Hargrove House: The Haunted Book One

by Allie Harrison

  The next thing she knew he was whisking her into their room. Quietly as to not frighten their children, he closed the door and pressed her against it. With his fingers laced through hers over her head, and his lips hungrily on hers, he made passionate quick love to her standing up.

  He had always been a passionate, competent, resourceful and considerate lover. His want and need for her had only grown during their fourteen years of marriage. And yet, he had never done anything so bold and daring as to make love to her against the door during a party while guests danced above their heads and their children were awake just a room away. The excitement of it left her feeling as if she soared through the clouds and couldn’t catch her breath.

  And even now, hours later, the pit of her stomach still tingled and the bodice of her gown grew tighter around her breasts as she thought of it.

  “Alice?” her voice echoed through the large empty room. She had every intention of telling Alice to go to bed and take care of all the mess tomorrow.

  “Happy birthday, sweet Victoria.”

  Startled, she turned and met the gaze of Will’s brother Nathan as he came into the ballroom from the stairs. A cold shiver of fear raced up her back and terror clutched at her heart.

  “What are you doing here? I know Will told you you weren’t invited.” Secondly, he was here so late in the night. “Besides, the party is over. The guests are gone.” Her children were in bed. Her husband waited for her. She worked to swallow past the lump in her throat.

  “I know the guests are gone. That’s how I prefer it. But the real party is just about to begin,” Nathan said.

  His words sent a shudder through her. “What do you want?” It took every bit of strength to keep her words from trembling.

  The evil that touched her with his grin turned her heart cold. “The same thing I’ve always wanted, Darling. Your husband’s money and you…”

  She noticed for the first time there was blood on his hands and on his clothes. Somehow she knew it wasn’t his blood. And she screamed. And screamed. And screamed…

  Torrie woke feeling as if she were drowning and couldn’t breathe. At least she didn’t think she woke screaming. The house was completely still, so she must not have awakened anyone else in the house. She sat up so suddenly, the action sent a spark of pain from her ankle up to her hip. The gasp that escaped her came from a combination of pain and the residue of dream that still lingered.

  Gray light of the early dawn bled through the windows. The sounds of rain still pattered on the roof. She worked to calm her breathing as she listened to the rain and the silence of the house. At least there were no sounds from the cellar.

  What was even more noticeable than the lack of noise in the cellar and the rain was the vision in Torrie’s head and the cold that swept through her at the continued absence of Will. The fire before her was now cold and dead. Torrie snuggled deeper into the blanket.

  What had she dreamed? She couldn’t remember, not completely. She only knew it had something to do with the house. Had there been a party in the ballroom? Perhaps. Had she danced? She thought she had. Her foot ached from dancing, even now.

  Then she remembered. Nathan and the blood on his hands.

  Will…

  The children…

  She had to check on them, make sure they were all right.

  She tossed the blanket to the side and ignored the cold as she worked her way to being vertical. Where were her clothes? Strewn around the room, she discovered. The night of passion with Will now brought heat to her cheeks and warmed her as she clumsily dressed.

  It was nearly impossible to hobble to the desk where Will had left her computer and her purse. After about a third of the way, she debated whether to drop to her knees and crawl. And by then she found it was not too painful if she didn’t bend her foot. In fact, as long as she was careful, she could put weight on her foot. It was when she flexed it to take a step that the pain reminded her of the injury. “I guess all I have to do is clomp around like Frankenstein’s monster, and I’ll be all right,” she said out loud.

  Carefully, her bare feet cool on the floor, she made her way out of the parlor. She stopped for a visit in the mud room, knowing full well that with her slow going she should take every opportunity to stop in there given she couldn’t get there in a hurry. Then she made her way to the kitchen. It was early, but she wouldn’t have been surprised, and she would have been greatly relieved to see the children eating breakfast, but the kitchen was dark and empty. “Okay so maybe they’re all still asleep,” she said out loud. It was a feasible thought, making perfect sense. So why did her heart suddenly pound in her chest.

  She glanced out the kitchen window that looked out into the back yard and into the grove of trees where the gazebo was hidden. The rain turned to soft drizzle that pattered on the porch. In the soft gray light of dawn, she saw movement and thought she saw a glimpse of Eleanor and Alexander and a third child before the trees hid them completely. There was a wooden slat-seat swing hanging from a large branch of the tree Eleanor had pointed out the day of lunch in the gazebo. It eerily swung to and fro. Torrie leaned closer to the window as if that would help her to see better. Had there been three children? Had there been any children at all? Or had it just been a play of falling shadows and movement of the trees as day tried to force its way through darkness? Torrie stared at the grove of trees as if staring harder would replay the action. Of course, it didn’t. Still, she was pretty certain she’d seen three children run into the grove of trees. But what were the children doing out there this time of morning? It was cool and damp, and Alexander was just getting over a cold. And who was the third child? If there really had been a third child.

  Where was Will?

