Even when Dad died, her grandfather hadn’t had a single kind word for her. Not one. He had taken Theo aside, talked to him about duty and heritage and, afterwards, her brother had returned to her, white-faced and shaking. So that hadn’t exactly been a dream come true either.
‘What did he say?’ she’d asked.
For a moment Theo didn’t reply. His hands were balled into fists at his sides, nails digging into his palms. ‘Doesn’t matter.’
She’d put her arms around him and held him close, her twin, the other half of her. ‘If you’re this upset, of course it matters.’
Slowly Theo had buried his face in her shoulder. ‘He said Dad was weak and I had to be strong. And that you shouldn’t be here at all.’
They had only been sixteen years old.
And God help her, Alex had hated the old man. She still did. When she’d heard he was dead she’d been relieved. Until Theo had been named as his heir and announced he was coming back here anyway. That it was his duty.
Because the old bastard had planted that guilt so deep even Alex couldn’t convince him otherwise.
Alex forced herself to stop thinking about her grandfather, grabbing one of her suitcases and opening it on the bed. She unpacked automatically, with purpose and almost as if she did so in defiance of her memories. She opened the heavy doors of the wardrobe in the corner, to find an orange studded with cloves, encircled with a scarlet ribbon hanging from the rail. The smell swept over her, reminding her of making them with her gran. A pomander, her gran used to call this. Supposed to protect clothing against moths. And other things. She reached out to touch the surface, her fingertips brushing against the little bumps.
That lump was back in her throat. She swallowed it down. Gran was always showing her how to make things from everyday objects, or stuff they gathered together in the woods. Sometimes they made crowns and wore them all day long. Sometimes Gran brought in honey from her hives. Or Alex had helped her collect eggs from the chicken coops.
Were there still hives here? Or chickens?
She hung up her clothes, and then turned to the chest of drawers, where she found sachets of dried lavender tucked in under the paper liners. All very traditional and simple ways of keeping things fresh and sweet-smelling.
In spite of everything, Gran had tucked herself in everywhere. All over this house.
But all of this was too recent. It couldn’t have been Gran, could it? She was at least twenty years in the grave. Like Dad.
All these little reminders. This was not going to be easy. Had Theo felt like this too? Had he been more prepared for it?
He’d made peace with the professor after all, when the old man had been admitted to the nursing home and they’d needed a next of kin. Theo was the only person he would listen to anyway. Not Alex.
‘He’s worried about the house,’ Theo had said to her once when the subject came up. ‘About what’ll happen after he dies. De Wildes make plans in generations, you know? That’s what he said. He wants us to have it.’
Theo hadn’t actually got that right. He’d wantedTheoto have it. Granddaughters were no use to him. He probably wasn’t even aware that women could inherit things in their own right, or have a bank account, or vote. He had never once asked to see Alex. Not that she would have come if he had called. If anything, she had the impression he’d rather she had never been born.
Besides, she was in the US by then and had no plans at all to return here, ever.
Funny how plans changed.
Alex went to close the bedroom door and found herself looking at the portrait on the wall opposite, a handsome man with the darkest eyes she had ever seen. She didn’t recognise this one. His smile was a twist of his sensuous lips, and for a moment she was sure he was watching her.
A trick of the light, she told herself and closed the door firmly.
There was a key in the lock, heavy and old. So she turned it, just in case.
CHAPTER 7
ALEX
Alex wandered through corridor after corridor of Wildewood Hall. Just as she had in her dreams all her life.
She could hear laughter, the sound of music and chatter, of glasses raised in toasts. When she was little, that was all she’d heard, a party that never ended, and that she could never find. Children called out to her, to come and play, to hurry up.
She threw open door after door but it felt like they were always in the next room along.
Like they were hiding from her.
As she got older the nightmare changed. As she crept down the stairs, those sounds turned to gasps and moans, the unmistakable sound of people having sex. Laughter rang out around her, laughter she remembered all too well. And she wasn’t hearing the voices of children anymore. They were laughing at her, mocking her.
