putting her full weight on it. Twenty-four steps until she reached a door at the top. Carefully she turned the knob. Dread consumed her. The light from the lamp danced up and down the stairs as her hand shook uncontrollably. The doorknob made no sound as she turned it.
In her head she counted…one…two…three…
She threw the door open and screamed.
There she was. The Bride.
She stood still as death with her back to Gwen.
“Ma’am?” Gwen whispered as she stepped into the room. The Bride still remained motionless.
Gwen had never been so scared in her life. She took a breath.
“Ma’am?” she said, louder this time.
No answer. Gwen glanced around the room. She hadn’t known what to expect, but she found it was just a room. No corpses. No weapons. No nothing but a few bolts of cloth, a few small chairs and a rug. Summoning all her courage, she took the first step forward, her body braced for an assault. But the woman still didn’t move.
Gwen took another step, then another. Her hands shook and her hands went clammy with terror. She thought her chest would burst open from the frantic brutal beating of her heart. Finally she faced the woman, and found she had no face.
No face because there was no woman there. It was a mannequin—a seamstress’s form.
“Oh my God…” Gwen breathed the words, nearly fainting from relief. On the form hung a wedding dress sewn by hand. A measuring tape hung around the mannequin’s neck. Miss Muir had been using this room as a sewing room. She’d been making her own wedding clothes here.
But Edwin said she’d left the school to get married. What bride got married without her hand-sewn wedding dress? Either she hadn’t left to get married…
Or Miss Muir hadn’t left.
Gwen went back down the stairs and out into the kitchen. She was covered with dust from her trek to the secret room, but she didn’t stop to clean herself off. She’d go to Edwin right now and drag him by his ear to the room at the top of the house and show him Miss Muir’s wedding dress. If he could look at that and still tell her to her face that Miss Muir left to get married…
Gwen paused mid-thought. No. Maybe she wouldn’t go to Edwin. Maybe she shouldn’t go to Edwin. That letter had spoken of a danger, a grave and present danger. And Edwin had already made it clear he would do nothing about it. Fine. Let’s see what the police had to say. At the very least they could contact Miss Muir. And if they couldn’t contact Miss Muir, then she’d tell the police that Gwen had a sinking suspicion she knew where the woman was—still here, on campus and up to no good.
Gwen left her house and headed to her car that was parked in the small gravel lot outside the school. She saw her car and no others. Where was Edwin’s car? Mr. Price’s? Was hers the only car here? And why was she just now going to her car? Something wasn’t right. Once she’d gotten here she hadn’t wanted to leave once. Why? Not even to buy groceries for the cottage or to call a friend? Call a friend? Her cottage didn’t even have a phone. Edwin said there was a phone in the school, but she hadn’t seen it. What was happening to her? This school had sucked her in so thoroughly it was as if the outside world had ceased to exist once she started teaching here.
She had to get out. Now. She needed to get away from Edwin and the school for a few hours.
But when she reached her car and gasped at the sight of it. She knew it was damaged when she hit the wall. Edwin had said she “might” not be able to drive it. But this was…
“Oh my God…” she breathed. How had she survived this? The entire front end was smashed, glass shattered, the steering wheel bent in an unnatural direction.
No…that couldn’t be. She’d had a superficial head injury, and it had healed quickly. Someone had done something to her car. Taken it, driven it and smashed it against a wall at a hundred miles an hour. Someone wanted to keep her trapped here. She wouldn’t let them. She’d walked to town if she had to. She’d run.
She started to step out of the courtyard but then saw movement on the cobblestone.
Gasping, she pulled her foot back.
A snake. A big one, black and coiled, lay on the road guarding it like a one-headed Cerberus. She leapt back. A woman alone at night? She should take a knife with her. She turned to run back to her cottage.
And there she was. A flash of a white dress in the dark.
On pure instinct, and with a rush of terror and determination, Gwen raced across campus, running as fast and as hard as she could. She would not let The Bride/Miss Muir elude her this time.
