Beastly Beautiful (21 page)

“Secrets?” she asked, startled.

“Come on,” he said. “You haven’t kept quiet about your past all this time for nothing. Clearly, you haven’t wanted to talk about who you used to be, or what brought you to take up residence on the city streets. Up until now, I’ve been too polite to ask.”

“You? Polite?” she asked, disbelievingly. “Somehow I can’t picture it. Anyway, I’ve hardly been secretive. Not everyone cloaks their personal lives in shadow as carefully as you do. If I’ve kept myself to myself it’s because I hadn’t imagined you’d be interested.”

“I’m interested in anything that concerns you,” he said lowly.

Suddenly aware of his nearness, a shiver shot through Teagan, but it was a hot, tingling feeling, not an unpleasant sensation. “There’s—there’s little to tell,” she said, trying to conceal a sudden awkwardness. She was never shy. Where was this coming from?

“I had a lousy life and a screwed up family. Throw in a huge number of personal mistakes as well, and it’s easy to see how things got out of hand. I hated my life, and I imagined that escaping the place I’d lived and everyone I knew would somehow fix all of my problems. I can see now it was stupid not to have a plan, but at the time I was feeling desperate. I threw the past behind me and ran toward the future. A few weeks later saw me with no money, no job, and too much pride to return to my mom and stepdad.”

“So you thought a more dignified alternative would be to live out of trashcans and sleep in dirty alleyways?”

“You’re laughing at me.” She frowned. “Look, I knew you wouldn’t understand—”

“Never underestimate what I might understand,” he interrupted. “After all, if there’s one thing we’ve both proved, you can never tell what secrets are hidden inside a person.” He changed the subject. “So you never saw your family again. Think you ever will?”

“I—I don’t know.” She shook her head. “Listen, I know I said I didn’t mind talking about it, but I guess it sort of still bothers me a little. Do you mind if we don’t go into the details?”

She hadn’t been aware she was wringing her hands in her lap until he slipped his hand over hers. “If it’s difficult for you, we won’t talk about it.”

It seemed like a good time to change the subject. She said, “Speaking of families, I guess this is my opening to tell you. Your grandfather just sort of tried to enlist me, or bribe me or something, earlier. He wanted me to spy on you.”

To her surprise, he laughed. “Don’t worry. He does that to every woman I date.”

The sense of relief she felt was enormous. “Really? Then he won’t do anything horrible if I don’t—”

“Don’t report back to him? Of course not.” He laughed again. “He’s a bit devious, but he’s not evil. He senses something’s wrong, and he just wants to protect me.”

It was a relief to know she didn’t need to worry about the old man. Still, there were too many other burdens on her mind for the lightening of this one to leave her fully content. She tackled the next awkward problem.

“Does this mean I’m keeping my job? You know, as your doorkeeper? It’ll be a lot easier now that I know the truth.”

His expression became troubled, distant. “I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know how any of this is going to end.”

Teagan became aware the car had pulled to a stop outside her apartment building. She felt strangely reluctant to step outside when Sir climbed out and held the door for her. The snow still drifted down, clinging to her hair and dropping cold, wet kisses anywhere it met her bare skin. Teagan gathered her trailing skirt to keep it off the soggy sidewalk.

“Well,” she said softly. “I guess this is it. See you.” She walked backward toward the looming doors, waiting for him to return the words. He never did. She watched him, watching her, until the pale flurries formed a thick curtain between them and his dark form standing on the curb dissolved into nothing more than an indistinct shadow.

Then through the swirling flakes and the surrounding gloom her ears caught the words, “Goodbye, Teagan.”

Chapter 29

That night, Teagan lay awake, listening to the soft rustling noises of the mice scratching at the floor under her bed and the faint
drip, drip
, of the leaky showerhead behind the bathroom curtain. The lamp beside her bed was on, for she knew this was one night she wouldn’t be able to sleep without it. In fact, trying to sleep at all seemed like a useless gesture even with the comfort of the lamp’s yellow glow.

