He swung his gaze to Win. “Begging your pardon, of course. But when your family purchased homes and land and repurposed the plantations surrounding them, at least they put it into this.” He gestured with a flourish. “I do not hold as much hope for today’s homebuyers.”
Win nodded, but the subtle reminder that Kit knew as much about his own history as that of the Holt’s was not lost on him. The gossip might not even realize what he knew, which was more of the problem.
“I can trust your discretion about everything we’ve discussed here tonight, I assume?” he asked of Kit, and the man once more was effectively distracted.
“Why, I can barely remember what we talked about, other than the quality of the dinner. I say and what is this?” Kit’s eyes widened as John stepped into the room once more, holding the door open for his wife. Mrs. Merrick carried forth three deserts on a tray that nearly made Kit weep with joy. “You cannot possibly tell me you’ve made Hummingbird Cake,” he said, his voice appropriately awed. “I may simply never leave!”
Kit did his level best to make good on that declaration, and by the time they completed the dessert, the house tour, and the post prandial brandy, it was well past ten o’clock. Win turned to Marguerite, having steeled himself for the proposal he was about to make, praying that she was so exhausted she’d go to her room immediately. Alone.
Very alone.
“I’m afraid the evening carried on a great deal later than I’d planned,” he said. “I’d be happy for you to remain as my guest here this evening, if you would like. There are several guest bedrooms, as you might imagine. I can have Mrs. Merrick show you to it. You’ll find the bathroom fully stocked with anything you might need, and as for tomorrow—”
“I brought a change of clothes,” Marguerite said, with such forthright candor Win found the words stilling in his throat.
“A change of—”
“I anticipated staying at a hotel, not anyplace as lovely as this, I have to say, but I knew Holt House was a fair drive away. Still, this is far better than any hotel.” She beamed at him. “I’d be delighted to accept your invitation, if it’s not an imposition.”
“Excellent.” Breathe, in and out. She thinks you’re eventually going to offer her a job, not have sex with her. “Then let me just ring for—”
But Marguerite cut him off. “Actually—if you’re not tired…”
She paused and in that moment, Win endured a thousand images winging through his mind. Marguerite in his arms, the two of them entangled in the sheets, her hair cascading over him—
“—drive?”
He blinked, his brain finally catching up to her words. A drive. She’d been asking if he’d be up for a drive—back to Holt House, of all God-forsaken places.
He didn’t bother hiding his surprise. “Now? It’s full on dark.”
“The moon’s out,” she said, pointing through the large bay windows. “And from what everyone is saying, the house cast whatever you called it—its spell on people best at night. Well, it’s night, and we’re here, and we still don’t know the entire story, I think. Who knows, maybe that old inscribed stone is still out there? And either way, if there’s something truly spooky going with the property, then I can’t think you’ll want to actually renovate it, no matter what you implied to Mr. Wellingford.”
Win drew himself up with false disdain. “I made no such inferences.”
“You absolutely did,” she laughed. “You’re a worse gossip starter than he is. You know he’ll be on the phone tomorrow trying to find some way to needle Constance about it—and that will inevitably get back to Holt. Do you really want to let the man’s hopes get built up if you’ve no intension on following through? No. We should go now.”
“But at night?” Win protested. “To that ragged old ruin?”
“It’s a lot closer than hauling me back to Sea Haven Island, and you were prepared to do that,” she pointed out.
He sighed, knowing when to accept the inevitable. “I can’t believe we’re doing this,” he muttered, but Marguerite was already on the move toward the front door.
“I’m sure it will be worth it.”
Chapter Eleven
Thirty minutes later, Marguerite was far less sure.
They sat in the back of Win’s town car, staring at the old house, now immeasurably scarier than it had been in the daylight. They weren’t alone, of course—the two bodyguards-slash-construction hands Frank and Stan now sat in the front of the vehicle, also quietly watchful. No one had said a word the entire drive over.
Now Win looked at her. “You still think this is a good idea? No exterior lights, remember, only the motion sensors near the house. And if we’re not careful, we may be attacked by spiders. Or a curious alpaca.”
Marguerite laughed ruefully. “I do feel foolish now. But…we’re here.”
“We are here.” Win turned back to the men in the front seat. “Stay close. I’m not worried about the alpacas as much as whatever is roaming wild around here. For all intents and purposes, this is an abandoned house. It’ll have its share of opportunistic wildlife.”
“Of course, sir,” said Stan, and Marguerite felt even more foolish. But she’d had to think fast, there in the foyer. There’d been no question that Win had been about to bundle her off to her own bedroom, not his, and she’d simply wanted more time with him. In truth she wasn’t remotely tired, but she thought—she thought if she could at least get close to that gazebo again, could remind Win of how he’d felt all those hours ago… had it only been hours?
Was she seriously thinking a gazebo had magical powers?
This was a dumb idea. Dumb. “I’m sorry I dragged you out here, Win. This makes no sense.”
Win, to his credit, managed not to groan at her foolishness. Instead he opened the door. “Let’s at least go ahead and look—I bet we can find the plaque Kit told us about. That might hold some clue.”