The Bride seemed to notice her but too late. Gwen grabbed a handful of the woman’s hair as she descended the stone stairs from the turret.
Gwen stared down at the chunk of hair in her hand. She tried to scream. But a hand covered her mouth and silenced her scream.
Then she saw the face of The Bride.
The hand came off her mouth.
“Laird?”
“Um…hi, Miss Ashby,” he said, looking immediately apologetic and embarrassed.
Her stomach nearly dropped out of the bottom of her feet at the shock and relief that it was Laird, only Laird, in a white dress.
What the hell?
“What are you doing out here, Laird? What is all this?” she demanded.
“Nothing. Just, scaring the guys. Playing ghost. Just a trick. A prank,” he said, his voice high pitched and nervous.
“Just a prank? You scared the hell out of me. You’ve been scaring the hell out of me ever since I got here. What possessed you—”
“Laird?”
Gwen looked up at the sound of a familiar voice.
A voice with a slight stammer.
“Miss Ashby, look. I can explain,” Laird said, and he grabbed her hand. Gwen pulled away from him and rushed up the stairs. “It’s not what you think!”
At the top of the stairs was a small stone archway that led into the turret. And there inside the little room, no bigger than five-feet across and five-feet wide, sat Christopher.
He wore boxer shorts and a white T-shirt. A small oil lamp burned at his side. She could see the seams of his T-shirt. It was inside out.
“Miss Ashby,” he said, clearly shocked by her presence. “It’s not—”
She heard a sound behind her. She looked back and saw Laird looking at Christopher. And Christopher looking at Laird. They both looked at her.
Gwen released a breath of pure unadulterated relief.
“Oh, thank God.”
Chapter Sixteen
First, she ordered both Christopher and Laird to put their school uniforms back on. Second, she ordered them to come to her cottage immediately as soon as they looked presentable again. Third, she sat down at her kitchen table and tried not pass out. One more scare and she was a goner.
Fifteen minutes later she heard a sheepish soft knock on the door. She let the boys inside and led them to the kitchen where she sat two steaming mugs of hot chocolate in front of them.
“So…true love?” she asked.
Both laughed nervously.
“I think so,” Laird said. “I know you probably think it’s gross or wrong or—”
“No, stop right there,” Gwen said. “I have no problem at all with two guys being together. Not at all. Not in the least. I’m putting that on the table right now. I’m not judging you for your relationship. I’m judging you for scaring the holy living hell out of me. Now talk.”
Christopher shrugged and stirred his hot chocolate.
“I don’t know what to say, Miss Ashby,” Christopher said. “Laird got here three years ago and it was just…we were friends first. Then best friends. And then Laird admitted he felt something more for me. And I told him I felt the same. And then we started, you know, doing stuff together.”
“You don’t have to go into any of the ‘doing stuff’ details,” Gwen said. “I’m a grown-up. I know what two people who love each other do in private together.�
��
“Obviously,” Laird said, and Gwen glared at him.
“We’re not talking about me tonight,” Gwen said. “You two fess up. What’s this all about?”
“Anyway,” Laird said. “Miss Muir found out. She was furious. She lectured us on Hell and sin and what an abomination it was.”
“How did she find out?” Gwen asked. “Like I did?”
“No,” Christopher said and pointed at Laird with his thumb. “This genius passed me a note in class. She intercepted it.”
“Let me guess,” Gwen said. “She also showed it to Headmaster Yorke?”
Christopher nodded. “Yeah, she did.”
“I thought we’d get kicked out,” Laird continued. “It was me and Chris and Miss Muir all in the headmaster’s office. He took our side against her. She said we had to be expelled, that the sin must be—”
“Rooted out,” Gwen finished.
“Yes, exactly,” Christopher said. “How did you know?”
“I found a draft of a letter she eventually sent to Edwin. I mean, Headmaster Yorke. That’s what the letter said. There was a dangerous evil in the school—sin—and that sin must be rooted out before it spread like a disease.”
