“Go to the stairs,” Eduardo said when the locks were off. “Take the candle with you.”
In the far corner, in the darkness, Eduardo opened the iron chest.
The stench was immediate and overpowering, so sharp that it made their eyes water.
“Leave me!” a voice shouted.
It didn’t have to ask twice.
Back then, Daniel was never sure what it was that Eduardo brought into the cellar every few nights, but the stench worsened. He mentioned to Eduardo that he was sure someone would call the cops about it.
“He’s shielding the house,” Eduardo answered dully. “Don’t you realize that you only smell it if you open the basement door? It’s the same with the screams. No one hears them outside the house.”
Daniel knew all about the screams. His, Evan’s, Eduardo’s.
Now that his lordship could address them directly, he had more power over them, it seemed. Daniel had tried once, when he had been sent miles away on an errand, to go even farther away, to make a run for it. He had not gone far before he felt a kind of craving unlike anything else he had ever known. It was as if his cells had become magnetized, and his lordship was exerting a pull on them. He could think of nothing else, do nothing else, but return.
He had paid an awful price for that experiment. He had not been able to leave his bed for three days.
He thought of that experiment now, of how this bargain had cost him his freedom in a way prison never had. Eduardo had taken the only escape route.
He would never forget the night Eduardo had been killed by the dog. That dog had surprised Daniel and Evan, but now Daniel wondered if Eduardo had known about the dog all along.
His lordship had been displeased with them when they came back and reported what had happened, although what they could have done differently, Daniel did not know.
Just as now, he did not know what he could do-short of sacrificing himself to the dog-to leave his lordship’s employ.
No human could help him, although he found himself wishing one could. Earlier, he thought he saw a man standing at the top of the drive, smoking a cigarette, and he found himself wishing someone-anyone-would notice the smell of the basement or hear the sounds coming from it, or see all the damned bugs running toward it.
But in the next moment the smoker was gone, and he began to wonder if he had imagined him being there in the first place.
Late that night, the voice from the basement called to him, telling him to open the back door.
The spiders wanted in.
37
Five days after Rebecca’s arrival, she announced that she would be staying at “the family’s house,” and although Brad had berated her-saying that it was, as Rebecca knew, Amanda’s house, and that Rebecca should apologize and ask Amanda’s permission-Amanda quickly cut off what was bound to escalate into another prolonged battle between the two of them, saying that she needed to make a trip back to the house and would be glad to accompany Rebecca there.
Amanda told Tyler of these plans. After seeing that all his objections were having no effect, he said, “All right, then Alex will take you.”
“Rebecca will want her car.”
“Fine. Alex can drive you down, following her.”
Amanda hesitated, then said, “I’m going to make arrangements for a rental car to be delivered.”
“You may use the Cooper or the van anytime you’d like.”
“To go somewhere alone?”
He didn’t answer right away, and she wondered if she had angered him, but she saw no sign of this on his face or even in the way he held himself.
He said, “If you think about what Brad has been through, I doubt you will decide I’m being overly protective when I say that I would prefer-would beg you, in fact-not to go out alone until we discover more about his attackers. However, I would never want you to feel as if you are imprisoned here. My deepest apologies if you have been eager to escape me.”
“Escape you! If anyone has been an escape artist lately, it’s you.”
“If you mean I haven’t been here much, I admit that’s true. And you know why.”
Amanda took a deep breath and let it out slowly. What was she complaining about? The people he helped were dying. He was their last chance to communicate with their loved ones. What need of hers could be greater than theirs?
The last few days had left her unsure of where she stood with him. Even though he was gone most of the day and until late at night, she continued to sleep in his bed, Tyler keeping watch beside her. Twice they had switched places-his work had caused him to become ill with fever and she had refused to let him sleep on the floor. She did her best to comfort him, although each time it passed within an hour or so. He said these episodes had been mild.
Occasionally he had been affectionate-taking her hand, putting an arm around her shoulders, giving her a light kiss on the forehead-and if beneath that affection she had felt some restraint, she only needed to think of her own restraint in the presence of the ghosts. She should be grateful to him-and to Shade-because, until now, the ghosts had made her doubt her own sanity.
But thinking this made her realize that it might be time to trust her own perceptions for once. She looked at him and thought about his past. And his expertise in keeping secrets. Over all those years, what chance did he have to get close to anyone, to confide in anyone?
“Tyler, what became of your valet, Merritt?”
Startled by the change of subject, he said, “He died.”
“I had assumed that much. One of the worst aspects of what has happened to you, I am sure. You’ve had to watch everyone you’ve loved or cared about die.”
“Actually, I have seldom been at the deathbed of a friend. I wasn’t at Merritt’s. I was in America by then.”
“He didn’t come here with you?”
“No. We spent almost a year together in England after Lord Varre’s death-the death of Marcus deVille, that is. By the end of that time, because of the papers Varre had left to me and the things he had said, I had given more thought to the complications of appearing to be twenty-four forever. To avoid some of those complications, Adrian had either dismissed or murdered his servants after they had been with him a few years-more often the latter. I didn’t want to become anything like him.”
“You aren’t anything at all like him!”
He smiled at her vehemence. “Thank you.”
Much as it comforted her to see that smile, she knew something had been bothering him lately. But what?
“So,” he went on, “having heard tales of this country, I decided to come to America, where English was spoken but I was not known, where I could move often and live without servants. A place with a vast wilderness to recommend it.”
“Merritt didn’t want to join you?”
“When I first mentioned it, he begged me to take him along. I’m afraid I was a bit underhanded. I purchased a home near that of Widow Makins. I sent him on many errands to ensure that she was being well cared for.”
“He married her?”
“Yes, when a decent period of mourning had passed. In those days, that was required. During that year, I considered what I must do regarding his employment. I had already realized that he was an excellent judge of horses and an expert in their care. So I asked him to stay in England as a business partner, and eventually he agreed to do so.”
“You never saw him again?”
“Oh, in the first few years, I traveled back to England fairly often.” He paused. “But after ten years or so, I heard more and more comments on my youthful appearance. I reached the point of realizing that I needed to say good-bye to my friends and family there. Merritt was happily married and had made a great success of our business, and my brother and his wife were happy with their family. I decided I wanted to remember them in that way, and stopped going to England until the twentieth century, by which time anyone there who had known me had died. In the decades before that return, I wrote to them and tried to be content with staying connected to them through our correspondence.”