I’m not looking forward to manoeuvring heavy tapestries on very little sleep. I move towards the call button. “I’ll get Reginald. It’s going to take all three of us to move these. I don’t know how you managed to roll and stack them?—”
Alaric picks up the nearest rolled tapestry. I move to help him, but he tosses it over his shoulder like he’s the morally-grey hero in a gothic romance and it’s a damsel running from his castle. He carries it over to the patch of empty floor we cleared and unrolls it.
I gasp. “How did you do that? That thing has to weigh hundreds of pounds! I don’t want you to injure yourself!”
Alaric doesn’t answer. He kicks the tapestry, sending up a cloud of dust as it thumps against the marble.
I can’t help it. I gasp …again.
It’s a depiction of the valley. I recognise the curve of the stream, the rocky crag with the castle perched atop it. What I don’t recognise are the knights fighting in the foreground, swords clashing, bodies twisting as they meet in the thick of battle. One horse tramples an enemy knight beneath its feet. There’s a raw kind of realism to it, as if it had been rendered from memory, as if the viewer was regarding the scene from atop their own horse before they dived into the fray.
“This is the Battle of Black Crag in 1626,” Alaric says. “My interpretation of it, anyway.”
“Alaric, it’s beautiful,” I whisper. “It’s as if you were there. Why do you have this rolled up? It should be on display.”
“I couldn’t display this.” He makes a face as he points to a horse’s flank. “The proportions are all wrong. And this soldier’s arm is the wrong length. And this sky here? What was Ithinking?It needs to be repaired, but I never have the time. I get distracted.”
The butterfly that lives permanently in my stomach around him is joined by a friend, but their churning stirs memories I’d rather forget.
“No wonder you have trouble throwing things out, Alaric. You’re a perfectionist.”
He regards me, his face expectant, and there’s something delicate about the stone of his flawless features. “Isn’t that a good thing?” he asks.
“Yes and no. Holding yourself to a high standardisgood, but taken to extremes, it means it’s difficult to make decisions because you’re afraid of getting things wrong. Perfectionism can be a way for people to avoid finishing things or, in your case, displaying them.”
“Is this what a professional organiser does?” Alaric’s tone is light but his eyes tell me that I’ve hit a nerve. “Try to get into their clients’ heads?”
“Yes,” I say firmly. “I’m not a psychologist, but understanding how your brain works is key to keeping the castle clean after I leave. It’s the ‘Sustain’ part of the Winnie Wins System.”
Alaric’s mouth flicks down at one corner. I’ve seen that before, too – clients who think that my job is to come in for a day, solve all their clutter problems, and they don’t have to do a thing. Many of my clients have never had to do any work on themselves.
But I don’t think this is Alaric’s issue. I think he’s the opposite – all these hours alone with his thoughts, digging deep into these “distractions” of his; I think he knows that the mess in the castle is created by the mess inside his head, but he’s afraid of what clearing up that mess might reveal.
“You’re being too hard on yourself,” I say softly. “These tapestries are beautiful, and even if you only see the mistakes, you should be proud of creating them. Not everyone can do this.”
His lips quirk. “Really? Not everyone spends their days locked inside a grim castle teaching themselves medieval textile techniques?”
“I know, can you believe it?” I grin. “I think you should put these out where people can see them.”
“No one will see them. I never have guests at the castle.”
“You have me.”
The words hang between us, taking on a weight and importance I hadn’t intended. Alaric’s eyes meet mine, and there’s such vulnerability there that my thoughts scatter like pool balls after an overlyenthusiastic break.
All too quickly, my gaze and memories return to his lips. I think about that moment, in the pub, when I was so lost in him that I forgot how to form sentences.
I swallow, look away. I can’t think these things about my boss, about a client, andespeciallynot about someone who walks the same path as my mother. I shore up my castle walls, reinforce my defences against those anthracite eyes and that infuriating half-smile.
“Once we’re done with the cleanup,” I say, keeping my voice bright, “I think you should have guests. I bet if you invited some of the villagers over for a party, you’d enjoy their company.”
And perhaps they wouldn’t accuse you of being a vampiric murderer.
Alaric looks as if he’d rather eat his tapestry.
“Fine, fine,” I grin. “I’ve got five more weeks to convince you that it’s a brilliant idea. Right now, Lord Strongman, throw that tapestry over your shoulder and let’s hang it in the upstairs corridor. You have all those gaps on the walls where paintings used to live – I think we can find a home for every one of these beautiful, not-perfect tapestries.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
