Ghosts of Winter (8 page)

“I only talk to her occasionally.” I grinned, letting her know it was okay to be amused. I was relieved when she laughed lightly. It felt surprisingly good to smile with someone, though I’d never have thought on first meeting her that I’d be sharing a moment of mirth with Anna. I saw it as another piece of her icy barrier chipped away and felt a small sense of triumph that did wonders for my self-confidence. When Anna laughed, her lips parted slightly and her eyes narrowed and creased at the corners in one of the least beautiful expressions I could have imagined, but the sound she produced was one of musical proportions. I sensed that she did not laugh very often and felt privileged to share it with her.

The kettle whistled, and any further conversation was interrupted while I made the tea. “Do you like chocolate or carrot cake best?” I asked. It was suddenly much less important than it had been to me earlier. I was simply enjoying her company.

“I
adore
carrot cake,” she replied, in nothing less than a purr. I tried very hard to ignore the effect of that sound on my body. My temperature crept up by a few more degrees, and all of my senses were suddenly on edge.

“Excellent.” I cut large slices for us both and passed Anna hers. I was surprised at the speed with which she ate her cake, large forkfuls at a time. She struck me as a nibbler, not someone who would gulp down mouthfuls so quickly. Clearly appearances weren’t everything with Anna Everest. Such an intriguing package. I took a sip of tea to wash the cream cheese frosting from my mouth, as she cleaned the crumbs from her plate by squashing them between the tines of her fork.

“Were you hungry?” I was amused by the way she didn’t leave a morsel behind. “There’s more if you want.”

“No, I’m fine. It’s very good though.” She didn’t seem to notice my amusement at the way she had eaten her cake, and I didn’t want to embarrass her, so I went back to sipping my tea.

“So,” she began, after the silence had stretched a little longer than was comfortable, “you said you’d had a good look around and taken some notes.”

“Yes. I mean, I’m not an expert or anything, but I’m in a better position to talk about things now.” My confidence ebbed slightly as I proclaimed my new knowledge. I sensed Anna would always be better at taking the initiative in practical conversations than I was and decided not to say too much.

“I was thinking it might be a good idea to go room by room together and make sure we’re on the same page, and then—oh my God, are you all right?” Anna’s tone changed abruptly as my insubstantial camping stool chose that moment to collapse under my weight and send me sprawling onto the floor in front of her.

Biting back a groan of pain as my coccyx hit the hard tiles, it took me a moment to understand quite why I was sitting on the floor. I blinked, my heart thudding with surprise, and looked up into Anna’s concerned face. “Yes…or I think so at least.”

“Here, let me pull you up.” She got to her feet and grasped my forearm in a remarkably strong grip. Her fingers were cool against my warm skin, and the contact sent a shock all the way from the place she touched into my whole body. Anna was not someone who touched freely, and an invasion of her own clearly defined personal space was not something I would have been brave enough to try. Even her handshake had been shielded by leather. To suddenly feel her touch, to sense a temporary break in this invisible barrier, had a rather more powerful effect on me than I wanted or expected it to. I allowed her to help me to stand up. She dropped her hand from my arm as soon as I was upright.

“Thanks,” I said, not quite resuming eye contact. She didn’t reply, and I saw a flash of brief unease in her expression, as though she had realised something surprising. Puzzled by that, I decided it was safer to pretend I hadn’t noticed, so I inspected the ruins of the stool, which was clearly beyond repair. “I think it’s about time I found a shop to buy some proper chairs. Or ventured up to explore the attics properly. I’ve only had a quick look up there so far. Apparently there might be some old furniture locked away in one of the rooms, but I don’t seem to have a key for them all.”

“I have a set of spare keys for Winter,” Anna replied, her composure entirely restored. She put her little finger to her mouth and bit her nail thoughtfully. It made her suddenly so much more human. I smiled reflexively and was pleased she didn’t notice. “And better still, I have them with me, if you want to go up and try. The attic’s one of the main places I want to discuss with you anyway, since it will probably be the most radical change we make.”

