Shadows (8 page)

“I have nothing to say.  What does that make me?”

“Shy, manipulative, or annoyed with me.”  She sat back to allow the waitress to remove their empty dishes.  When she looked up, she caught Rory staring at his fingernails and trying not to smile.  “Well?”

“How about if I claim all three?”  He caught her gaze and held it.

“You can try.”  Still holding his gaze, she picked up her wine and sipped.  He was an intelligent man, and not easy to read, but she wasn't going to give in.  Not yet.  “That’s your secret weapon, isn’t it?  Staring at someone for so long?  I imagine girls swoon into your arms after two minutes.”

He raised his napkin to his mouth.  “Sorry.  Do I really stare at you?”

“Rory, you know very well you do.  It was the first thing I noticed about you when Jonny introduced us.  It’s a recognized technique.  Bound to get good results, according to psychologists.  Something to do with the release of chemicals in the recipient’s brain.”

“My God.  You know about that?”

“Why ever not?  I’m a librarian, remember?  I deal in information.  Where did you pick it up?”

“Law school.  Techniques for getting people to respond to you.”

Their main course arrived.  Melissa picked up her cutlery and probed the poisson rouge for bones.  Rory tried the first bite of duck and watched her as he chewed.  “You’ve been er…let down in an earlier relationship?  Recently?”

Melissa reached for her wine glass and cradled it in both hands.  She didn't really want to talk about Adrian, but steeled herself to do so.  She could hardly ask for honesty from Rory and be dishonest herself.  Adrian was part of her history, and a good part of her reluctance to dive into another relationship.  “Two years ago.”

“And you’re still not over it?”

Was that impatience or horror ringing in his voice?  She swirled the wine and took a sip.  “I am over it, thank you.  But as I said, I’m not about to make the same mistake again.  You’ll have to be patient with me.  Or take me to the airport.”

In the silence that followed, other diners wandered in and took their seats.  She took another sip of wine and went back to her fish.  Perhaps Rory would take her to the airport tomorrow.  An early return to the UK might be a wise move.  The mill was lovely, but almost certainly haunted.

Rory cleared his throat.  “In the pool at lunchtime, you kissed me, if you remember.”

The memory brought a flush of warmth, and she couldn't help but smile.  “I know, and I don’t know why.  I apologized, if you remember.”  She made her tone light and playful.  If they had to part, better to do it on good terms.

“You give out mixed messages.”

She couldn't argue with that.  She'd surprised herself with the kiss.  “You’re right.  I apologize again.  I’ll try to be unmixed from now on.”

Rory put down his knife.  “I’d appreciate that.  Otherwise, what chance do I have?”

He was staring at her again.  Deliberately, Melissa stared back and resisted the feeling of guilt creeping up on her.  “If I had a fixed message, it would be easy.  But I don’t.  How can I?”

“Pretty easily, I would have thought.”

“In any relationship there are bound to be good times and bad times.  When we have a good time, I’ll feel good about you.  When we have a bad time—”

“You’ll feel bad about me.  So?”

Patiently, she drew breath.  He was keen to know her answer, that was all.  He wasn't trying to be rude.  “I need time to really know my feelings, the median rather than the highs and lows.  Don’t you get it?”

“So that means…give me some idea.”

“Rory, this is going in circles.  You asked me that when we came in, and I said I didn’t know.  Why are you in such a hurry?”

He sat back and folded his arms.  “I can stand celibacy as well as the next man, but I’d rather not.  Why don’t you take a chance?  I did, when I met you at Jonny’s party.”

But all he risked was a turn down to his invitation, not a year of heartbreak.  She decided not to get side-tracked.  “You did.  And I took the same chance on you by accepting your invitation.”

That silenced him.  He obviously hadn’t considered her side of things.  “You could have been an axe murderer for all I knew, though I suspect Jonny wouldn’t have introduced you in that case.  He certainly wouldn’t have invited you to his party had he known that.”

His mouth struggled not to smile, but his eyes were warm with hidden laughter.

“There are lots of things about me that you don’t know.  How can you possibly be sure you will really like me?”

“Well, here’s your big chance.  What don’t I know about you that would send me rushing out of the room?”

She liked him.  She liked him a lot, but if she told him she was illegitimate, had never met her father and hated cruelty to animals, he might get up and leave.  She could add that she had lived with paranormal experiences up to the age of twelve and now, at the mill, those senses seemed to be waking up once more.  That would really send him rushing back to London.  But it all sounded a little dramatic for so early in the relationship.  Better to take things quietly, and move step by step.

