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Zhi glanced down at the keys. He’d never played for anyone other than his mother. But he’d just made music with Spin. It felt exhilarating. But it also left him feeling a little exposed.
He reached down and pulled the keyboard cover shut. He would need to tune the instrument. Just another thing to add to his ever growing to do list.
Chapter Fourteen
Spin slumped down on the bed. A plume of dust came up from the pillows. She frowned down at the small particles making a mess of the noble air.
She had taken a nap after being shown to the room she would spend the night in. Lark was next door, likely still fast asleep. But Spin had been a light sleeper all her life, and so she’d been up and about in just an hour.
The sound of music had lulled her to the music room. She hadn’t been entirely surprised to find the lord of the manor seated at the grand piano. She had been surprised at the wrong note she struck on the magnificent instrument.
Surely, they'd have had it tuned on a regular basis. The keys had sounded off as Zhi had been playing, but the passion he’d put into the simple song had been so compelling. The piano was likely well-loved and well used.
His playing had been so haunting. So layered. She wanted to pull back the man’s layers, stanza by stanza, to get to the heart of him.
Spin shook herself of the ridiculous notion. She wasn't pulling anything off the Duke of Mondego. She wasn't getting underneath anything.
The guy was interested in the heart of another woman. Spin wasn't trying to give her heart to anyone. Especially someone of the noble class. They were all scoundrels and liars, the lot of them.
Worse yet, she still had the nagging feeling the Zhi was hiding something. She didn't care to find out what. She’d take advantage of his food and lodging while she planned her next move.
A creak overhead forced her to sit upright. She stared at the ceiling, uncertain if what she’d just heard was an animal moaning as though it were in pain? Or just the bones of an old house settling its weight.
The wail sounded again. That was not the sound of joints and floorboards digging into the earth. That was the sound of something very much alive clinging to life.
Spin put her feet on the floor and heard the creek again. She paused. Uncertainty racing down her spine.
Maybe that had come from her weight on the floorboards? But she was a connoisseur of sound. She felt certain it had come from above. Maybe someone was walking above on the forbidden third floor?
But there was another sound. This time in the walls. It sounded to her like the twisting of metal, perhaps a faulty pipe?
She listened intently but didn’t hear the life-like groan again. Just the clanging of pipes and the creaking of floorboards. It was probably just all in her head, like the thought that the duke was about to lean down and kiss her back in the music room.
Spin shook herself, trying to divest her wild imagination from that thought. As her body shuddered with the heat of that irrational impossibility, she shifted her weight from foot to foot. The creaking sound was definitely coming from her added weight on the floor. The sounds of monsters in the walls, the thoughts of royal kisses, they were all in her head.
Still, it was strange. She would never in her wildest dreams go for a guy like Zhi Mondego. He was a duke. Spin hated the noble class, especially after what they did to her family.
She’d gotten her revenge, though. And she’d never give them a chance to take it from her. The only way that beast would ever get his hands on her was over her cold dead body.
Unfortunately for her, the blue bloods had long memories and deep pockets. She knew they would never stop looking for her to retrieve what they thought was theirs. Spin pressed the necklace to her heart.
Another low moan sounded from overhead. It was not the floorboards. It was not the pipes. It was not her belly. There was something, or someone, up there.
She reached for the door. Yanking it open she let out a high pitched squeal. "You scared me."
Lark stood there. Hand raised as though poised to kno
ck. She lowered her hand and regarded Spin with concern. "What's wrong? You look like you've seen a ghost."
"I just …” Spin looked up, then down, then at the walls. All was silent in the hall. “I just thought I heard something."
"Old house," said one of the maids.
She was standing just behind Lark. She gave Spin a curtsey which had Spin grimacing. Spin was staunch in her beliefs that no human should ever bow to another. But she held her tongue as the pretty young maid introduced herself as Allana, the sister to Lin.
“There are lots of noises in this old house,” Allana said. “I don’t think I could sleep in silence after living here.”
The woman smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes. Yup, there was definitely something out of the ordinary going on here in House Mondego. But Spin decided she didn't want to know what. She was only here for one day, and then she’d be gone. The house and its occupants could keep their secrets. Goodness knew she had enough of her own to worry about.
