Barbara Hancock - Silent Is the House

Until Owen Ward reached to lift my bag back up on my shoulder.

It was an automatic move. He didn’t consider it. He reacted to the bag’s fall and my sudden distress in trying to catch it. But as he did so, his hand brushed all the way up my bare arm and against the side of my neck, and I was stunned because the numbness—for a moment—fell away.

I breathed in and the scent of the old house, musty and sweet and shut off from the world, was secondary. It was Owen’s scent, a fresh and slightly spicy evergreen that woke my senses.

“Thank you,” I said, referring to the bag. His hand seemed to linger, but it probably didn’t, because he frowned. The frown drew my gaze to his lips and I couldn’t help noting that his lower lip was slightly fuller than the top. I blinked and tore my thoughts away from how ridiculously kissable that made his mouth.

“We’ll talk at dinner,” he suddenly ground out, and then he moved aside so I could pass.

I did so quickly, as eager to reclaim the comfort of my numbness as he apparently was to send me on my way. The unexpected thrill of my less-than-welcome arrival clashing against the sudden flare of attraction for a man who obviously didn’t want me at Allen House overwhelmed me after weeks of feeling completely, untouchably tepid.

I didn’t give myself permission to slow, then pause and turn back to watch Owen Ward walk away. It simply happened. Only he wasn’t walking away. He stood on the stairs watching me and so he caught me in my pause. What would have been a furtive glance at his retreating form turned into the momentary trap of our gazes meeting to hold and to hold some more.

I’m sure it was only seconds, but the distance between us seemed to narrow and become unaccountably intimate. He didn’t speak and I couldn’t. His intensity paired with the fact that I had noticed that tiny detail about his lips when I shouldn’t have made me feel even more awkward than before. Finally, he blinked and his intensity was shuttered. He turned away and I no longer had to fight the urge to look at his mouth. I turned also and continued after Bethany, but a connection had been forged. As we moved away from each other, it seemed an invisible elastic cord stretched and stretched until it would soon pull us back together with a decisive snap.

The house was shadowy and quiet. I ignored the confusing pull of Owen and hurried up the remaining stairs to find Bethany waiting on the landing of the second floor. Behind her at the end of a long hall, I saw another woman, possibly a maid, walk from one room into another. She looked our way as she passed, but was moving so quickly I could only make out a flash of pale skin, a gleam of cool eyes and long black hair.

“Oh,” I said, startled by the maid’s unnaturally fast movement.

But Bethany was already leading me to a different room and, frankly, not moving much slower herself. I chalked it up to my perceptions being sluggish after my trip.

Surely the woman down the hall hadn’t moved oddly enough to make me stare and blink and stare again, willing her to reappear and prove herself as ordinary as I should expect her to be.

Chapter Two

Remembering Owen’s suit and Victoria Allen’s pearl-encrusted locket, I did “dress for dinner.” I had packed a black sheath that soothed my nerves by being understated and elegant, but nonetheless off the rack. Trying too hard was something I’d had to learn not to do at a very young age. My parents had been perpetually distracted and occasionally annoyed. I guess I could have turned into a trick pony, but instead I’d learned to rate my own competence and achievements. It really wasn’t my grandmother’s fault if I suddenly felt like a five-year-old who wanted to show off my pirouettes again. I tamped down that feeling. Hard.

I finished with simple black pumps and a colorful scarf my father had once sent me from Paris. I had traveled little myself, but my parents had been gone frequently on business. The scarf had been a rare gesture of affection. For years it had made me slightly uneasy because my mother rarely approved of unnecessary gifts. She had frowned over the scarf when she’d seen it. I wore it now to feel somehow connected to someone, but I also felt guilty, as if I was taking advantage of my mother being gone.

The whole time I was dressing, my carnation-filled jewelry box sat on a nearby dressing table as silent as it should be. Did I expect it to play? Here in this deteriorating mansion, a few halting verses of Brahms’s “Lullaby” haunting the halls. Gooseflesh rose on my arms, and I found myself pausing as if to wait for the tinny sounds to rise to life from within the box. My scarf was more decorative than warm. I tried to remember the last time I’d noticed hot or cold. For better or for worse, the decision to visit Allen House was bringing me back to the land of the living.

* * *

I’m not sure what I expected from dinner. Maybe a spread worthy of a period drama with footmen offering turtle soup from a silver tureen. Instead, I stepped into a cozy sitting room with a charming tea table set for three.

My grandmother and Owen were already serving themselves from a platter of roast beef and potatoes.

“This is Mrs. Maple,” Victoria said, nodding to a heavyset woman with a flushed face and round apple cheeks who was setting a bowl of steamed carrots on the table. “We don’t have many employees these days, but I hope you’ll be well taken care of at Allen House.”

“Anything you need in the kitchen, let me know. I usually shop on Fridays,” Mrs. Maple offered.

I thanked her and sat, acknowledging Owen’s silence with a brief nod as if he’d spoken. I had no grievance with him, regardless of his strange intensity toward me. I also refused to be intimidated by my reaction to him. I could only dismiss it as long weeks of profound grief finally dissipating and leaving me too open and vulnerable. I couldn’t seem to control it. An almost preternatural interest in him sizzled beneath my skin when he was around…and there was a residual hum even when he wasn’t. My heartbeat quickened. My senses heightened. Without looking at him, I seemed to notice every movement he made, every breath, every blink. It bothered me, but it was also refreshing to suddenly have my focus shift from my loss to the living.

“And you’ve met Owen,” Victoria continued.

There were no footmen, but Mrs. Maple served me before I could help myself. She piled a shocking mound of carbs on my plate. My wide eyes looked from roasted potatoes up to Owen’s face. I thought for a second that his lips quirked, but then any expression of humor vanished. Still, my eyes had been drawn to that soft swell of his lower lip that was somehow soothing the raw edges of my grief.

I looked back at the sinful number of potatoes and vowed to spend some time with the portable barre I’d packed, to burn off the carbs and to take my mind off Owen’s lips. There were other, safer ways to deal with my loss.

“How did you find your room?” Owen asked. It didn’t seem like small talk. It seemed like he was testing me. But it had seemed like that from the moment I’d first seen him. I didn’t mention my surprise at the condition of the house or my unease with the servant I’d seen in the distance. Such insignificant things must have been made large by my grief. I certainly wouldn’t mention how the movement of his fork to his mouth distracted me even in the periphery of my vision.

“I didn’t think you’d come,” my grandmother said before I could answer Owen. I answered her instead.

“I would have before now, but it never seemed right,” I confessed.

“Your father would have disapproved,” Owen interjected, suddenly deciding to join the real conversation.

I was startled by that supposition. So much so that I neglected the decadent potatoes and lowered my fork. My father? He had never seemed to care one way or another about Allen House. Then again, it would have been hard to gauge because he was so cool about so much.