I wasn’t surprised Anna would have a spare set of keys with her. I imagined her briefcase to be like Mary Poppins’s carpet bag—apparently bottomless and containing everything that could possibly be useful. And spending some more time with her, maybe discovering a little more of what lay underneath her frosty exterior, was an intriguing prospect. “Sounds like a plan to me,” I answered. “Do you want to head up there now?”

Anna found the keys in her briefcase, and we climbed the staircase side by side. I was excited, after my week of becoming uneasy friends with my house, to hear more of her opinions about the future of the place. I was sure she would be forthright and bring a wealth of experience and knowledge to the renovation. On the first floor, we went through the small door in the wood-panelled corridor which led to the servant’s stairs, which were the only way up to the attics. Apparently only the lowliest inhabitants of the house had ever had cause to go up there.

The stairs led to a large landing area. From this, one attic room led into another, whether you turned left or right. We were in the sloping roof of the house, and the small dormer windows I’d seen from the outside let in light. Shafts of winter sunshine pierced the dusty shadows. The walls here were of plain plaster, the floor basic floorboards. To the left was the east wing of the house. The last room in that direction was the best place to view the damage to the roof, where much of the ceiling had collapsed and daylight could actually be seen through the tiles. The floor there was decaying and the rot getting through to the ceiling and floor below. To the right were one open room and a locked door.

“Where’s the door you can’t open?” Anna asked. I noted that, although I was breathing a little harder from climbing the stairs, her voice betrayed no strain. I wondered what she did to keep fit. With a figure like hers, it was clearly something strenuous.

“To the right.” We walked, leaving smudged footprints in the dust, into the next room, and I gestured at the impassable locked door. “Of course we might find the skeletal remains of a long-dead lunatic cousin behind it,” I added, as we regarded it together.

“You remind me of Catherine Morland in
Northanger Abbey
.” Anna managed to make it sound like a genuine criticism.

“Sorry. Active imagination I guess. You like Jane Austen?”

“Doesn’t everyone?” Anna had a unique intonation, giving me the impression I’d asked her a question with the most obvious answer in the world.

“I suppose,” I said, mildly surprised. She didn’t strike me as someone who would particularly enjoy reading of any kind, but I guessed Austen’s biting sarcasm would probably appeal to her. I decided to probe further. “I always wanted to be Lizzie Bennett myself,” I said. “I guess most girls do when they read
Pride and Prejudice
.”

“I wanted to be Mr. Darcy,” she replied nonchalantly, as though there was nothing unexpected in her words, and certainly no joke. I narrowed my eyes slightly but could think of no suitable response. Anna was such a conundrum.  I wondered what else she did and didn’t like, in reading and life in general. She was so infuriatingly intriguing. I began to see that a lot more lay below her controlled surface, just waiting to be discovered. I grew uncomfortably conscious that part of me wanted to be the one to uncover her secrets.

I glanced at her as she looked down at the keys in her hand and at the keyhole below the handle of the door. Despite the measured lack of excitement in her tone, I could see she was almost as curious as I was to discover what, if anything, lay behind this door. Her glasses had slipped low on her small nose as she peered down at the key in her hand. She straightened, pushing them back into place, wrinkling her nose slightly as she did so. The movement was girlish and unaffected, and combined with the determination with which she looked back at the door, all of her illusion of professionalism and lack of interest was dislodged. I saw the woman she was and the girl she had been in one arresting moment, and my heart stuttered.

“I think this might be the one.” She held up one of the keys. I was thankful she remained ignorant of the sudden emotion that gripped me and which I now forced myself to struggle against.

