AllFreeNovel
Share Us
His about-face rankled me, and to my shame, I let my temper come out of my mouth.
“For goodness’ sake, Professor. You’re as bad as the driver. Are you trying to frighten me with ghost stories?”
“Ghost stories?” he echoed, bemused. “There is no central heat, and many renovation projects were abandoned when my wife…”
He stumbled here, then cleared his throat. “It’s left areas unsafe to walk. You’ll either catch your death or fall to it.”
Without thinking, I scoffed, rousing a bit of the professor’s pique.
“And do I dare mention you are alone in the dark with a man you don’t know?”
A low blow.
“Or perhapsyouare alone in the dark with a woman you don’t know,” I countered, painfully aware of how nonsensical I’d just sounded.
“How perplexing,” he mused. “I wonder who is right.”
I knew I was balancing on a dangerous precipice, and if I moved just one inch incorrectly, I’d plummet into unemployment. Still, it was necessary to set boundaries of my own lest everyone assume I was easy to bully. I weighed the cost and benefit of drawing a line and decided that working for a man who believed I was weak-willed and easy to fret would be unbearable.
“Sir, I’ve been cautioned about your moods, and while youaremy employer and it is my last desire to vex you, I’d appreciate a little more decorum.”
“Decorum?” Another pointed look at my slip.
The insinuation and his disinterest in my attempt to regain some footing in this exchange unbalanced me again. I prepared to speak, and this time, my words would undoubtedly earn me a place in the freezing night, bag at my feet, but the professor cut me short, offering his own pronouncement.
“Please return to your room, straight down this hallway and a right at the next corridor. Don’t leave again until morning. We’ll become better acquainted in the light of day.”
The dismissal was curt, and for a moment following, we stood glaring at one another.
For the millionth time, I considered my options and found them lacking.
I was the first to turn away, lowering my eyes, though it took great effort. I moved to step around him, ready to be done with our wretched meeting, but when we were side by side, our arms nearly touching, he spoke.
“And Miss Foxboro?”
I stopped in my tracks, forced again by our proximity to tilt my head back. This close, I could feel his warmth and smell the lingering scent of library cedar on his clothes. He shifted toward me, raising the candle, offering it. Though I wanted to decline, it was too foolish to do so. I took it in hand.
“If I catch you wandering again,” he said, his voice taking on the low quality of a warning, “I may think you mean to tempt me.”
My breath caught, and indignation swelled in my chest in company with a wicked, unwelcome thrill. Not allowing me time to regain my composure and defend myself, he moved away, his steps as silent as a wraith. Insult and bewilderment were dumbing drugs, gluing me to the spot. I watched as he disappeared beyond a distant corner, leaving me abandoned in the oppressive stillness of the house.
Chapter 6
I awoke to a bleak, pale morning, head hollow. My sleep had been fitful, full of misty faces and long, dark corridors I could never reach the end of, chased by a voice, familiar and dreadful.
Mad Millie.
Crazy as a March hare.
She’ll murder us all in our sleep.
There had also been a woman; a woman in a white shift day dress crying in the doorway of every room I passed, her delicate hands pressed to her face, vines of flowers in her hair, their blossoms like fairy bells against her crown.
Though the night still troubled me, things were less terrible in the day. The meager early sun transformed the once-ominous cave of a room into a picture of floral elegance. Soft green rugs with budding lilacs, briarwood wallpaper of grass cloth, and dusky rose curtains brought princesses and enchanted castles far more to mind than ghosts and villains. The fire had burned out, and I climbed out of the warm cocoon of the blankets, regretting I didn’t have a robe. Thinking of the robe brought a quick surge of disgrace. I carried it like a stone in my stomach as I dressed in the warmest things I had—the blue and brown wool skirt I’d arrived in, and a sleeveless knit chemise beneath my nicest sweater, its high neck decorated with a single velvet bow just below my hairline. I hoped the professor wouldn’t notice I was wearing the same skirt two days in a row, but it was unlikely. He’d never laid eyes on me until he caught me waltzing around his house in my slip. I flushed again, wanting to slap my cheeks.
When I entered the bathroom, I thoroughly searched for the tiny corpse of the mouse. I found it lying half beneath the glass-front cupboard where the linens and towels were kept. Without the dark of night to run my imagination wild, I felt sorry for the creature who’d met its terrible end suffocated in powder. I gingerly laid a face tissue over it and planned to alert Ms. Dillard at the next opportunity. I would take extra care not to come off as bothered—after all, it was a mouse, not a monster.
The thought of monsters did little to lift my spirits, and as I sat at the vanity, pinning my hair in the mirror, my shoulders began to curl ever inward, habit hijacking my posture. I was making myself as small as possible, something I’d often done growing up. When I glimpsed my reflection, the hunched, scared woman I saw didn’t please me. I squared my shoulders. I would go to breakfast, chin up, and offer no apology. The professor’s behavior had been atrocious, not mine. I would be taken seriously, refuse irreverence, and neatly handle whatever trials were handed to me.
