Chosen: Gowns & Crowns, Book 7

by Jennifer Chance

  “The only shot we really had to go on, yep.”

  Win nodded. Suddenly, Constance Gibb’s disparagement of the house and grounds seemed more justified. If she was going from that ruined gazebo and the house as viewed from a distance, it was no wonder that—

  A scream ripped through the still afternoon. Win turned but Stan was already out the room like a shot, pounding down the stairs, both Win and Frank clattering down behind him. They hit the first floor and Stan dashed into the library, then bolted right back.

  “Not there.” The scream wasn’t repeated.

  “Marguerite!” Win called and a second later, he was in a short hallway that opened on to the dining hall on one side and some sort of sitting room on the other.

  Her response was immediate. “I’m fine—Sorry! I’m fine! It’s just—well, it’s—”

  He yanked open another heavy door, and an enormous kitchen opened up in front of him, with Marguerite at the far end.

  “It’s—there just were so many of them. And, and—the one, it was so big.” Her words were becoming a stammer, and shock was etched across her face as she pivoted toward him. But she couldn’t seem to move. She stood, almost transfixed, in front of another open door, which clearly led out to the back veranda. And there, on the dirty wooden planks of the painted porch, was a mass of webbing so thick it could have been a prop in a horror movie.

  “Good God,” Win muttered, reaching Marguerite and pulling her into the lee of his arms as Frank stepped past her. The construction vet pushed out the screened door and edged forward, his gaze fixed on something Win couldn’t see.

  “There you are, old girl,” he said, his voice low. “Get all your babies out of here while you can. We won’t hurt you.”

  “S-spiders.” Marguerite’s shaking voice was half-awed, half-queasy. “And I’ve seen my share of spiders. But there were so many of them. And then—then that thing…”

  “Mama’s a big girl,” Frank said gruffly, and Win noticed the burly man didn’t move forward to harass the creature. “She’ll be on her way—there you go, sweetheart. Keep moving too, because we’re going to be back.”

  A minute or so later, Frank stood. Marguerite freed herself from Win’s hold, and he let her go, ignoring the twinge of regret.

  With one gloved hand, Frank cleared away the worst of the webbing and a few supporting twigs as well. Win pushed out onto the screened porch, with Stan and even Marguerite on his heels, as Frank pulled down yet more debris to let sunshine onto the back porch.

  “Screened, or used to be.” Frank said, poking at a panel of thickly coated mesh. “Pretty flimsy, though.” He peeled a section of it down, revealing their first unobstructed view toward the back lawn.

  Stan, for his part, walked back and forth quickly, then turned and gave Win the thumbs up. “Porch is structurally sound,” he said. “That’s kind of a shock, considering…”

  He gestured to the gardens beyond, and Marguerite and Win followed the movement, though they couldn’t see much. A series of clogged ponds, little more than breeding grounds for insects, peeked through the high grass, and the gazebo was a total ruin, overgrown with more of the creeping ivy and carrying on the distinctive horror movie motif.

  Win turned and surveyed Marguerite’s outfit—long sleeves, long pants—and she caught him looking. “I’m fine to go out there,” she said, the strength now back in her voice. “I want to see what’s beyond that gazebo. It seems more—open, I think.”

  He nodded, and a moment later, Frank had shoved the old door open on the porch. They all made their way down the short flight of wooden steps…then spent several minutes arguing over what could be done with the back yard. All for theoretical purposes, of course.

  While Frank and Stan circled around to re-enter the house, Win and Marguerite picked their way across the back yard, which extended further than he realized—the gazebo had easily been thirty feet around, with long-ago overgrown pathways leading to and around it in winding trails. These had to have been part of the famed Holt gardens, but it was tough to picture how they must have looked all these years later.

  Eventually, they reached the end of what had once been manicured space, and followed a narrow trail through a tight knot of trees. Within a few minutes, however, the trees gave way to a gentle slope that angled down toward a wide curve of the river. A broken-down dock was all that remained of whatever had stood here once, time and the elements long since breaking down any beams and boards.

