“She particularly loved this guy,” he said, holding up an album with a man in a suit and hat on the front. “They used to refer to him back in the day as Ol' Blue Eyes.”
I recognised the artist with a shiver. My father used to listen to Frank Sinatra on a record player, just like the one Nick had. Fortunately, my father’s music was one of the few things I enjoyed at home.
“There’s a particular song I always liked,” said Nick,removing the record from its sleeve and placing it down on the turntable. He adjusted the needle and stood beside me, waiting, as the music crackled to life.
“I love this one,” I said, surprising him. “It was always my favourite song. My father used to play his records.”
“Wow,” said Nick, shaking his head. “How about that.”
We stood beside each other and listened as the first notes ofFairy Taleplayed, and Sinatra’s crooning voice drifted out.
I stole glances at Nick's profile, enjoyed his deep voice as he made comments about the song. We stood so close that I breathed in the scent of him and wished I could bury myself in the safety of his clothes. I knew beyond any doubt that I was falling in love with him.
If only he knew all that I was afraid of. All that I was running from.
Maybe his love in return could save me.
Chapter Eight
Nicholas
I stroked the head of the carved wooden crow and watched the lightning from my attic room window. Since that moment in the library, I’d thought of nothing else but her, battling my conflicting thoughts of what I did, versus what I so desperately wanted to do.
Could this other-worldly woman really want me, like that?
I smiled to myself as I paced, chucking back my glass of port and leaving the small cut glass on the night-stand. If anything could do that to a woman, it was the gift of her own private library.
An ache infused the joy that lit up my heart to think of Grace’s face, when she’d adjusted to the light and seen row upon row of books. Louisa had felt the same way about the library. Louisa, who I’d assured Grace hadnothingto do with it.
Only I knew she did.
Not for the reasons Grace suspected, that they merely looked alike...but the fact remained that her resemblance did play a part in it. Their likeness was impossible to ignoreat first.
I was a coward for denying it.
Only now that I was getting to know Grace on a more personal level could I see past it. Now her uniqueness set her apart, and I no longer saw Louisa in her. I saw the strange and unusual Grace, who was bewitching me with every word uttered, and every stolen glance.
I groaned and leaned my arm on the bedpost, resting my forehead against it, as I remembered the night of the fire. Twenty years had passed, and still I remembered it clearly. I’d battled the stairway to get to Louisa, but it was no use. The smoke was acrid and choking, and far too thick to see through. The heat alone repelled me, forcing me back.
My parents, gone. My brother, Alexander, gone in a blaze of terror.
Louisa. My darling, precious girl.
“All gone,” I murmured, shaking my head.
To this day, I struggled to believe it had really happened. That the day had come where my life as I knew it turned to little more than ashes in my hands.
Grace knew the rumours. Yet still, she wanted me. But what would she say, and what would she feel, if she ever knew the truth? She would look at me and rightly see a monster. A ghoul. She would run from Crowthorne House as if it were haunted and never return.
How long before we entered the wrong space – a local pub, maybe, or a function for funeral directors, many of which I’d spoken at over the years – and Grace saw for herself the looks of disdain I drew? The whispering, the gossip. She was hardened by her own cruel experiencesof life, but I had no reason to think her mind couldn’t be changed about me.
Especiallyif she learned the truth.
For now I would keep her at a distance, and protect her from herself. I’d protect her from her own childish admiration for me. She was too young to understand that her affection for me, which she had made so evident, was bound up in her view of me as her rescuer.
In a few short years, once she was twenty-five, she would start to see me as I really am: bad news. Grace deserved a younger man who could give her everything; all that I had, and more. Especially honesty.
Love was built on honest foundations, after all, and without it, they would crumble and turn to dust.
