Grace was descending the stairs by the time we entered the hall. Maggie glided past her without even a glance in her direction. Grace’s eyes darted to me, looking for reassurance. I winked my right eyelid and watched her expression soften, feeling safe once more.
She looked stunning in her suit, stalwart and refined, with her white-blond locks pulled back behind her head in a neat bun. To think that I had made that pale skin pebble and flush pink just minutes ago.
♥
“Did I fare much better than you expected in the car, sir?” Grace asked as she pulled the passenger-side door of the van closed.
I belted up and checked the mirrors before setting off. We were in central London, the van nestled in a tight, steamy backstreet which smelled of rotting vegetablesand sewage. Despite collecting the client at a high-value block of period flats, the access routes behind left a lot to be desired, as was often the case. A gentrified facade often disguised the disease and decay in London. It would serve anyone well to be reminded of that; to know that a whitewashed visage hid all manner of sins.
We pulled out and entered the one-way system, merging with the ever-present congestion of cars, buses, and motorbikes.
“You fared very well indeed,” I said, changing gears as the lights changed. “I didn’t think you’d take so well to steering around a gravel courtyard, let alone operating gears. You must have sat in a driver’s seat before, surely?”
“I have, sir, though I’m certainly no driver. I wanted to surprise you.”
I smiled softly, enjoying the fact that Grace wanted to surprise me. Relishing that she wanted to impress me at all.
“You drove a small tractor on the farm back home, perhaps? Or a truck?”
“It was a truck, but it wasn’t mine. It was – ” She frowned, looking down at her hands in her lap. She swallowed hard, repeatedly, as if her mouth had suddenly gone dry.
“It’s all right, Grace,” I said. “You can tell me. It was his.”
Her eyes met mine briefly in the rear-view mirror.
“It was Tom’s. He’d let me ride it around the village, and along the paths and tracks around his farm. He taught me how to change gears, and how to reverse park, just about – it was a rotten vehicle, clunky and old, like a rusty shell with an engine. I felt every bump. I was hopeless,really, but it could be good fun.”
It hurt a little to hear she’d made memories with the arrogant, brutish, low-grade man I’d slung from my doorstep like an intruding animal. I forced the feelings away, knowing I was behaving childishly to entertain them for even a moment; to expect, for even a second, that anyone significant to Grace would evaporate the moment I entered her life.
Though I knew, if he came near her again, that he’d be in trouble. He’d regret it, but only if he lived. Only if I allowed him that mercy.
“You look hurt,” said Grace in a gentle, curious voice.
“Not at all,” I said. “You had an entire world of your own before it merged with mine. Considering all the years between us...I’ve no right to feel any bitterness about that. I’ve decades on you.”
“Yet it still upsets you?”
“I’m not upset,” I said, gritting my teeth as I barely stopped the van just short of a taxi’s bumper. “But forgive me for not considering your driving lessons a fond memory, given what he did to you. To track you down, to stalk you, to grab you by the hair as if you were property – ”
My eyes threatened to close as Grace’s hand slid over my thigh and covered my groin, stroking. I hadn’t realised that my anger had aroused me, and that she could see it. Humiliation flooded my neck with heat.
“Don’t do that, Grace,” I said, clearing my throat. “Not while I’m driving.”
She sighed wearily, sitting back in her seat.
“I’ve been thinking of that awful night. I’d forgotten about it, what with all our...you know. I found myselfdistracted. But now that I think about it, that face at the window, the painting. I think – no, I’m certain – that it was – ”
“You mustn’t dream up ghost stories to corroborate your dreams,” I said dismissively, wishing to nip those thoughts of hers immediately in the bud. “It’s pure superstition.”
“I really think it was her,” said Grace, her voice more urgent. “She was furious with me, using her bedroom, her library, as if I’m replacing her – ”
“You are not a replacement and I’ll hear no more about it,” I bellowed, my knuckles white as I gripped the wheel. “No moreabout her.”
I glanced at Grace’s reflection in the rear-view mirror and saw she was biting back tears, refusing to allow them to fall. She was hardy, resolute, and so much tougher than she looked. Whatever happened at Heather House had given her more tenacity in a single lock of her hair than poor Louisa had in her entire body.
But still, I couldn’t stand the comparison. Iwouldn’tstand the comparison.
“I only want to know more about the woman you loved before me,” said Grace in a meek voice that turned my stomach. Sometimes she really did remind me of her, and I couldn’t stand it.
