Beautiful Whispers (Ausmor Plantation Book 1 - Romance/Suspense) (13 page)

Rumors hinted that Jane hurt herself, but the assholes that spread those rumors didn’t know the real Jane. They thought she was some weak, pathetic creature. They didn’t realize how strong she really was and how much she’d already survived. Jane didn’t hurt herself. She wouldn’t. She couldn’t. Someone else hurt her. I wasn’t sure who, but I could guess. This time, he wouldn’t get the chance to hurt her again. I’d kill him first.

“Poor Alexander.” I make him nervous. It’s like he either doesn’t know what to say or is afraid to say the wrong thing. When I told him he had to stay by my side till the party, he stopped breathing. Wherever I go, I sensed his eyes on me.

Whenever Byron
watched me, I was conscious of every breath, every movement which is why I dropped things or stuttered about like an idiot. I withered under so much scrutiny, but Alexander’s attention didn’t choke. I flourish; I breathe.

Maybe he’s the air I craved?
The oxygen I required to survive? It makes me that much more determined to remember everything. I need to know all the details - even the painful ones that peek slightly above the surface before my stomach queases and my head pounds them back into the ether.

But w
hy the physical reaction? What is so painful that my body and mind revolt? Would it drive me mad? Am I not strong enough? I must have looked very dreadful because, without warning, Alexander nudged me.

“Are you alright?”

I nodded and smiled. “Fine.”

“I’m right here if you need me,” he said quickly before Mrs. Kiness and her crew blew into the Grand Entrance Hall.

“Make sure the swags are straight. Check each fireplace. Know the location of the flashlights and candles. We do not need any blown bulbs or fuses.” Mrs. Kiness waited until her crew had finished scribbling their notes and looked up anxious for more. “Ensure glasses are not placed upon the side tables. Do not trust the holiday rugs will stay down on their own for the corners tend to ride up with too many feet upon them.”

I stood in the center and looked straight up the Grand Staircase w
here Sadie - killed before the Civil War - resided. I wondered her thoughts of another Christmas? “Will I haunt Ausmor after I’m dead?”

“Do not bother any of the Austens or Morgans.”

I smiled at the five people who were about my age or a little older. They hesitantly semi-grinned back as if my last name was Borgia, and I was itching for bloody retaliation.

“They are the family of residence and not here to help you.
Any questions will be directed to either me or Miss Mason.”

Julia Mason.
I breathed a sigh of relief. Marcy must either be occupied with finding out where she slept last night or Mrs. Kiness found out about her activities and relieved her of duty. Every day, Marcy had managed to corner me with some tale of slutty woe which I couldn’t sit through again.

“And bother not Mr. Ravenswirth,” Mrs. Kiness said as a few of the girls looked him up and down and smiled. “He has his own
duties and will not help you.”

“He could help me with anything,” one of the girls
noisily whispered to another.

“Excuse me?” Mrs. Kiness asked loudly. “Something you care to share with the rest of us?”

“Sorry.” The young girl bowed her head but continued her incessant giggle.

Mrs. Kiness groaned.
“Thank you for coming, Miss...what was your name?”

“Nancy.”

“Yes,” Mrs. Kiness said with the enthusiasm of the dead. “Thank you for coming, but your services are not needed. Perhaps a bar might be a better suit for you?”

“But…” Nancy looked at
the others. “You can’t do that.”

“Can and did. Now, for the rest, please
respect the history of this grand house and keep up.” Mrs. Kiness led the remaining group into the next room.

Nancy took off her name card
, threw it down and tramped out the front door.

I
faced Alexander. “Didn’t know Mrs. Kiness was that strict.”

“She’s a hard ass
.” He sheepishly peered around and waited for a few seconds. “Glad she didn’t hear me say that.”

“
Any questions?” Mrs. Kiness marched her troupe back into the Grand Entrance Hall.

Alexander quickly grabbed the name tag Nancy had thrown to the ground, pocketed it and went back to work.

“Well?” Mrs. Kiness looked at her charges. “The family is not paying you to mingle.” She snapped her hands together.

They
glanced at each other and quickly dispersed like rats looking for a maze.

I gave the minions time to leave.
“Geez, Mrs. Kiness. You don’t dick around.”

Alexander suppress
ed a laugh with a cough and turned away so Mrs. Kiness wouldn’t see his smile.

Mrs. Kiness shook her head at me. “The things you say,
Jane.”

“Are you always that tough?”

Mrs. Kiness nodded. “Must stay on ‘em at all times. No matter the names some bestow upon me.” She glanced at Alexander who stiffened immediately and remained busy. “Anything I can do for you, dear?”

I shook my head. “Don’t think so.
Wait, is your sister making—”

“
Her world famous chocolate cake? Yes.”

