by Jenn Bennett
“A fair compromise,” she said. “I’ll keep these safe, you keep those safe. And I’ll meet you at the Columbarium tomorrow morning at, shall we say ten?”
So she wanted to pretend the kiss had never happened? Fine. He didn’t know why he was chasing after her in the first place.
During the ride back home, he reminded himself of all her irritating qualities. Bossy. Strange. Hot one minute, cold the next. Reserved. Bitter. Overeducated. Stubborn. Too old. Terrible sense of style—someone else must’ve picked out the evening gown, he decided.
And oh, that’s right. She’d tried to kill him.
When he undressed for bed later, he found her wilted lily in his tuxedo jacket pocket. Nothing lasts forever, she’d said. How true. He dumped it in a wastebasket and turned off his bedside lamp, then lay there in the dark, still angry.
Gods above, he could still smell the damn thing.
He turned his lamp back on and dug the lily out of the trash. After a moment of thought, he flattened it between the pages of an old issue of Weird Tales and wedged it under the feather bed’s mattress.
TWELVE
GRAY FOG SALTED WITH drizzle met Hadley when she exited her taxi the next morning near the entrance to Odd Fellows Cemetery. The Columbarium’s stately Greco-Roman columns and patina-green copper dome stood sentry above rolling grave-lined hills. She surveyed the grounds. Deserted. No cars. No visiting families.
No red motorcycle in sight.
Her rapid heartbeat relaxed its anxious pace.
As she approached the building’s entrance, she straightened her cloche hat and brushed a few of Number Four’s black hairs from her charcoal coat sleeve. The damned cat was going through another shedding season, and he’d offered little sympathy when she’d arrived home last night, fretting over Lowe.
And the worst kiss of her life.
What was the matter with her? Besides the obvious. But really. A devastatingly handsome, virile man had kissed her and she’d frozen up like a lake in winter. True, he’d caught her off guard, and she wasn’t used to people touching her, much less kissing her. But she still should’ve been able to allow herself to enjoy the moment. Especially after he’d continued to try.
And try, and try . . .
Thinking about it made her teeth clench.
Loosen up. That’s what George had told her in college. She wanted to—God, did she ever. Lowe’s lips were warm, softer than she’d expected. She could only imagine what it would be like to surrender. She remembered how she felt with him at the gazing pool. If he’d kissed her then, in that moment? Well, things may have gone differently. But in the museum, her brain kept shouting at her, warning her not to let her guard down. Not to trust a man like Lowe, because he’d only kissed her to get his hands on the canopic jar paintings they’d found inside the books.
So why was she so embarrassed by her reaction? If that’s the only reason he kissed her, she should hold her chin high and be proud of herself for not yielding. Instead, she was now wearing a dress with a low neck and—Dear God. She was unbuttoning her coat to ensure he saw it? What was the matter with her? She quickly buttoned it back up and glanced around guiltily, listening for the rumble of his ridiculous motorbike.
No sleep. That was her problem.
She’d meant to start translating her mother’s pictograms, and she’d managed to copy them onto a larger piece of paper. Well, half of them, at least. She’d spent the rest of the night pacing the floors of her apartment in her stockings, imagining every detail of her evening with Lowe. And rearranging those details to include things she should’ve said and done.
She should’ve just kissed him back. Wanted to kiss him back.
Why didn’t she kiss him back?
And why wasn’t he here to meet her? If he was a different man, he might’ve thrown in the towel and decided he had better things to do. But he needed her father’s money. He’d show.
Unless he’d solved her mother’s alphabet and traced his two urns somewhere else already.
Best not to consider that possibility. Exhaling a long breath, she pushed the heavy door of the Columbarium’s entrance and stepped into the rotunda. Four levels ringed in columns circled up toward a stained-glass ceiling capping the dome, and lining the walls were hundreds upon hundreds of niches that served as the final resting space for many of the city’s residents. Most were no bigger than a post-office box. Some were covered by copper doors engraved with the name of the deceased, and others were fronted with glass windows, allowing visitors to see the urn or even a tableau of the deceased’s favorite things: baseballs, books, curios, photographs.
