The Splendour Falls (35 page)

‘Then it's a stalemate,' said Rhys, his expression grim but resigned.

‘For now,' I murmured. Because as much as I was
drawn to him, I couldn't forget that Rhys was one of the many mysteries at Bluestone Hill.

I was determined to get through the night without budging from my room. I'd taken Gigi for her last walk while the house was still awake, and then sneaked her upstairs to stay. To make sure nothing disturbed us, I'd found my MP3 player and put Brahms on an endless loop to cover any sound. Then Gigi and I curled under the covers where no cold could get us.

The only thing I'd ever sensed behind my door was the lilac smell, and I'd never felt any threat from that – from Hannah, I corrected, accepting that there was at least an echo of my ancestress here in the room we shared. Though I supposed she couldn't really be my foremother if she'd killed herself when she was my age.

I couldn't imagine ending it all because some guy left me. But I was thinking like a twenty-first-century young woman with a world of options – except dance.

Had she felt about
him
the way I did about ballet? Letting the music seep away my present, I imagined Hannah lying in bed, maybe even on the same lumpy mattress, praying for guidance. If her family had money, she could hope for a good marriage, maybe even to someone she picked for herself. If she couldn't, or wouldn't, marry, then she had her choice of crap jobs – governess or paid companion if she was lucky. And God help her if she got pregnant.

My gasp was loud enough to wake Gigi, who
growled softly and went back to sleep. But I sat up, pulling the earphones from my ears and swinging my legs off the bed.

Oh. My. God. Hannah had been pregnant. I knew it the way I knew she loved lilacs and that she had lain in the garden –
my
garden, the same spot where I liked to lie – waiting for
him.

Pregnant, with a guy like the Colonel for a dad, one who hated her boyfriend. A guy whom she loved and trusted enough to give herself to, in an era where girls didn't do that sort of thing. A guy who abandoned her to that fate.

I went to the desk and opened the secret drawer. Pulling out the journal, I set it on the blotter, and gathered my courage, like I was preparing to open a dreaded letter. I already knew the news, but reading it would somehow make it fresh. Closer to me.

Opening the book from the back, I paged carefully through the empty sheets at the end, the unwritten days. When I came to the last entry, I sat and read.

It is harder than I thought it would be. I think the day is coming quickly, and I look forward to it, grateful for escape.

I do not know where I shall end up. But at least I will no longer be alone.

F
or the first time since my arrival at Bluestone Hill, I slept through the night without incident – once I'd finally gone to sleep. I'd lain awake for a long while, thinking about Hannah's last entry and how she seemed more hopeful than frightened. It made me want to not believe in ghosts again, just so I could think that Hannah was at peace.

Retiring early did mean that Gigi was in a big hurry to get downstairs. I wasted no time taking the dog out the side door and to the back yard for her morning
frolic. I was putting down her breakfast on the porch when the screen door opened, and Rhys came in.

I straightened quickly, and he froze, his hand on the door as if he might flee. We'd all eaten dinner together – except for Addie, who went with her friends to the convocation for the graduating seniors – but it was different now without the buffer of the adults.

He was dressed for the day, in cargo pants, a T-shirt and a denim shirt over that. I tugged at my own T-shirt, which matched the cartoon dogs on my pj's. I also hadn't combed my hair or brushed my teeth. It was Saturday morning, for crying out loud.

‘Were you outside?' I asked. ‘I didn't see you.'

He let the door close, deciding, I guess, to stay. ‘I was in your garden, looking at how much you'd gotten done in two days. Very impressive for a ballet princess.'

So, we were back to that. The gibe didn't distract me, but the sight of his face did. ‘You look better than I thought you would.'

He could almost raise that brow without wincing. ‘Thanks. I heal quickly.' Gesturing to the kitchen door he said, ‘Coming in?'

I left Gigi on the porch with her kibble and a squeaky toy. The kitchen was full of cheerful activity. Clara hummed at the stove, the kettle was on the boil, and at the table, the professor was telling Paula about his trip.

