‘Yes,’ he said. Knowing it was only a half truth. Heaven knew, the house was bad but, if the mood took them, parts of the woods were so much worse.
CHAPTER 21
ALEX
It was a few hours later when Nick appeared to ask Alex if she wanted lunch. His eyes fell on the circlet she had placed beside her laptop on the desk, and he froze. Visibly froze. As if horrified or guilty.
Alex just waited, watching him. She wondered if he’d try to ignore it.
‘Are you okay?’ she asked eventually when he didn’t seem able to make a decision.
‘Oh,’ he said and then made an apologetic face. ‘Yes. Just that…Maeve gets these fancies into her head and makes…’ He nodded at the circle. ‘I’m sorry. She makes them all the time and hands them out to everyone as if they’re important. You don’t actually have to keep it.’
Alex put her hand out to touch it before he could try to take it away. ‘It’s fine. I like it. She’s a very sweet kid.’
That brought a smile to his lips. He really did dote on her. And Alex wasn’t lying. Maeve was sweet, if a little strange. And sad.
‘Her mother…’ she began and then stopped, feeling awkward. It really was none of her business and if he didn’t want to talk about it, she shouldn’t ask.
Nick’s smile fell a bit. He tried to hold onto it but didn’t quite manage to stop it from slipping. ‘She passed away two years ago.’
That was all he said, but it sounded so absolute that Alex didn’t have the first clue how to ask any kind of follow-up question.
‘I…I’m so sorry,’ she blurted out. ‘Maeve talked about her…’ Oh God, this was beyond awkward. What was she doing? She had no right to interrogate him about his dead wife, for goodness’ sake.
He nodded, looking just past her head, still not making eye contact. ‘Maeve has something of an overactive imagination. Lots of imaginary friends, that kind of thing. Grief, her counsellor says. And trauma. She sometimes pretends Sally’s still here. In the house.’
Alex racked her brains, trying to think of something…anything…to say. Grief and trauma. She remembered that all too well. She hadn’t been as little as Maeve when she’d lost a parent. And she’d had Theo constantly at her side so there wasn’t a lot of space for the imaginary friends. Still, there had been a few when she was here. She recalled that much.
It had to be lonely for Maeve. Wildewood Hall had been for her.
‘Imaginary friends like Daisy?’
A brief bitter smile flashed over his mouth for a moment. He had an expressive mouth, she thought, now she could see it. And a good smile, even when it was tinged with heartbreak. His eyes softened a little and flickered over her face for just a moment.
‘Yeah, Daisy.’ He raked his fingers through his shaggy overlong hair. He may have shaved but he’d done nothing to trim his hair. But it suited him. There was something about him. Ragged and careworn, like the house. No, like the woods. Wild and a bit rough around the edges, but all the more beautiful for that.
She caught her thoughts and steered them back to safer ground.
Nick, all his rough edges and his shaggy hair, were none of her business, she reminded herself firmly. This was a man who was clearly still in mourning. And dealing with a young child who was not handling grief either. Having Alex here wasn’t helping one bit.
‘Let me show you something,’ he said at last, with a heavy sigh, as if he’d been as caught in his own thoughts as she’d been.
He led her out into the hall, down towards the morning room, portraits all along the walls. This was the most time she’d spent looking at them since her grandfather quizzed her, and she noticed the features echoed in her own and Theo’s, in Dad’s faces. That haughty stare, those blue eyes, that smile…
She paused beneath a woman she didn’t recognise, head held high, hair perfectly piled on top of her head, a length of pearls wrapped tightly around her long slender throat. Speaking of haughty, Alex thought with a shudder.
‘Lady Eloise de Wilde,’ Nick said. ‘Your grandmother.’
No, that couldn’t be right. Gran had never looked like that. True, she was young in the painting, no older than Alex was now, and Alex had only known her as an old woman. Butthatwoman, the one in the painting…Alex didn’t know her at all. It wasn’t the laughing, patient Gran who had cared for her when she’d been here as a child while her grandfather had dragged Dad and Theo off to learn about being lord of the manor.
‘No, that’s not her. I met her when I was little. We used to visit.’
‘Oh…’ He sounded a bit bewildered, like he didn’t want to argue with her, but something was wrong.
‘What?’ she asked. Why was he going all cryptic on her again? ‘Just spit it out, Nick. I don’t have time for this.’
It wasn’t impatience. Not really. She was shaken and she didn’t like the feeling one little bit.
