14. Maeve

Iwoke with a start. Sunlight poured across my bed, blinding me.

Everything felt wrong. The comforter was a different weight to the one I usually used, I seemed to have about ten more pillows than I was used to, and the room felt so empty.

And then I remembered… I wasn’t in my room at the Crawfords’ any more. I was in the tower room at Briarwood Castle. I was there because the Crawfords were dead.

Dead, dead, dead.

I touched my hand to my cheek, remembering how I’d cried last night after Arthur kissed me. My eyes and nose stung from all the tears, but it was a good kind of pain.

For the first time since they died, I’d actually felt the raw fury of grief.

Now, the numbness ate away at my body once again, and there was a teeny bit of excitement peeking around the edges of it, which was concerning. I was supposed to be at Briarwood to mourn and sort my life out, and I’d only been here one day and I was more confused than ever.

Lusting after all my housemates, kissing Arthur, being attacked by strange men with crystal eyes and fingers that turned into claws…

…and this beautiful room they made for me…

I rubbed my eyes and sat up, gazing in wonder at the space around me. The guys really had gone all out. They couldn’t have guessed better at my tastes. I slid out of bed and went over to the desk. A huge stack of books on the end caught my eye – all science titles. A note was pinned to the top, the handwriting even and spiky.

“For when you decide to return to your studies – Corbin.”

My cheeks glowed as I read the note. I ran my fingers along the spine of the first book – a selection of essays on astrophysics. But how did Corbin know what I was going to study? Maybe the lawyer had told him…

Another note caught my eye. This one was in a different handwriting, loopy and crooked. It was pinned to the wall beside an amazing piece of art I hadn’t noticed yesterday – a round lattice of metal leaves and vines, all twisted and folded around each other.

I stepped closer, and my heart thudded as I realized what it was.

A star map.

Each tiny leaf marked the position of a star in the British sky. Hidden in the vines were animals, each one intricately sculpted from iron – a scorpion, a bear, a swan… the constellations.

A note was pinned to the bottom. I peeled it off.

“I’m calling this piece ‘frolicking.’ Fancy a frolic, love?” - Flynn

I smiled. Of course it was Flynn.

A divine smell wafted under my nose. I looked down and noticed something on the small table below Flynn’s note – a tall, thick beeswax candle, the wax mottled with swirls of red and orange. I picked it up and sniffed it, inhaling the heavenly scent of musk and cardamon. A small box of matches and a wrought-iron candle-snuffer sat beside it, along with a square of paper.

The paper simply read, “From Arthur” in a beautiful old-fashioned cursive script. My heart soared. I sniffed the air again. That amazing smell wasn’t only coming from the candle. I turned around, scanning the room. But where?—

A tray of food sat on the bedside table. Scones piled high on a plate beside porcelain bowls of clotted cream and beautiful chunky strawberry jam. I remembered that Rowan was the cook, and wondered if he’d baked them himself.

Did the guys sneak in here this morning and place these gifts? My cheeks flushed. I hope they didn’t see me with the sheets kicked off. I slept naked.

My chest fluttered. Or maybe I did hope they saw me.

Maybe I hoped that very much.

I lathered up a couple of the scones and bit into one. Mmmmm, heavenly. All buttery and soft and fluffy. Why didn’t we eat scones in America? I’ll take scones over pancakes any day of the week.

When I finished the scones, I tossed on some clothes, and took the tray and my laptop bag down the back staircase to the kitchen. When I opened the hidden door, I was surprised to see Rowan standing at the butcher’s block, expertly cutting up a stack of tomatoes and throwing them into a giant pot.

“Hey, you’re awake.” He smelled like warm spices and fresh vegetables. His warm smile melted me like a buttery scone. “Do you want a cup of tea? I can put the kettle on.”

“Sure.” I shrugged, suddenly nervous. “I’ve never actually had tea before.”

Rowan leaned across to the sink and meticulously scrubbed his hands before flicking an electric kettle on and assembling some teacups. “I hope the breakfast was okay. I think scones are much nicer warm from the oven, but I didn’t want to disturb your sleep after that long flight.”

He stuttered over a couple of his words, and he wouldn’t look at me while he spoke, but it didn’t bother me. I was just happy for his company.

“The flight wasn’t the half of it.” I yawned, collapsing into the high stool opposite him and sliding my tray onto the bench. “It’s everything. I think my brain is even more tired than my body. I’m still struggling with the whole fairies are real and my housemates beat them up thing, but I think I’ve come up with a way to resolve it. The scones were delicious. Did you bake them?”

Rowan nodded. He continued with his chopping. “I do most of the cooking around here.” I waited for him to tell me about his skills. Most guys loved an opportunity to show off. But Rowan just kept cutting tomatoes and placing them into the pot, his gorgeous lips moving as he counted under his breath.

Finally, the silence got a bit weird for me. “What are you making?”