‘Biscuits and gravy, Sylvie?' Clara asked as I washed my hands.

I eyed the saucepan on the stove. ‘Sausage gravy?'

She held up a box, reading from the back. ‘Texturized vegetable protein sausage gravy.'

‘You're kidding!' From her pleased face, she wasn't. I laughed, surprised and touched by the trouble she'd gone to. ‘You had to find a way to feed me something Southern. You are awesome, Clara.'

Clara, looking embarrassed but pleased, bustled me towards the table. ‘It might not even be any good.'

Professor Griffith paused in his conversation with Paula to interject. ‘Don't be modest, Clara. I doubt anything less than tasty has ever come out of your kitchen.'

She conceded this with a small tilt of her head. ‘In any case, Sylvie, you should thank the professor and Rhys. They picked you up a care package on their way home.'

The tone of my surprise changed. I was still grateful, but suddenly self-conscious. I couldn't remember the last time someone had bought me something just because. Flowers at the hospital didn't count. And Mother bought me things she wanted to see me in, not things I would pick out for myself.

‘Thank you,' I said to the spot just above the professor's head. I didn't trust myself to look him, or Rhys, in the eye.

‘It was nothing, love,' Professor Griffith said amiably, then amended, ‘Well, it was one wrecked car, but at least it was a rental.'

His joke broke my bubble of awkwardness, and I returned his smile. ‘I'm very glad you weren't hurt.' Finally glancing at Rhys, I corrected, ‘Seriously hurt, I mean.'

He met my eye with a sheepish smile of his own. ‘Like Dad said. It was nothing.'

The kettle started to whistle, and I was grateful for the distraction. ‘Sit down,' said Clara. ‘I'll bring you a plate.'

Obediently I went to my place, conscious of Rhys at my elbow. Paula looked almost relaxed in a tracksuit and sneakers. We were only missing one person. ‘Is Addie sleeping in?'

Setting a plate in front of me, Clara said, ‘She spent the night with Caitlin in town. They're doing some set up for the festival and then going to graduation.'

‘Ah.' I kept my voice neutral, glad she was having a good time so I didn't have to feel guilty for being happy she wasn't around. No Addie not only meant no sulks and arguments, but also that I could put off TTC mysteries until after breakfast. Glancing at the professor, I said, ‘You didn't say last night – was your trip productive?'

He tilted his head in a ‘sort of ‘ gesture. ‘Cultural anthropology isn't always about finding empirical evidence of an event. The course of the story is academically valid too.'

I chewed a mouthful of fluffy biscuit and spicy faux gravy and attempted to decipher that statement. Rhys translated. ‘He means, how a legend arises and where it spreads is sometimes as important as proving an actual event occurred. Like Prince Madoc's expedition here.'

The name startled me, but I had to swallow before I could ask, ‘Prince Maddox?'

‘Madoc,' the professor corrected, with a slightly different pronunciation. ‘That's the name of the Welsh prince who, according to legend, brought a band of settlers to the New World.' Seeing my confusion, he explained, ‘I was taken with the similarity of the name too. Madoc, Maddox Landing. But all my research points to its being coincidence.'

‘Except for the bluestone in the garden,' I said, glancing up to find Rhys watching me.

‘Yes. Fascinating, isn't it,' said the professor, relishing his mystery. I wish I felt the same about mine.

Gigi's bark interrupted the conversation, heralding an arrival at the back door. Rhys's quickly shuttered expression told me who it was, even before Shawn called out a hello. Speak of the devil and he'll appear – and enter without knocking.

Maybe that wasn't an entirely fair way to describe Shawn Maddox, but he was certainly at the heart of too much for me not to be wary of him. His high-wattage warmth filled the room, and I could still feel the tug of attraction, but now doubt kept me grounded. That, and the awkward awareness of Rhys bristling at his end of the table. It charged the air, and though no one else seemed to notice, I instinctively braced myself against the tension between them. Between the three of us.

