Fiona (6 page)

I straighten up against the tree, shaking my head at myself and laughing a little. I certainly didn't just see a
bean nighe
, or a ghost, or anything. A squirrel, probably, or a fox, or whatever they have here. Nothing to get upset about. I should just forget it. That would be the normal thing to do.

I set my shoulders back and march toward the door.

When I reach the house,
I find Alice running through the hallways in a frenzy. “What's going on?” I call to her, but she waves me off as she bolts up the main staircase. Whatever it is, it must be important enough for her to break protocol.

I hurry to the kitchen, where Mrs. Mackenzie is flitting from the stove to the ovens and back again. “What happened?” I ask.

“Charlie's back two days early, that's what happened,” she says, her voice almost a yell as she slams a pot down on the range. “And now it's all a-scramble to make sure everything's ready for him. I suggest you stay out of Mabel's way tonight, if you know what's good for you.”

I take her advice immediately, hurrying up the staircase and checking the hallway outside before scurrying down to the library. If I have to hide, I'd prefer to hide with a good book.
I don't know who I'm more afraid of running into: Mabel or Charlie.

Once I'm safe in the library, I stand over the piano, trailing my fingers across the tops of the keys as I try to calm my rapidly rising breath. I bet he doesn't even remember me. I was just some random girl who was rude to him. A girl with an American accent who showed up in a tiny town unused to strangers. Sure. No way he remembers me.

I groan.

“Do you play?”

I whirl around to find the guy from the pub, tall with tousled red-brown hair, leaning against the doorway. His eyes seem unnaturally bright as they watch me.

“You,” I breathe out.

“Me,” he answers simply.

“What are you doing here?” I ask, realizing how ridiculous I sound even as the words leave my mouth.

He must see that realization on my face, because he doesn't say anything. Instead, he offers me a smile that suggests genuine amusement.

I feel a blush spread over my face, and I look back to the piano to hide it. “I mean, no, I don't play. I used to. A long time ago.”

“Sorry,” he says, stepping closer to me. “I should probably do the gentlemanly thing and introduce myself. I'm Charlie.”

I turn to him and take his outstretched hand. His skin is a bit rough, unlike what I would have expected of a boy who grew up in this kind of house. He smiles again, as if he can tell what I'm thinking, and I feel all of the breath leave my body. Because his eyes aren't icy at all. They're a warm shade of green, bright as the first shoots of grass in spring.

“Fee,” I say finally, much too late. “My name's Fee.”

“The new governess.”

“Au pair,” I correct before I can stop myself. I bite my lip.

Charlie's smile fades a bit, becomes softer. “My mum liked to say
au pair
instead of governess. She thought it sounded more sophisticated.”

“I'm sorry,” I whisper.

He watches me, those warm green eyes intent on mine. “Poppy told me you lost your mother, too.”

I nod, breaking my gaze from his. “I know there's nothing anyone can say that can make you feel better. Or isn't awkward or annoying.”

“Yeah, I'm starting to get that.” He runs a hand across the top of the piano, his eyes following its progress. We both watch it, the seconds slipping past us.

“I'm sorry I was rude to you,” I burst out when I can't stand the silence anymore. “At the pub, I mean.”

He looks up, surprised. “I'm sorry I stared at you,” he says. And he does look sorry. Even though he's staring at me now, so intently that I feel my cheeks start to flame.

He drops his gaze, finally, then glances at the door. “Come on, dinner should be ready soon.”

“Oh, I think I'm supposed—I mean, I think Mabel expects me to eat with the servants now that you're back.”

Charlie studies me for a moment. I feel as if he can see every ounce of insecurity within me, and I want to look away. But I can't. How does he do that?

“Mabel has some outdated ideas about how this house should be run,” he says finally. “You'll eat with Poppy and me. If you don't mind.”

I shake my head. “I don't mind.”

His smile is back, and it makes my breath catch in my throat. “Good, come on, then.” He turns and walks out of the room, clearly expecting me to follow.

We walk into the dining room to find Mabel setting the table. She looks up at me, a mixture of surprise and scandal on her face. I lift my chin and stare right back at her, and her surprise morphs quickly into a glare.