  It was time to find him. He might still be asleep. Either way, he needed to know she thought his children were outside in the morning rain. Besides, he should help her get her car free. When she looked all the way to her left out the window, she saw her car was still parked at the odd angle, so it was still stuck. She needed to head home, get a change of clothes. She’d have to wear the sweats home and return them when she came back later. And she would be back—just as soon as she changed. She had a lot of work to do to finish off the third bedroom.

  But first she had to make sure the Dalton family was safe. The nightmare of the blood on some a man’s hands still haunted her. What had been his name? She couldn’t rightly remember, Nicholas? Nathaniel?

  Carefully, concentrating on each step, she moved with one flat foot to the stairs. The pain wasn’t excruciating, but she did wish she’d taken a few more aspirin before she started on this quest. And what else had she dreamed? That Will had given her laudanum? She chuckled out loud at the very idea Will would have laudanum. He’d had trouble finding the aspirin. She felt like she moved with one heavy shoe on and one off. Even worse, walking on only one foot sucked the energy from her, and she felt like a drunk having to lean against the wall at every opportunity to rest.

  Torrie paused at the bottom of the huge spiral staircase and looked up to the ceiling three stories up. Only the huge chandelier up there stared down at her. After a heavy breath she set her laptop and purse on the floor and she started up, using the same foot—her healthy one—to pull herself onto the next step, one after another. It was slow work and took much more energy than she would have expected to reach the bedrooms on the second floor. At the top of the stairs, she looked out the window.

  She left the stairs to check each bedroom.

  Eleanor’s bedroom was empty. There was evidence that she had played in there earlier. A book lay open face down on her bed. The chairs of the small table were pulled out and tea was served to imaginary friends. There was also no sign of Miss Velvet. The shelves on the far wall had gained several new books.

  Hadn’t Torrie dreamed something about giving Eleanor a journal or some means to write her own book?

  That thought touched her like a feather in her mind, and Torrie couldn’t remember completely
. Had she really offered that, or had it only been a dream?

  Not that it mattered. Eleanor was nowhere to be seen.

  Torrie moved on to the next bedroom, and leaned against the door jamb to rest and catch her breath as she took in Alexander’s train set. This room, too, was empty of any children. But it was clear one unmade bed had been slept in. The train set was as she remembered. She had dreamed about that train set. And the shape of the train track was the same as in her dream—oval with the far end crossing a bridge. The small village was set up just as the Alexander in her dream arranged it. Even the tiny trees were exactly the same. Torrie’s breath caught as she stared at it and let the memory flow through her mind. Alexander had had a brother, a twin brother, Aiden. It had been Aiden who set up the track in the oval shape.

  “Oh, my gosh…” Torrie let out, remembering the dream. It was so real, it was as if it really happened last night. She swallowed hard and worked past the terror that gripped her heart. Surely that had been merely a dream.

  And what about the fourth child? There had been a fourth child, lying on the bed, sketching in a sketch book. A girl. Violet. She lived in the bedroom with violets in the wallpaper on the walls. That was idea Torrie had for that last bedroom.

  Torrie thought she might faint when she looked toward the bed and saw the sketch book and charcoal sitting there.

  No, it couldn’t be, she told herself. There weren’t four children. There were only two. What she’d had had been nothing more than a dream. Will would not have kept four children from her. And if so, why, to what end? Nothing made any sense.

  She forced in one deep breath. Then another. Then she shook her head slightly as if the action might work to clear her thoughts. She had to push herself away from the doorway. Even without her foot being injured and swollen and painful, her steps would have been frightfully heavy as she made her way to the next room.

  The next room was as Torrie had started it to have it done as a mere guest room. The work crew had finished painting the walls beige, but so far, that was as far as it had gone. That was as far as Torrie had told them to go. And as she looked at this room in the early morning light, she knew beige had been so wrong. It needed color—tiny violets in the wallpaper. It needed an easel and stools.

  She turned to head toward the master bedroom, still determined to know that the Dalton family was safe.

  She turned and found herself face to face with Will Dalton. What the hell? She screamed.

  Fingers splayed with a hand pressed against her heart in a useless attempt to calm it, Torrie took a moment to reassure herself the heart beneath still beat and hadn’t stopped out of shock. It still beat, although wildly for several seconds.

  “Oh hell, you scared the shit out of me,” she let out.

  “So you can climb the stairs without my carrying you?”

  His voice was light and teasing, but Torrie didn’t buy into it. “Did you know your children are outside?”

  Will glanced toward the stairs, toward the rooms where Eleanor and Alexander slept. Then he looked back and met her gaze. “And good morning to you, too. You wake up glowing and looking beautiful after a night of passionate love. Did you know that?”

  “Don’t try to distract me,” she put in, despite the heat she felt move up her neck to her face. Her cheeks couldn’t have burned more had she stuck a lit match to them. Talk about an embarrassing morning after moment.

  “Will this distract you?”

  He touched his lips to hers.

  It did distract her, but only for a moment. With a hand holding each of her arms, he kept her from pulling away. “Why are you up here?” he asked between kisses. “Looking for me?”

  “Yes, and the children,” she replied, her words, too, broken by his kisses. “I had a bad dream. I wanted to make sure everyone was all right.”

  “I can assure you…” Kiss, deeper kiss… “We are all fine.”