Her eyes tracked the progress of a large, black bug crawling busily across the ceiling over her bed, but its presence didn’t bother her. A hundred bugs wouldn’t have concerned her. Not tonight. Her thoughts were far away, reliving over and over the events of the past evening. She never did find any sleep that night.

At one point, she arose and turned on the lamp beside her bed. Reaching inside the bottom drawer of her nightstand, she drew out the letter she had received from Dr. Green. Was it only a few days ago she had first opened it with shaking hands? Now she removed the letter from its envelope and examined it more carefully than ever before.

A part of her couldn’t help noting with relief there were no hidden needles affixed to anything. Not that she really believed she could have missed something like that before, but still… She read through the letter, looking for any sign, any clue that should have told her from the beginning she was dealing with a madman.

But there was nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing any more out of the ordinary than this whole business had been anyway. Eventually, she gave up and stuffed the letter back into its hiding place.

She went back to bed for a while, but it was no good. The clock showed it was just past five in the morning when she abandoned all thought of getting any rest and arose to dress. As she sat on the edge of the bed, pulling on her boots, she considered her situation. She knew it was a cold, crazy hour to go out, but she had no choice. After all of last night’s explanations and admissions, she had one final confession to make. Besides, there was still a burning question she needed put to rest—one only Sir knew the answer to.

Dragging on her jacket and twisting a thick blue scarf around her neck, she caught a glimpse of her disheveled figure in the mirror. Her hair was uncombed, her clothing sloppy. Her face told the story of her sleepless night far better than any words could have. But none of it mattered. On a day like this, the last thing on her mind was appearances. She snatched up her purse and slipped out the door into the echoing stairwell.

Once she was outside the icy air was unexpectedly invigorating, washing away the drowsiness that had dragged at her before. Energy renewed, she decided a brisk walk to Sir’s apartment was just the exercise she needed to shake away the last shadows of lost sleep and give her time to think over all she needed to say.

It wasn’t yet light out, but the street lamps provided enough light for her to make her way by, and with the streams of traffic already crowding the streets she wasn’t worried about walking alone in the dark. Besides, a hint of gray was touching the sky in the east, promising it wouldn’t be long before sunrise. Her boots slogged through the melting snow, the passage of many feet over the sidewalk having already deteriorated the coat of pristine white to a churned bed of gray.

All of these details Teagan noted with a kind of detached awareness. Her thoughts were on the encounter ahead, on planning out her own words, and trying to anticipate his responses. Last night she had learned so much during that short car ride home. So much and yet so little. So focused had she been on the revelation of Sir’s secret and on everything else that had just transpired that somehow she had never thought to seek the truth on a matter much closer to her heart.

Puffing out clouds of white breath, she treaded onward, shivering under the blast of the wind and shoving her frozen hands deeper into her pockets. Within her boots, her toes were little numb blocks of ice. Her nose and cheeks would be red and chapped by the time she arrived. She looked, she thought, much like the unkempt mess she had been the first time she visited Sir’s apartment. Only this time she traveled there in a much different state of mind.

The fear was still there, the uncertainty at what lay ahead. But it was a different kind of fear this time. The fear of rejection. And the uncertainty wasn’t over whether or not she was making the right decision, but whether or not the results would be all she hoped for.

Their time together last night, everything they had been through, had left her certain of one thing. She was in love with Sir. Hopelessly, maybe even pathetically, in love. But it was love just the same, and it was real. She had been wrestling with the notion for some time, denying to herself what should have been clear from the beginning. But all that denial, that internal turmoil had ceased the moment she saw Sir’s life threatened, the instant she realized she might be about to lose him forever. Her heart still beat faster at the memory of the crazy gunman’s weapon leveled right at Sir. She would’ve done anything just then, anything to save him. Even if it meant throwing her own life away.

That was how she understood the depth of the emotion burning within her. Surely that kind of devotion wasn’t a whim, a flickering fancy that would be snuffed out by the first winds of hardship. She shook her head. No, her own feelings were clear enough to her now—ineradicably clear. It was Sir’s emotions that left her in suspense.