“Sad films make me cry.  Buckets.”

~~~

Melissa woke next morning with a thumping headache and Rory’s hand shaking her shoulder.  Groggy with sleep, she looked up.  A willow pattern coffee mug hovered inches from her nose.  She collapsed against the sofa cushion with a groan.

“Time to get up.  I thought we’d give ourselves a treat and go out today.”

She rolled her head sideways, and the headache rolled with her.  He hadn’t been happy last night when she stuck to her decision to sleep on the sofa, but he’d put up with it.  Perhaps he thought that by going out, away from the mill, things would be easier between them.  He was showered, shaved and dressed in red shirt, cream slacks and leather belt.  Smart enough to go anywhere.  No tourist shorts for him.  “I thought you might be considering taking me to the airport.  What time is it?”

“A little after nine.  Come on, sleepy head, time to get up.  Do you want toast?  One slice or two?”

Melissa resisted the urge to throw something at him, but noticed he ignored her remark about the airport.  “One please, and an Anadin.”

“You’ve got a headache?”

“No, Rory.  I take them just for fun.”  Melissa pulled a face at him, threw back the blanket and staggered into the shower.

When she emerged, dripping, wrapped in a blue towel, the headache had receded a little.  Rory was in the kitchen, banging crockery about and whistling.  She clutched her coffee mug, now barely warm, and sat down at the table.

“Your toast is outside.”

Without a word, Melissa rose and went out onto the bolly.  The air was warm already, and some of the tension left her at the sight of sunshine bathing the table and chairs at the far end of the bolly.  Her toast was indeed there, sitting on a blue willow pattern plate with an Anadin carefully placed to one side.  The table was laid for one.  Rory had already eaten.  No togetherness over breakfast this morning, then.  Why couldn't he have waited?

Melissa slumped down in the chair, one hand to her aching head.  Too much wine last night, no doubt, and all that sunbathing.  Perhaps she ought to take the sun more slowly.  She checked her arms, and found yesterday’s heat had gone out of her skin.  She took a slug of lukewarm coffee, swallowed the Anadin and bit into the toast.

It was cold.  She sighed.  She liked her coffee hot and her toast warm, with the butter melting into it.

A flash of movement caught her eye.  She looked up and stopped, mouth open, in mid-chew.  A cold hand clenched about her stomach.  A man stood at the far end of the bolly.  She stared, all thought suspended.  He was dressed in head-to-toe black, with black curls and piercing dark eyes in a handsome face.  His glance roamed over her as if she did not exist, then he turned away, stepped off the far end of the bolly and disappeared around the corner.

In a heartbeat, he had gone.  Warm liquid dribbled down her chest.  “Damn.”  She banged the coffee mug onto the table, and held the towel away from her, dabbing at herself.  Thank goodness it hadn’t been scalding hot.  When she looked up, the bolly was empty.

Rory popped his head around the door.  “More coffee?”

Open mouthed, she stared at him, and then looked back at the empty space.  It couldn’t have been Rory.  Well, of course it wasn’t Rory.  He wasn’t wearing a long black garment and he had no curls and his eyes were blue.  Still, she asked the question, almost hoping he would have an explanation.  “Did you go out just now?  Down there?”  She pointed down the bolly.

He shook his head.  “Nope.  Doing the kitchen thing.  Why?”

Melissa dabbed at the spilt coffee again to cover her confusion, and shook her head.  “Oh, nothing.  Would that be fresh coffee on offer?  Hot coffee?”

“Of course.”  He retreated, and reappeared with the Perspex globe in his hand.  “Why did you ask?  Did you see someone?”  His voice was carefully neutral, but he watched her closely.

She emptied her mug on the grass and held it out for the fresh coffee.  She was surprised and pleased to see that her hand was as steady as his when he refilled her mug.

His gaze flicked from her to the stream of coffee and back again.  Had she gone white?  Shock did that to you, and the…thing on the bolly had certainly jolted her.  Yet there had been no sense of a threat.  If these sightings kept up, she might regret ever coming to France.  And what about Rory?  No man wanted a jittery girlfriend who saw things that weren’t there.

“Okay.”  Rory twirled a chair around to face her and sat down, his arms folded along the back of it, the empty coffee jug dangling from one finger.  “You’re not joking, and you’ve seen something.  What?”

Melissa sipped her coffee, and eyed him over the rim of the mug.  The hot coffee was reassuring, and for once, his strong-jawed face was serious.  His eyes, those startling peacock blue eyes, waited for an answer.  This must be how he appeared at work, how his clients saw him in his professional lifecool, calm and absolutely unflappable.

At this precise moment, she welcomed his calmness.  At least, he was prepared to listen.  “You’re not going to like this, but you’re right.  I caught a glimpse—only a glimpse, mind you—of a tall figure dressed in black.  I think it was…”  She hesitated, unsure of what she had seen, and how Rory would react.

“Go on.  You think it was what?”

Melissa buried her nose in the mug to avoid his stern gaze and swallowed more coffee.  “A monk.”

For several seconds, Rory simply stared at her.  “A monk?  Here?”  He looked around the bolly.  “Where did he go?”

“He disappeared.”  She clutched the coffee mug between her palms.  “I know it sounds stupid.  He walked off the end of the bolly and around the corner.  But you and I know that there’s a fence and an eight foot drop onto concrete around that corner.  If he’s still there, he’ll be the luckiest man alive if he hasn’t broken both legs.”

Jonny had excavated a little courtyard in the shade of the tall pine tree in readiness for one of the new bedrooms on the lower level of the mill.  Unsettled, she dragged her hair back off her face and scrunched it at the back of her head.  Water dripped onto her bare shoulders.  “It’s weird.  The fence wasn’t there when I saw the monk, and neither was the honeysuckle.  Yet there’s a honeysuckle bush there now.”

Rory put the coffee jug on the table, paced the length of the bolly, parted the honeysuckle stems and peered over.  He moved closer to the fence, and looked again before he turned, his face grim, and walked back to her.  Grasping the back of his chair, he stared at her.  “There’s no one there, of course.”

His tone was soft, as if he was thinking something totally different.  A surge of irritation and anger erupted in a swift retort.  “Oh, of course there’s no one there.  Forget it.”  Clutching her towel to her bosom, she swept off into the mill and banged doors behind her.

Rory stayed outside, which was just as well.  He hadn't believed her, and that had made her angry.  Though he had gone and checked the lower patio.  Well, what she'd said must have sounded silly in the cold light of day.  Even in the hot light of day.  Her surge of anger dissipated as swiftly as it arrived, and left her calmer and headache free.  Staring at the open wardrobe, she remembered they were supposed to go out today.  “Where are we going?  What shall I wear?”

Rory’s voice came through the open bathroom window.  “I thought we’d go to Lascaux, and look at the caves and then have a long leisurely lunch somewhere pleasant.  It’ll be cool underground, so take a sweater.”