My Reluctant Warden (4 page)

He stopped past the door and looked back at me. In the poor light of the stairwell, his eyes were darker than ever.

I know I keep telling you how dark his eyes are, and you’ll have to forgive me for it. It’s just that I don’t think I can really convey how dark they truly appear to be. You could imagine entirely black eyes, with the pupil drowning in black, but that wouldn’t be quite right. It’s more like an absence of light than a true color or shade. Even when something gleamed inside them, it only served to accentuate that darkness, that absence of everything.

His voice was quite as empty when he asked, “And what else am I supposed to do? Confine you to your suite? Put a guard at your door, maybe? Isn’t it enough that my home is your jail? Do I really have to act as your warden?”

The words felt like an insult. I was the one trapped there. I was the one in jail. And he had the audacity to make this about him!

I didn’t stop for a second to think about whom I was talking to—to let myself acknowledge what he was. The time for swooning was past, and I was back to that moment when we’d first met and I’d called him a jerk. My fists closed of their own accord, and my spine was suddenly ramrod straight. Without heels, I was a good five inches shorter than he was, but I certainly didn’t feel small when I glared at him.

“Boo hoo. Poor you. Stuck in a freaking castle with someone you never even invited here. Oh, wait. You’re not stuck here. You can go out. Go to my apartment, for example, and snoop through my things. You can go anywhere you damn well please and do whatever the fuck you want, and I’m supposed to feel sorry for you because your sister dumped me in your lap for a laugh?”

He walked toward me again so that he was standing right in front of me, and suddenly I remembered what he was. I remembered he’d said he wouldn’t kill me, but he’d never promised, and even if he had, what was his word worth?

He looked down at me and spoke in a slow, deep voice.

“I went to the trouble of finding where you live and going there because I believed you’d be more comfortable in your own clothes than wearing a gown you can’t even take off without assistance. Please, Angelina, do forgive me for trying to be helpful. I’ll try not to let it happen again.”

My throat was tight, maybe because both my heart and my stomach suddenly felt like they’d taken residence there. But still, I managed to say something silly.

“You didn’t bring me shoes.”

He blinked and took a step back. His gaze dropped to my feet, then came back up to my face, and he did the very last thing I expected.

He laughed.

“Really?” he said after he’d calmed down. “With all that’s going on, that’s what you’re going to complain about? Shoes?”

I tried to hang on to my annoyance, but what can I say, he had a point. I couldn’t help shrugging, embarrassed.

“What would it help if I complained about anything else?”

His amusement vanished in a blink. He looked down at my feet again.

“What size are you?”

The question took me by surprise, and a beat passed before I answered. “Seven and half. Why? Do you intend to do like your sister and make me wear whatever you please?”

His head snapped up. The emptiness was back in his eyes. He leaned in toward me, and my heart missed a beat or ten.

“Lilah and have one thing left in common,” he said very low. “Just one. We were remade by the same vampire. You’re lucky I am not more like her. If I was, we wouldn’t be having this discussion.”

It was clear what he meant by that. We wouldn’t have been talking because I would have been dead.

Because he would have killed me.

Only after he’d turned on his heel and disappeared up the staircase did I manage to calm my heartbeat.

I made myself a promise in that moment: I wouldn’t talk back to him anymore. I wouldn’t talk to him at all unless he asked me a question. I’d stay out of his way as much as possible, and I would definitely try not to antagonize him, regardless of how frustrated I was with my situation or how much I needed to vent. He’d said he wouldn’t kill me, yes, but his eyes, every time they became so empty, said something else altogether.

I’m pretty good at holding the promises I make to myself. I promised myself I’d graduate with honors, and I did. I promised myself I’d get out of my small town, and I did. I promised myself I’d never let a boyfriend treat me badly, and I held on to that one, too.

The promise I made to myself that day lasted only hours.

*

I started on the second floor and unconsciously retraced my steps from last night. I found myself tiptoeing around so I wouldn’t make a sound and break the peace. The mansion looked extraordinarily different without a couple hundred social butterflies fluttering from room to room, without the chatter, the laughs, and the music.

The artwork looked different, too, now that the drapes that covered the windows were drawn and sunlight poured in. I didn’t know when the party had ended, but whoever had cleaned up had done such a good job that there was no hint left of what had happened hours ago.

I felt a pang when I entered the first-floor room with the two oversized paintings where I’d talked with the artist. I hadn’t known then that my life had changed. Miss Delilah had already ordered me—compelled me—not to leave the house, but I hadn’t realized how tightly her words would bind me.

With too many thoughts bouncing through my head, I sat in a carved-wood armchair, whose red velvet seat, armrests and back were set with brass rivets. I wanted to draw my feet underneath me and curl up on it, but it was one of these ancient-looking pieces of furniture that would have been right at home in a museum, and I didn’t dare get too comfortable.

Because of all the free-time I had working for Miss Delilah, I owned yearly passes to a few museums in town and usually spent a morning or two every week looking at the art. From the first time my third-grade teacher took our class to a museum, I’ve enjoyed the peace that can be found there. I love to sit down in front of a piece and let it wash over me.

That’s what I did that afternoon: sat in front of the painting, remembering what the artist had said about sketching in the park for weeks and taking hundreds of pictures in different types of weather and at different times of the day to get color references.

Looking at the painting now, letting the autumn colors and minute brush strokes take a life of their own until I could almost see the leaves shifting under a light breeze, I could imagine I was outside, under a blue sky speckled with white in the crisp, cool air.

