“You’re scaring our guest,” Ben said.
“Well, we can’t have that,” Nathaniel said. “I do hope you’ll forgive us our faults.”
“What are you doing to find my sister?” she asked pointedly, picking at her meat. It smelled warm and pleasantly spiced, but something about the brown liquid leaking from it reminded her of pond water. Nudging it across her plate, she said, “I spoke to the sheriff and he said you helped him put out a statement. Why wasn’t I or my aunt notified?”
Nathaniel regarded her with cynical humor. “I assure you, my dear, we’re doing all that we can. It’s not exactly convenient for us to reach out, though. Our connections to the outside world are tenuous at best. I’m sure Cal told you how old-fashioned we can be.”
Candles and carriages, was what he’d actually said. Which sounded a great deal more romantic than death-obsessed Victorians who couldn’t receive proper emergency responses and ravished fleeing maidens.
“Well, I’m here now,” she said defiantly.
“So you are. I hope you’re staying for the Running of the Deer festival. This unpleasant business has cast a pall over the town but people come from all over the globe to participate in our little wild hunt. Since you’re so inexperienced, either of my boys would be glad to take you.”
“Yes, Nadine,” Cal said, his voice pitched low. “I’d be sure to take very good care of you.”
Memories of what those slightly derisive lips had felt like pressed against her own flooded her brain, charged by the smell of old wood and dust, and the sharp cedar scent of his skin. Nadine looked away from his too-knowing gaze and wound up locking eyes with Ben.
He looked . . . angry. At her? She glanced beside her. At Cal?
Surely,hedidn’t want to take her hunting.
“I just updated the website,” Odessa said cheerfully. “You should take a look.”
“Like I said, I’m not much for guns.”
“Of course, there’s food and wine and other forms of entertainment, also. I find it really brings people closer to their roots. Any man can become king for a day when he has all of god’s creatures under his dominion.”
“My father would like to have the whole world kneeling at his feet,” Cal said.
“Cal knows a lot about kneeling,” said Ben. “He’s made this entire town his willing congregation.”
“You sound bitter, Ben. But I don’t see you out there with a flashlight, looking for your wife.”
Ben’s eyes flicked to Nadine, a bitter twist to his lips. “I could say the same of her sister.”
Nadine’s eyes went hot and she blinked back tears. When the blackberry tarts were served, she barely looked at them, knowing the sweetness would only worsen the sudden ache in her throat.
The worst part was, he was right. His words had been so cruel, but sheshouldbe out there searching. She just wasn’t sure where to begin. Even with her sister’s clues to guide her, the house was vast, and Passer Woods was vaster still. If the Green Book Noelle had wanted her to find was somewhere out there, she had a better chance of getting struck by a comet than finding it.
“She came here, didn’t she?” Cal said, unexpectedly.
And while it was the very minimal amount of effort on his part to defend her, at this particular moment, the gesture nearly moved her to tears.
Because she was just so fuckingexhausted.
“Well,” she said thickly. “I think all of us can agree that we hope she turns up. Right?”
“Oh dear,” said Corrine, with a nervous, edgy laugh. “Of course, Nadine. She was family.”
Family.
That’s it, thought Nadine.I’m done.
Nadine declined the offer of port and went to her room. Nobody tried to stop her, not even Cal, though she could feel their eyes burning into her back as she left.
Why were they like this? Why were they so awful? she wondered, making her way back to her room beneath that litany of unsmiling painted faces. The more time she spent in the company of this family, the more she understood how they had earned the suspicion of the entire town with their strangeness, and their mercurial, hostile natures that flared up like gas flames with the apparent desire to hurt.
Maybe Noelle ran away.