  “I woke up. You were gone.”

  “I had work to do.”

  The dream where he pressed her against the door and made love to her standing up returned with vivid recollection. And just when he had her hot enough from his kisses to want to peel off her clothes there in the hallway, he stopped. “I think the children are downstairs with Alice having breakfast.”

  “I was just down there, and I didn’t see them. I thought I saw them outside.”

  He turned slightly and listened. “No, it sounds like breakfast in the little tower room.” Then he turned back and again held her gaze in his. His eyes were dark with need. “As much as I’d like to drag you into Alexander’s room and make love on that extra bed, I think we should forgo that pleasure. We never know when they may finish whatever Alice made them and come scampering up here to play with the train.”

  “That’s true.” Torrie forced the words out and they sounded breathy

  He gave her one last, hard, promising kiss. Then he hooked her arm about his neck as he wrapped his arm around her waist and moved to help her back downstairs. At the landing that looked out the huge back windows, Torrie noticed her car was no longer parked oddly. “You got my car unstuck.”

  “Yes, I did that earlier.”

  “When? I just looked at it moments ago.”

  “Before you made your way up here?”

  “Yes,” she still stared at her car out the windows.

  “And how long did it take you to get up here? I’m sure you did one step at a time.”

  “Yes, but…”

  “The trip going down is going to be much faster for you.”

  As if she weighed nothing, he lifted her up, holding her pressed against his side with her feet not touching the floor as he quickly moved down the stairs. The trek down the stairs was much quicker, less time consuming and took way less of Torrie’s energy than the way up had. By the time, Will reached the bottom of the stairs with her, Eleanor and Alexander had heard his footsteps on the stairs and had come to see him. They both applauded when he reached the bottom with Torrie pressed to his side.

  “See, Alexander, I told you Papa could carry her,” Eleanor insisted.

  “You said carry her up. You never said anything about him carrying her down.”

  They ran to her and hugged her. Torrie was so glad to see them all right, she hugged them tightly back, not really remembering now why she was so worried about them. “Were you children outside earlier?” Torrie couldn’t help but ask. “And was there someone else with you? I thought I saw someone else?”

  The children looked at her quizzically before looking toward their father as if they didn’t know what to say.

  “Come, children, and finish your breakfast,” Alice said sternly from the doorway before anyone could say a word. “Good morning, Miss Torrie.”

  “Good morning, Alice.”

  “Mr. Dalton told me what happened, Miss Torrie. And there is certainly enough breakfast for you. I’ve made biscuits with butter and jam, as well as your favorite tea, of course.”

  “Thank you.” Torrie fought the urge to ask just when and how Alice had found time to make biscuits when there had been no one in the kitchen a short while ago, but she didn’t question Alice in front of Alexander and Eleanor.

  The children seemed to forget all about the questions Torrie had posed to them as they quickly turned, bypassed Alice and headed toward the kitchen for breakfast.

  “I’m sorry to hear of your accident,” Alice said as they all made their way to the breakfast nook tower room where Torrie and Will had eaten soup the night before.

  “Thank you, but it was my own dumb fault. I’ll heal.”

  “I will take you to the doctor today,” Will said. “And you should have the day off to rest, too.”

  “No—about the day off. I know I need to see if there’s anything broken, but I have so many ideas today, and I need to get to work and get things ordered.”

  When Will looked as if he might protest, Torrie held up a hand and stopped his next words. “Really, I can rest it right here,
with it propped up on a chair while I sit on my computer, order things on line and make calls to finish that third bedroom.”

  For a long moment she thought he would argue her point, but then he didn’t. And the idea seemed to melt away like the butter she put on her biscuit. And breakfast, with Will and Eleanor and Alexander was delightful. It left Torrie feeling as if she could fly despite the injured wing.

  Chapter Six

  “It’s not fractured,” Dr. Folton informed her. “But it’s badly sprained. And although it doesn’t require a cast, I do feel you should keep it immobile for a week or two.”

  While Will had been busy and off somewhere, Torrie had snuck out and had driven herself to the Urgent Center. Normally, Torrie would have opted for just the doctor’s office, but she knew she would need an X-ray, just as well as she knew X-rays were done at the Urgent Center. The wait hadn’t been long and Dr. Folton was kind, compassionate, and capable.

  She thought she was lucky just having a sprain, considering the pain. And it felt better once Dr. Folton fitted her with a big, black boot to stabilize it. Driving wasn’t bad, either, since it was her left foot. Afterward, she drove home and changed clothes and put on a clean shoe. She’d been forced to wear one wet shoe earlier when she snuck out and go barefoot with her left foot. One, her left foot was too swollen to wear her shoe. Two, the heel was broken, making the left shoe too dangerous and impossible wear.

  Then, knowing there was so little in the fridge, she stopped at the grocery store before she returned to Hargrove House. Besides, she needed to stop and fill her prescription for painkillers.

  She got what she thought would be favorite foods for kids. And she moved as quickly as possible so she could get off her foot.

  It was still raining when she arrived back at Hargrove House. She parked her car in front this time, under the overhang that covered the drive outside the front door.