“Death by Chocolate.” I swooned. “Life is good.
Have you had any of that, Alexander?”

“Don’t think so,” he said but continued working.

“You’d remember if you had. I even remember it,” I mumbled.

Mrs. Kiness peered around the corner when she heard some whispers. They immediately silenced.
“Miss Dingo has decided she wishes to stay awhile with Mr. Morgan, but she is missing an ear to her latest victim. I have looked in your room, but…”

“I know where it is. I keep it safe because she freaks if she loses it. I’ll get it.”

“Thank you.”

I lingered for a bit hoping Mrs. Kiness would be off on another errand
. Alexander could follow me to my room and... The scenario stopped because Mrs. Kiness stood right where she was and surveyed the lights, the ceiling, the floor, the paintings, the rugs...

Since she refused to budge, I left.
I ran past her crew scurrying about doing whatever she wanted them to do, and took the connecting door to the New Wing. Once the door to the original part of Ausmor closed, I was in another world. A world of quiet and dread. No Christmas decorations. No rushing workers. No peppermint candy or hot cocoa scent wafting in the air.

A weird sense overtook me, but
it had to be my imagination. I continued down the hallway and then up the side steps. I stopped outside my room. Something hinted I shouldn’t go in. I shook it off.

“It’ll only take two minutes.” I rushed in the door and went to the
last drawer of the armoire. It took a while since that one usually got stuck when opened an inch. “Perhaps I could get Alexander to fix it.” A good way to get him in my room.

I grabbed the ear Fanny Dingo cherished
, turned back around and stared at my door. I’d left it open, hadn’t I?

I was chilled. I stood still.
I wasn’t alone in my room. I wanted to flee. I should have, but I couldn’t get my legs to move. With a quickness of a hawk, Johnston lunged out from behind the curtain.

I jumped out of my skin. I turned around and tried to
escape through the connecting bathroom, but he’d already locked that door.

“I’m sorry, Jane, but I’ll do what I have to do…”

*      *      *      *

I came to in Alexander’s room. Cowering in the corner, I didn’t know how long I’d been there or what had happened. After I don’t know how long, the door opened. I
hid out of sight and watched from the corner as Alexander walked in.

He glanced in
my direction and jumped. “Jane, where have you been? I checked your room but...” He stopped when he saw me. I had no idea what I looked like, but, from the shock on his face, it wasn’t pretty. He kneeled down. “What happened?” He slowly stood back up. “I’ll kill him. This time I’ll kill him.”

I shook my head
as tears streamed down my face. I reached out for him.

He sat down beside me.

I fell into his arms, and he rocked me back and forth. I couldn’t tell him what happened. I didn’t know.

I don’t know how long I slept. When I woke, darkness crept through Alexander’s window past the blue and yellow plaid curtains Mrs. Kiness used for all the male staff rooms. The fireplace provided the only light, and Alexander still held me. I didn’t want to move, but I must have shifted a bit.

“Are you awake?” Alexander whispered.

“I think so.”

He stood up and helped me
. “Stay here tonight.” He turned down the dark blue comforter, plaid blankets and brown flannel sheets, and I crawled under the covers.

“Don’t go.” I held his hand.

“I can sleep in the chair.”

“Please.”

He lied on top of the bed. Since it was just a single bed, we were close. We faced each other, and I looked into his eyes. I thought I could tell him anything, but I didn’t know where to start. “I don’t want to take over your bed.”

“Don’t mind.”

I looked over his white t-shirt and jeans. “You should get into your pajamas.”

“Don’t wear pajamas.”

I could feel the blush creep up my neck past my cheeks and over my ears like a flush wave. I wanted to say something grown up, but giggles prevented me from continuing. “Why do I revert to a little girl around you?”

“I make you nervous.” He answered without once taking his gaze from me.

I nodded.

He raised up on one arm and looked down on me. “Good.”

My mouth dried. I had to tell myself to breath.

He gently pushed my hair away from my face. “What do you remember?”

I closed my eyes. He gripped my hand. I didn’t know how he always knew exactly what I needed. “I went back to my room.”

“To get Fanny Dingo’s toy.”

“Right. There were tourists or—”

“New staff for the party,” he answered.

I sat straight up. “And Mrs. Kiness told them to stop dicking around.”

“Think she worded it different,” he smiled.

“And I waited cause I thought she’d flit off somewhere. I hoped…” I blushed again.

“You hoped what?”

I couldn’t tell from his expression if he wanted me to say everything out loud or he really didn’t know. At the edge of the cliff, straight down was the fastest way to go. “I hoped you’d follow me back to my room.”

This time, he sat up. “Oh.”

“Now I’m making you nervous.”

“It’s all good.” He smiled his crooked smile.

