Barefoot in the Dark

by Suzanne Enoch

  “Hmm.”

  He whipped to his feet, the torch raised like a weapon. Directly behind him Samantha stepped back, dodging his elbow with that easy fluidity of hers. “Christ,” he muttered. “I forget how quiet you are.”

  She sent him a crooked grin. “I’ll try to remember to wear my clompy shoes next time.” She nudged the toe of her Nikes against the wardrobe. “What happened in here? I heard it crash from all the way up in the attic.”

  For a moment he debated whether to say he’d knocked it over himself. She delighted in teasing him about supernatural happenings – and honestly since meeting her there had been one or two things that logic couldn’t quite explain. But a wardrobe toppling hardly ranked with the Amityville horror, and she would be all over it like a dog with a bone. Finally, he shrugged. “I figure the wind blew it over. It looks like the pine tree out there broke the window.”

  Samantha glanced from the window to the side wall and down to the upended wardrobe. “We should probably board the window up, then,” she said after a moment. “That wardrobe’s nearly three hundred years old.” She stepped around it and crouched. “Let’s get it out of the rain, shall we?”

  On the count of three they heaved it back upright and shoved it against the wall. Richard seriously doubted that she was convinced by his interpretation, but even given her tendency to jest about ghosties, an actual thing happening needed a more logical explanation.

  Once it was back in place she nudged it experimentally. It didn’t budge. Then she pulled open the double doors – and a mouse jumped out, ran down her leg, over her shoe, and into the shadows beneath the bed. “Hmm,” she said again, not even flinching.

  Richard folded his arms over his chest and leaned back against the doorframe. “A mouse just ran down your pants, you know.”

  “I know.” She gave another loose grin as she finished examining the wardrobe and then closed it up again. “Once I waited in an air duct for so long a rat pooped on my hand. When you have to be still, you have to be still.”

  “And here I thought you were all glitter and diamonds.”

  She faced him, pulling his arms apart and stepping into the open circle. “That’s the payoff,” she murmured, and leaned up along his body to kiss him. “And the wind didn’t do that.”

  For a long moment he occupied himself with kissing her back. She tasted faintly of chocolate; evidently, she’d found the kitchen. “Then what’s your explanation? Your genuine, logical explanation.”

  She moved back a little, so she could look him in the eyes. “Logically, I think I don’t know. Yet.”

  “I didn’t expect that,” he returned, deciding that today, in Scotland and with the rain outside, her eyes were the color of new leaves. Tilting her chin up with his fingers, he kissed her again, still relishing in the way she now sought him out. For a time, he’d thought he was the only one doing the pursuing.

  “Yeah, well, once is an aberration. If it happens again, I’m going straight to blaming the ghost of your old great Grandpa Bob.”

  “That would be great Grandpa Macrath,” he corrected. “And he collected fine furniture. I don’t think he would risk scratching it, even in death.”

  Something unreadable crossed her expression for a moment, and then she grabbed her fingers into his hair to pull his face down for another kiss. “Let’s go find some more bedchambers to explore,” she whispered.

  His cock jumped, even with the mice and dust and cold, flinging drops of rainwater. “I think the master bedchamber is mouse free,” he returned, digging his fingers into the waistband of her jeans. Not putting cameras throughout this big, old castle was quite possibly the most brilliant thing he’d done – not that he’d ever given it much thought in the first place.

  “Chicken.”

  Richard lifted an eyebrow. “You want your naked arse rolling about in the damp and dust, then?”

  She licked his throat in a way that had his eyes rolling back in his head. “I figured it would be your arse on the floor. The…” Samantha trailed off, her muscles beneath his hands tensing as she turned toward the window.

  A moment later he heard it as well, the low, rhythmic thrum of blades cutting through the wet air. He started to curse, until he remembered that he’d invited the helicopter’s occupants to join them here. “I am getting tired of people interrupting us before we can even do anything worth interrupting,” he muttered anyway, changing his grip to her hand.

  “We can still hide in the attic,” she suggested, and he wasn’t entirely certain she was joking. “I made a clean spot.”

