“You surprise me, Meredith,” he said.
Meredith swallowed. “Do I?”
“When I saw you at our hideout, I thought you had become a completely different person. I did not expect you to shout at me the way you did in the hallway.”
Meredith nodded. “I understand why you would think so. I surprised myself. It had been…some time since I’d last felt such strong anger.”
“Ah, you flatter me.”
Meredith blinked. He almost sounded…playful. But she couldn’t be certain. She couldn’t take her eyes off him. She let her spoon fall into her soup, studying every inch of him while he studiously continued eating.
“What is the matter?” he asked, his voice a low grumble. He didn’t look up.
Meredith swallowed. A tremor of unease rushed through her at the words resting on the tip of her tongue, but her curiosity won out in the end. “Heath, what happened to you?”
Heath lifted his gaze. His eyes were black. The blue had disappeared, staying hidden despite the flicker of candlelight that surrounded them. Meredith wondered if she was staring into his soul, one that had grown darker over the years. His mouth slowed, then stopped chewing altogether. Her hands shook with the remnants of her usual nervousness, but she couldn’t stop the thought that rushed through her mind.
He’s never been more handsome.
It scared her—to stare at this man, the one who had gone ten degrees colder at a simple question, and feel such intense longing. For what, she hadn’t a clue. But Meredith couldn’t deny that Heath, who made her feel so safe yet had her walking on thin ice, was making her feel things she’d never felt before.
He said nothing for a few moments. Their eyes were locked and Meredith, as much as she wanted, couldn’t bring herself to look away. Then, he leaned back, tilting his head slightly to the left. The move was animalistic, like a predator sizing up its prey. She trembled.
“What about you, Meredith?” He asked the question slowly. “What has made you like this?” Meredith hardly had a chance to formulate a response when he leaned closer, his fingers interlacing. Not a hint of blue shone in his eyes. “You are not the girl I once knew. What you are now is but a hollow shell, who flinches every time someone even looks in her direction. What has turned you into this?”
The question was meant to push her back, Meredith knew. And it worked perfectly. She couldn’t bring herself to answer, even though she so badly wanted to. She wanted to tell him all that had happened, to prove to him that she was not as weak as he thought she was.
But she was. And because she was, she only looked away, lifting her spoon with feeble fingers.
Heath was silent, but she could feel the satisfaction radiating off him waves. They said nothing for the rest of the dinner, but Meredith was occupied by her thoughts. Memories were pulled to the front of her mind, memories she had long ago shoved into a locked box never to think about again. With those memories, the ones containing images of her mother, came images of Heath. Smiling, happy, calm yet hiding an adventurous soul.
She let those images warm her. They carried her throughout the rest of the dinner. And when it was finally time for her to leave, that unease was gone. She felt calmer, as if she brought the old Heath back to the present and could use him to face the new.
But they didn’t last long.
Chapter 11
The next day did not come easily for Meredith and she had come to expect it. After that very long nap she’d taken during the day, sleep evaded her. And in its absence came those memories she tried so hard to suppress.
She stood in a puddle of water. She curled her toes into it, but there came no shiver, despite the gentle wind that wafted past her ankles. The puddle was warm, thick. The water seemed to stick to her body, keeping her rooted to the spot.
Before her lay a hand. Flashes of silver moonlight shone upon that hand with every twitch, its nails bent and broken. With the wind came a low groan, resembling the creaks that echoed through the manor at night. But this groan was different. Even though she was young, she understood that.
There was something about this groan, that trembling hand, that made her chest cave in. She could not move, could hardly breathe. Her face felt wet, but when she touched her cheek, the water was also warm. She lowered her hand to her side, gripped her white nightdress. Water seeped in from the bottom of the dress, but there was still no cold. She knew she should be chilly. It was night, and she was wet, but instead it felt as if she was standing out under the sunshine.
Finally, she lifted her hand, letting it rest under a ray of moonlight. She had expected to see it wet, knew that her body was nearly drenched in water. But she did not expect to see that bright splash of red.
Looking down, she saw that she was not standing in a puddle of water, but in a pool of blood. Blood seeped in through the hem of her nightdress. Blood wetted her cheeks. Blood coated her hands. Whispers wandered in from the distance, branding her, and as she stared at the trembling hand, she understood just who it was.
Meredith rolled onto her back, but she didn’t wake. Sweat coated her skin, murmurs slipping from her lips. She tried to pull herself from the nightmare, from that night she could never forget. But she was too weak. She was always too weak.
But as she rolled back onto her side, her hand falling over the edge the dream shimmered and disappeared.
This time, there was no moonlight. She truly was standing in the sun, her hair undone, wafting in the wind. She wore a simple day dress, one that hugged the curves which were slowly coming to the fore. Her mother would have never allowed her out of the manor like this, even if she was standing in the gardens. But back then, she had made it a habit of doing as she wished.