“Set an extra place, would you, Mabs?” Charlie asks as he settles into his chair. “Fee is going to be joining us for dinner from now on.”

“Of course, Lord Moffat,” Mabel says, her voice pleasantly soft. I have to bite back a smile.

Once she's hustled out of the room, I turn back to Charlie. “She's going to spit in my food,” I whisper. “And maybe yours, for arranging this.”

“No she won't,” he says with a smile. “She loves me, and she cares too much about being the perfect housekeeper to spit in anyone's food, no matter how much she hates them.”

“I don't know what I did to make her hate me,” I say, examining the door Mabel just disappeared behind.

“She's a peculiar bird,” Charlie answers. “She'll warm up to you in time.” When I raise my eyebrows at him, he nearly laughs. “Okay, maybe not.” Mabel hurries back in with an extra setting of china and silver, sets it up, and hurries out again.

I sink into the chair across from Charlie. The head and foot of the table are conspicuously bare.

“You've met Charlie, then?” says Poppy, entering the room and settling down in the chair next to me. I raise my eyebrows at her with a sardonic smile. I know Gareth didn't drive her back to school for me to pick her up, so he must have told her that
her ditching school hadn't gone unnoticed. She sends me an apologetic smile in return.

“Yes,” Charlie says softly, and I can feel his eyes on me, ready to capture mine. I refuse to look at him. He's got me on edge, hyperaware of his presence, and I don't know what to make of it.

I fix Poppy with a knowing look and say, “You've been up in your room for hours now. How's the math homework going?”

She nods, picking up on the fact that I'm providing her with an alibi and that I won't tell Charlie she skipped school today. As long as it doesn't happen again, at least. “Slowly,” she says. “But I think I'm almost done.”

“Want me to take a look at it?” Charlie asks, grabbing one of the rolls that Mabel brings out with the dinner plates.

“No,” Poppy answers lightly. “Fee's better at explaining it to me than you are.”

He scoffs, and I try not to gape at the unexpected praise. “I'm brilliant at maths!” Charlie protests.

“Yeah, so brilliant that I never understand a word you're saying,” Poppy teases.

A smile stretches across his face to echo hers. “It's good to see you smile again,” he says softly.

I look down at my plate, trying to shrink away from the private moment they're sharing. It's easy to tell how much Charlie
loves his sister: His entire demeanor changed the moment she walked into the room, turning from intense and slightly dark to bright and charismatic. I don't know what to make of him, but I can't deny that he's clearly a loving brother.

It's disarming.

The rest of dinner—overcooked meat and potatoes, apparently Charlie's favorite—passes rather smoothly, with Charlie asking Poppy questions about school and Copperfield and her friends. Her best girl friends are named Natalie and Imogen, but when Charlie asks how they're doing, Poppy just shrugs. “Fine, I guess,” she says. “We don't have any classes together this year, so I just see them at lunch.”

“What about inviting them over here for a sleepover or something?” Charlie suggests. “Like you used to.”

Poppy shrugs again. “Maybe,” she says, but she sounds anything but excited about the idea.

For dessert, Mabel brings out cranachan, a tower of oats, whipped cream, heather honey, raspberries, and “just a touch of whisky,” as Mabel assures Charlie as she places one before Poppy. Each one is served in a little glass, and Mabel sets mine down just a bit harder than necessary.

Charlie digs right into his, shoving a big spoonful in his mouth. “Delicious, Mabs,” he says with a nod to her. “Tell Mrs.
Mackenzie that I couldn't find anything like her cranachan in Glasgow, and I missed it.”

I notice Poppy scowl down at her glass at his words, but Charlie seems oblivious. He looks to me, beaming. “Ever had cranachan before?”

I'm about to answer that my mother always tried to make it for my birthday, when she could afford the ingredients, when Poppy interjects, “Dad always tried to work from home so he didn't have to go to Glasgow so much.”

Charlie's smile drops, and his jaw tightens. “I told you, I had to go in person to show the board I'm ready to take over the company.”

“Right,” she says, rolling her eyes.

“I know you're mad,” he says, his voice low. “But you don't understand what's happening in the newspaper industry. You don't understand what it's like being a grown-up.”

