19. Winnie

CHAPTER NINETEEN

WINNIE

Faye: How’s my star organiser? I got your ‘before’ photos for the gram. When you said there was a loom in the ballroom, I thought it was like a metaphor for you revenge-shagging the hot AF lord. But no, there really is a loom! This is gonna make some amazing content!

When you’re done, ask if Lord Valerian wants a Faye Arnold Castle Makeover package. I’ll do him a great deal, and if you’re not gonna bone the baron, I’d be keen to jump on.

Babe, when are you getting those accounts done? And Jackie called and she’s having trouble with the website again. Can you sort it? I would but I’m having tea in Chelsea with a TOP SECRET and VERY EXCITING potential celebrity client… :)

A nother night passes when Alaric doesn’t join me. The butterflies in my stomach are churning butter as I fret about how badly he’s been hurt.

I turn the latest St. Vincent album up loud enough that the stones rattle, and try to do a Whirlwind on the drawing room, but it’s filled with ceramic pots (although weirdly, it seems like there are slightly fewer than before, and the floor has been freshly swept). I need Alaric’s help to figure out what to do with them, but Alaric isn’t here because he had to be my shining knight.

I collapse into my chair by the fire. Reginald fixes me a dinner of herd-crusted lamb shanks, tzatziki salad, and garlic-lemon potatoes. It feels wrong to start without Alaric but not wrong enough for me to refuse Reginald’s cooking.

“Where did you learn to cook like this?” I spear a potato. It tastes like happiness.

“Before I was in my lord’s service, I trained as a chef.” Reginald beams. “It is nice to see someone enjoying my food again.”

“I’m sure Lord Valerian doesn’t mean to be so fussy. He must like something you cook.” The crazy conversations about vampires with the Nevermore Murder Club and Smutty Book Coven spin around in my head. “It seems to me as if he eats nothing at all. What food does he enjoy?”

“I shall fetch dessert. And your hot chocolate.” Reginald hurries off without answering my question.

“And can I have some more clean sheets, please?” I call after him. I’ve been changing them after my nightmares every night and I’ve run out.

I turn back to the fire and sigh, staring across at the empty chair. Well, not completely empty. Mirabelle has made herself comfortable in the centre. She rolls on her back, legs in the air, directing her belly to the blazing fire while watching me with one eye.

“Meorrrw,” she says.

“Exactly,” I agree. “I miss him, too.”

I wake, screaming, my mouth filling with bugs.

They’re crawling over my body. I roll off the bed, my knees cracking on the wooden floor. I slap at my skin until it turns red. I tear apart the bed, stuffing the fresh sheets into the washing basket Reginald provided for me. I turn the shower on as hot as it will go and step in, scrubbing until my skin feels numb. I wrap myself in layers of cashmere and an old Clutter Queens hoodie. I will not sleep again.

I still have a stack of romance novels to get through, including the rest of Mina’s series, but one look out my window tells me that it’s already late in the day, and I don’t want to crawl back into bed. My stomach growls. I light my candelabra and head down to the kitchen, Mirabelle trailing after me with her tail quirked up in the air like a periscope.

There is still surprisingly little food in the fridge, although I do find a small container filled with soup from the night before last. I heat the soup on the stove and place it on a tray with a couple of slices of sourdough and a spoon.

Alaric is not in his study, nor any of the rooms off the lower corridor he has dedicated to his hobbies. The house has the same eerie silence as it does from daylight hours. I think he is still in bed, recovering.

I can’t stand it any longer.

He saved my life. The least I can do is visit him in his sick bed. But where IS his sick bed?

I pass the locked dining room and take the stairs as silently as possible, not wanting to alert Reginald to my plan if he’s nearby. That guy is as silent as a ghost. I reach the landing on the third floor of the western wing. I haven’t been here before, and after seeing the piles of books stacked in the hallway, I’m almost certain I’ve found Alaric’s rooms.

“Alaric?” I call out quietly. I don’t want to wake him if he’s sleeping.

Off to my left is a sitting room, filled with two overstuffed armchairs and even more books. All the curtains are drawn tight, and the only light comes from candles flickering in the wall sconces, although I see that there are also modern lights installed. The next door is shut, but I think it might be a bathroom. My feet sink into thick, expensive rugs as I make my way to the open door at the end of the hall.

“Alaric, are you awake?”

I peer into the enormous room. It takes me a moment for my eyes to adjust to the gloom.

“Huh?”

I’m not standing in a bedroom, but an ancient stone chapel. Gothic windows soar towards the vaulted ribs of the painted roof. Candles flicker in four enormous chandeliers, each one placed on the four corners where the stone altar should be. Only, instead of an altar, there’s a large, dark mahogany coffin.

“What is this place?”

My voice echoes around the cavernous space. I step towards the coffin, taking in the piles of clothing strewn about the two rows of pews and the empty wine glass and bottle on a bureau, and the phone dropped carelessly onto the shallow stone steps.

It looks suspiciously like Alaric’s phone.

Isis’ voice echoes in my head. He’s a vampire, Winnie.

That’s ridiculous. There’s a reasonable explanation for all of Alaric’s strange habits. There’s a totally logical reason why he has a coffin in a chapel in his private suite ? —

My sneakers echo as they slide on the marble steps. I climb towards the coffin, my mouth in my throat, not certain what I’ll see when I…

“Winifred the Great.”

I whirl around. Soup splashes across the front of my hoodie.

Alaric stands in the doorway, a towel wrapped around his lower half, his eyes liquid pools of gloom. There are red splotches all over his skin that look like burn marks, but nothing as bad as I expected. The white scar running from his armpit gleams in the candlelight.

The sight of him sticks my tongue to the roof of my mouth.

“Alaric, you’re up and about.” I hold out the tray. “I brought you some soup.”

“It is I who am supposed to look after you.” He steps towards me, and something about the rumble of his voice makes me wonder if I’m supposed to run. “I heal quickly, Winnie.”

“But not that scar?”

Alaric follows my gaze to the white scar. “No,” he says sadly. “Not that one.”

I bite my tongue. I have so many questions I want to ask. But my head’s full of silly ideas from Isis and the Nevermore Murder Club, and I’m afraid if I open my mouth, I’ll accuse him of being a vampire.

Or I’ll leap on him and climb him like a haunted treehouse. It’s one or the other.

Alaric regards me with guarded suspicion as he bends to retrieve his phone, sliding it into his pocket with the ease of a predator in repose. “What are you doing up here? Reginald told you not to disturb me.”

I swallow. “I wanted to make sure you were okay. You’re sick because of me. Look at your skin! I thought this was your bedroom, but I didn’t mean to disturb?—”

“This is the family chapel.” He holds out his hand to me. “Leave the tray with me. I appreciate your thoughtfulness. Allow me to dress, and I’ll meet you downstairs. I’m weak, but perhaps I can help you with the Whirlwind, as long as we keep the curtains tightly closed.”

“Okay.” I set the tray down on a baptismal font with shaking hands and shove past Alaric.

“Winnie, please?—”

The anguish in his voice nearly sends me running back to him. Instead, I ball my hands into fists, tell the butterflies in my stomach to stop doing their ridiculous dance, and I race down the stairs, seeking the safety of Alaric’s clutter.

What in Van Helsing’s name did I just see?