“Go downstairs, get the tea,” I muttered, pulling myself out from under the coverlet with a sigh.
I was too exhausted to search for my slippers, and the cold floorboards chilled my bare feet as I padded downstairs. The route had become so familiar to me, I didn’t bother with a candle. I now knew the path by heart.
All the lights in the manor were off, but moonlight poured in through the open windows, illuminating the rooms and hallways. The air was redolent and sweet with Gerard’s night-blooming jasmine fragrant on the breeze.
My conversation with Alexander was still fresh on my mind and as I wandered the long corridors, I tried imagining myself as mistress of all this wonder. What painting would I one day hang there? Would I keep those damask drapes? How would we leave our mark on this manor?
However we did it, I knew it would be done together. Generations of Laurents would speak of us in reverent, awed tones. Our love story would be the stuff of legends.
Movement drew my attention farther down the hall.
Up ahead, someone stood in the center of the arched corridor, studying a portrait on the wall.
The figure was too masculine to be Dauphine, too tall to be Gerard.
A footman, then, up far too late, just like me.
I let out a short cough, to alert him of my presence, and he turned, startled. A moonbeam cut across his face and I gasped.
There, standing unassisted, without support of any kind, was Alex.
We stared at each other for a long moment. Disbelief silenced me.
He brought one finger up to his lips, a gesture beseeching for my silence. Then he smiled, the curve of his so familiar lips now twisted and strange, and turned and walked away.
I stared at the spot he’d stood—
Alex.
Standing.
—blinking as if it would somehow bring him back, but of course it didn’t.
So I went after him.
I wasn’t familiar with this section of Chauntilalie, and as soon as I stepped into the new corridor—the walls painted in murals of wildflower fields—I knew it. Carpeted runners spanned the length of the hall, deadening my footsteps. After a month of hearing my progress in the house marked by echoes around me, it felt strange to suddenly hear nothing.
I stopped, trying to hear movement in the rooms off the hallway, but there was none.
Then, a strange silvery crunch, like glass breaking. It rang out sharply, coming from somewhere down the hallway.
Several doors were ajar and I cautiously peeked into each. A grand piano rested in one, a hulking black structure in the middle of an otherwise empty room. The next contained stacks of crates and barrels—storage for the manor.
The third room’s door was half closed and I pushed it open fully, then jumped.
It was another storeroom, but its contents were not dry goods or salted meats. It was artwork.
Statues.
Life-sized and filling the room like an army, each covered in a pale protective drop cloth.
Alex had gone in there, I was certain of it. There was a difference here, the heavier feeling of another presence, another person. The air moved about to let a second body occupy its space.
“Alex?” I called out, my voice sounding too high.
What was he doing in here?
So late at night.
