“Too bad he didn’t have Ben,” she had quipped.
And Cal, she remembered now, had said, “I would say he rather does.”
Just more weirdness, she’d thought at the time. But now she wondered what it meant.
Because for some reason, it had caused his mother to look—very rattled. And then she had faked a laugh and gone on with the tour, and her long-winded explanation, but it hadn’t been the same, and all of those long dark hallways seemed to put new shadows on her expertly made-up face.
(He bites.)
The music was very faint now. It sounded like the orchestra had launched into an all-strings rendition ofShout!
Pretty soon, Nadine found herself in the massive library. She had always wanted a library of her own and when she had seen the room earlier in passing, jealousy had pecked at her. The flocked wallpaper made the room seem much smaller than it actually was, as did the incongruously heavy German furniture. The shelves appeared to have been built right into the walls, probably custom, and went from floor to ceiling with a rolling ladder that spanned from one wall to the next.
Edging around a beautiful-looking settee in midnight blue upholstery that looked like it would be very comfortable to lie on, Nadine gravitated to the books, clutching the sweating glass of wine that was probably one too many. The books were mostly hardbound and looked old and expensive. There were a few that had actually been walled in behind panes of solid glass. Sipping her drink, she studied the emerald green spines of the trio in front of her, trying to figure out what made them so much more valuable than the surrounding texts, when a voice drawled, “It’s Paris green.”
Nadine uttered a little scream and nearly collided with the shelves. “J-Jesus—you again!” She glanced down surreptitiously to make sure she hadn’t spilled any wine on the Aubusson rug. “You scared me.”
“I’m sorry; it’s my nature.” He closed the distance between them in three swift steps, and though his eyes were on the glass case, she could sense his attention as if it were a living, breathing thing taking up space in the room. “The cloth bindings contain arsenic—taken from these local mines, actually. But the books were written by our ancestor, so my father had them walled up and encased in glass. They probably don’t contain a lethal dose, but if you touched them, they might give you a nasty rash.”
Nadine gave him a wary look, but curiosity drew her eyes back to the books. One of them was a thin volume calledA Guide to Game Hunting in the North American Wilderness, embossed in goldleaf. The other two were more weathered, and slightly damaged. She couldn’t see what their titles, if any, said at all, although all three had exquisite gilt edges.
“Why keep them at all?” she wondered aloud. “Why not sell them to a collector?”
Cal shrugged, but there was a fleeting look of assessment in his mottled hazel eyes. “History. Sentiment. Arrogance. Pick one—are you all right? You look pale.”
“Too much to drink, nothing to eat.”
He arched an eyebrow and just as it was sinking in that this wasn’t the best thing to confess to her new brother-in-law, he said, “Shall I take you outside and make you a plate?”
Shall I?She nearly giggled at his formality. “No. Thanks. To be honest, I’m not sure I can eat any of it. I have a food allergy and Noelle got so busy, she, um. Forgot.”
Yes, that will leave an impression on the man. Throw your sister under the bus on her wedding day.
“But I’m sure she was busy,” she added hastily, tucking a stray coil of hair behind her ear. “With the, uh, wedding. They’re a lot of work, you know.”
“I see.” His eyes had followed her hand’s path to her hair and back down to her side, but now they snapped back to her face, considering. “Come with me.”
“Where are we going?”
“The kitchen.”
He herded her out of the library, back towards the direction of the foyer, but instead of going outside again, he took her down a dark hall. The walls were covered with latticed green wallpaper above the wainscotting, and in between the various antique curios were portraits of the three Cullraven children. Nadine was mildly surprised at how formal they were, which gave them a sinister timeless quality that could have been from last week or last century.
The kitchen was almost cozy by comparison, with wood-paneled walls and crown molding ceilings with some sort of floral motif. There was a fireplace with a copper-kettle hanging from it, and a dining table that was gleaming with varnish and looked robust enough to support a mammoth. “We don’t usually eat in here,” he said casually. “Except during mornings.”
“Uh-huh.” Surprisingly, the kitchen was rather cool. Nadine supposed that was why it had been filled with the remainder of the flowers, the ones that couldn’t be used in the wedding. The smell of them was even stronger up close as they sweated in their various pots and vases of water.
She frowned. For a moment, with her head angled the right way, she could have sworn she detected another scent beneath the roses. A sort of residual gaminess.
Cal opened the fridge—as tall as it was, he was taller. “You’re not a vegan, are you?”
“Uh, no,” she said, sitting down and pretending that she wasn’t calculating his height as compared to her own. “Just my sister. She’s vegan. For me, single ingredients are best. Cheese, fruit, unseasoned meat. I’m allergic to corn and it’s, um, well, in everything.”
“Pity you’re not the one marrying into the family.” Cal sliced a few blocks of sharp cheddar and set them on a plate with what appeared to be prosciutto, before ducking to join her under the crowded table. “Ben’s going to want to take her hunting at some point.”
Nadine paused with the prosciutto halfway to her mouth. “Noelle doesn’t hunt. She doesn’t even hike. She SoulCycles.”
“Hasn’t she heard that old saying—hunt or be hunted?”
