He pushed on.
‘Yes. There was a cairn in the ring of megaliths. Long gone now. The story goes they destroyed it to build the original keep. They used the stones in the earliest foundations. There’s evidence everywhere. The lintel in the drawing room fireplace has carvings which marked the entrance. Or so the archaeologist thought.’
What kind of fool took apart an ancient monument to build a house? There were a thousand stories of what a stupid idea messing with them was from all over the island. You stayed away from anything that might belong to the good folk, you never touched what was theirs or wandered into their places. And all the truly ancient places belonged to them.
‘Yeah, the de Wildes were always clever like that,’ she muttered. ‘So the house is cursed.’
‘Something like that.’
She sighed. ‘All right. Dangerous forest. Cursed house.’ Like she was ticking it off a list. ‘And what does that mean?’
‘That anyone who dies here is trapped here. That it feeds on their spirits, uses them. But it also uses the living. And it changes them.’
She drank the end of the tea. It had to be cold by now, but she drank it anyway.
Changes them. An understatement. But she didn’t ask how.
‘It’s just old stories, Nick. It has to be. This country is full of them. We end up rerouting motorways to avoid a fairy tree, or attributing the downfall of a business empire to moving a grave. This is an old house. Of course it’s going to be weird. There are so many things that could explain what’s happening here.’
Her eyes were warm with something like bitter amusement now and he felt his shoulders lose a little of that tension. She wasn’t dismissing him outright. That had to be good, didn’t it? But she wasn’t scared either. She was…she was remarkable. She was working through the problem as if it was something from her show. And she was right. Not all of the wild stories about this house could be true. Everything grew with the telling and people had been telling stories about Wildewood for a very long time.
‘I do know that there are spirits trapped in this house,’ Nick said. ‘I’ve sensed them. Maeveseesthem, talks to them…’
‘Daisy and Rose.’ The good humour was gone. It was almost animosity at the mention of those names.
‘Yes. Not so imaginary friends. Theo said that when the two of you were kids?—’
Of course, she shut that down straight away. He’d known she would. Theo had talked about it, and said Alex refused to admit to anything that happened back then.
‘Oh look, we made up all kinds of things when we were kids.’ The abruptness told him her brother had been right. Theo hadbeen the one to tell him to try to keep Maeve away from the house in the first place. Much good it had done any of them.
‘They are as real as you and I. Most of them are just trapped. No more than lost souls, looking for a way out, echoes of what they were in life.’ He didn’t mention that they were prey to Blaise Chambers.
Alex set down the empty mug and leaned forward, elbows on the table, her hands laced together under her chin, studying him with far too keen an eye for his comfort. He tried not to squirm.
‘What do you want from me, Nick? If it’s so dangerous here, why not just shut it all up and leave? Go and live with Maeve somewhere else and be safe? Why are you so invested in this place? I know Theo gave you a job and you feel you have a duty to him, but we can come to an arrangement, especially if I could just sell the estate and have done with it. I won’t see you out of pocket, I promise.’
Hadn’t she been paying attention at all? His fists clenched. ‘You can’t.Please, Alex, listen to me. You can’t.’
She had shifted back in her chair, ready, he realised, to run if she needed to. Her face had gone pale again. She was afraid.
Afraid of him.
It was like a punch to the stomach, sharp and sickening. He’d seen it that day in the woods too. The last expression he wanted to see on anyone’s face, but especially on hers. What had happened to her to create that instinctive reaction? The memory of her body against his, her lips demanding his submission, of her pushing him back beneath her… The heat, the desperation, the rising urge to…
Nick swallowed hard and pushed it away. He forced himself to sit still, unfurling his fingers and placing his hands flat on the wood of the table. Grounding himself. Making himself as small and unthreatening as possible. He could not afford to lose control. Not here. Not with her.
‘Sally died in this house,’ he murmured softly. ‘She’s trapped here too. I can’t leave while she’s here. I can’t desert her. I made a promise.’ Something stung his eyes and he had to blink away the tears. His throat had gone tight. ‘Theo and I both did.’
‘Theo,’ she murmured. Her eyes had grown wider now, and they welled with tears which glittered like broken glass, so bright a blue, so like her brother’s. ‘He’s trapped here too.’
That was the one good bit of news he had for her. He shook his head. ‘Theo, and your father, died in the woods. There are sometimes hints of them here but… But the others…the children, your ancestors, their friends and servants…the ones who died in the house…they’re trapped. Some of them have become part of the evil lurking here, but some still resist it. Not that it matters. They’re all victims. I vowed to help them, and so far I’ve failed on every front.’
Her chair scraped against the tiles as she pushed it back. Before he knew what was happening, she had made her way around the table and wrapped her arms around him, holding him close. It was a gentle touch. No heat, no passion. Not this time.
But right at this moment it was everything he needed. Alex held him and suddenly all that grief and anger subsided. Nick melted into her embrace and it almost felt like coming home. She believed him, he realised. Not entirely, perhaps, but enough to want to help.
And that was enough.