  He leaned his forehead against hers. “Fuck.” Then, before she could invent some reason to vanish into the hundred-room castle, he tightened his grip and towed her toward the hallway. “Let’s go meet my family.”

  For some reason the old movie The Haunting of Hill House kept running through Samantha’s mind as she and Rick descended the stairs to the main floor of Canniebrae. In particular she recalled the part where Dr. Markway’s wife vanished into the bowels of the house for the duration of the movie. She could totally do that too, pop her head down from the attic once in a while, sneak down to the kitchen in the middle of the night for snacks.

  In fact, there was only one problem with that scenario. First, she’d become accustomed to spending her nights in bed with Rick – both for sex and for the way he made her feel not precisely safe, but…connected. To him, and to the world. That was important to her. It was easy for someone who slipped into places solo, who lived by night, to become disconnected from the world. To see people as nothing more than marks or targets. Her father had fallen into that trap, and the world had become about nothing but what it could give him. The next score, the false feeling of being the only human with a brain in his head, and in the end, it had gotten him caught.

  She wrenched her thoughts back to the present, to her reasons for not wanting to meet Rick’s uncle and aunt and cousin. To the reason she was tempted to slip behind the walls and vanish. Because they might not like her. Sure, she could be charming, and she could carry on a conversation with the best of them, and in several languages. But Rick would want her to be herself. She wanted to be herself. Very few people in the world had ever met the real Samantha Elizabeth Jellicoe. She could count them on two fingers, in fact: Rick, and Stoney.

  Rick had told them she was an art restorer and now a security and art retrieval expert. All of that was true; she’d been working at an art museum when Stoney had signed her up for the break-in job at Solano Dorado. She was out of the game now. Hell, in a few months she would be getting married. But parts of her still didn’t quite accept that this was anything more than a really awesome dream, even after a year in Rick’s company.

  “How long has it been since you’ve met them face-to-face?” she asked, as half a dozen footmen gathered in the foyer, ready for a dash through the rain to the helicopter for luggage.

  “Five or six years for my aunt and uncle. Not since my wedding, anyway.”

  “Well, it’s nice that you get together whenever you get married, then,” she returned, squinting one eye.

  “Samantha,” he said, his tone saying that he didn’t like the comparison.

  “What? They’ll be comparing me to Patricia at her best. You know, when her clothes had names and she employed a hair stylist and never carried her own shopping bags.”

  “Reggie tried to throw me a divorce party, if that makes you feel any better.” He took a breath. “And no, I didn’t attend. I wasn’t in the mood.”

  “Was he being thoughtful, or did he want to throw a party?”

  Rick shook his finger at her. “No, you don’t. You figure them out for yourself. Other than a handful of third and fourth cousins, they are my only relations. You decide how you wish to view them.”

  “And they’ll be deciding how to view me.” Had she said that out loud? Crap. “I mean, I’ve been a lot of people. Some of them are better than I am.”

  “I don’t care which face you decide to sh
ow them, my dear,” he said, surprising her to her bones.

  “You don’t?”

  “No. Just make it one you’re comfortable with, because you’ll have to bring it out and wear it at holidays.”

  While she was still digesting that particular morsel, Yule threw open the front door, popped open his black umbrella – brolly – and led the charge out to the helicopter pad. The footmen followed in ragged, kilt-wearing unison. Samantha started forward, reaching for one of the half-dozen brollies left in the coat rack, but Rick held her back.

  “We’ll wait here,” he said.

  “Strategy?”

  “Everything means something,” he returned, echoing one of her favorite sayings. “But this morning, I’d just prefer to stay dry. Plus, they interrupted sex. That does not make me happy.”

  She smiled. “I’m cool with that.”

  In truth, she was perfectly happy to give herself another few seconds. Hell, she’d begun break-ins that made her less nervous than meeting Rick’s family. This wasn’t the anticipatory kind of tension, either, where the payoff was a great big adrenaline rush and a million dollars. This was just having to be on her best behavior for God knew how long and hoping she survived. And more importantly, that this…thing between her and Rick survived. Because she was pretty sure she wasn’t ready to go back to navigating the world without him.