A laugh drifted over to her, one that sounded so familiar, her body went rigid with shock. She looked over into the distance to see a young boy running toward her. The world seemed to slow the moment she laid eyes on him. He waved his hand at her, the grin on his face as bright as the sun.
Heath.
He held something in his hand. From the distance, she couldn’t see what it was, but she remembered it. A bunch of wildflowers he’d found on the outskirts of the Pebblebrook grounds. Wildflowers that he could only get if he had snuck off the premises. Wildflowers that marked the start of his first taste for adventure. Even then, she had known it had excited him.
She felt a smile pull at her lips and she gave into it. This was how she remembered him. This was the boy she’d grown so close to. She started running, to meet him halfway. Even though the world moved with incredibly sluggishness, it felt like she was upon him in a matter of seconds, her heart expanding with eagerness.
And then, the sun disappeared. It flashed into darkness as thunder boomed overhead. Heath was no longer running toward her, but stood like a statue in her path, his face as dark as death.
Meredith screamed.
Another scream pulled her from her sleep, had her shooting up in her bed. She instantly spotted Annalise standing in the center of the room, clutching her chest, her eyes wide with alarm. “My Lady!” She rushed over to Meredith’s side. “You nearly gave me a heart attack! Is everything all right? Did you have a nightmare? Are you alright?”
Meredith couldn’t comprehend what was happening around her. Her head was spinning and she lifted a hand to her temple, as if to steady it. She blinked rapidly at the blankets before her dreams came floating back and she remembered what had happened.
She looked up at the panic in Annalise’s eyes. “Why did you scream?” she rasped. Her voice felt strained, as if she had been screaming for hours.
“How could I not when you were the one who screamed first?” Annalise gasped. “I thought something might have happened to you.”
I screamed myself awake? She trembled at the thought. It had been some time since she’d last done anything like that. But then, it had been some time since she’d been plagued by those dreams.
With shaking hands, Meredith pushed her hair out of her face, noti
cing that it was clumped together with her sweat. Annalise seemed to have noticed as well, but Meredith shifted out of the bed before the maid got a chance to say anything. She didn’t want to talk about it.
“Please draw me a bath,” she murmured, pausing at the end of the bed. “And…I would like some tea before I begin preparing for the day.”
“Yes, My Lady.”
“Annalise? No hot water, please. I would like my bath to be cold.”
“Y-yes, My Lady.”
To Meredith’s surprise, Annalise rushed out of the room without so much of a question or protest. She’d expected the girl to be a little nosier about what happened, but she supposed she was using her good judgment to keep her mouth shut.
Once she was gone, Meredith padded over to open the balcony doors, shivering a bit when the wintry air hit her full force. To her utter surprise, there were no tears. Whenever she had those dreams, she would be riddled with sadness and it would take her a few hours to calm down. But right now, she felt an odd stillness.
She wondered if it had anything to do with her dream about Heath. It was quite unlike the one she’d had before, where she’d found herself dreaming about him in many improper positions. This dream was most certainly a look into the past, a memory that she hadn’t known still lingered in the back of her mind. The fear she had felt at the end of that dream, when the new Heath had presented himself, still rumbled through her right now. She gripped the railing tightly.
Meredith stood there until Annalise and a few other maids returned to draw her bath. As they filled the tub with water, Annalise brought her tea and cakes, setting it up on the small table by the balcony doors.
“My Lady?” she called once she was finished. “Are you certain all is well?”
Meredith said nothing, only made her way to the table. She was happy to note that her trembling had stopped by the time she picked up the cup of tea. Annalise lingered over her. Meredith was content to ignore her, but with such a talkative girl such as her, she knew that was false hope.
“Did you have a bad dream, My Lady?” Annalise asked.
Meredith nodded slowly, sipping her tea. She reveled in its warmth.
“Oh, dear, it must have truly been terrible. You were tossing and turning when I came into the room, but I thought it was best not to disturb you. I had barely made it halfway across your bedchamber when you jumped up screaming however.” Annalise’s shoulders sagged. “Forgive me if my own squeal had frightened you, My Lady. I should not have allowed my emotions to get the best of me.”
Meredith sighed. The tea brought a level of calm that was very hard for her to achieve. “There is no need to apologize for such a thing, Annalise,” she told her. “You are merely human.”
“But I must take care to suppress my emotions if it may disrupt you,” Annalise countered.
Meredith lifted her gaze to meet Annalise’s dark brown eyes. “Is that what you have been told?”
Annalise blinked in bemusement. “Yes, that is what Francis told me when I first began walking here. I reckon he might have noticed my tendency to act on my emotions.”