  “Can’t you just imagine it?” Marguerite asked, and Win looked at her, surprised.

  “Imagine what?”

  “What this must have been like! There couldn’t have been much commercial traffic this far up the river so it would have been perfect for boating. And the trees—no farmland on this side of the river for sure.” She tilted her head. “Holt said the family didn’t farm though, right?”

  “Blacksmiths. The—well, the slaves and then the freemen of Holt House were known for blacksmithing. There were…” he turned back toward the house, wondering for the first time about other outbuildings. “I don’t know where their facilities were, though. That’s strange.”

  “Well, still. It’s a beautiful building and grounds, even with the spiders and the curse and…” she sighed. “It’s a shame that it was abandoned. I can see Mr. Holt’s dilemma—the house itself would be worth a fortune if they could get the rest of the place restored. But if he can’t force himself to sell it…or to fix it…”

  “An attractive nuisance, is what it is,” Win said, looking back to the grounds as well. From here, the place looked like a wreck of epic proportions. Even getting machines in here to clean everything up would be a ridiculous expense, with as thick as the trees were at the point of entry. They’d have to fight their way even to get to the worst of the damage.

  Once again, he frowned. He wasn’t buying this place, and he sure as hell wasn’t renovating it. He needed no more roots in the deep south than those he already had.

  “So, now we’ve seen it.” Marguerite said, and Win realized with a jolt that they’d drifted toward each other again. On some level, he knew he should step away from her, but she had received a terrible fright. He could be excused for staying close. “What do you suppose cursed this old place?”

  For a moment, Win couldn’t bring himself to respond. Because from where he stood, near enough to Marguerite Saleri that he could touch her, and with the prospect of a dismal marriage no more on his horizon for the moment…Holt House was pretty much all right by him.

  Chapter Seven

  Marguerite realized with a start that she was standing far too close to Win. Then her phone chirped, and she grabbed it. He barely nodded as she stepped away, his gaze once more on the dock.

  Had he noticed her reaction to him? Surely, he had to have noticed. She’d been practically hanging onto him, as if he wasn’t engaged, as if he wasn’t about to be married, as if he…

  She saw the caller was Cindy, and she put the phone to her ear. “Is everything okay?”

  “With me, absolutely. But some news you should probably know while you’re out exploring attics with the Lowcountry bachelor of the year.”

  Marguerite frowned, but she obligingly took several more steps off the path, deeper into the grass. “Win? He’s not a bachelor.”

  “He is as of yesterday, from what I’m hearing. Our inside guy at the Cypress said the entire brunch set is about to burst with the gossip.”

  “Your inside…” Marguerite shut her eyes. Of course Rallis Security would have put a plant in the waitstaff. That’s probably how Rob had learned about her chat with Holt. Then her mind caught up with Cindy’s words. “Wait…they called off the wedding? Win and Juliet?”

  “Word is, she dumped him for some financial guy, bigger than Win is in South Carolina, but nowhere near the assets internationally. I guess she doesn’t plan to travel much.”

  “Was she…upset?” Marguerite swung back toward Win. Why hadn’t he said anything?

>   “Not from what anyone could tell. No one expects Win to be upset, for the record. The word here is that he dodged a nuclear bomb, not a bullet, but you didn’t hear that from me.” Cindy chuckled. “You didn’t hear any of this from me, actually. It’s all gossip but…seems like pretty reliable gossip. Wanted you to know.”

  “Ah—thanks. Thanks, yes. I appreciate it.”

  Cindy rang off and Marguerite stood a moment longer, staring at the river. So Win was free…but he wasn’t telling her? Why?

  The obvious answer was that he didn’t want to encourage her, of course. Was that it? Could that be possible?

  “Yes, it could be possible,” she muttered to herself. “You’re not that impressive, Marguerite Saleri.”

  And yet, when she turned back to Win, he instantly waved, gesturing her back toward him. As she approached, she realized he also had his phone in his hand.

  He gestured with it. “Checked in with the others. They’re going to be awhile inside, Frank says. Should we explore some more?”

