Chapter 37

Thirty-Seven

THE PASSAGEWAYS

I found the hidden panel easily in the cheery yellow and white bedroom, and as I had seen Ian had done, I pressed against it.

It came unlatched immediately, springing away from the wall about half an inch.

I opened it more and wondered at my sanity when I peered into the gloom.

Then I heard a creak down the way…above me.

There was nothing for it. I engaged the flashlight on my phone and headed in.

This wasn’t a stairway, this was a passageway, but it did lead to a stairway, one that only went up inside the wall which on the other side would be the grand stairwell.

That was where the sound came from, so I went up and there was nowhere else to go. There was also no one there. It was a landing.

Except it had a door. I could see the ring that could be used to pull it closed.

I pushed it open.

And found myself in a bedroom on the second floor.

This one, the furniture was again covered in sheets.

But unlike how they kept the house, the door was open.

I moved that way, out of it, and looked left.

I couldn’t be certain, but I thought I saw someone going into a room down the hall, beyond the stairwell, in the southeastern wing.

I ran that direction, entered the room, and yes, you guessed it, a quick perusal exposed a hidden door.

Worse, I heard someone in the wall.

My heart beating madly, I opened the door, went in and shined my flashlight.

Well down the dark hall, I saw shadowed movement going up.

I raced down the hall, my feet in my booties pounding on the threadbare carpet under them.

Not exactly stealth, but they were far ahead of me, and this was a big place, easy for them to lose me.

I heard a slam above me.

I chased up the stairs.

Another landing, I pushed through the door.

And stopped dead when I saw the twenties style, black evening shoe on the floor. The T-strap was silver leather.

I shook myself out of it and raced out of the room.

And thus commenced chasing a shadow through the house.

But it was definitely not a shadow. It was somebody. I heard their footfalls and followed them.

Into rooms.

Down passageways.

Up and down stairs.

They were just always out of reach.

And worse, sight.

We were heading down to the ground level, but right when I exited the passage—the door left open in their haste, I thought—some kind of blanket or rug was thrown over my head and I felt a hand in my chest, shoving me back.

I threw my arms out to stop myself and the back of my forearm slammed against the doorway to the passage. Wood crashing against bone, the pain registered, which was most unfortunate.

I curled it in instinctively to cradle it, when I should have used it to help find my footing. I crashed into a wall, teetering and trying to pull the thing off my head.

That was when I went flying.

Down the stairs. The thing on me sailed off (though, it felt more like it was pulled off), and thank God, I somehow managed to grab a railing. It was this which stopped me from falling down the entire flight of stairs.

I’d had my breath knocked out of me, though, and the tumble hadn’t felt good. I had to take a moment to get my wind back.

I looked around, and no one was there. Not a soul to help me by grabbing that blanket.

Another shiver snaked along my spine.

I was sitting on a tread when I heard a crashing of footsteps above me, looked up, and was blinded by a phone’s light.

I put my hand out to guard against it when I heard, “Bloody hell, are you hurt?”

Richard.

“Go,” I told him then pointed to the still-opened door I’d been shoved through. “He went that way.”

“He? Who?”

“He. She. I don’t know. I just know I saw them, I heard them, and they went that way.”

He hesitated. “I don’t want to leave—”

“Richard!” I yelled. “Go!”

His back shot straight. “Assure me you’re all right.”

“I’m fine. Go.”

He wasted another ten valuable seconds.

Then he went.

* * *

We were all in the Pearl Room.

Portia sat on the sofa across from me, giving me big eyes anytime I caught hers.

Like right now.

My attention shifted, and I watched Lady Jane pinch some invisible lint off her wool trousers from where she sat, legs crossed, next to Portia. Cool as a cucumber, even though I questioned its existence, she flicked the lint away.

The men were standing: Richard and Daniel scowling at me, Ian prowling the room.

Newsflash, whoever it was got away.

And whoever it was, was not a member of staff, unless they’d returned on the sly.

All others were accounted for and had been busy doing their duties when all this was going on.

I couldn’t take this silence, of which there had been about fifteen minutes of it after Ian gathered us here.

So I started, “Ian—”

“Quiet!” he bellowed.

I fell silent.

Not because he told me to.

Because he’d never shouted at me.

I didn’t like it.

He immediately went back on his command when he then asked, “Have you bloody gone mad?”