Hadley’s footfalls echoed around the rotunda. She stopped in front of a section of niches. She could spend all day browsing here. Maybe one day an archaeologist like her would uncover the Columbarium’s ruins and try to divine details about San Francisco society.
“Found anything?”
She jumped and spun around. The brim of a tilted rust-colored fedora cast a shadow over Lowe’s eyes, and his long brown coat covered the tops of his knee-high riding boots.
“I didn’t hear your motorcycle.”
“I didn’t drive her,” he said flatly, stuffing his hands into his pants pockets. “Took a cab. How’s your father doing today?”
Her father? “I wouldn’t know. We don’t usually speak to each other much outside of work. When he’s angry at me, we speak even less.”
A grunt was his answer. “So, how are these niches arranged?” His usual good humor was missing. He wasn’t angry—he just wasn’t . . . anything. Guess they weren’t discussing the kiss. Not that she wanted to rehash it.
“It would’ve been helpful if they were arranged by date, but no such luck,” she said, craning her neck to look up into the dome. “We could look for a canopic jar in the niches with windows, but it might take a couple of hours, even if we split up.”
“And it might be hidden behind a copper door without a window.”
“True,” she said. “Were you able to translate any of the pictograms?”
“Some of the characters are mirror images. Reversed.”
“Oh?” She hadn’t noticed that on the two paintings she’d taken home.
“There’s got to be an office with files on the niches,” he mumbled to himself.
She shook her head. “Wouldn’t help. Why would they sort the files by date? Would most likely be by surname.”
A throat cleared behind them. “Pardon, ma’am, but the crematory and offices were closed up when cremation was outlawed nearly twenty years ago.” Standing in a prism of light spilling in from one of the angel windows, an elderly black man held a can of tarnish remover and a rag.
Lowe tipped his hat. “Good morning. You work here?”
“Caretaker,” he said with a kind smile.
“My cousin and I have traveled from Salt Lake City to spend a weekend in town,” Lowe started.
Good God, here we go again, Hadley thought.
“We were looking for our aunt Tessa’s niche,” he continued. “She died before the Great Fire. Pretty sure her ashes are here, but we don’t know what surname was used. She’d been divorced a few times, you see. Anyway, we have fond memories of her from childhood. Thought we’d pay our respects.”
At least this concocted fable didn’t denigrate her character. Still, Lowe showed more cheer to the old man than he had toward her. Was he angry with her about the kiss? Upset? Or was she reading too much into his mood? Maybe he’d already forgotten it. She certainly wished she could.
“That is a problem,” the caretaker said, nodding. “Even if you knew the surname, wouldn’t help. The older files were relocated ten years back. A warehouse downtown. You’d have to contact the owners. If you’re only here for the weekend, might not be able to catch them.”
Lowe made a sound of disappointment and looked around the ro
tunda, where a dozen or more mismatched chairs sat empty. “Been the caretaker for long?”
“Thirteen years, now.”
“Ever seen an Egyptian urn around here? It would have a sculpted lid about this high.” Lowe measured with his hands. “Shaped like a head. A baboon or a jackal dog or—”
“Long ears?”
“Yes,” Hadley said. “Long snout, too. Two rows of symbols on the front of the jar.”
“Sounds like Mrs. Rosewood’s urn.”
A moment of silence hung in the rotunda as Lowe flashed her an expectant look. But Hadley didn’t want to hope too much. Not about the urn. And definitely not about Lowe.
“Could you show us?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Sorry, it’s not here. Back in my younger days, I used to work at Dolores Crematorium, between Telegraph Hill and North Beach. I remember an urn like that for Mrs. Rosewood’s cremation.”
“Who’s this Mrs. Rosewood?” Lowe asked.