  Marguerite took in Win’s bright eyes and tousled hair, and most of all his eager, challenging smile. Was he truly not interested in her? Or was it just too soon? It had been less than a day, after all.

  Pushing those thoughts aside, she refocused. “What are they doing inside?”

  “More structural assessment, but also seeing if there’s anything hidden in the walls we didn’t detect before. That includes dry rot and splintered beams, but also empty spaces where there aren’t supposed to be any, hidden staircases…” He winked. “And your run-of-the-mill lost pirate treasure chest.”

  She laughed at the unexpected comment, and it seemed like the world held its breath for an instant, the sun that much more dazzling as it edged out from behind the clouds, the breeze that much cooler. Win stowed his phone in his pocket, then lifted his hand as if to reach for her. Just as smoothly, though, he shifted direction and pointed.

  “I think we should check out that gazebo, if we can get close to it. I just can’t believe it’s in as bad a shape as it is, when everything else is so well cared for.”

  “Of course,” Marguerite said. Win led the way back toward the house, pushing aside some of the denser overgrowth when they got closer to the gazebo. He’d been reaching for her hand, she knew he had, but then he’d stopped. Why? Could he be, what, grieving?

  He didn’t seem like he was grieving, though.

  Should she ask him? But how would she explain how she knew?

  Marguerite had fallen behind as she’d pondered, and when Win exclaimed in surprise ahead of her, she could barely see him through the thick foliage.

  “Marguerite?” he called, then she heard him coming back for her. “Come on, you’ve got to see this!”

  Holding the branches aside for her to duck under, he stepped back in line with her—and this time he did take her hand, without hesitation.

  “Watch your step—” His eyes were on the ground, and Marguerite was about to scold herself again—of course he was simply making sure she didn’t fall, what else did she expect of the man?—when he tugged her forward, clearly excited.

  “So Holt said the ancestors of Holt House had made their money in smithwork. But blacksmithing is a dirty job, and needs a lot of open space, and also easy access to the road, if you want any sort of traffic.”

  She nodded. “Probably explains why he spent all his money on the house, instead of growing his operation.”

  “Maybe, but something else about the plantation owners back then, they were very aware that highly skilled workers were in short supply. Unskilled—yes, you could have those at your disposal pretty easily. But skilled? Not so easily. Yet here Holt was with a household full of them.”

  Marguerite caught on. “He farmed them out for a fee, didn’t he?”

  “Makes sense. Explains why there’s no large barn and blacksmithing shop here. In fact, I still haven’t found anything close to a smithy. But this…” They were approaching the gazebo now, and she looked up at it. It was completely overrun with what she thought was Virginia Creeper but could also be a vine she’d been told of called kudzu. Apparently, kudzu had almost overrun the Cypress Resort’s property before they’d come in to start building. It grew at an astonishing rate and overwhelmed any structure in its path.

  Win didn’t seem to mind it though, drawing her into the thickest part of the thick, ropy strands. A moment later she understood why. A knot of the vines had been ripped away from the roofline, creating a narrow passage. “You’ve been inside?” she asked.

  “Only to poke my head in. But it’s worth the look, I’m telling you.”

  Bemused, she let him lead her forward. In a few short hours, Win was undoing all the presuppositions she’d had about him. Far from being the aloof, disdainful Adonis she’d believed him to be, now his eyes were alight with interest, his face radiating excitement. Was it this place, she wondered? Cut off from everything, like something out of Grimm’s Fairy Tales? Was it because of their mission to figure out why Holt was so convinced the property was cursed?

  Was it her?

  “Close your eyes as you step in, then open them again, it’ll help you adjust—I’ve got you.”

  He did, too. His hand remained firmly clasped around hers, the feel of him warm and steady as the temperature dropped slightly in the shade of all the vines but the humidity increased about a hundred and fifty percent. Marguerite closed her eyes as instructed, hesitating only slightly when Win said. “Okay—you’ll want to see to take the steps. Open your eyes.”

  She did, barely managing a startled, “Oh!”