  “Ready?”

  Through the open doorway the herd of umbrellas closed on them like angry bats. Samantha squared her shoulders. “Bring it.”

  5

  Wednesday, 4:38 p.m.

  Rick hated being without wi-fi. If he hadn’t been so obviously pissed off, Samantha would have thought he might have picked Canniebrae for his family reunion just so she couldn’t look up his relatives online. Of course, she’d had a year to do just that and hadn’t bothered. That, even though in her first dig for information about him she’d read that he had some. She could say it was because she didn’t have any – none that she cared to become reacquainted with, anyway – but now it seemed lazy. And she was about to pay for her ignorance.

  The lead umbrellas tilted up to spit out a quartet of heavily-coated people into the foyer. As they shrugged out of their rain gear she let Rick take a step forward without her, using the seconds to do a quick visual assessment. Aunt and uncle, with Rowland at first glance bearing a passing resemblance in the chin and mouth to Rick. Reginald seemed to have wedged himself behind Yule, but that left her with a good look at the Nordic statue shaking her blonde locks from a wool hat. Unless Rick had a secret, adopted female cousin who hailed from Valhalla, Reggie had a girlfriend.

  “I have to say, that All Access show didn’t do you justice.”

  Samantha nodded, stepping up beside Rick again as his cousin moved out from behind the butler. “It was the telephoto lens. You’d be Reginald, then, I assume,” she said, and stuck out her hand. Whoever she ultimately decided to be for clan Addison’s holidays and get-togethers, it would be someone they liked. Hopefully.

  In a sense she was grateful that Reginald Addison mentioned the stupid television piece first off. It set her back up, which calmed her nerves. Now that he’d made himself visible, she took a look at him. Dark hair, shorter and straighter than Rick’s, handsome in that smooth, slightly-too-pretty way that British aristocracy seemed to have, and a little less slender than his lean, hard cousin. New shoes, freshly-shaven, and a heavy blue sweater – or jumper, rather, according to Bridget Jones – that nicely brought out the color of his eyes. It likely wasn’t fair to Reginald, but the thought that immediately came to her mind was that he was Rick-light.

  He shook her hand, inclining his head in that almost unconscious aristocratic way that said he was being a good sport by chatting with her. Then he stepped aside, gesturing at the towering goddess who swayed into the circle of his arm. “My special friend, Eerika Nyland. Eerika, Samantha Jellicoe and my cousin, Richard Addison.”

  “Reginald talks about you all the time, my lord,” Norway said in a smooth English accent. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.” She offered her hand. “And you as well, Miss Jellicoe.”

  Rick shook her hand. “Miss Nyland.”

  “Oh, Eerika, please.” She chuckled, tucking a strand of Thor-colored hair behind one ear. “We’re practically family, after all.”

  Rick was taller than the Viking, though not by much. Samantha in her deck shoes barely weighed in a five-foot-five. Eerika of course wore three-inch red heels, the spikes now muddy brown with bits of grass hanging on them. But hey, they’d probably looked great on the shelf.

  While the Viking hand-wrestled Rick, Samantha looked over to see Reginald gazing at her. “So, you’re the one who landed my cousin,” he mused, taking her hand again. “Reggie.”

  “Sam. It was mutual.” Yeah, she could be charming as fuck, but if this was going to turn into a “look at the grabby, gauche American”, she was going to stop being nice.

  “Art retrieval, eh? You’ll have to tell me about it.” Reggie gestured toward the older couple standing behind them. “My mum and dad, Lady Mercia and Lord Rowland Addison. Mum, dad, Samantha Jellicoe.”

  “I believe you’re stepping on my lines, Reg,” Rick said, moving in smoothly to take her hand in his again. He leaned down to peck his diminutive aunt on the cheek, then held out his free right hand. “Uncle Rowland. It’s good to see you. Thank you for joining us up here. All four of you.”