“Mixed metaphors,” Laird said, shaking his head. “An English teacher should know better.”
“She really should,” Gwen agreed. “So what happened? She quit?”
“Headmaster Yorke fired her. Fired her in front of us,” Christopher said.
“It was bitchin’,” Laird said, smiling hugely. “I mean, it was nice of him. Sorry.”
“It’s okay. That would have been bitchin’,” she said, smiling at his old-fashioned slang. She took a sip of her tea. “I’m glad the headmaster fired her.”
“She stormed out. She was so pissed I thought she’d kill us all with a tommy gun or something. She left that day. Left everything behind,” Laird said. “Took one suitcase and was gone. Good riddance.”
“But it was scary,” Christopher said. “She said she was going to tell my parents. All the parents in the school.”
“My parents already know what I am.” Laird stared down into his hot chocolate. He hadn’t taken a sip of it. “They knew when I was fourteen. They kicked me out.”
“They kicked you out?”
He nodded. “I stayed with an aunt for a while. She was worse than my parents. She thought she could reform me.”
“Reform you?” Gwen asked.
“She hit him,” Christopher said, and Laird stared into a corner of the kitchen, not making eye contact with either of them. “Tell her what she did, Laird.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Laird said.
“Tell her. She should know.” Christopher looked at Gwen, who reached across the table and covered Laird’s hand with hers.
Laird glanced at Christopher and nodded. She’d noticed how the two of them had an ability to communicate with glances and looks before. Now she knew why that was. They weren’t just best friends. They were lovers.
“Laird’s aunt locked him in a room with, you know…a prostitute.”
“My aunt paid her to make a man out of me,” Laird said. “She was determined to earn her money.”
Christopher ran his hand up and down his forearm.
“He broke a window to get out. Had big scratches on his arm from the glass. Still had them when he started here.”
“God, that’s awful,” Gwen said, tears burned her eyes.
“That’s why we became friends,” Christopher continued. “I saw the bandage on his arm when he got here. I asked him if he was okay.”
Gwen's throat tightened. These poor boys. What sort of awful backward world did they come from? Hellfire and brimstone teachers? Hiring a prostitute to molest a gay teenage boy? What century were they living in? Thank God Edwin was headmaster here and took care of the boys. Someone needed to. Everyone else had seemingly turned their backs on them.
“How did you get here?” she asked Laird, hoping to bring him back from whatever dark place he’d gone to in his mind. “At the school, I mean.”
“My aunt lives about an hour from here. I heard about this school from a teacher, and I wrote Headmaster Yorke a letter asking what I had to do to get in and get a scholarship. He wrote back and arranged for me to come here. When I told him my parents kicked me out, he promised this place could be my home.”
“That explains why you were in Miss Muir’s grade book but not on the address list.”
“No address,” he said. “I mean, except for this one. Headmaster Yorke saved my life. I think I would have killed myself if I had to stay with my aunt another day.”
“I asked the headmaster what was going on with this mysterious Bride person. He wouldn’t tell me anything. And I’ll admit, that made me very angry at him for keeping that a secret from me. So would either of you care to enlighten me?”
“Don’t be mad at the headmaster,” Laird begged. “It’s not his fault. I begged him not to tell anyone about Chris and me. His parents would go bonkers if they found out. And he swore on his honor as a gentleman he would keep our secret to the grave and even after.”
“But why The Bride ruse?”
“I’m a fourth year. Christopher is a third year. We’re in separate dorms. I needed an excuse to sneak out. If I got caught by the guys running around after dark dressed like this…” He pointed at his normal school clothes, “they’d wonder why I was sneaking out. If snuck out dressed like a crazy ghost, they’d think I was just pulling another prank.”
“We pull pranks,” Christopher said. “All the time.”
“If Chris and I got caught out together at night in crazy clothes, we could say we were just pranking the school.”