Meredith lowered her gaze, seeing nothing. “Must we always act for the pleasure of others?” she murmured to herself.
“Pardon me?” Annalise asked, leaning closer.
Meredith quickly shook her head, snapping back to the present. “Forgive me. That was a very indecent thing to say.”
Annalise looked confused by her words, but Meredith no longer wanted to linger on the conversation. She shouldn’t have said such a thing, knowing that servants did not have the luxury to act how they wished, so she hoped Annalise truly had not overheard her. She rose, leaving her half-finished cup of tea on the saucer. Without a word, she returned to her bedchamber, heading toward the cold bath that now stood waiting for her.
“Perhaps Francis is not as knowledgeable as he would have me think,” Annalise mused aloud as she helped Meredith out of her nightgown. “There are certainly many things he has told me that has not sit well with my spirit, but I have said nothing to him…”
Meredith wasn’t listening. She let the bite of the cold water chase away the exhaustion that still lingered in the back of her eyes. She closed them, resting her head on the wooden tub while Annalise droned on.
Heath. She wanted to see him. Since the moment he had popped into her mind, that need had been growing. They had parted ways on a very tense note last night and Meredith didn’t want that to linger for long. She wanted to dig deeper into the person he was right now, to find the boy she’d known so long ago. She wanted to use that boy to pull her back into the light.
Already, after only being here a couple of nights, she felt unlike herself. She talked more often, reacted more fiercely. It made it difficult to regret her decision to leave her home. It was hard longing for that familiar place, when being here had her feeling for the person she had once been. Now, Meredith was feeling a twinge of selfishness. She hoped to find that person again.
Her resolve only strengthened throughout the rest of the morning as Annalise helped her into her day gown, did her hair, then walked alongside her to the drawing room. She had breakfast alone, keeping her eyes on the door in the hopes that Heath would walk through them. He never came.
Finally, Meredith decided she couldn’t keep herself still any longer. She went to go in search of his office. Her heart was pounding by the time she mustered up the courage to knock on his door.
“Enter.”
His gruff voice nearly had her knees buckling. Meredith lost all her courage, and it was sheer pride that pushed her forward. She entered the room, forcing herself to look directly at him and not at the floor.
But perhaps that was a mistake. He was regarding her with steady eyes, making her entire body go up in flames. She bit her lip, staring into his smoldering eyes.
His silence took her aback, forcing her to think of something to say. “Good morning, Heath,” she murmured, venturing closer to the desk. “I pray you slept well?”
He nodded, once. “Well enough.”
“And have you already had breakfast?”
“Why? Do you wish for me to eat with you?”
She licked her lips. Why was her throat suddenly so dry? “I have already eaten,” she told him in a weak voice.
“You sound almost disappointed.” There it was again. That hint of a playful tone, making her shoulders loosen a bit. He cocked his chin at the chair before his desk. “You may sit. There is no need to wait for me to give you permission.”
Meredith sank into the chair with a silent breath of relief. She met his gaze, her heartbeat spiking when she noticed that not only were his eyes tinged with gaiety, but they were no longer as dark as they had been last night. How odd that they drifted back and forth depending on his emotions.
“Now, what has brought you by?” he asked, his tone idle. “Have you come to tell me there is an intruder in the manor?”
Meredith blinked. “Pardon me?”
“Your scream earlier this morning,” he explained.
“Ah,” she sighed. How unsurprising that he would know of that. “It seems you are not trying to hide that you have your eyes on me.”
“Can you blame me?” he asked, leaning closer. He laced his fingers together right under his nose and Meredith hated how much her body reacted to that simple position.
“W-what do you mean?” she stammered, her mind filling with fog. Suddenly, she couldn’t get the image of Heath watching her, seeing past the layers of her clothing for the heated skin underneath—
He tilted his head to the side. “You are here because I have to keep an eye on you, are you not? It would not make sense for me to simply allow you to do whatever you wish under my roof without me knowing about it first.”
Meredith felt her cheeks go warm. For a moment, she thought he might have meant something entirely different. And from the look in his eyes, it seemed he knew that well. “It is not as if I had screamed voluntarily,” she mumbled, looking away
as embarrassment washed her.
To her surprise, he smiled. “Are you blushing, Meredith? Did you think I meant something else by my words?”
“I did not think anything!” Her words came out far too sharply to be convincing. She bit her lip even harder, cursing herself. Why couldn’t she be normal when she was near him?
This time, he laughed. “Very well, then. Tell me. Did you truly think there was an intruder?”
Meredith shook her head. She didn’t plan to tell him about the first dream she had, but she didn’t think it would hurt to tell him the second one. If anything, it might let him drop his guard. “I had a dream about you,” she told him.
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