Chapter 21

Twenty-One

THE ROSE ROOM

The first text came when I was in the bath.

You disappeared and didn’t say goodnight.

I haven’t gone to bed. I’m relaxing in the bath. I returned.

Torture, he replied.

I grinned.

The next came when I was undoing the work of the girls by slapping open all the curtains in the bedroom.

Breakfast in the Hawthorn Suite?

You’re on, I replied.

Text me when you wake. Goodnight, darling.

Goodnight, honey. And thanks again for being awesome today.

No worries. Sleep well. You need anything, you know where I am.

Yeah, this guy was too good to be true.

I got in bed with my Kindle, but I did it with thoughts of our kiss.

And thoughts of what Ian told me while we were talking on the lounge.

I was tired, and the bath helped to relax me, but I knew what would unwind me the rest of the way.

I opened the drawer to put my phone on charge and grab the other thing that was in there, but found the drawer empty.

Except for a note.

In bold handwriting, it said, Don’t even think about it. If you want to use what was in here, you have to come fetch it. It’s in the Hawthorn Suite.

“I’ll be damned,” I whispered, smiling.

I pulled up my texts again, You’re a rascal.

He knew exactly what I was talking about. But of course he did.

I’ve noted it’s fully charged.

Plans have changed. Breakfast in the Rose Room. With you returning my precious belongings, I shot back.

Only if it’s breakfast in bed, he returned.

Such a flirt!

That can be arranged.

Go to sleep.

That’ll be hard without my friend.

I can return it now.

You wish.

I do.

My fingers work.

So do mine.

Gah! Talk about torture! I don’t know what to do with you!

Open to suggestions?

Go to sleep, Lord Alcott.

Sweet dreams, Miss Ryan.

Still smiling, I put my phone on charge, turned out the light and snuggled under the fluffy duvet on probably ten million thread-count sheets (by the feel of them, and I knew good sheets, these were the best).

And yes, my friend was awesome.

But with Ian’s kiss a ghost on my lips and visions of his chest dancing in my head, my fingers worked just fine.

* * *

I stood at the altar in my wedding gown.

There were so many flowers, you couldn’t see the church. Walls of flowers. Flowers covering the high, arched ceilings, petals ankle deep on the floor.

I looked to my groom.

It was Ian, his head turned the other direction.

I looked to my bridesmaids.

They consisted of Virginia, Dorothy, Joan and Margery, and they all wore mourning black, defiling the beauty of the flower-festooned sanctuary.

When I turned back to Ian, I saw he had one groomsman. But I couldn’t see his face. It was moving. Blurred. Like it was in perpetual motion, his head vacillating side to side so quickly I couldn’t make out his features.

It was nauseating.

Ian turned to me.

But it wasn’t Ian.

It was David.

He leered and became Thomas.

I lifted my skirt and turned to flee, and like a streak, a figure moved from the back of the church, down the aisle, to stand at the foot of the altar.

I couldn’t make out her face.

She was wearing a fur-trimmed coat and cloche hat.

“But what about Rose?” she asked me.

I felt something touch my cheek.

I woke.

The room was dark as tar.

But there was someone in there with me.

I knew it.

I felt it.

My blood ran cold.

“Ian?” I whispered, knowing it wasn’t him.

Whoever it was closed the drapes, and he wouldn’t do that.

Through the dark, I saw a shadow move.

Blonde hair.

No.

Platinum.

Oh my God!

I reached for the light.

It knocked my hand away.

I was awake.

This was real.

And whatever that was, was close enough to touch me.

Horror-stricken, I scrambled over the bed and fell off the other side, slamming my head into the nightstand.

Pain darted through my temple into my eye as I crashed to the floor.

The door opened and weak light came in from the hallway, but the bed was between me and it, and I couldn’t see.

Something trickled in my eye.

I dashed at it, and it was wet.

“Oh my God, oh my God,” I chanted, scurrying to find my feet and backing up.

I hit the wall and let out a scream.

The door remained open.

The hall was empty.

No one was anywhere near me except…that thing.

I scrambled to the bed, turned on the light, then crawled over the bed, turning on the other one. I opened the drawer, yanked out my phone, and shivering like a lunatic, I called Ian.

“Please don’t have do not disturb on, please don’t have—” I chanted as it rang, drawing my legs up and holding them to my chest.

“Daphne?” he answered, sounding sleepy.

“Someone was in my room,” I breathed, sounding as frightened as I was.

“Where are you?”

“In bed. They ran out. Down the hall.”

“I’m coming.”

“Ian, I’m not making this up. I saw them. It touched me.”

“I’m on my way, darling. Breathe.”

“It wasn’t a dream.”

“Breathe, Daphne.”

“I’m being very serious.”

“I can tell. Can you breathe for me?”

“I’m scared out of my mind.”

