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In the morning, she’d set up her office in that fabulous library. She’d hang her father’s paintings there.
He already had one hanging in the manor, she thought. How had Collin come by it? That’s a question she wanted answered.
Halfway down the stairs she felt a wave of cold air and turned, half expecting to see someone behind her.
“Old house,” she muttered. “Drafts expected.”
She went into the kitchen, slapped a sandwich together with the provided bread and cold cuts. She ate it over the sink, watching the snow.
And felt a ridiculous lift when she heard what had to be John Dee and his plow.
A quick hunt scored her a lidded mug and she filled it with coffee. She’d watched and learned.
Gearing up, she took it outside to meet another neighbor.
When the shadow moved at the window, she didn’t notice.
Chapter Seven
After the drive, the tour, the unpacking, a somewhat more abbreviated tour FaceTiming with Cleo, and the consumption of the best part of a bottle of champagne, Sonya called it early.
By ten she lay in bed in a dark so complete it seemed the world had flipped a switch. Eyes firmly shut, she listened to the crash of waves, the wail of the wind, the moans and groans of an old house settling.
Two minutes later, she switched on the bedside light, got up, turned the fireplace on low.
A person could walk into a wall, she told herself—or, obviously, fall down the damn stairs.
Not that she was afraid of the dark, she assured herself as she climbed back in bed. But there was dark, and there wasdark.
Satisfied with the quiet flicker of light, she turned off the bedside lamp.
She’d pick up some night-lights, plug one in the bedroom, another near the landing. Maybe…
She drifted off.
Somewhere in the night she dreamed. Music drifting, voices murmuring. The woman in the portrait danced with a dark-haired man. He wore a high, starched-collared shirt and jacket, and like in a costume drama, close-fitting breeches.
They laughed into each other’s eyes; their smiling lips met in a sweet kiss.
Even in death, we will not part.
As they danced, red spread over the white dress. The music became a dirge, and shadows smothered the light. In those shadows she lay, the white dress soaked in blood. And he hung over her, a rope around his neck.
Throughout the house, a clock struck the hour. One. Two. Three. For a moment, the low fire boiled up, snapped, snarled, then quieted again.
In the foyer, the portrait wept.
When Sonya woke, sunlight streamed through the windows. Blinking against it, she sat up.
“Here I am. Day two.”
She rose, and after turning the fire up, walked to the window.
Winter sun sparkled on the fresh snow as if someone had tossed tiny diamonds over the ground. A bird swooped onto a white-flocked branch of the skeletal weeper and sang its heart out.
The sea held a strong blue under a sky where the wind had whisked the clouds away.
She decided to take it all as a good omen.