  Buried beneath the thick canopy of creeper vines and Spanish moss, the gazebo did indeed look like something out of a fairy tale. The wood from its roof had fallen in at several places, but what she could see now was that the infrastructure of the gazebo wasn’t wood at all, but wrought iron. A delicate skeleton of arcing spindles all met at the top of the structure, dented in but not shattered by the fallen tree. A round band of metal wrapped the spindles at their base, and then nearly a dozen stout poles comprised the anchors of the gazebo, bracing its wooden walls.

  “Three steps here,” Win murmured behind her and she stopped just short of tripping over the first one, surprised to see the telltale glint of more metal.

  “The stairs too?”

  “The whole thing, to some extent. Which explains why it hasn’t rotted into the ground.”

  “But why isn’t it more rusted—with all this moisture?”

  “An excellent question.” There was rust on the bars, of course, but nowhere near as much as there should be, given how many years had no doubt passed since the structure had last been cared for. And when Marguerite topped the short flight of stairs and looked at the floor, she gasped.

  “Win!”

  “Can you imagine…” His words broke off as they both stared at the floor of the immense gazebo, the pattern of intricate scrollwork with inlaid wood almost perfectly preserved under the heaping mass of foliage.

  “But how come this hasn’t become some animal’s warren?” Marguerite asked. Win dropped her hand to move across the floor, still studying its pattern. “There’s hardly any evidence that anything living’s been under here.”

  “No clue.” Win looked around, clearly as surprised as she was. “Maybe the iron didn’t prove habitable? Didn’t smell right, or—or whatever they mixed into it to keep it from rusting didn’t smell right.” He leaned closer to a bar, using his knife to chip away at some of the rust. “This is just on the surface. Otherwise these bars are damned near perfect.”

  Marguerite shook her head. “Why would anyone choose to leave a house like this—even if the flowers weren’t growing anymore? Holt hasn’t been here in how long?”

  She realized that Win had moved closer to her. “Ten years, he said. And he shivered when he said it. I don’t think this place holds many good memories for him anymore.”

  “But it’s so beautiful…” she craned her neck to peer toward the sk
y, the sun breaking through the canopy of thick overgrowth to land in dappled patterns on the floor. “It’s as if we’re caught in our own private world here, with nothing and no one to see.”

  “Nothing and no one,” Win echoed, and the strange timbre of his voice shivered through her. She turned to see him watching her, his face set with intensity. He was going to turn away, she knew. Turn away and let this moment pass.

  And whether Win was grieving or not, she didn’t especially care anymore. As terrible as that was, it was true.

  She wanted this moment, more than she’d wanted anything in a very long time. Even if she was the one who had to ask for it.

  “Would you…would you mind kissing me, Win?”

  The question was so unexpected, but so undeniably what his own brain was clamoring for, that Win was sure he misunderstood, sure he was imagining his own desires coming to life. But when his gaze snapped to Marguerite’s she was standing there, close to him—closer to him than before. He hadn’t done that, though he’d kept finding himself nearer to her than he wanted to be, like a moth circling a flame.

  Marguerite was staring at him expectantly, but he still couldn’t trust himself, couldn’t believe he’d heard correctly. “Did you—?”

  Marguerite’s immediate blush confirmed he hadn’t been mistaken, and she rushed to say more. “I’m sorry,” she said, her accent suddenly thicker in her embarrassment. “I didn’t mean—I mean, of course I shouldn’t—I mean—” she turned away. “Never mind. You’re ah…” she cleared her throat. “Engaged.”

  “I’m not.” The words were out before he could stifle them, but as Marguerite turned back to him, her expression completely unreadable, he forced himself to tell the truth. “We—Juliet and I—broke things off yesterday. Definitively. Most assuredly.”

  “Oh.” Her face was still crimson, even in the half shadows of the gazebo, and she clasped her hands together, clearly as trapped by the conversation as he was. “I’m…well, then I’m not sorry, I guess. But still, I should never have, I mean, that was unforgivably forward of me to—”