“I can tell that too,” he sounded funny, jerky, like he was running. “Breathe for me, sweetheart.”

I got one shaky breath into my lungs before I had my suspicions confirmed and Ian ran into the room.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” he snarled, racing the final few feet to the bed.

“She was here.”

He sat on the bed while I spoke, reaching to me.

“She was here,” I repeated.

Tentatively, he touched my temple.

I flinched.

“You’re bleeding.”

“I fell off the bed.”

“Stay here.” He got up, went to the bathroom.

I started rocking, still shivering, hugging my legs, staring at the hall.

He came back with a wet cloth, talking into his phone. “No. Get to the Rose Room. Now.”

He tossed his phone on the covers, then sat in front of me again and carefully dabbed at my temple.

“I need to see how bad this is,” he murmured.

I grabbed his wrist. He quit dabbing and looked into my eyes.

“Dorothy was in here. I saw her hair. I’m not kidding. I’m not making this up. And I’m not crazy.”

“Okay, sweetheart,” he soothed. “All right, darling. Just try to calm down and let me see to this cut.”

“She touched me while I was sleeping.”

Ian had no time to react to that.

I screamed and pushed away from him, starting to dash across the bed, when movement came at the door.

I stopped when I saw it was Daniel, Portia running in after him.

They both stopped dead, but only Portia cried, “Oh my God! You’re hurt!”

“Go wake Stevenson. Sam. Jack. I want this house searched, top to fucking bottom,” Ian ordered.

“What? Why?” Daniel asked.

“Daphne was attacked.”

I was freaking, but I still saw Daniel’s sheer shock, then his face suffused with anger and he sprinted out of the room.

Portia darted forward. “How bad is it?”

“I don’t know,” Ian answered. “She might need stitches. I need to join the search. Clean it and stay here with her. I’ll send someone in with first aid, and if she needs a doctor, find me.”

He handed the washcloth to Portia, leaned in and kissed me quickly on the lips, then he ran out.

“Oh my God, Daphne, this is crazy,” Portia said, sitting on the bed and reaching the cloth to me.

“I’ll do it.” I took it from her.

“I can help,” she said petulantly.

“I know, honey. I’m just freaking. Let me think,” I mumbled, pressing the cool, wet cloth to my head.

“You were attacked?”

“I…I don’t know. Someone was in here. I can’t think straight. I need a second.”

“I’ll get you some water. Do you want some water?”

I focused on my sister.

Another short nightie, expensive, this one green satin. Pretty lace.

“Cuddle in bed with me?” I requested. “I’m shivering and you have to be cold too.”

“Okay,” she agreed.

Moving carefully, like I was made of china, she shifted with me, and awkwardly, because I was still holding the cloth to my head, we both got under the covers, backs to the headboard, bedclothes pulled up high.

She wrapped an arm around me and leaned her weight into me, like she wanted to share her heat.

“There. Let’s get you warm. You’re freezing,” she said.

She rubbed my arm, fast, up and down.

I’d had a dream. I was marrying David.

No, Thomas.

And then something touched my cheek.

But did it?

I looked to the windows.

All the curtains were closed.

All of them.

Closed.

Someone was definitely in here.

A tremble bolted through me.

“I don’t like this,” Portia said in a small voice. “You’re never like this. You’re scaring me.”

I dropped the cloth and put my arm around her too.

“We’re okay. We’re safe.”

“It’s supposed to be me saying that.” She gazed at my temple. “It doesn’t look bad. You need some plasters. I’d get some, but I have no clue where they are.”

“It can wait.”

“What on earth?”

Both Portia and I started and looked to the door.

Jane in her cashmere dressing gown again, this time with Richard, who was wearing full pajamas.

He took one look at me, his face turned to stone, then he spun on his foot and marched out.

He barely cleared the door before he started jogging down the hall, bellowing, “Stevenson!”

Jane came to the bed.

“My word,” she whispered.

“We need a first aid kit,” Portia said.

“I’ll get one. Stay with her?”

“Of course,” Portia replied.

“Be right back, dear,” Jane said to me.

I nodded.

She floated out the door, but quickly.

“It’s swelling,” Portia noted, staring at my cut. “I should have told her to get ice too. I know where that is, but I don’t want to leave you.”

“No,” I said urgently, holding tight to her. “Don’t leave me.”

She put her other arm around me and held me, cooing, “I’m right here, Daph.”

Jane came back, incredibly quickly, but I knew why. She was with a lady, a redhead, but her hair was turning white, a little older than Bonnie.

She was holding a rather large case that looked like a fishing tackle box, but it was white and had a red cross on it.

She was also wearing a nightgown with a dressing gown over it.

“Good God,” she said when she saw me.

“Have you met Christine?” Jane asked and didn’t wait for my answer. “This is Christine. Christine, Daphne. Christine takes care of us. And now she’s going to help me take care of you. Portia, can you let us in there?”

