Oxford Shadows (3 page)

Sam broke the silence. “Did you go out clubbing?”

“I had dinner with my boyfriend and his parents.”

Sam threw her a sideways glance. “Your man lets his girl walk back home in the middle of the night?” He gave a shake of his head that Madison translated into
What a tool
.

She thanked the heavens Rupert wasn’t there at that very moment. He took his role of knight in shining armor to the nth degree. She sized up Sam’s muscular mass. Yes, that would have turned into a battle of the superheroes.

“I needed to be on my own.”

“Trouble in paradise?” Teasing was apparently another one of Sam’s skills. She should put him in touch with Jackson in the anti-Rupert league.

Breathe in. Breathe out. Change the subject.
“So, you’re from the States? The South too?”

“New Orleans.”

A pang of nostalgia knocked at the door of her homesick heart. The longing for Louisiana’s sticky, muggy air tugged at her soul and the temperature of the English night dropped. Goosebumps rose on her forearms.

“I’m an hour away from Bat’ Rost,” she said.

Sam extended his fist, pumped the air with it, and she giggled. The muscles of her stomach relaxed.

They reached Great Tom, the loudest bell in Oxford, lodged in the towering entrance to Christ Church College. The gothic shadow never failed to overwhelm Madison. She didn’t want to be alone anymore. Between the bloodthirsty ghost and the thugs, her insides were all mushy. She pushed further down St. Aldate’s so he wouldn’t assume she lived in Christ Church.

“So, Madison, you going to take better care of yourself from now on?”

Sam didn’t wait for her reaction but leaned forward to drop a light kiss on her cheek. There was no jolt of electricity at his contact, no lingering of his lips, but the kiss ignited a need inside her. Not the sexual fire she felt for Rupert, just something sweet and weirdly familiar.

“Later.” Sam was already walking away from her.

She took a step after him. “Wait. Will we see each other again?” She hadn’t meant to sound so flirtatious.

Sam swiveled around and a wicked grin broke the fierce look on his face. “Sure. I’ll keep an eye on you, Pumpkin.”

Her jaw tightened. The term of endearment grated on her nerves, but Sam was already out of earshot by the time she could come up with a witty reply.
I’ll keep an eye on you.
Who in the name of the Virgin Mary did he think he was? Freaking Batman?

4

THE NEXT DAY, the late afternoon offered Madison her first glimpse of English spring. She wouldn’t be in need of air conditioning quite yet. She dismounted her bike and put its front wheel into the secure grid in the bike shed. After locking the chain, she headed toward the steps leading up to the entrance of the detached Victorian house her aunt had moved into three days before.

Aunt Louise’s arrival in Oxford had come as a complete surprise. Her transfer from Baton Rouge to the Ursuline Preparatory School in Oxford had happened while Madison was staying with Rupert in Pierre Part over half term.

Whether she was happy or uneasy about her aunt’s move, Madison couldn’t quite yet decide. Yes, on one hand it would be good to reconnect with the woman who had made Madison’s Ivy League dreams possible by giving her a place in boarding school. On the other hand, Madison could have done without a family member looking over her shoulder when there was so much to figure out about herself and her whacko heritage. Madison had wanted to do it on her own, but now, after the bloody-ghost drama of the previous night, maybe she would take any help she could get.

Madison knocked and within seconds a bony woman opened the door. “Good afternoon, Sister Madeleine. I’m here to see my aunt, Sister Louise.”

Sister Madeleine stepped back and gestured for her to enter. “She’s in the prayer room with a guest.”

A guest? England was Louise’s first foray outside the U.S., and she had never mentioned any acquaintance in Oxford.

The prayer room was a tiny space with a simple crucifix hanging from a whitewashed wall. Chairs were arranged in three tight rows. Through the crack in the door Madison could see her aunt, although her back was turned to the entrance. Louise sat in the first row of chairs, her spine rigid, her shoulders held tightly together.

Madison’s gaze settled on Louise’s visitor. The woman was tall and curvaceous. Her ebony skin glowed in the prayer room that now basked in the fading afternoon light. The flamboyant material wrapped around her head in the traditional African way contrasted with her dark and strict clothes. She was listening to Louise, whose hushed words contrasted with the jittery movement of her hands. Madison couldn’t hear their words, but she could see that her aunt was trying to press home a point. Agitation wasn’t Aunt Louise’s normal state of mind.

When the black woman noticed Madison, her eyes narrowed and she tilted her head as if to acknowledge the newcomer, but the flicker of a smile on her face wasn’t enough to relax the tension in Madison’s shoulders.

Louise followed her visitor’s gaze and turned toward the door. Instead of welcoming her niece, Louise’s head played ping-pong between the woman and Madison. Once. Twice.

“I don’t want to interrupt,” Madison ventured.

Louise didn’t react.

“I was about to leave.”

The woman’s voice reached Madison, the tone low, the accent French and sensual. Madison couldn’t take her eyes away from her, like a deer under the spell of a rattlesnake. The woman stood, and her height made Louise appear even smaller than she already was.

“Please come in, sweetie.” Louise seemed to have finally remembered her manners. No welcoming gesture accompanied her words. “This … this is … euh …” She stumbled over her words as she turned toward her guest. “This is an old friend of mine, Aurélie.”

The woman looked strangely familiar to Madison.