It made me feel better for a little while, but eventually the awareness that I couldn’t go outside began to weigh on me. I started to feel like I was suffocating. It wasn’t at all like what had happened on the balcony. That had been completely physical, my lungs unable to function anymore. This was in my head. There was air around me, I could breathe, but I craved something more. Fresh air. Open skies.

Freedom.

By now, I knew better than to think of how close the front door was; finding myself paralyzed would only make things worse. So I went back to the second floor to the one place I had avoided during my trip through the house: the balcony.

In the full light of day, everything looked different. The stone balustrade, which had seemed so dark, was pure white in the sun. The tiles under my naked feet felt smooth but icy. I wrapped my arms around myself and leaned against the balustrade, rising to my toes.

On the other side of the street, so close I could almost have touched the bare branches of a tree if I’d reached out, Central Park sprawled like a cat sunning itself. The sky was perfectly blue without a single cloud marring it. I breathed in deeply and already felt better.

I’ve spent countless hours in the park since I moved to New York, but I don’t think I’ve discovered every bit of it yet. I’d always told myself I had time. Why rush things when I could keep surprises for myself to unwrap later? I planned to spend the rest of my life in New York, after all.

Now, watching life go on just on the other side of the street, I couldn’t help but wonder if I’d ever set foot in the park again, or even outside this house. My heart tightened at the thought of never leaving. What had I done to deserve this? Why had Miss Delilah chosen me, out of all the women in town—in the world—for this fate?

Right here on this balcony—or rather, in my mind, in my fantasy—Mr. Ward had said I was his type. But really, I wasn’t anything special. There are hundreds, thousands of women like me in the city. Shoulder-length brown hair, unremarkable brown eyes, average height, a few nice curves… What made me special?

“Isn’t she perfect?” Miss Delilah had asked Mr. Ward the previous night.

But perfect how? Why?

More questions. No answers. Not that I was going to find answers on the balcony. Still, being there calmed my thoughts. My mind insisted that right on this spot, Mr. Ward had been nice to me instead of abrupt and cryptic. Right on this spot, we’d made a connection, and it went a lot deeper than the pleasure we’d shared. Right on this spot…

I had almost died.

He could have let me die.

But he had saved me. I still didn’t understand how, and I certainly didn’t know why, but as distant and rude as he tried to be, he’d cared enough to save a stranger with whom he’d only exchanged unpleasant words.

Then he’d cared enough to go to my place and bring things that might make my stay a little easier.

How could the same man be at the same time so infuriating and so… considerate?

I still was no closer to finding an answer to that question when the cold finally chased me off the balcony. My confusion grew worse when I entered the next room, thinking I’d go back up to my cell—I mean, the ‘guest suite’—to warm myself. Every surface in the room was covered in shoes. There were shoes on the two plush armchairs set together as though for conversation, on the low table next to them, on the desk against the wall, on the round table in the middle of the room, on the chairs, and even on top of stacked-up shoe boxes.

And when I say shoes, what I mean is every shape and color, going from flat sandals in earthy tones to brightly colored high heels, from closed ankle-high winter shoes to dominatrix-style, thigh-high leather boots. It was like a shoe store had sprouted in the middle of the Ward mansion. The only thing they all had in common was that they looked like the highest quality.

Oh, and as I soon found out, each and every pair was size seven and a half.

Once I got over the surprise of entering shoe-land, I noticed the woman standing there, hands clasped in front of her. She looked a little older than me, or maybe it was just the effect of her strict skirt, fitted blouse, and tight bun. She’d been talking with Stephen, although both of them fell quiet when I entered the room.

“And this would be the young lady?” she asked him.

“Indeed.” Stephen’s eyes were on me, a slight frown pulling at his brow. “Your lips are turning blue, Miss Angelina. Some tea to warm you up? Coffee? Cocoa?”

Any of those would have been heavenly, especially now that his words had made me realize just how cold I was.

“Coffee, please?” I said hopefully.

He nodded once, then turned back to the woman. Only now did I notice the small bronze name tag on her chest: Camille.

“Go ahead,” he told her. “I’ll return soon.”

“Of course,” she said and, as he left, turned her polite smile to me. “Where would you like to begin, Miss?”

Confusion, thy name is Angelina.

I couldn’t fathom what she meant, and I told her as much. Her smile never wavered. She indicated the room with a wide gesture.

“It is my understanding that you need shoes,” she said. “Do you have a preference? Something to wear indoor or outside? Business or pleasure? Something comfortable or sexy?”

I gaped at her. I must have looked like an idiot, standing there with an open mouth, wide eyes, and still shivering from the cold. After a moment, she took matters—and my feet—into her own hands, quite literally. She removed the two pairs of sandals from one of the armchairs, set them on the floor instead, and came to me. She took me by the arm and led me to the armchair, inviting me to sit down. I did, because it was finally starting to dawn on me what this was all about.

I’d complained to Mr. Ward about my lack of shoes.

So he’d brought a shoe store to me.

It was at the same time the sweetest and the most ridiculously outrageous thing anyone had ever done for me.

“Why don’t we start with these?” Camille suggested. She pulled a low stool in front of me and sat down. In her hands were ballet flats in a very pretty shade of turquoise. “May I?” she asked, indicating my feet.

When I nodded, she slipped the shoes on my feet in a practiced movement that hinted she’d put shoes on many other people before me. Scooting out of the way, she said, “Give them a try. See how you feel in them.”

I did.

By the time Stephen came back carrying a tray with a coffee pot, a porcelain cup, and small jars filled with cream, milk, and sugar, I was trying on my seventh pair. He wedged the tray onto the table, pushing shoes out of the way and earning himself pursed-lips disapproval from Camille.