“I saw your latest work in the newspaper,” Georgia answered. “Some hotel in Spain.”
“It was Greece. And so, what? You thought that made me the perfect candidate to design your dog kennel? Or is it a bloody prison yard?”
“If you’re disinterested or insulted, why cross ocean to meet with me, Mr. Parish?”
“You may call me Ewan.”
“If you’re refusing, Ewan, would not a letter have been more efficient? Or you simply could have told me when you phoned from the inn.”
Georgia had not been as surprised by Mr. Parish’s arrival as she’d apparently seemed after all. Maybe her earlier demeanor had been all nerves?
“Will I be meeting Pennsylvania?” Ewan asked.
Georgia visibly blanched, but recovered. She poured herself a second glass of sweet tea, then moved the pitcher to hover over Ewan’s, still nearly full. He put his hand over it.
“Mr. Parish, Pennsylvania is—”
“Dangerous? Deformed? Demented, delirious, dumb? All have been used by the townsfolk to describe him.”
My heart leapt to my throat. Georgia set the pitcher down hard.
“I am not used to such forceful discourtesy, Mr. Parish,” she said. “Your job is to create the walkway and gazebo, not to become acquainted with family matters that are none of your concern.”
“People talk, Miss Dupree. A few questions uncovered much information. Some knew who I was. Some did not,” Ewan said. “But everyone knew of Pennsylvania and his legacy. Is he the beast many claim him to be? This labyrinth, this…fancy jail cell, it is for him, yes? Or because of him, perhaps. Another way to keep him confined?”
“Unfounded tittle-tattle, Mr. Parish. In polite society, we do not repeat it,” Georgia answered.
“Come on, lassie! You had to know I would ask. You had to know damned well there’d be innuendo throughout the town.”
“Yes,” Georgia said simply.
“I shall take on the project.”
“You will?”
“You’d hoped I would refuse?”
“Part of me was certain you would.” Georgia patted her forehead with a linen napkin.
“I’ve drawn up some preliminary—”
“The gaps in the ironwork must be smaller.” The page was barely in her hand. “More…”
“Secure?”
“Yes.”
“The complicated ironwork will take time to shape,” Ewan said. “The original drawing you sent, who produced it?”
“I would rather not say.”
“Then that is my answer, isn’t it? It was Pennsylvania.” Ewan patted his pocket. I wondered if my drawing was inside, a rendering which had nothing to do with iron scrolls, but was simply a doodle made one rather sad day many years ago. Georgia had taken it from me. I wondered why she’d saved it.
“When can you begin, Mr. Parish?” Georgia asked.
“Immediately. I shall fashion the first scrollwork piece myself, then have it replicated. That will take a week or so. There is much digging and such to do in the meantime. If we work both ends and meet in the middle, for expedience—”
“You must not tamper with the home itself until absolutely necessary,” Georgia insisted. “As not to upset Pennsylvania unduly.”
Ewan shrugged. “Fine. I shall return tomorrow.” He stood. “If you have not changed your mind by then.”
“Let’s hope I do not.”
As I listened, sequestered in my room, I rather wished she would. I’d have been all too happy to inform Mr. Ewan Parish of all there was to tell right then and there about the family Dupree. I’d have recounted the entire sordid history for him—if only I’d been able.
Georgia was my caretaker, not only my sister. She had broached the topic months ago, about a way I could return to the woods. I’d declined. Those woods frightened me, like little else ever had. She had agreed to abandon the notion, or so I had thought.
I had another sister called Virginia. Our mother was Carolina, and Delaware, our sire. We came from wealth: a wealth of money, but sadly not of morals or sanity, as it seemed the innkeeper’s wife had already told the handsome stranger suddenly in our midst. My sisters were older. I came over half a generation later, almost to the day of their birth, making them seventeen the year I arrived and mother died.
I’d resided with Georgia, the spinster, my entire life, in our ancestral antebellum home, a literal prisoner in my own chamber. My world extended no further than my eyes could see into the back yard. This was my punishment, or my salvation, depending upon who was asked. Though my visual perspective of any goings-on within the home was limited to a lens the size of my thumbnail—a hole recently created in the wall between my room and the kitchen—listening through the heat vent, I heard every word of nearly every conversation.