I sucked in a quiet gasp and prayed he didn’t notice.
“Hattie seemed to enjoy your tour,” I said softly after a few moments of silence.
He stilled. “She did.”
And then I had nothing more to say. Nothing I could say. I’d told him I wanted to be his friend but it seemed I was much more adept at being his enemy. We both were.
“I’m glad,” I said, forcing a smile into my voice. “She always speaks so highly of you.”
He didn’t release me, but turned his face. We were very close—as close as we’d been that night when he’d pulled me down and eliminated the last remaining inches between us. “What has she told you, specifically?”
I swallowed. His hand warmed mine and his eyes searched my face. “So many things,” I said.
But that wasn’t enough for him. He was silent, waiting for more. “She likes you,” I said. “Perhaps not as much as she likes that alcove in your breakfast room.” I quirked a smile. “The one she said would be the perfect place to hang a family portrait,”I explained as if Hattie hadn’t talked extensively about it only a few moments ago. “But she has most certainly expounded your virtues ... several times, in fact.”
“And that is all.”
“Do you need more?”
He carefully released my hand and rubbed a damp hand down his face. “I don’t know what I need anymore.”
“I could speak to her,” I offered, even though that was the last thing I wanted to do.
He shook his head and pulled a handkerchief from his waistcoat. “Please don’t.” He shook out the folded linen. “At least not on my behalf. We’ve only just become friends, you and I, and I refuse to trouble you with conversations that are my responsibility.” He wrapped the handkerchief gently around my finger, tying two of the corners in a knot to hold it in place. He turned my hand forward and back in his, inspecting his handiwork. My finger throbbed where the thorn had pierced it but the feather-light touch of his hands distracted me from the pain. “Not my finest work. But it should keep your wound clean and stanch the bleeding.”
I murmured a quiet “thank you.”
“Could I show you one more room inside? It is ... ” He searched for the word. “Unique to Applewood. I think you will like it.”
“Should I fetch Hattie?”
“No.” He paused. “She seemed happy enough where she was.”
She’d been sitting on a bench overlooking the rose garden with Brookhouse when we’d passed her. Her smile had dropped when she noticed the way Captain Calder held my wrist and marched me toward the house. She’d stood and asked if I was alright and both the Captain and I had answered yes, albeit in very different tones—mine reassuring, but the captain’s? Well,the gruff way he’d practically spat out the word should have made Hattie nervous. But instead the corner of her mouth lifted and she sat back down next to Brookhouse.
I nodded silently and he led me up the stairs into the family wing of the house. I followed him along a long corridor lined with rooms before going up another set of stairs. I expected the stairway to lead to another corridor—a lit one—because there was light coming from the top of it, but instead it opened into a large room lit not by candles, but by the sun. The center of the room had a glass ceiling and light cascaded through it, creating patches of sunshine on the wooden floor. There were several items of furniture in many different shapes but they were all covered in muslin sheets.
“What is this place?’
“Over the years it has been a lot of things—a nursery, a play room, a study for me and my siblings. It was the place where my stepmother, who became my mother, taught me my earliest lessons, and in return, I did the same for her children after she was gone. It has always been the heart of this home.”
I could see the signs of it now in the shapes underneath the sheets. One covered a rocking horse and others covered tables too small for adults. “It is beautiful.”
“Not a single pane of glass broke while I was gone.”
“Because it is magic.”
He nodded. “I can’t think of another explanation.”
“Should we wake this room up?” I asked.
His eyebrows furrowed. “What do you mean?”
I stepped over to one of the pieces of furniture and tugged the sheet off of it. It was a desk, painted with fairies and castles in browns and greens. I turned to Captain Calder, certain my mouth must be hanging open.
He puffed out a soft laugh. “Those aren’t the only fairies you’ll find in this room. In fact ... ” He glanced up at the ceiling—not the glass portion, but the outer ceiling that bordered it. I followed his gaze.
Every corner held a painted fairy, and between them scrolls of gold danced through roses.