“I—” I started.

“Chased after some deranged lunatic who’s trying to terrify us in our own fucking house,” he finished for me.

“It’s just—”

“Incredibly foolish?” he suggested.

I crossed my arms on my chest. “Since you’re intent to carry on this conversation by yourself, I’ll let you do it,” I stated crossly.

“You fell down the fucking stairs, Daphne.”

“Only a few.”

“Only a few?” His tone was incredulous. He leaned my way. “Are you insane?” he roared.

I remembered I was going to be silent while he worked his shit out, thus, I went back to that.

“So, do I have this straight, darling?” he asked sarcastically. “You heard someone in the wall. You, by yourself, with no weapon or training to say, do a bloody fucking thing if you caught this person, chased after him through the staff passageways, of which you have experience traversing only one in fucking dozens. And you ended up falling down only a few stairs when you could have tumbled down the whole fucking lot and broken your goddamned neck!”

He ended that shouting again, so I kept silent.

“I’ll repeat,” he said dangerously, “have you gone bloody mad?”

I changed my mind about silence. “If I caught them, or at least saw them, we’d know who was behind this.”

“I’m finding out who’s behind this,” he hissed. “I don’t need you racing through the walls in assistance.”

I glared at him.

He scowled at me.

Daniel entered the conversation at this point.

“It was bloody stupid,” he groused.

“Daniel!” Portia cried.

“Lovely, it was,” he spat.

“She was trying to help,” Portia defended me.

“She should have found one of us men,” Daniel proclaimed.

Portia’s face instantly went red, and she lost it. “One of you men? So a little ole woman can’t take down the bad guy?”

“She fell down the stairs,” Daniel shot back.

“I know. And I don’t like that either. But is she now to be tarred and feathered because she was trying to do the right thing?” Portia retorted.

“What’s in question is if it was the right thing,” Daniel returned.

“Oh my God,” Portia snapped then looked at me. “Men!”

At this point, Lady Jane rose.

“All right, children. What’s done is done. We can’t undo it.” She looked down at me. “Although I applaud your bravery, I can’t commend it, because it was indeed not exactly intelligent to chase after the villain in that manner, and you could have hurt yourself badly.” She turned to Ian. “And I understand this frightens you, and being male, fear is expressed through anger. But, my boy, you need to get a handle on it before you say something you regret.” Onward to Daniel. “You need to stay out of it.” Then to Portia, “Your support of your sister is lovely, dear.”

Delivering all that, she looked to Richard.

“Dearest, we need to let the young ones sort themselves out. I feel like Indian for lunch. I’m going to the village. Would you care to join me?”

“Gladly,” Richard replied.

He collected her and they walked out of the room arm in arm like they were promenading beside the Serpentine.

“Good luck,” Daniel said to Ian, then to Portia. “Let’s go.”

She got up but warned, “I’m only going with you because I don’t want to be alone in this house, but Ian needs us to leave so he can apologize for being a meanie.”

A meanie.

I almost laughed.

I was way too pissed to laugh.

They took off too, with Daniel trying to grab her hand, but she pulled it away from him.

Which left me with Ian.

I returned my glare to him.

He walked to me, and I sat very still in umbrage as he reached toward me.

He didn’t touch me, exactly.

He pulled something from my hair, and when he came away, I saw the nuance of the gossamer of a cobweb.

Ulk.

He brushed it off his fingers and moved to recline, legs crossed, in the corner of my couch, arm stretched across the back.

I scooched away from him.

But I found his deathly calm unnerving.

“Promise me you’ll never do something like that again,” he demanded in a voice much like his current attitude.

“What would you have done?” I asked.

“Chased after him. But I have several pounds on you, several inches, and I know those passages like the back of my hand, playing hide and seek with Danny, cousins and friends, and other fuckwittery kids get into when they’re young.”

“Did you find the shoe?”

“Yes.”

“Is it Dorothy’s?”

“From the pictures of her that night, it appears to be.”

“Was that shoe, to your knowledge, housed in storage here in this house?”

“Not to my knowledge, no.”

“So this is our bad guy, or girl, and they’re escalating in the creepiest way imaginable.”

“Daphne—”

“I don’t need my boyfriend dressing me down in front of his parents, brother and my sister.”

“Then don’t do anything else that’s stupid.”

