CHAPTER TWO
“Not changed? Oh, I think you’re mistaken there, Divers, in ways you can’t possibly begin to imagine.”
Really? Well, just because she’d got in there faster than him didn’t mean he’d no imagination.
If you let her speak to you, it is already too late.
“But let’s not quibble when it’s actually so very nice to see you back here in Doom Bar Hall again,” she added, as if it wasn’t already too late the first time she opened her mouth. She offered her pale, paper-thin hand for him to kiss too.
Destiny Rhodes? Or an abandoned place? A shadow that flickered on the wall while she’d burned away. Face whiter than blotting paper, eyes black as ink. Destiny Rhodes. Hadn’t she always been glossed as lacquered furniture, eyes like gleaming black diamonds, lips lush as ripe peaches, fashioned in hell, every bit of her held lovingly in place by satirical design? But this?
Where the hell was the scent of ambergris and decadence, she’d breathed so freely, mainly over him? What the hell had she done to her flowing raven hair? Hacked it with garden shears, then hacked the comb? And what was this, ‘nice to see you again’ stuff, as if he wasn’t enough of a plague about the place the first time round? A pox on it too.
If you let her speak to you, it is already too late. It always was.
Ignoring the hand she'd extended for him to kiss--that would be right--he set his hat down on a side table. Anything less would show it wasn’t just too late, it was ten hours past midnight when it wasn't even a quarter to. The last thing he’d expected tonight? To bump into Orwell Rhodes in Daindridge’s. Now he had though ..?
“Now then Destiny, there’s no need to lie.”
If his curses really were this effective though, maybe he should curse Lyon and be done with all this?
If you let her speak to you, it is already too late.
“Who says I’m—“
“I do. What’s more I think I should tell you now, I overheard your little suggestion.”
“Oh, it wasn’t little, Divers. I think we can both agree on that. Given the things we once were to one another.”
“Were we?” As for her being even remotely fazed that he’d heard her outrageous suggestion? Chance would be a fine thing. He shrugged off his coat, taking care not to breathe the subtle scent clinging to her like cobwebs—lavender? “You tell me. Well, little, or large, I daresay we can all make a mistake at times.”
“Who says it’s a mistake?”
“Well, the thing is, I do.”
“I see.”
“And, in case you haven’t noticed, I now own this fine house.” He slung the coat onto a chair. “So?”
“Well, so your friend there was say—“
He nodded to Gil to leave, thrust his thumbs in his waistcoat pockets. “That’s why, for old time’s sake, I’m going to suggest to you that you have till midnight to follow Gil there, out the door, also there.”
“But …”
“Now.”
“But that’s only three hours away.”
“It’s four actually.” He flicked his fob watch open. “One thing I have learned is how to tell the time. That’s why I also know enough has been wasted. Midnight, Destiny. Before, is preferable. You know where the door is, I’m sure. You’ve lived here long enough.”
A half full bottle of burgundy stood on the heavy oak sideboard, a set of hideous gold rimmed goblets by its side. It was time to snap his fob watch shut and taste what the house had to offer. He crossed the floor, stood with his back to her as the red liquid splashed like the unruly sea into the glass, the noise a sharp reminder of the sound that same sea made washing onto the sand at times. He held the glass under his nose, sniffed. A tang of blackberries. A definite winter bouquet. When it came to smuggling it was always the taste that counted though. Clearing his throat, he raised the glass to his lips.
“I’d offer you one but I don’t want to take up your valuable time.”
Yes. Physicality was everything in this job. And what exactly could undercut it in this instance? Certainly not her standing there with her dead eyes crouching in her skull.
“Oh, I’d hardly say it was—“
The French doors crashed open, the walls juddered, wind tearing around the room like a howling banshee. And with it …
Rose.
He coughed. Jesus. As if she was right here, the vapor of her dead breath, anyway, whispering on its dregs around the book lined walls. So he struggled to stand here.
Rose.
If you let her speak to you, it is already too late.
Rose.
Christ. How he wished they were all other things now. When not once in all the years since he’d lost her, had he felt her presence, not the times spent in bitter longing, the times he’d hung tales of his own deceit on the soundless stars. The only damn things to truly own the night sky.