“Tomato chutney. We’ve had a glut of tomatoes from the garden this summer, and I want to preserve them so we can keep enjoying them over the winter.”

“How very forward-thinking of you.”

“I like when everything is planned out,” Rowan said without looking up. His voice sounded a bit strange, but I might’ve imagined it. “I don’t like surprises. The tea’s ready.”

The kettle whistled. Rowan washed his hands again, then poured out the hot water and fiddled around with spoons and milk and saucers before presenting me with a cup of caramel-colored weirdness.

“Me neither, usually.” I sniffed the tea, wondering why so many people could like something that smelled like wet dirt. In America, tea was usually cold, and flavoured. “Every year at Christmas time I would bribe my sister Kelly with candy to sneak into our parents’ room, find the presents they hid in the closet, and tell me what they all were.”

“Why didn’t you go and look yourself?”

“Duh, because I didn’t want to get in trouble.” I raised the cup to my lips and took a sip. Gross. It tasted like wet dirt. I reached across the table and grabbed a small tomato from the stack and popped it into my mouth. The tart fruit popped on my tongue, bursting with flavor and rinsing away the taste of the tea. “That tomato is delicious! But yeah, that’s why I’m a scientist, I think. I like to know things, to understand them. Surprises mean that I haven’t figured things out yet. But four guys sneaking into my room this morning to leave thoughtful, beautiful gifts totally doesn’t count. That was an awesome surprise.”

Rowan looked up again, and the smile on his face lit up the whole room. “Want to help?”

“Maybe in a sec. Could you tell me the wifi password? I want to look up some info on the fae. I have questions.”

“Oh, the password is briarwood with a capital B and zeroes for o’s. But you’ll find much better information in the library. Ask Corbin to show you. We have a huge collection of occult and folklore books.”

Somehow, that didn’t surprise me one bit. “Okay. Where’s Corbin?”

Rowan shrugged.

“Fine.” Somehow, now that I was downstairs talking to Rowan, my theory didn’t seem as important. I got the feeling that these moments with the quiet boy were precious. “I’ll help you. What do I do?”

“Nothing until you’ve washed your hands.”

After washing my hands, Rowan handed me a knife and a bowl of freshly-picked bell and chili peppers. He showed me how to cut them to get all the seeds out. As he maneuvered the knife to demonstrate the correct technique, I noticed how precise his cuts were. Always three cuts, never any more or any less. “With the chilis, we want to keep the seeds,” he explained. “That’s where all the heat comes from, but the pepper seeds are just woody. They taste like shite.”

Shite.I loved the way Brits talked.

“Got it.” I elbowed Rowan out of the way and started to massacre a chili. Rowan watched me mangle the fruit, his expression twisting uncomfortably. At one point, he was even gripping the table as if he was holding himself back from reclaiming the knife and banishing me from the kitchen.

“Right…” he gulped. “I’ll just go back over here and leave you to it.” He shuffled his own chopping board further around the butcher’s block so the mountain of produce and enormous pots obscured his view of me. He started chopping… one, two, three… always that same rhythm, and he didn’t say another word.

As I chopped and scraped, I kept darting glances over at Rowan. He had his dreadlocks tied back in a tidy bun high on his head, and I noticed a single hoop earring dangling from his left ear. The earring was carved with a delicate knotwork pattern. He wore a long sleeve sweater, even though warm sunlight streamed in from the high kitchen windows. At his wrists, I could just make out the edges of tattoos creeping toward his hands – more knotwork by the looks of it, and that strange stick writing I’d noticed on Arthur’s ink. He was the skinniest of all the guys, but toned, his shirt pulling across his shoulders as he made light work of the mountain of tomatoes. I loved the way his brow furrowed in concentration as he worked.

There was something so sexy about a guy wielding a knife and being perfectly comfortable in the kitchen.

Rowan caught me looking, and gave me a shy smile. My heart did a little flip-flop thing. He was really gorgeous, and he intrigued me with his softness and his oddness.

Stop it, Maeve. It’s a supremely bad idea to get all hot and bothered about any of my housemates/tenants… and I already kissed Arthur. Now I’m contemplating a move on Rowan.

What is wrong with me?

Maybe it was grief making me do these weird, un-Maeve things. Maybe it didn’t matter why I did them. Maybe it only mattered that I did.

“Hey Rowan.” I dumped some oddly chopped peppers into the pot. “How did you end up living at Briarwood? I mean, you’re not a cousin of mine or something?”

Rowan stared into the pot. “Can you cut them a little more square? I really like them to be square.”

“Why, does it affect the taste? And you didn’t answer my question.”

I was kidding, but Rowan didn’t look at me. His voice went very quiet. “We’re not cousins. I’m an orphan, too. My parents were friends of your mother. She gave the house to Corbin’s family to look after, and they let the rest of us live here, too.”