After grabbing her bag from the floor, Aurélie walked toward the door. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Madison. I’ve heard so much about you.”

Her handshake was strong; the contact of her skin against Madison’s warm and almost electric. Madison shivered and only managed a faint smile. After the woman left, she took the seat Aurélie had occupied. She arched her eyebrows in an unspoken question.

Louise failed to see—or chose to ignore—the plea. “You weren’t supposed to come today.”

Welcome to me.
If Madison hadn’t known her aunt’s kind nature better, she would have taken offense at the veiled reproach. Placing her hands flat on her lap, she muffled her disappointment. “I needed to see you, Aunt Louise. Something happened last night at the concert I went to with Rupert’s parents.”

Her aunt straightened up, surprise sketched on her face, the features of which were so similar to Madison’s own: same wide, domed forehead, and same full upper lip and thick eyelashes.

“You were with him last night?”

“Rupert wanted to introduce me formally to his father and stepmother. I’d only met them at the wedding two months ago. Did I not tell you?”

“No, you didn’t.” Louise’s concise answer fell flat.

Was Madison reading too much into her aunt’s mood? Guilt seeped inside her because she knew she had been less than forthcoming herself regarding Rupert. Did her aunt approve of her having a boyfriend? The premarital sex chat wasn’t one she wanted to have with an Ursuline nun quite yet. Or ever.

“This relationship is getting serious. He visited Pierre Part at Easter, and now you’re meeting his family.” The South had crept into the flow of Louise’s words and stretched her vowels like the twang of a banjo. “Don’t you think it’s moving too fast? You hardly know the boy.”

Good heavenly days.
Madison had expected her aunt to express some concern but she could have waited to meet Rupert before acting like an overprotective dad on a prom night.

“Mom and Mamie liked him very much.”
And he stayed at a motel every single night.
She could still feel the frustration stirring inside her; the moments of almost-touching, almost-kissing sending hot waves through her memory. Rupert had insisted on finding a room in a hotel against Madison’s initial wishes.

“Your mom and Mamie always think short term. What will you do when he leaves you?”

The question slapped Madison across the face. Her cheeks burned with shame. If she hadn’t been seated her legs would have given way.

Her aunt hadn’t said “when the two of you break up” or “when it’s over.” No, she had implied Rupert
would
leave her. She had assumed Madison’s fate would be the same as every LeBon woman before her.

Aunt Louise leaned forward and seized Madison’s hands to give them a light squeeze. “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings, sweetie. But isn’t he an earl or something? Your mom kept babbling about it the last time we talked.”

“His father is.” Madison didn’t elaborate. Commoners married princes these days. That was all over the English tabloids, for heaven’s sake. Rupert wasn’t even a prince, only an earl. Or rather, he would be one day, but not anytime soon, judging by Hugo’s rugged health.

Louise dismissed Madison’s answer and stood. “It’s unlikely that boy will be able to understand the complications of our family situation.”

Madison wanted to scream, but the peaceful prayer room was hardly the place for an outburst. “That boy” was the reason she was able to
face
her own family situation. Rupert would keep her sane. He would come to her rescue just like he had when Peter had struck last month. He would always be ready to put his own life on the line to protect those he loved. He had done that for his best friend Monty, and he had done that for her when Peter had tried to kill her.

Her eyes locked with Louise’s, the genuine, wholesome light in the woman’s eyes contrasting with the harshness of her words. She knew her aunt hadn’t meant to hurt her. Swallowing the anger that burned in her throat, Madison shifted the conversation away from Rupert and the embarrassing LeBon ability to see the dead.

“I’m starving. Can you put a sandwich together and feed your favorite niece?” The attempt was clumsy but enough to distract her aunt from more foraging into Madison’s love life.

“You’re in luck. I just bought some fresh bread and pastrami.”

Madison stood and wrapped her arms around Louise’s neck, splashing a kiss on her cheek. They walked together out of the prayer room and headed for the kitchen in the basement. Madison had helped her aunt move in and knew her way around the place.

Halfway down the stairs Louise swiveled toward Madison. “Sorry, sweetie. I completely forgot to ask you. You said something happened last night. Nothing bad, I hope.” Concern made her aunt bite her lower lip.

The ghost and its blood-smeared face imposed itself over Louise, over her reassuring smile and caring eyes. The shock of the image almost threw Madison off balance. She grabbed the railing along the wall of the narrow staircase. She so wanted to tell her aunt everything. She needed to. But a shadow of a doubt prevented her from the full-on confession that was on the tip of her tongue. After the prickly conversation they had just had, another heavy exchange was more than Madison was ready to face.

“You would have loved the music. We should definitely go together.”

Sharing the burden might have prevented the ghost from infiltrating her dreams. Because he would come back. They always did.

5

Florence ~ July 1508

THE COLORFUL CROWD is dense on the Piazza della Signoria; Florentines love mingling and jesting. Today they are eager to bask in the late afternoon summer light. I am one of them, and the warm glow of the sun matches my joyful mood. I enjoy my illicit freedom. My maid by my side, I stand next to the statue of David Michelangelo, created four years before. The artwork rests on the location where Friar Savonarola was burned at the stake. I was a mere infant at the time of Friar Savonarola’s death and cannot remember those atrocities. Now, at the age of sixteen, all I have known is the increasing grasp the Medici have over the affairs of our city. I shake my head to chase away these preoccupations.

“I knew you would come.”