“Give it a go.” I watched eagerly as she stepped towards the door. The key was small and not at all rusted. She gripped it in those slender, short-nailed fingers. They were the sort of fingers that I knew would be talented. She could draw, that was a must of her career. Her handshake was firm to the point of crushing. I would have bet she played the piano, but it seemed an odd question to ask of her at that moment. Overwhelmed by an unaccountable urge to take her hand in mine and stroke those fingers, hold them to me and feel what their soft tips were like against my face, my stomach tightened and I felt my pulse in a lower place where I’d thought I wouldn’t feel anything for a long time. Thank goodness Anna was too intent on trying to fit the key into the lock to pay me and my turbulent feelings any attention.

She eased the key in carefully. It slid into the hole without a problem, then she paused and turned to smile slightly at me. I hoped my face didn’t look as hot as it felt. “Moment of truth,” she said, turning the key. Her eyes lingered on mine, and uneasy with the direct nature of her gaze, I dropped mine to her hand. I saw her fingertips turn white as she strained against the aged stiffness of the mechanism, but after a moment, there was a loud click and the key turned.

“Well done,” I said enthusiastically, “you were right first time.”

Her pale cheeks had turned just a shade pinker. She looked happier and my answering smile was not just because she’d unlocked the door. She brushed a strand of hair back behind her ear and looked pleased with herself, though not quite smug. “It’s your house, you should open the door.” She took a step back and gestured with an outstretched hand.

“Very gallant of you.” I put my hand on the cold metal of the handle and turned, pushing the door at the same time. Though the handle seemed to work, the door didn’t budge, it simply creaked at me.

“It can’t still be locked,” I said, puzzled. “Maybe it really is a secret chamber and we need a password or something.”

Anna rolled her eyes, but looked mildly amused this time. “You can try
open sesame
if you want. But be quick, before the wicked count comes and discovers us trying to access the room where he’s disposed of his wife’s corpse.”

Her mouth twitched. I stared at her briefly, astonished by her words, and couldn’t help but laugh. Her smile flickered and grew until it made her eyes dance. Such a compelling smile. “Or maybe the wood is warped and it’s just stuck against the frame,” she said practically. Her smile faded as she focused on the door again, eyes scanning the frame. I was surprised by her insistence when she took my arm and physically moved me out of the way. Again, the moment of contact with her, entirely functional and meaningless as it was, had a far more powerful effect on me than it warranted. I balled my sticky hands into fists and moved to the side without a word of protest, my throat too tight to speak.

“I think if we apply enough force, it’ll give,” she said, trying the handle and pushing slightly, seeming to confirm her assessment. If she’d noticed the effect she was creating in me she showed no sign of it. Could she really be that unobservant? Or was she choosing to ignore it? I made an effort to compose myself.

“Shall we push together then?” I asked.

“Just let me have a go first.” Her expression said she wasn’t a woman who would let a challenge defeat her, however insignificant.

To my astonishment, Anna stepped back from the door and unfastened the buttons of her suit jacket. She shrugged her way out of it and handed it to me. I took it dumbly and stared quizzically at her.

“The door’s dusty and the jacket is more expensive to launder than the shirt,” she explained.

“Of course,” I replied, looking at the jacket as if I’d never seen one before. The garment was warm from the heat of her body as I gripped it. I tried not to dwell on that warmth, but my palms and fingertips tingled. The grey woollen material was clearly incredibly fine quality. I caught the smell of Tabac Blond again: that masculine undertone of leather, the sensuality of creamy vanilla, and the dangerously forbidden hint of smoky tobacco. I barely ever wore perfumes myself, partly in an attempt to set myself apart from the artificial potions of my beautician mother, but mostly because I never felt comfortable with a complex scent on my skin. When I suspected a perfume had been chosen specifically by its wearer, however, I loved what it told you about that person. Anna smelled of the best of the scents I’d discovered amongst the many glass bottles on my mother’s dressing table as a child. And the most expensive. I had to fight not to raise her jacket to my face and inhale deeply. The perfume combined perfectly with the lingering essence of Anna herself in the fabric.

“You wear Tabac Blond,” I said, unable to resist remarking on my recognition of the fragrance.

Anna turned to look at me, and I enjoyed her surprised expression. “You can name a perfume from one sniff?” She raised a questioning eyebrow.