“A shipping heiress. Her death was quite the scandal. Folks said her sons killed her to get their hands on her mansion near the top of Telegraph Hill at the edge of the park. Rumor was, they wanted to turn it into a gambling den. That was right before the Quake in ’06. The mansion survived, but once they took possession, they claimed her ghost haunted the place.”
Hadley didn’t care a thing about ghosts; she had her own to worry about. “Do you know where her urn was housed?” she asked. A few local churches had niches for funerary ashes, but she questioned whether churches would welcome a pagan urn shaped like a jackal-headed god.
“The family kept it, far as I know. Nice display piece like that? Probably on someone’s mantelpiece.”
• • •
Lowe relayed the caretaker’s directions to the waiting taxi outside the Columbarium, and then rode in silence with Hadley as the car sped down rain-darkened streets. He’d done his damned best to leash his feelings and pretend as if nothing had happened between them the previous night. Well, nothing had happened on Hadley’s end, so the charade was more a matter of his own self-preservation. Reclaiming his bruised male pride.
But it would’ve been a lot easier if the Cinderella spell he’d prayed she’d been under had magically faded overnight. After all, she wasn’t wearing the fantasy whirlpool dress. No flower in her hair. In fact, she was back to her normal, funeral-colored, straightlaced curator self.
And even more damned beautiful than the night before.
God help him.
She didn’t smell like lilies today, so that was helpful. But when he’d held the taxi door for her, he’d noticed the backs of her stockings were decorated with a line of black bows. Different. A subtle sort of daring, especially for her. But the stockings weren’t his primary distraction at the moment. No, that honor went to the thing that had caught his attention the moment he’d seen her in the Columbarium.
Her coat was mis-buttoned. Unusual for her to be sloppy. The top buttonhole was circling the second button instead of the first, which created a tunneled gap under the edge of the wool—a little shadowed hidey-hole. He imagined small woodland creatures burrowed inside it, right next to her breast, and had to refrain from teasing her about it.
But when the cab turned a corner and headed into North Beach, he spotted something more interesting than a wee mouse beneath her out-of-line buttons. A flash of skin. Was she wearing a low-cut dress beneath that drab gray coat? His thoughts strayed to her brightly colored underthings and it took the fortitude of a monk to stop himself from mentally flicking open the coat button.
Remember the terrible kiss, he thought. Should’ve been enough cold water to shift his concentration to their mission. But it only revived something that had been niggling his thoughts since he’d left Hadley the night before.
She caught him staring and offered a tight smile. “Dreary day.”
“Hmm.”
“Should’ve brought an umbrella.”
“Are you and that fellow seeing each other?”
Sharp eyes widened. “Who?”
“That Oliver Ginn fellow.”
“Oh.” Did her shoulders fall? She definitely looked more relaxed, didn’t she? “Mr. Ginn has been calling on me for a couple of months now, I suppose.”
“I see.” He didn’t. “Serious, is it? Wedding bells in your future?”
One brow lifted. “None I’m aware of. I suspect someone would inform me first.”
He tapped a random rhythm on one knee. She was teasing him. That was good, surely? Because it definitely didn’t sound like the sort of response a girl who was madly in love would give. He thought perhaps the reason she’d been so unresponsive when he’d kissed her was because she had feelings for someone else.
“Oliver wasn’t the reason,” she said in a small voice, eyeing the taxi driver.
His hand stilled. “Pardon?”
“Firstly, I wasn’t sure if you were only doing it to trick me.”
Her voice was almost too low to hear, so he leaned closer. “I’m not following.”
“Tricking me out of the canopic jar paintings.”
Hold the line one second: she was talking about the kiss. “No, it wasn’t a trick,” he said quickly. “I mean, yes, I wanted the paintings. But I kissed you because I wanted to.”