Reluctantly, Portia slid out of bed. She rushed toward the bathroom.

I scooted over to the edge of the bed, staying under the covers.

Christine sat down with me, eyes to my temple.

“Everyone’s saying lovely things about you,” she murmured, turning to the box, flicking it open. “I would have liked to have met you before you were bleeding and given a fright.”

That almost made me laugh.

She turned to me. “It’s not bad, but I’ll have to clean it and that might not feel good.”

“Do what you gotta do,” I invited.

Portia returned, having helped herself to my merino duster.

Christine was right. With Portia and Jane watching like hawks ready to swoop in for the kill if Christine put a gauze swab wrong, Christine cleaned the wound with alcohol and it hurt like heck. Then Jane moved in to add some fingers as they held it together and plastered it over with two strips.

Christine came back with a clean gauze she’d squirted sterile solution on, and she gently washed the blood away from my temple, eye and cheek.

“There you go, fit as a fiddle,” she decreed when she was finished.

Not even.

“All right, now that’s done,” Jane announced efficiently. “Let’s get you to bed. Up with you.”

I stared at her, confused, seeing as I was in bed.

And I was never sleeping again in my life.

“Come, dear.” She held a hand to me. “We’re moving you to the Hawthorn Suite.”

“What?” Portia asked.

“What?” I parroted.

“You can sleep in there, with Ian,” she stated. “Which I’m certain will be his decree. Or in the Robin Room with your sister, or in my room, with me. Your choice, but my guess would be Ian will circumvent it when he returns to us if you don’t pick the first.”

That would be my guess too.

“You do need to move. With Lou gone, you’re all alone in this wing,” Portia noted.

“I can have one of the girls prepare Magnolia,” Christine offered. “It’s got an adjoining door to Hawthorn.”

“That might be all right, but I’m uncertain she should be alone,” Jane replied.

I was certain.

No way in fuck did I want to be alone.

“I’m sixty-one, not ninety-one. I didn’t grow up in the fifties,” Jane stated bafflingly in my direction. “I know what’s going on with you and my son. It’s the way of things now as it was in my day, for goodness’ sakes.”

Okay.

All right.

I mean, really!

What the hell?

“We’ve only kissed once!” I cried.

“You stayed with him last night,” Jane pointed out.

“I was freaking out.”

She raised her brows.

Point taken.

“And he made me,” I added sulkily.

“Let’s not cause undue shuffling about,” Jane decided. “We’ll wait until they’re done…doing what they’re doing.”

That would be finding some piece of shit who, for reasons unknown, dressed up like Dorothy Clifton, came into my room, closed the curtains, woke me by touching my cheek, and then, when I was going to turn on my lamp and their jig would be up, knocking my hand out of the way and running when I lost it and crashed to the floor.

“Maybe some sherry?” Jane suggested to Christine.

“Right away,” Christine replied, closing the first aid tackle box.

“Be sure to bring a glass for yourself,” Jane invited.

“Oh, I was going to,” Christine said as she got up and walked out.

“Daphne doesn’t drink sherry,” Portia shared.

“She will tonight.” Jane looked to me. “Don’t worry, dear. It’s dry. I don’t like the sweet stuff either.”

I collapsed against the headboard.

Jane floated around turning on lights.

Portia crawled back into bed with me.

Thus, sometime later, there we were, Jane, Portia, Christine and me, sipping awful sherry, when Ian prowled in wearing a face like thunder.

“Why did no one invite me to the party?” he drawled, but the joke was underlined with a thick vein of fury.

Still.

That made me smile.

“You might wish to go to the kitchen, Christine,” he suggested. “Dad and Stevenson are right now sacking Brittany. Someone will need to make sure she’s fully packed when she’s kicked out because, if she leaves something behind, she sure as fuck won’t be coming back.”

Christine appeared horrified for a split second before that morphed to anger, and she stormed out, taking her sherry glass with her.

“What’s this?” Lady Jane asked, and I had pulled it together (it was having some time, and I hated to say it, but the sherry helped), but I shivered at her tone.

Now I knew where Ian got it.

Dangerous.

“She was pretending to be asleep, but she hadn’t had time to fully change, and Jack found the wig shoved in a broom closet,” Ian told her.

“The wig?” Jane asked.

“She dressed up like Dorothy Clifton and came in here to frighten Daphne,” Ian said.

“Oh my God! Why would she do something like that?” Portia cried.

Ian looked at her but didn’t answer.

Jane set her glass aside, and with a mask of fury, wordlessly, she left the room.

I didn’t think she was headed to the Cherry Suite.

I thought it was highly likely she had a few things to say after Stevenson sacked Brittany.

Ian turned his attention to me. “You’re moving to the Hawthorn Suite.”

There you go.

Figured.