  The tall, broad-shouldered man with the close-cropped black and gray hair smiled as he shook Rick’s hand with both of his. At second look she could see the similarities around the eyes, too. As the younger brother to the former Marquis of Rawley, Rowland would carry the courtesy title of “lord”, and he could lend it to his wife, but nobody else in that line of the family could be lorded. Unless Rick died without an heir, that was. Then Rowland would become the Marquis of Rawley, himself, with the title and properties then going to Reggie.

  It was all weird, and the disposition of noble titles had no doubt led to more patri-, fratri-, and matricide than anything else she could think of but the plague. All she’d ever done was steal some rocks and scribbles and shit. Okay, precious gems and priceless paintings, but still.

  “It’s lovely to finally meet you, Samantha,” Lady Mercia said in a fairy godmother voice right out of Cinderella. She was heavier-set than her husband, expensively dressed, but a little dowdy even so. She had golden-blonde hair in a modified “Princess Di” bob, but Samantha would have been willing to bet serious cash that blonde hadn’t been Mercia’s natural hair color even before she’d begun dyeing it to hide the gray.

  “I’m glad you could come,” Samantha said when Rick squeezed her hand. Dammit, she knew better than to stare. Especially when a mark – or a future in-law, rather – was looking right back at her. “I think Rick’s ready to move into the inn down the road, though.”

  “Nonsense,” he countered, the barest thread of annoyance in his voice. “All Canniebrae needs is some more reliable electricity and internet. And a bit of patching.”

  And some mouse traps, Samantha thought to herself, but kept her mouth shut. Clearly this wasn’t one of those families who could joke about each other’s weaknesses or failings. Not in the foyer after five years apart, anyway. Not with Norway and the thief there to overhear. Hell, she didn’t know that much about family dynamics to begin with.

  “Where are you stashing us?” Reggie asked, stepping sideways as the footmen charged back in, handing umbrellas over to Yule and then trotting up the stairs with a great deal of luggage in tow. She was kind of surprised the helicopter had been able to carry it all. “Not in the haunted wing, I hope. I’ll never be able to sleep with your great aunt Sophia walking up and down the hallway all night crying for her wee bairns.”

  “Oh, tell me more,” Samantha said, slipping free of Rick and wrapping her arm around Reggie’s. Whether she believed in spooks other than the government ones or not, any tales about Rick’s ancestors intrigued her.

  “I do
n’t even think I had a great aunt Sophia,” Rick commented from behind her. Valhalla had confiscated his arm, she noticed. Floozy.

  “Oh, don’t listen to him,” Reggie countered, grinning at her as they ascended the grand staircase behind the luggage. “He has no imagination.”

  That made her smile. “I don’t know about that.”

  “Thank you, Samantha.”

  Reggie clearly had a good share of the Addison line’s charm. Behind Rick and Eerika, his aunt and uncle were talking about the state of the castle, focusing their commentary on the fine mahogany railings and the antique side table in the foyer. Despite the rundown state of Canniebrae, then, they weren’t going to criticize it, or their nephew. Were they being British and polite, or did Rick’s money and position have them bowing and scraping?

  “How old is this bloody wallpaper?” Reggie asked, tapping it with one finger as they reached the landing. “I swear I remember it from the last time we were here.”

  “Did you summer here with Rick and his parents, then?” Samantha jumped in. She wasn’t certain whether she was being herself or not, but she did want to know how these family dynamics played out before she stepped where she shouldn’t.

  “Yes, you must tell us. Samantha and I are horribly curious,” the Norway added, her heels muffled on the carpet runner that went up the length of the staircase.

  “We generally came up in what, early August?” Lord Rowland commented.

  “Yes, dear. And stayed through the middle of September. I remember returning to London just as the leaves were beginning to turn, like they are now. It’ll be pleasant to see them in all their splendor.”

  Wow. That sounded so…English. It was kind of endearing, really. Honestly, endearing was the last thing Samantha expected from anybody Rick had kept away from her for the entire length of their acquaintance. Hell, if she hadn’t read up on him, yesterday would have been the first time she’d even heard that he had living relatives. Or maybe he’d kept her away from them. Hmm. She didn’t much like that thought. Sure, he didn’t like her past, but did it…embarrass him? Did she embarrass him?