Was his gentle behavior with her last night an indication that he had some feelings for her as well? Or had he merely been exhausted by their ordeal, off his guard, and vulnerable to her questioning? Would today find him the same caring man he had been when he stood beneath the drifting snow and told her goodbye? Or would she find a transformed Sir waiting for her, the colder, more controlled stranger whose secrets kept her always at arm’s length—who seemed eager that it should stay so?

All too soon, she found herself standing before the doors to Sir’s apartment house. As she passed the doorman and rode the glass walled elevator up to the top floor, she asked herself if this would be the last time she ever made this trip. Would her declaration today, her admission of her feelings for Sir, ensure the end of their relationship? And what about her secret dealings with Dr. Green? Would he forgive her for those?

It was no good torturing herself with possibilities. Soon enough she would know everything. She steeled herself for the encounter ahead, uncertain whether to attribute the rising excitement in her to anticipation or dread. The elevator came to a stop and, with a
ding
, the doors drew open.

Cautiously, Teagan peered into the room before her. She hadn’t been invited up here, she suddenly remembered. Maybe Sir was having one of his drinking bouts, or worse, was undergoing one of those bestial transformations he was cursed with. Then again, it was weeks before the next full moon, wasn’t it? She should be safe enough. Even if she wasn’t, she’d take her chances. With that decision firmly in mind, she stepped off the elevator and into the living room. The doors immediately closed behind her and as quickly as that, her one mode of escape vanished.

A single lamp illuminated the room with a soft yellow light, much like the last time she had been up here—the occasion where she had witnessed one of Sir’s tortured dreams. She silenced the distracted thoughts that memory aroused and proceeded further into the room.

“Sir?” she called softly into the perfect stillness. “Anybody home?” Only the echoes of her own voice came back to meet her. “Hello?” she called more loudly.

Still nothing. She poked her head into the den to find it empty. The lingering warmth emanating from the now dark fireplace, however, suggested it couldn’t have been long since someone had been in here. The room was in its usual order and there were no clues to suggest what had become of its last inhabitant.

She proceeded to the red bedroom next, that secret place which had once so filled her with terror when she awoke to find herself a prisoner there. It seemed a likely place to find Sir at this early hour. Only it too turned out to be empty. The bed didn’t look as if it had been slept in, yet she was sure he had returned to this room, at least briefly, after the banquet last night. She knew it because the tuxedo he had worn lay thrown over the back of a chair, forgotten, and his shoes lay discarded nearby. The closet door stood open as if he had been inside recently, rummaging through his clothing, but there was no sign of him now.

Growing more and more confused, Teagan checked the rest of the apartment, exploring rooms she had never before visited. By this time, she was fairly certain Sir wasn’t in the apartment. He would have responded to her calls by now. And yet curiosity made her continue poking her head into the rooms. She’d never had free reign like this to explore every corner of the place. Somehow she felt Sir wouldn’t mind under the circumstances.

In the end, she found herself standing before the closed door to the study. Everything about the sturdy red door’s silent, imposing appearance discouraging her from prying into whatever secrets it concealed. Sir’s old instruction against opening the door rang loudly in her head. Yet she knew the secret of this room now. She was aware of its purpose. Surely, that made it a secret no more.

She tried to imagine what his response would be if he learned she had entered that room without his permission. Somehow, she couldn’t picture it being anything too terrible anymore. She no longer feared the wrath of Sir—not now that she knew what was behind it. Respect for the man’s privacy made her hesitate, but curiosity drove her to stretch out a hand anyway, and give the knob a turn.

She had expected to find it locked as usual, had thought she would have to go into the den and remove the brass key from its hiding place beneath the silver box. But to her surprise, at her experimental twist to the knob, the door swung open easily, revealing a dimly lit interior.

Chapter 30

Carefully, Teagan advanced into the room. She had already been informed as to the room’s true use. Nevertheless, she was startled at the wreckage before her. The walls were battered and scored by long gouges, the deep marks of a frenzied creature’s claws as it raked them over the plaster. The furniture was overturned, and much of it smashed to bits so that some pieces were almost unrecognizable as former chairs, tables, and a sofa.