They picked their way around the building, following the path the men had forged earlier in the day, the grass not yet recovered from the passage of their heavy boots. To Marguerite’s intense relief, the moon did shine brightly down, making the canopy of trees somehow less gloomy at night than it had been during the day. Perhaps because she couldn’t see the destruction so clearly—everything around them was held in uniform shadow.
“It’s over to the left, I think, near the ponds…”
Kit’s explanation of the plaque’s location had been highly detailed. Apparently, the site of the marker had been a secret cherished by his great-grandfather, one little known to anyone outside the Holt’s then-circle of friends. By the time Dawson Holt had taken ownership years later, the detail had faded from everyone’s memory. But not the journalist’s.
“He laid a round manhole cover over it, but that was—what, in the 1940s. And there was pond to its right. Probably nothing much left of it now.” Win was talking under his breath, and if Marguerite wasn’t mistaken, his voice had already changed. It was—excited again, not the languid drawl he’d used at his own house, but something more vital, more alive.
She looked around the shadowy back yard and drew closer to him. If this was the only place she could hear him talk like this, there was no way their relationship would last. But for tonight, she’d take it.
“Sir.” A voice floated back from about twenty yards ahead of them, and Win turned in its direction. It continued without being prompted. “Manhole cover, as you said. Rusted clean through, but it’s here.
Rusted clean…Marguerite frowned. How had the wrought iron of the gazebo lasted so long, if the cover hadn’t? It’d be good to see them both in full daylight.
“Right behind you,” Win said. They came up quickly behind the men, one of whom, Frank, stood shining his light into tall grass. Marguerite could see the murky glint of the pond just beyond it. “Can you move it?”
He took the light from Frank and handed it to Marguerite, while Stan kept his on the woods around, sweeping it in low arcs. Whatever lay out in
the woods had quieted at their approach, and was probably watching them with as much trepidation as she was watching the shadows.
A moment later Win squatted next to Frank, and the two of them moved the lid, the orange dust scattering into the grass from what was left of the metal. Win grunted with satisfaction, drawing his fingers through something along the ground. “Well, at least that much is the truth.”
Marguerite stared down as Win stood again and gestured her forward. Sure enough, a marble plaque was set into the ground, the soil around it barren after so many years beneath its metal cover. “Love conquers all,” she read aloud. She shivered.
“So, we have our curse, or parts of it. Lifting it, however…” Win shifted, peering around the yard.
“Not a bad spot really,” Frank said.
“Elevation down to the river is good, ground is dry.” Stan piped up. “Get all this cleared out, reseed the gardens…”
“The gardens don’t grow,” Win reminded them. “That’s kind of the point.”
“Didn’t grow then, maybe. Now, who knows?” Frank was swinging his beam over to the gazebo. “Grass and bushes sure seem to have no problem growing. And if it really remains a problem, who’s to say we have gardens at all? Could have sculptures here, just as easy. Like that glass caster fellow made for the museum exhibit in Charleston.”
“Sculptures!” Marguerite could see the image as easily as the others, now. Instead of the flowers that had so marked this home in its prime, what if they did bring statuary and glass? “And the gazebo, too…all that scrollwork. It’s been buried for so long…”
Win stood next to her again, and she reveled in his nearness. All at once, the idiotic idea of coming out here seemed to be paying dividends, and she breathed in the deeply scented air around them, smelling of grass and earth. “To hear Kit talk, Constance Gibbs has all but employed spies to get the goods on this place, to no avail. Think she’ll be watching what we do?”
Frank snorted. “I think she’ll see dollar signs and a toehold into expanding her version of blight into the neighborhood. Woman’s worse than kudzu.”
Almost as one, the men turned and began moving back through the semi-darkness, the shadows falling away from their lights and chatter as they talked about what they could do to bring the house and lands back. Marguerite stared up at the old home as she walked, surprised that it didn’t look more forbidding, looming there in the dead of night as it was. It didn’t even seem as sad as she remembered it looking, earlier.
She smiled. Maybe it was seeing the alpaca in the back yard that helped. Maybe it was the kiss in the gazebo.
Or maybe it was the sight of that marker placed in a garden that had once overflowed with blossoms, with its eternally optimistic promise. Love conquers all.
“Careful!” Win caught her arm as Marguerite strayed slightly from the path and stumbled into a thicket of overgrown vines. She was temporarily surrounded by the close press of foliage, then Win plucked her free.
“You could get lost in those shadows,” Win said, but he kept hold of her hand, and all Marguerite could do was grin.
An owl hooted in the darkness, and a chorus of insects hummed as they emerged from behind the house and returned to the car. The building inspector-bodyguards were still going strong. “Stamped concrete, here—and here. Don’t need to go completely throwback, place already has A/C. Modern conveniences were part of restoration, and this place is remote. No use wasting money for something we’ll have to fix in three years.”
“No historical statutes this far out, we could do what we wanted,” Stan agreed, peering up at the façade of the house. “Be good to see what’s under all those creepers. I’m thinking a mess.”
Frank squinted up as well. “I’m thinking you’re right. But no worse than that place on Dodds’ Creek.”