If I could have stayed in the moment indefinitely I would have, but I had to remember. “Then I felt all weirded out. Creepy, you know? Like someone else was there.”

He narrowed his eyes as he looked at me. He listened to my every word. Someone actually cared what I thought and said
.

“According to
Mrs. Kiness, Ausmor is haunted,” Alexander said.

“Lots of spirits. Have you seem them?”

He shook his head. “Enough of the living to do damage. Don’t worry about the dead.”

“
But what I felt wasn’t otherworldly. It was human. So I ran into my room.” I said everything as the images rushed forward. “I found her toy and turned around…” I squeezed my eyes shut and held out my hand as if I could trace the memories into being. I concentrated. “The door. My door. It was closed, but I’d left it open.”

Alexander swallowed hard. “Who was it?”

“I knew someone was there, but I couldn’t move. Why couldn’t I just move?” I wanted to jump out of bed and start pacing, but Alexander squeezed my hand for comfort.

“I’m right here. He can’t hurt you now.”

I forced myself to breathe as the images locked into place. “He cleared his throat.” I grabbed my own throat. “And the smell.” I shook it away. “Vinegar.”

“Johnston,” Alexander whispered between gritted teeth.

“Not just him.” Then the pain started. My pulse lunged forward. It chugged through my veins and skipped a beat every once in a while. My head started to pound: my brain was on fire. That far away pre-migraine thump. Then my stomach churned. Not so pre-migraine. I’d been dumped right in the eye of it. I tried to ignore it. Ignore the pain, the churning, the warnings.

I open
ed my eyes suddenly. “Warnings. That’s what all this is.” I gestured around my head and stomach and heart. “All this is a warning when I get too close.”

“Too close to what?”

“The truth. But why? What’s so horrible? What’s so awful?”

He shook his head. “
You said, ‘not just him.’ Who else was there?”

T
he room spun around like I was in the mad hatter’s tea cup being thrown across abandoned wheat fields in a vicious game of smash and grab with the white rabbit. I opened them again and grabbed onto Alexander for support. “I can’t.”

He
took a deep breath. He was disappointed, but he nodded and smiled at me.

I studied him. His honeyed hair that he’d cut short with some curls stubbornly trying to unleash themselves.
..his iridescent green eyes that didn’t miss anything...his crooked smile that melted me when he aimed it in my direction. “Am I right in thinking my memories flee whenever something is dangerous or whatnot?”

“Makes sense.”

“Then why wouldn’t I remember you? You’re not a danger to me, are you?” I asked in jest, but his eyes reflected pain. “I didn’t mean...I know you wouldn’t hurt me.”

“Do you? I’m serious, Eva…”

I smiled when he used the name I went by as a kid because I wanted to be more like my cousin, Evan, and got sick of people wondering why my mother named me after a famous writer if we weren’t related.

“How do you know about me if you can’t remember anything about me?”

I thought a bit. I couldn’t say, ‘cause you’re too hot to be dangerous.’ That wouldn’t do it. ‘Cause I don’t want you to be dangerous because I’m falling in love with you.’

His face changed
. His features softened: his eyes widened, his mouth opened and curled up a bit on the sides.

“I said it out loud, didn’t I? Why am I always doing that?”

He instantly kissed me. “I’m not falling in love with you because I’ve already fallen. I’ve loved you so long, I can’t remember a time I didn’t. I’ve loved you when you didn’t remember me. I’ll never stop being in love with you.” He pulled my hand to his heart. “This beats for you, Jane Eva Austen. No one else. Ever.”

I didn’t know what to
say. Speechless didn’t suit me. My mind fluttered into various u-turns and wound up a few places it shouldn’t before spinning out again and finding the right way home. I didn’t know what to do. I lied back down on the bed and Alexander did the same. We faced each other. He touched my face, and I rested my hand on his heart.

It was a blur that stood still. A windless wind. A storm without rain or thunder. It was everything and nothing.
I just knew it felt right. For the first time in a long time, I was at peace.

My mind didn’t race through dangerous scenarios. My conscience didn’t provide me a detailed list of all my shortcomings. I didn’t hear my sister’s sighs or my aunt’s insane accusations or Mrs. Kiness’ whispers about what I should be doing with my idle time. Evan didn’t patientl
y persuade me to action. Lillia didn’t trip me up with her incessant twirls, and Grand Maeve didn’t hint I should immediately take every man I met into my bed as I supposed she did. My pulse didn’t go wonky. My head had stopped the pounding. I was free, and he was all I could see. “You’re my Alexander.”

He smiled. “I am.”

“I trust you Alexander Cardenia Ravenswirth.”

He touched my lips.
“You don’t have to until you remember everything.”

“
I don’t remember it all. I don’t know why, but…” I didn’t know how much he wanted to hear.