Why the hell did he feel her here now, scuttling round the wainscoting of his life? Because she knew that what he should be here for, was the one thing he couldn’t give her? Not if his limbs were pulled apart by the four horsemen of the apocalypse. If he was asked to dig his grave with her same breath.
Revenge.
He swallowed. If he did not speak, he was finished. In every way. "So?" If he did not sound as fine as a summer's day as he grasped the French doors and snapped them shut against the gale nearly taking them off their hinges, too. "The things we were, eh?"
“Yes, Divers.”
“But maybe what you mean is the things we did to one another as children? Because it’s so long ago, I honestly can’t remember what we were. If you want to sit there like patience on a monument, pouring over the past and all the tiny and tedious things that happened there, wasting your valuable time that could be spent procuring lodgings—“
“But I am procuring lodgings.”
“--that’s fine. But I don’t define myself by one moment. Despite how and why I left Cornwall, I’m not here for any kind of revenge if that’s what you think.”
“So you say, but some might say it’s still revenge when I’ve nowhere else to go and not a farthing to me name, either. Surely even you can see that now and how sodding difficult it is for me to beg you, after all these years, to let me stay here? At least till I sort something out.”
Damn it. Let her speak? So far he’d let her recite the bible, the alphabet backwards and three Shakespearean tragedies, all in that low, earthy voice of hers, which was why he wasn’t letting her recite any more. At all costs he needed to shut the curtains as if it was no odds to him. He grasped the moth-eaten fabric—Jesus--tatters in his fingertips. What was going to fall on his head next? The ceiling? These were chimney pots lying in smithereens out there on the lawn. As for Rose? Her knowing Rose was here? Or not?
“I thought you were married?”
“Briefly. And I see I’m not exactly alone there either. Congratulations. I always knew, whatever some might say, some woman would be lucky to have you.”
“Blind and old, was she?”
Still at least she’d noticed what glinted on his finger in the candlelight. His perfect excuse to get rid of her card. To think he’d argued about it. Now he could speak of his wife, his lovely wife, who he was head over heels over, with impunity.
“So?” He eased into the squeaking leather chair that had sat in this spot for so long, it was a miracle it hadn’t sprung roots down through the floorboards. “What happened to your husband that he’s not here to take care of you? Had enough of you, like all these other poor sods, did he?”
Her eyes darkened. “If you’re meaning, am I cursed, are we cursed, well you of all people should know the answer to that. Still, if you must know … about Ennis—”
“Not really.” One question? If he could speak of his wife, his lovely wife, with impunity, why the hell wasn't he doing it, instead of mouthing off about Ennis? This was not about revenge, although in his defense he was back at work after being laid low. Another glass of that burgundy was probably in order, just to set things back on track--show her who was master here, underline to her about Lydia—although maybe it was that piss-poor it had caused him to hallucinate? Either that or it was that kicking he’d gotten months ago? Deliberately he stretched out his hand. “Why would I? But you’re here, so where is he? Out in the storm with the rain crashing down? Hiding behind the books? Well?”
As if he didn't know. But her eyes had sunk to the back of her head. It was his duty to stop letting her speak to him—Rose too-- and finish the job.
“Fine.” She exhaled sharply. “You know, some things just aren’t worth this." Turning on her heel, she swept to the door.
Damn it but the hips were still more than half decent when she swished them like that. Cockiness came with the turf. But he was as drawn to them as he was to ram her eyes through her skull there—metaphorically. For the sheer hell of it. At least he hoped it was, that his tightening throat didn’t say he was drawn to anything else. That he felt bad seeing her like this. That he felt … quite a lot actually. Because this woman would cling and cling.
“Perhaps. But I’d like to hear it again.”
She stopped dead in front of the open door. Apart from the rustle of the black velvet gown, like fallen leaves at her feet, the silence wasn’t just as lengthy as the long boards of the room, it was as scarifying as salt in open wounds. It was also one he never should have broken. Hell’s teeth, why had he done it? He had this. The past could not stand like an iron shadow between them, as if she still meant something to him.
“Hear what, Divers? That me Ennis is things you sodding well know alrea—”
He swallowed. Deliberately as he reckoned she just had. “No. Not Ennis.” He’d started. Just like old man Rhodes always said. He might as well go on now he was drawn to the flame. “What you have to say about coming with the house.”