She blinked rapidly. “Well, regardless, my doubt about your motives wasn’t the entire problem. It’s just that I suppose I have trouble with touching.” She watched the city rolling by her window, gloved hands clutched in her lap. “It’s indirectly because of my . . . well, what happened with the chandelier.”
“Death by crystal,” he said.
She nodded, a nervous smile briefly lifting her mouth before she continued. “There was an incident when I was younger.”
“What kind of incident?”
“I don’t like to speak of it.”
He paused. “Did someone hurt you?”
“No, not that,” she said. “The details aren’t important. It’s in the past, but I haven’t quite been able to overcome my negative feelings associated with it. It’s usually not an issue, as people unconsciously tend to keep their distance from me. Which is fine. Things are easier at work, especially, when people stay out of my way. However, because of all this, I’ve become accustomed to having my private space.”
“I see.” Partly, anyway, but she didn’t seem to be budging on the “incident.”
“I’m sure it sounds pathetic. Maybe it is, I don’t know. I’m just unused to being . . .” She struggled for words, gesturing with her hands in a way that didn’t help to get her point across.
“Unused to being kissed?” he finally asked, fully intrigued.
Her cheeks flushed. “Don’t flatter yourself. I’m not some chaste girl without worldly experience.” Oh, really? Definitely intrigued. Lowe was rather fond of Unchaste Women with Worldly Experience. “I’m just unaccustomed to being touched so casually. I prefer a barrier.”
“A barrier?”
“Gloves, or distance—I don’t know.” She shifted in her seat.
“No skin.”
She nodded. “I suppose I’ve unintentionally nurtured a phobia.”
“I see.”
“You do?”
He touched a gloved knuckle to her coat sleeve. “This is okay.”
“Yes.”
“But . . .”
“But,” she agreed dramatically, as if that summed up everything she’d just explained. “I’m not saying I enjoy being this way. It’s just something that seems to have happened.” She shrugged and exhaled heavily.
He thought back to that first night on the train, and her reluctance to shake his hand without gloves for their so-called gentlemen’s agreement. And again the next day, her flinching away from him when they were picking up files, and her insistence that it wasn’t caused by his disfigurement.
And then the gazing pool. She’d gripped his hand tight enough then, but she’d been wearing opera gloves. And he’d never actually touched her face, had he? Only the flower in her hair. Even when she’d held on to him so tightly riding on the back of Lulu, there were clothes between them.
Sure, he’d grazed her bare wrist with his thumb a couple of times, but the first time he’d really touched her skin was when he’d clamped his bare hand on hers—when she was trying to take the paintings off the table. And seconds later he’d lunged and kissed her, thinking he’d grandly claim her and she’d just swoon in his arms. So much for that.
She smoothed the front of her coat. “Anyway, I suppose we’re even now.”
“How’s that?”
“You’d never told anyone the real story behind your missing finger, and I’ve never told anyone about this.”
“Not even Moneypants?”
The corners of her mouth quivered. She quickly shook her head.
Well, imagine that. She didn’t shrivel up and die at the feel of his lips on hers—or, rather, she might, but it wasn’t him in particular. And instead of just telling him never to try it again, she confessed her secret—partly, anyway.
It almost felt like a challenge. At least, that’s how his ever-optimistic brain interpreted it, as if she were saying: You want this? Good luck. You’re going to have to work for it.
Facing down a hurdle of this magnitude looked a bit like crossing the Rockies on a motorcycle during a snowstorm. But he’d always been fond of seemingly impossible and doomed tasks. So he spent the rest of the ride remembering what his uncle had told him about one of the Nubi workers who’d been deathly afraid of snakes. His uncle had said that the only way to rid the man of his fear was to feed him cake while he was forced to look at caged snakes from a distance, bringing the snakes closer and closer until the positive association of cake drowned the fear. Counterconditioning, he’d called it.
Simple as cake. Or was that pie? He wondered which Hadley preferred, because he suddenly had the most compelling urge to dabble in behavior therapy.