He nodded. “Tell me. You can talk to me.”

I hesitated. Does he want to hear everything? “Okay, it’s a little weird that you’re connected with my memory loss.”

“Which means I’m around when something bad happens to you.”

I nodded.

“Maybe it’s because I push you to remember. Push you to know the truth.
”

His words floated and then sank in. “Makes sense.”

“We can’t be together until you’re sure. Your whole life you’ve been told how to act. What not to do.”

“True.”

“I won’t do that to you. I want you to choose to be with me. Not to choose me out of fear or regret or pity. You’re my everything. Don’t know if you’ll ever feel that about me.”

“I want to.” Spiraling out of Alexander’s spell, I was a little girl again peering into the oven waiting for Mrs. Hodges’ Death by Chocolate to finally be finished.

Mesmerized, I stared through the smudged glass oven door. Watching Mrs. Hodghes spin her magic sifting the powdered sugar and cocoa. Waiting for the decadence to cook for over an hour. Finally counting the minutes until it was cool enough to taste after she’d transferred it out of the pan. Alexander was my Death by Chocolate without the calories or guilt.

He studied me. “What are you thinking about?”

“Death by Chocolate.”

“Mrs. Hodghes? You’re thinking about Mrs. Kiness’ sister?”

“I’m comparing you to her famous recipe.”

He thought about it awhile, nodded his head and smiled. He got me. I rested my head on his chest and listened to his heart. He twirled my hair around his fingers.

I didn’t know who else would understand me like Alexander. If I’d compared Byron to flour, sugar and chocolate, he wouldn’t have heard it. Wouldn’t have known what it meant. “Why do you bring out the worst in Byron and Johnston?”

“Glad of that. Those
two pricks deserve each other.”

“I think
Byron was there. In my room.” I said the words fast to avoid the pulsating pain that provided protective detail for my memories.

Alexander’s
body clenched. He had to prevent himself from jumping out of bed and tracking Byron down. “You sure?”

“Yeah.” I
ignored the pain in my stomach that felt like a thousand layers of stomach lining peeled away like a sardine can. “I heard him. I remember his voice. He said, ‘I’m sorry Jane, but I’ll do what I have to do.” I sat up and grabbed my stomach. Maybe the memories want to be purged completely from my system. Can’t even digest ‘em.

Alexander sat up. “I’ll kill him. Knew he was hurting you. Know he’s your whatever he is to you but…”

I put my hand on his shoulder. “Should I not have told you?”

“No.” He quickly said. “You need to tell me. You have to tell me everything. But you can’t ask me to let this go.”

I shook my head. “It’ll still be his word against mine. With this…” I pointed to my head. “I can’t know for sure. They’ll say I was jealous. Delusional like my mother. They’ll twist my words, and Byron will smile his smile. It’ll be forgotten. His smile gets him out of anything. I know.”

Alexander shifted.

“Please don’t do anything until after the party. I’m so tired of being the freak everyone whispers about.”

“No one whispers about you.”

I gave him the patented stink eye I’d seen Mrs. Kiness use for years.

“They don’t. Not around me.”

“I won’t be the reason another Ausmor party ends early and condemn my family to the gossip and shame of my existence.”

Alexander
grimaced. “Karenda’s words?”

I nodded.

“Always was an icy little bi..” He stopped and glanced at me. “Glad I’m an only child.”

“Just promise me nothing until after the party.
Please?”

Alexander took a deep breath and set his jaw until his muscles
flinched a jig. “After the party. Then you won’t hold me back in doing—”

I held up my hand in surrender. “After the party, Grand Maeve has promised to tell me ever
ything. Once I know the truth, if I don’t wither away or flush myself down the toilet…” I didn’t know if I could say the words. “If Byron is responsible for…” I gestured to my head. “Or these…” I pulled up my sweater sleeve to show the four deep scars on my left arm and the gash around my wrist. “I don’t think…”

I bowed my head. “I hope he isn’t.” But I was tired of defending him. Tired of pretending he was what he used to be to me.
He was my everything. Past tense. Or maybe he wasn’t. Maybe he never had been my anything. Maybe it was another truth I couldn’t face. “What an asshole.”

“Yes, Byron’s the ultimate asshole.”

“No, me. Why am I such an asshole all the time?” I’d been living in the past. I couldn’t allow sentimental wishes to blind me. I thought of Marianne Dashwood from
Sense & Sensibility
. “If Marianne had only faced the truth about Mr. Willoughby she wouldn’t have been caught in the storm, almost died and forced her sister to lose years off her life with worry…So, he’s handsome. Everyone knows the most handsome are the evil ones in disguise. It’s pure Jane. I should have known that. Why didn’t I learn from Jane? I’ve read everything she wrote a thousand times.”