Shawn was oblivious, or at least putting on a good show of it. Gigi had followed him in, and danced around his sneakers, pulling at his pants legs with her teeth. ‘Sylvie,' said Paula, with a sigh, ‘control your dog.'

‘I'll get her.' Seriously, you would think Gigi was
a two-hundred-pound slobbering Saint Bernard, the way my cousin acted.

Shawn grinned at me as I bent to unfasten Gigi from his jeans. ‘Good morning, gorgeous.'

‘Oh, don't even,' I said, to all of it. His overt flattery, my uncombed tangle of hair, the whole café fiasco, not to mention Rhys
sitting right there.

I carried Gigi outside and put her in her crate so she wouldn't offend Paula while I concentrated on the dynamics of dealing with Shawn. I could hear through the door as he greeted everyone. ‘Hey, Miz Paula, Miz Clara, Prof.' Then a low whistle. ‘That is some shiner you've got, English.'

Crap. That nickname was
not
going to go over well.

I slipped in behind Shawn and saw that Rhys wasn't bothering to hide the annoyance in his narrowed eyes. ‘It's Welsh, actually.'

Shawn gave a contrite wince. ‘Sorry. I thought Wales was part of England.'

‘It's part of Britain.' Rhys left ‘you moron' unspoken, but just barely.

‘Think of it like this,' the professor said more smoothly. ‘Calling us English is like calling you a Yankee.'

‘Actually,' said Paula, looking at him over her reading glasses, ‘it's like calling you a carpetbagger.'

‘Oh.' Shawn flashed a repentant grimace. ‘My apologies, then.'

My cousin nodded her approval, and I clamped my jaw to keep it from dropping. Was she kidding? Paula was letting him off the hook with that grin and the
good ol' country boy act? Regardless of his grasp of geography, Shawn would have to be an idiot not to have figured out by now that that nickname would needle Rhys. And Shawn was no idiot.

He turned to me, and I quickly schooled my expression. ‘Speaking of carpetbaggers,' he said, still smiling, ‘here's our own import from the North.'

‘Nice.' I folded my arms, shielding myself from that uncanny charm. ‘You're insulting everyone's origins today.'

Bumping my elbow with his own, he cajoled, ‘I'm just joshing with you guys. Rhys gets that, right?'

‘Sure,' said Rhys tightly. ‘I get
exactly
what you mean.'

I was amazed none of the adults seemed to pick up on the undercurrents. Or maybe they did, and attributed it to something natural and not the dynamics baffling me.

Shawn took Rhys at face value – or pretended to – and turned back to me. ‘Anyway. Don't be mad, because I come bearing gifts.'

In the confusion with Gigi, I hadn't noticed he'd carried in a canvas tote. As he held it out to me, I was surprised to see it was full of gardening tools – all of them new, with matching green and yellow handles.

‘For working in your garden,' he said, unnecessarily. ‘Here's hoping you put down some roots.'

The wording gave me pause. On one level, it was a cheesy pun, but on another, it was a reference to the tendrils of the past that kept drawing me in deeper, to Bluestone Hill and everything around it.

My emotions were hopelessly tangled. I was delighted with the tools, because now I could finish cutting back the nest of vines around my rock without giving myself carpal tunnel syndrome. But even without Rhys's warning, I had to wonder what Shawn was up to. And putting all
that
aside, I was confused why the gift didn't warm me from the inside out like a box of fake sausage had. I didn't think it was because the way to my heart was through my stomach.

‘Isn't that nice,' observed Paula, with the cheery note of a matchmaker. ‘You can put those to good use, Sylvie.'

‘Yes, I can.' I smiled a little stiffly at Shawn, aware of our audience. ‘Thank you.'

‘And it's not even Christmas,' said Clara, chuckling.

I covered my discomposure by looking through the pockets of the tote, trying to be genuinely grateful, despite my misgivings. ‘This is just what I need. And it was sweet of you to drive all the way out here just to give them to me.'