“So you lived here your entire life?”

Rowan shook his head. His chopping speed increased a bit. The good vibes between us completely disappeared. I waited for him to elaborate, but he didn’t. Instead, he frowned at his tray of perfectly-chopped tomatoes.

“Not square enough,” he said, sliding a tray of tomatoes into the trash.

My heart lurched. I’d upset him. Of course, if he was an orphan, talking about his parents would upset him. That’s what normal people do when they lose their parents. Not cold, unfeeling bitches like me who could barely muster a tear until a guy kissed her.

“I’m sorry, Rowan. I didn’t mean to bring it up.”

He shook his head again, and started lining up more tomatoes on his board. I stared down at my own, unsure of what to do next.

“Mmmm, something smells delicious,” a deep Irish brogue rumbled against my ear, breaking the tense silence. Flynn stuck his head over my shoulder, his cheek pressed against mine as he peered down at the pot. My face tingled where his skin touched mine. How could a guy that fit and toned feel so smooth and soft?—

Get a grip, Maeve.

It must be the grief causing me to lose my mind. Only a minute ago I was thinking about how hot Rowan was, and now I’d jumped to Flynn. I had sex on the brain 24/7. I ducked under Flynn and swatted him with the spatula. “Out of the kitchen unless you’ve washed your hands.”

“Or I’m in for the caning of my life, eh?” Flynn grinned, darting out of reach of another swing. “Sign me up, Miss Maeve. I bet you’re handy with a cane.”

“Take your dirt out of here,” Rowan said softly. “Maeve, thanks for your help, but I can finish up. You should start on your research.”

I started to protest, not wanting to leave things with Rowan strained, but Flynn grabbed my hand and dragged me into the small informal living room opposite the kitchen. The guys had turned it into a rec room with a huge pool table, a TV only slightly smaller than the enormous one in the great hall, and a set of vintage arcade games.

“You’ve been here one day and Rowan’s allowing you to help him in the kitchen? We’ve been friends for ten years and he won’t let me even fry a bloody egg. He thinks I don’t get them circular enough. Love, you are all kinds of magical.”

I held up my clean hands. “Clean hands, that’s the trick.”

“Ah, then I’ll be out of luck.” Flynn held up his palm, which was smudged with black coal dust from his forge. “I hope you keep talking to him. It’s good for Rowan to talk to girls.”

“I think I might have upset him. I was asking about his parents and Briarwood?—”

“Never mind Rowan. He’s a little messed up about some stuff.“ Flynn’s eyes brightened. “Did you get my gift?”

“I did. I loved it like you wouldn’t believe. You’re really talented.”

“I know. And devilishly handsome, too, don’t you think?” Flynn struck a pose, and I laughed. “I told Corbin you win a lady’s heart with art, not with stuffy books about science, but he wouldn’t listen.”

My pulse raced. Is he trying to win my heart?

“I like stuffy books about science, but I like art, too.”

“And you like sword-wielding warriors?” Flynn lifted a cheeky eyebrow. My cheeks flushed.

He knew about me kissing Arthur.

Or course he did, they probably all knew. Guys always talked about that stuff.

“Um… yeah. I am multifaceted in my interests. People can like all sorts of different things.” I thought about the four different guys in the house, and how I already liked each of them for different reasons. The flipping in my stomach and the way my skin tingled suggested it was more than like. “Sometimes you don’t have to choose.”

“If only everything were that simple.” Flynn gestured to the pool table. “Do you want a game? I’m bloody hopeless. Corbin tells me it”s all about math and angles or some shite, so you’ll probably be brilliant.”

I shook my head. “As much as I’d love to hit your balls around a table—” Flynn snorted and my skin glowed, knowing I’d made the trickster laugh “—I actually want to do some studying.”

“It’s summer. Birds are singing. The river bank is warm. Pints are being pulled at the pub. Why in the name of the Blessed Virgin would you stay inside studying when you’re not even at uni?”

I know he didn’t mean it, but his words stung. I remembered the cold letter from MIT informing me that my scholarship had been rescinded. Right now I should have been meeting my roommates in my dorm and finding my way to my first classes instead of bumming around inside an English castle.

The option of selling Briarwood was still open to me, but after only one night I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to part with it. Plus, there was this whole fae thing to consider. Either way, I didn’t want to mention the possibility of a sale to the guys just yet. “I actually wanted to see Corbin, but he’s not around. Maybe you can help me? I’m looking for some more information on these fairies. In particular, about the gateway between their realm and ours.”

He perked up. “So you actually believe what we told you?”

“Theoretical physics could explain it all, so tentatively yes. But I need more information in order to prove out my theory.”

Flynn grabbed my hand and yanked me down the hall. “Right this way! Flynn O”Hagan will show you everything you need to form your crazy theories.”

“But the library’s that way?—”

He grinned. “But this will be so much better.”