I almost wince. He couldn't have picked more perfectly condescending words to enrage an eleven-year-old girl if he'd tried.

Poppy grits her teeth. “You just couldn't wait to leave,” she spits out. “You don't want to be here with me.” Before he can answer, she pushes her chair back from the table violently, throwing her napkin down and stomping out of the room.

I glance at Charlie. His eyes are closed, his jaw clenched.
“I'm sorry,” he says. “Lately my sister and I can't spend much time together without flying at each other's throats.” He sighs. “I would have been right
bealing
if my dad said something like that to me, though, I guess.” By his tone when he says it, I'm assuming “bealing” means furious. “Can't help making a mess of things,” he adds, almost to himself.

I consider saying something comforting, something along the lines of “She'll get over it” or “This kind of thing is always hard,” but when I open my mouth, a question I was never intending to ask comes flying out. “Why were you at the pub the night I came in?” I've been wondering this since I discovered who he was. He was supposed to be on a train to Glasgow. Why had he stayed?

“It doesn't matter,” he says, staring out the door after his sister.

I look down at my half-empty cranachan glass, horrified that I asked him such a personal question.
He's my boss
, I remind myself. I should keep my mouth shut, no matter how curious I am. No matter how disarming he is.

But instead of getting angry, he changes the subject. “Do you have any siblings?” he asks, turning to me.

“No.”

“So when your mum died, you were all alone.”

The empathy in his tone makes my chest constrict, tears threatening to build in my eyes. I bite the inside of my cheek and nod.

“I should go check on her,” he says after a small silence.

I nearly jump out of my chair, the legs scraping harshly along the stone floor. “I'll do it.”

He sighs. “Yeah. Probably better.”

I hurry out of the dining room without looking at him.

Mabel is on the other side of the door, glowering at me as I hurry past her. As if it's my fault her welcome-home-Charlie dinner has been ruined.

Enough. I've had enough of that woman's simmering disapproval. If nothing I do is right, I might as well just do what I want. I march defiantly up the main staircase to Poppy's room.

I knock at her door, but there's no answer. When I press my ear to the heavy wood, I can just barely hear the sound of muffled sobbing. I try the knob, but it's locked. “Poppy?” I call out. “It's me. Can you let me in?”

“Go away!” Her yell comes through clearly enough.

As much as I don't want to, I think back to those weeks after my mother died. I was angry, scared, and lonely, forced to move away from everything I knew, losing all sense of home. What would I have wanted to hear then? I take a deep breath. “For
me, the worst part was feeling alone,” I say through the door. “So I'm going to be here, on the other side of this door, until you feel like opening it. I'll be right here. Okay?”

She doesn't respond, which I'll take as a good sign. So I settle down onto the cold wood floor, my back against the wall and my knees up to my chest, and wait.

I wait for almost an hour until the muffled sobbing dies down, and then I hear the floorboards creak and finally the click of the lock. She opens the door slowly and stares down at me for a moment, her eyes red and puffy. Then she closes the door behind her and sinks down beside me.

For a few minutes, she doesn't speak and neither do I. Finally, she sighs and looks over at me. “Did you have someone to do that for you? After your mum died?”

I shake my head. “Not for years. Not until I met my friend Hex when I was fifteen.”

“Her name is
Hex
?” Poppy asks, her eyes wide.

“No. Her real name is Delilah. But she hates it because her mom had named her, and when she was thirteen, her mom left because her boyfriends started paying too much attention to Hex. So Hex lives with her grandmother now and doesn't want anything from her mother.”

“Why did she pick Hex?”

“Because she wanted to scare people. Hex is beautiful, really
tall and stunning. People notice her, especially guys, but she doesn't want them to. So she shaved off all her hair and pierced her lip and eyebrow and learned to growl at people so they would stay away. And she picked the name Hex to warn people away, too.”

“But she was nice to you.”

I let a small smile slip. “Not at first. We went to the same school, shared the same classes, and it was three months before she even said one word to me. She found me crying in the bathroom one morning before school, and she accused me of getting upset over something silly, like a boy or a bad grade, totally prepared to start mocking me mercilessly. When I told her it was because I missed my mom, she stayed with me until I was done crying, and after that, she became my best friend. My only friend.”