“The only person making any trouble is you! And as for that stunt with the drapes – the minute Nick comes to his senses – ”
“That wasn’t me, Grace,” said Maggie in a clipped tone of voice. “I’ve no reason or desire to hurt you, despite what I might think of your...fascinations.”
“What was it then?” I snapped. “A ghost? I’m haunted by enough of those. Nick and I have that in common, amongst so many other things, and you can’t stand it, can you? You’re jealous. Jealous of the bond we have.”
“No, you stupid girl! I’m trying to prevent you from learning the hard way. At least I was, until I realised you’ve got a few screws loose yourself,” she said, straining her voice as if to be heard over the darkness.
“There’s nothing wrong with me. I’m where I belong. I can feel it in every inch of my body, in ways I never felt atHeather House, the place I was supposed to call home. I’m skilled, I’m quick to learn, and he loves me. What else is there?”
“You are just like L – ”
“I don’t care!” I bellowed in a cloud of white mist. “I know I resemble her. I’ve seen it, I’ve understood it, and I’ve decided it doesn’t matter. He’s mine, now, not hers. She can’t get to him from where she is now.”
“Can’t she?” asked Margaret.
A silence fell between us. She wanted to tell me something, but I didn’t want to know it. I thought of my dreams of my mother, and the little ways I was reminded of my father, his body, on our living room floor. I knew the dead had ways of communicating. I knew, somehow, that Margaret was telling the truth – she really didn’t open my shutters and pull back the curtains to cause me pain.
Someone else did.
Perhapssomethingelse did.
“I don’t know what you’re getting at, but I think it’s you who’s insane, talking of dead women as if they could climb up out of their graves and claim back their old flames. She may have been his fiancé, Margaret, but I’ll be his wife,” I said, indignantly.
“Fiancé,” she repeated, without a question. “I see.”
I didn’t like the way she sounded, like something had finally clicked into place for her.
“What are you saying?” I asked impatiently.
Her breaths were short and sharp in the darkness, as if her heart was pounding faster than her lungs could keep up with.
“Come with me,” she said finally, adjusting the bag ofkindling under one arm. “It’s time to put a stop to this nonsense. I should never have let it get this far.”
She turned and I watched her shadow walk away from me, fading into the darkness, outlined by the slightest silver glow of moonlight against her cheek and shoulder. I stormed after her, determined to get to Nick first, though I didn’t know what on earth I would say.
We found in him the drawing room, directing the caterers to the table at the back. He looked pale, speckled with a dewy sweat, his hair looking lank and miserable. It dawned on me how dreadful he looked. He looked stressed, tortured, even, and I’d never seen him looking that way before. This was supposed to be a happy time, and clearly he was in the choke-hold of something he had no intention of sharing with me.
I felt sick, then, the room swaying. I had been so distracted by the party preparations that I hadn’t seen how far he had deteriorated.
“Louisa,” Margaret barked, making Nick’s shoulders twitch. “Your fiancé, was she?”
“Margaret, not now,” he growled.
“Are you going to tell her before the guests arrive, or shall I?” She pressed on.
“This is neither the time nor the place – ”
Margaret pointed an accusing finger at his sickly-looking face, dropping the bag of logs at her feet.
“You’ve brought this on yourself, Nicholas. I warned you not to go there. You and your penchant fortroubled little girls!”
Tears sprang up in my eyes to see a lack of defiance in Nick. Instead he looked scared, weak, unable to meetneither Maggie’s eyes nor mine. In the hours before our engagement announcement, his own troubled mind had finally worn him down.
“Nick?” I asked in a small, smothered voice. “What is she talking about?”
He stuttered, running a hand through his tangle of hair, his brow creasing as he looked pained and desperate, until I almost felt sad for him,sadthat he could be in this predicament. Only I didn’t understand what the problem was.
Maggie turned to me, her mouth a small grim gash in her face, her eyes like two empty black holes.