Seeming to have forgotten her and Win, the two argued while Win opened the door to the vehicle, then slid in beside Marguerite. The others continued their banter as they moved back onto the main road.
Win looked at her in the darkness, and there was something…different, about his face, Marguerite thought. He looked relaxed again. Almost happy.
“I feel like I should be embarrassed for dragging you out like that, but—”
“Not at all,” Win said. “I should be angry I let you do it. Place could have been overrun with animals or worse. But—I’m not.” He quirked a smile, less studied than his usual. He reached out and brushed a few more leaves from her hair, and she gathered them up, tucking them into the cup holder. “We earned that adventure, putting up with Wellingford for a whole evening.”
Marguerite simply nodded and looked out the window, grateful for the covering noise of the building conversation in the front seat. Eventually, Win added his own observations, and by the time they reached the Grand, the discussion had moved on to demolition. The men were still arguing when they left Win and Marguerite at the front door, heading off down the sidewalk into the darkness.
“Where do they…?”
“Carriage House,” Win said. “Easier for them to be where I need them, and since most of the work I do while I’m in residence here is related to building, convenient.”
“Efficient,” Marguerite agreed. She followed him into the dimly-lit house, waiting while he secured the front door. She felt ever so slightly deflated that the evening was now officially over, but—
“Nightcap?” Win asked, cocking a brow.
“Yes,” she all but blurted. He reached for her hand and, startled, she took it, noting the way his body jolted as she touched him. Had he not meant to reach for her?
It didn’t matter though, he didn’t let go. They wound their way through the house once more, down the long crimson hallway, but this time they ended up in a small sitting room with an open balcony instead of a screened porch. A wet bar stood at one side, fully stocked, and Win gestured to the balcony.
“It’s pretty out there usually, on a starry night like this. I’ll be right there.”
She moved without response out toward the balcony, surprised that it held a large wicker settee and small table, but little else. It was the perfect, intimate space to enjoy a late-night drink, and without the barrier of screens, she could see all the way down to the river unimpeded. Lights flared along the dock, hazy in the damp air.
“You’re right, it’s beautiful,” she said, as Win joined her on the balcony. He held two drinks of a brilliant orange and red hue.
He held them up. “Guess,” he said.
She laughed. “Testing my bartending abilities?” she peered at them. “That’s definitely orange juice and…do I smell amaretto? I believe that’s a southern slammer.”
“These, Countess Saleri, are Alabama slammers. And trust me, should you ever have the opportunity to serve guests from the University of Alabama, they will be more than happy to explain the origin of the drink.”
“Noted.” She took a sip of the colorful concoction and nodded, settling it back on the small table behind them. She and Win were close—so close—that she had all the intoxication she needed. “Not bad. If your current efforts at being a billionaire desert you, you have a future in bartending.”
“I’ll take it under advisement.” He lowered his glass to the tray as well, then turned to her with an unexpectedly heavy sigh.
“Marguerite, there’s something important I feel you should—”
He broke off then, staring at her. It was exactly the same way he’d looked at her beneath the moon-filled sky at Holt House, and all the way home, too. As if his whole world rested in her, for at least this moment, and as if—
He leaned forward, and kissed her.
Win wasn’t sure what he was doing until his lips brushed against Marguerite’s. He’d felt off-balance the entire trip home, noting every movement she made, every breath, every sigh. Seeing her here was doing something strange to him. He’d never truly thought of this home, this place, as his. But in this moment, with her so close, he couldn’t imagine being
anywhere else—or with anyone else.
And now…
Marguerite sighed beneath him, her lips parting, and his thoughts fragmented. His hands came up and cradled her face, steadying her. This wasn’t like the surge of need he’d had in the gazebo earlier today, that wild, flaring heat. This was deeper, surer.
He pressed more firmly and Marguerite leaned back, her arms moving around him until her palms were flat against his back. She strained up then, her breasts pressed against his chest, and he could both hear and feel the wild pounding of her heart. Win pulled back, searching her eyes, and now that strange mania rose in him again, fast and impossible to deny.
“Marguerite—” he began, swallowed, and whatever she saw in his face seemed to frighten her. But before he could pull away, she tightened her hold.
“I know! I know,” she said, and Win blinked, suddenly confused. She continued as if she was afraid he’d shut her down. “I mean, you just broke off your relationship—your engagement—your whatever with Juliet. I know that was only yesterday but it seems like, I mean I thought that, I mean—”
Now she did release him, moving all the way to perch on the edge of the settee as she exhaled heavily. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean for all of that to come out in such a rush. But I completely understand if this is too soon, if you want to, I mean…” she flapped a hand, finally managing to finish lamely. “Whatever.”
This was it, this was the opening he needed. To explain himself, what he needed—why he needed it. But still Win hesitated. It seemed all so needlessly complicated, when it would be so much simpler to move forward, sigh against her lips…
He caught himself just in time, practically freezing mid-motion. “It’s not…it’s not too soon, Marguerite,” he said. “But there’s something you need to understand. This—whatever it is, between us. I don’t want you to think it will last. I can’t promise that. I’m miles away from promising that.”
“I wouldn’t want you to.”
Chosen: Gowns & Crowns, Book 7 Page 11
