Page 67 of Mirrors of the Past

Chapter Twenty-Five

Present

Tegan didn’t take long to sweep what possessions she needed into an overnight bag. She was used to travelling light and packing smartly, but she had to admit that she was awfully glad Ryan was actually lurking in the corridor like a dour sort of bodyguard, waiting for her. It must, after all, be a bit scary for him as well. He was probably expecting something to jump out on him as much as she was.

After dropping the hatbox in at the office, they’d gone up the servants’ staircase as planned and that didn’t feel as bad, or as eerie, perhaps, as the Grand Staircase did that night. It was like the ballroom thing — the atmosphere was fluid and shifting, and Tegan didn’t really know how to deal with it. She had scoffed at her sister’s stories about the ghosts of Pencradoc but now she was here, in the middle of it all, it was no scoffing matter.

Ryan had, she noticed, studiously ignored the other wing as they’d headed up to her room — not even looking along the corridor curiously or commenting on the refurbishments.

It was no surprise. Finding yourself randomly in a room, with your hand stuck up a grotty old chimney breast was on a par with things coming out of the shadows at you in your place of work — definitely.

‘Okay, I’ve got everything I need,’ Tegan said, coming out of her room. Ryan was peering out of the window at the end of the corridor, almost as if he didn’t want to see what was coming at him from the other direction. She could have, she supposed, asked him inside to wait, but that would have been a bit awkward. There wasn’t enough privacy in there for a guy you worked with to not see you grabbing your smalls out of a chest of drawers. As an afterthought, she’d tossed her battered old copy of Little Women into her bag. It was her go-to book and tonight she felt she would really need to “go to” it.

‘Great.’ Ryan turned around, and, for a moment, with the uplighting from outside the building illuminating his silhouette through the window, he looked more like the chap in the scowling photos than he looked like himself. He adjusted the way he was carrying the photo album, fiddled with his cuff and walked towards her, and her heart began to pound. It was a gesture she’d seen before, and not on Ryan.

‘Let’s just — go,’ she said and turned away, hurrying along the corridor. Ryan’s footsteps followed her — at least, she hoped it was his footsteps, but wasn’t going to look behind her to find out.

She headed to the servants’ staircase and straight down it. ‘I’ll text Coren when I get to the pub, tell him what I’m doing tonight.’ She was babbling just to hear noise in that eerie old place. God, it was a big house when you were practically on your own in it. She didn’t know how Coren lived there all the time. Surely, he must just stay in his apartment and not go out of his front door at night! ‘I’ll just say I’m staying over at a friend’s this weekend. I’m not sure of the protocol, when you’re kind of in staff accommodation . . .’

‘No, me neither.’ Ryan caught up with her, his strides longer than hers. ‘Wheal Mount just doesn’t feel like this at all.’

‘Does Wheal Mount have — guests?’ She didn’t want to say the word “ghosts”, just in case Laurie or Viola appreciated the attention and jumped out at them at that point.

‘Not that I’ve heard,’ Ryan said. ‘But who can say?’

They had reached the front door now and Tegan pulled it open, stepping out into the chilly evening air. Only then, did she feel she could breathe properly.

Ryan had his van parked in the staff bays and he drove them the short distance to the White Lady in the basic but apparently cosy vehicle, and, luckily, the pub had a vacancy. By the time Tegan had checked in and dropped her stuff off in the room, Ryan had managed to grab a table in the corner and there was a large glass of red wine in front of her seat, and a pint of real ale in front of Ryan.

‘Just guessed at what you might like.’ Ryan shrugged. ‘I think you had a bottle of red at some event in Glasgow. I don’t know — it was a while ago . . .’

‘Red wine is fine. Thanks. Next round’s on me.’ No way was Tegan letting Ryan buy her drinks all night, like they were on a date or something. This was strictly two colleagues who’d had ridiculous experiences at the same place and were bonding over the horror of it all.

‘That works for me,’ said Ryan, and seemed to visibly relax a little. Maybe he’d been thinking the same thing. ‘Maybe after we’ve had our second, we can have a look at the book.’ He half smiled. ‘We might be a bit more relaxed by then.’

‘I actually feel wound up as tight as a bobbin.’

Ryan grinned. ‘That’s an old-fashioned phrase!’

‘Oh, God!’ Tegan took a slug of her wine. ‘I seriously hope I’m not morphing into our Edwardian Dollar Princess!’

‘If you are,’ said Ryan, matching her with a slug of his ale, ‘start worrying if I quote romantic poetry at you and then try to rewrite history.’

* * *

Ryan had never thought, in a million years, that he’d be finding himself sitting in a country pub with Tegan Burton on a Friday night, not sniping at her nor having her snap at him. It was a relief, actually. This job would be so much more difficult if they maintained that awful attitude towards one another.

And it seemed that they had bonded, willingly or not, over some people who had lived over a century ago.

Which reminded him. ‘Did you keep a copy of the magazine link in your emails? We could try to match the people in the photos to the characters in the album.’

‘I did better than that,’ she said with a grin. ‘I downloaded the photos after I sent them to that Ianthe person. I’ll pull them up in a second. But I’ll get the next round in anyway and then we can settle down.’

‘Good idea.’

He watched her head to the bar, and was impressed at how Tegan managed to weave her way between the people propping up the bar and emerge not too long after with two glasses. The people parted like the Red Sea for her — she just had that sort of confidence. That was the Tegan he remembered from Glasgow.

‘Here we go.’ She put the drinks on the table and sat down, scraping her chair a little as she moved it closer to him.