“And the clothes were Miss Muir’s,” Christopher said with a wicked grin. “Kind of fun to desecrate them.”
“Have you thought about telling the other boys?” she ask. “These are your schoolmates and friends. They might surprise you.”
“We’ve talked about it,” Christopher said. “They might accept it, us. Maybe. But they’d look at us a different. I don’t want that.”
“Me neither,” Laird said. “It’s an all-boys’ school. I don’t want anybody to think I’m, you know…”
“Attracted to them?” Gwen asked.
“Right,” Laird said. “It’s just Chris. I mean, Headmaster Yorke is pretty fine, too, but he’s too old for me.”
“And he’s taken,” Gwen said and swatted his hand.
“Greedy,” Laird said and winked at her.
She gave both boys big hugs, ordered Laird to retire The Bride charade for all eternity and sent them back to bed. If anyone asked where they’d been, Laird and Christopher could tell them they were helping Miss Ashby with some heavy lifting.
One terrifying mystery solved. That only left the question of what the hell happened to her car? She could only begin to conjecture. Did someone take it joyriding? Did they use it for target practice with their cannon? Had she done that to the car herself? Maybe? Although she couldn’t believe she’d survived such a wreck with only a minor head wound.
She’d worry about the car tomorrow. Tonight she was so relieved she’d figured out the mystery of The Bride and the secret of Miss Muir she could have cried.
She did cry. Edwin was no villain. He’d promised the boys to keep their relationship a secret even to the grave and he’d kept his promise. He was an honorable fool, and she adored him for it.
She’d go to him tomorrow and apologize. She’d go and tell him that she should have trusted him and would trust him from now on. And she’d tell him he was a hero to her for standing up for Laird and Christopher and not judging or condemning them the way Miss Muir had. She admired him for being so noble he would sacrifice his own heart to keep a promise to two scared teenage boys in love. And she would tell him she loved him. And she knew it was crazy to love him so much so quickly. But she’d never done anything crazy in her life until she decided to come to this school. That one crazy thing wa
s the best decision she’d ever made, because it led her straight to him.
“Why am I not telling him all of this to his face?” she asked herself out loud with her hands in the sink.
She couldn’t come up with a single good answer for that. She straightened her hair, straightened her clothes and raced across campus keeping an eye out for that damn snake again. But not even snakes or lions or tigers or bears would keep her from Edwin tonight.
She knocked on the headmaster’s door, and he opened it only moments later.
“I met The Bride,” she said as soon she saw Edwin’s face.
“So you’re here to apologize, I presume?” he asked, a smug smile on his face.
“No, I’m not.”
“Then why, pray tell, are you here, Miss Ashby?”
“To tell you I love you.”
Chapter Seventeen
Edwin took a deep breath.
“Are you quite certain of that?” he asked. He crossed his arms over his chest. As late as it was she expected him to be in a robe and slippers. Instead she found him fully dressed in his suit. Only the jacket gone. No problem. Only a bit more work for her when she started ripping his clothes off.
“I am absolutely certain of it. And I’ll be the first to admit how crazy that sounds. I’ve been here two weeks. But in two weeks I’ve fallen in love. And not just with you, but with this school. The grounds, the buildings, the boys.”
“The boys?”
“Oh, not that way and you know it,” she said, laughing. “Christopher and Laird were in one of the turrets tonight. No secret what they were doing there. I talked to them for a long time. They told me how…” Gwen broke off mid-sentence. “Can I come inside and have this conversation with you? Or are you going to make me stand out here in the hallway?”
“Will you behave if I let you in?” Edwin asked, giving her a suspicious look.
“No.”
“Then you may come in.” He stepped aside and ushered her through the door. She was pleased when he shut and locked it behind him. Good. She didn’t want to leave ever again anyway.
Harlequin E Shivers Box Set Volume 4: The HeadmasterDarkness UnchainedForget Me NotQueen of Stone Page 13