Oh.

My.

God.

I moved to stand up.

He caught my hand and pulled me back down, much closer to him. I was almost on his lap.

“Ian, I wish to leave.”

“I know you do, but we’re making a deal right now that when we have an argument, we sort it. One doesn’t leave the other and stew, which invariably makes it worse. We communicate and move on. We’re communicating.”

It was tough to find the high road when someone was hogging it.

And now, woefully, I was understanding Daniel’s actions of the day before.

I went back to glaring.

“Do we have a deal?” he asked softly.

“You can’t fight fire with maturity, it’s annoying.”

His lips twitched.

I narrowed my eyes on them.

“You said the other day, that when a woman doesn’t want to talk, you wait until she’s ready,” I reminded him.

“I meant Danny and Portia. Not you and me.”

Ugh!

“You’re infuriating.”

“I’ve seen my marks on you,” he whispered. “I like them. I’m proud of them. I love leaving them because I love fucking you. Hard. You’ve made no attempt to hide you love it too. What bruises will I find on you tonight, love? Hmm?”

Okay, maybe it was a little foolish I went racing through the dark corridors with nothing but a phone flashlight and adrenalin to aid my pursuit.

And yes, if I’d fallen all the way down those stairs, shit could have been real.

And finally, yes, I’d likely have been powerless to do anything if I caught him (or her). And in order not to get caught, who knew what they might have done with me? What was known was that they effectively shoved me down some stairs.

But I wasn’t ready to admit to any of that out loud.

Ian, in my fucking brain, read my thoughts and tugged on me to pull me into the curve of his arm, murmuring, “Come here.”

“I’m mad at you,” I said, even as I slouched into him.

He curled me closer. “You’re mad at what’s happening. And you’re scared. You aren’t mad at me, outside of knowing I’m right, and that wounds your pride.”

Argh!

“So do I have your promise?” he pushed. “You’ll let me figure out what’s going on?”

“It’s not right that Dorothy’s shoe was up there, Ian.”

“No, it isn’t. But it’s another clue, and we’ll use it to figure out who’s doing this.”

I grew silent.

“You haven’t promised,” he prompted quietly.

“Okay. Okay. I promise not to go chasing bad guys in scary-as-shit, dark walls.”

He gave me a squeeze, let me get over it then said, “Mum’s right. It was brave.”

“Whatever,” I muttered mutinously.

“Though also right it wasn’t commendable.”

I tipped my head to glare at him again. “You’ve made your point.”

“Good,” he murmured, his eyes moving over my face like he was belatedly trying to figure out if I was unscathed, though, when he’d gotten to me earlier, he’d done an all-over body scan with eyes and hands.

Or he was memorizing it should I do something idiotic again and break my neck.

“Was she right about you using anger to cover you being frightened?” I asked snottily.

“When Mum and Portia told us you took off after a noise in the wall, I was terrified out of my brain.”

I sat motionless, staring at him.

“Whoever is doing this isn’t right in the head, and you were chasing after them.”

“Ian—”

“When Dad told me you’d taken a tumble down the stairs, it felt like my heart stopped.”

I pressed my lips together.

“In other words, yes. Mum was right about me too.”

Okay.

Damn.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered.

Another squeeze and, “You’re not going to do it again. It’s over. You’re fine. We’re fine.”

“I’m also set to leave on Sunday,” I pointed out.

“Me as well. And you’re correct, we should move on from this and talk about that. Are we landing at your place or mine when we get to London?”

I blinked.

He made a decision. “I have to drop off papers at my office. I’ll go to my place and pack a bag. Next weekend, though, you’re all mine at mine.”

“So we’re going to continue with this kind of intensity?” I hazarded.

His brows ascended. “I see no reason not to. I enjoy being with you. I very much enjoy fucking you. I enjoy more getting to know you. And now, I’d rather not change the habit of sleeping with you at my side. Do you have reservations?”

I smiled. “Not a one.”

His eyes fell to my mouth. “Then it’s sorted.”

It totally was.

“In retrospect, you’re hot when you’re pissed off,” I told him.

“When it comes to you, I’m hot all the time.”

I rolled my eyes.

Taking my chin in his fingers, he pulled me to him and kissed me.

Then he proved how hot he was for me as we made out on the couch in the Pearl Room.