Ready & Willing (13 page)

With clear reluctance, Cecilia followed her neighbor up the stairs to the second-floor landing, where Mrs. Magill had hung Silas’s portrait as a sort of compromise between the third-floor landing, where she had originally hung it, and the main floor, where he had wished it to hang. He watched as Cecilia stood before it, and was surprised when she lifted her hand to touch it, since she had been so reluctant to touch anything—anyone—before. He was further surprised that, when she began to stroke her finger over the more-than-a-century-old oil that represented his hand, he felt the caress as clearly as if she had drawn her hand across his flesh-and-blood fingers.

“He’s very handsome,” she said to Mrs. Magill. And then, remembering her manners, she added, “Captain Summerfield, you’re . . . You
were
. . . You are?” Her face reflected confusion when she halted.

Mrs. Magill seemed to understand, because she said, “He still is. He looks just like he did when that painting was completed.”

Cecilia nodded, but her expression didn’t clear much. “You’re very handsome, Captain Summerfield.”

He wanted to tell her to please, call him Silas, but that would have been overstepping the bounds of propriety. His propriety, at any rate, since there seemed to be no propriety in current times.

So all he said was, “Thank you, Miss Havens.”

He was surprised again when she replied, “You can call me Cecilia.”

So what could he say but, “And you may call me Silas.”

“Can I call you that, too?” Mrs. Magill asked.

“You already do,” he reminded her, hoping his displeasure in that familiarity was evident. Oddly, however, he realized he wasn’t as bothered by the prospect of her using his Christian name now as he’d been the first few times she’d done it.

“Then why do you keep calling me ‘Mrs. Magill?’ ” she asked. “Or worse, ‘madam’? Why don’t you call me Audrey?”

“Because,
madam,
” he said, deliberately to provoke her, “you’ve never extended the invitation for me to address you so informally.”

She rolled her eyes. “You are so Victorian.”

“Yes, madam, I am.”

“Yeah, okay. Point to the Victorian,” she said with some exasperation. “Look, call me Audrey, all right? Since you’re going to keep annoying me until I set your great-great-however-many-greats grandson straight. That’s your reason for being, after all.”

And it was the
only
reason, Silas reminded himself. He was here only to help Audrey help Nathaniel help himself. And once all of them had succeeded in doing what they were supposed to do . . .

Cecilia stroked her finger over the painting again, above Silas’s hand this time, on his torso, and once again, he felt the warmth and tenderness of her caress as if she had touched him in person. Another twinge of heat splashed through his belly, and he marveled at feeling it. Save that brief shock he’d received from Audrey, he’d not felt anything physically—nor even metaphysically—since returning to this world until Cecilia Havens. And what he’d felt with her—what he felt now, as she touched his portrait—was considerably more vivid, more potent, more . . . more real . . . than what he had felt with Audrey Magill.

What would happen, he wondered, if their contact were prolonged?

Before he could think about that, Cecilia dropped her hand back to her side, and Silas was shaken by the depth of the emptiness that followed the separation. It had been so long since he had felt the touch of a woman. Of any human being. That was one thing he did recall about the place he had left behind to come here. There was no physical contact with others. No one seemed to think there needed to be, because the linking of spirits, of souls, was supposed to be so much better. And in a way, it was. But there was something about physical closeness that couldn’t be achieved with a melding of mind or spirit. There were times when utter peace could be found in the simple touch of a loved one.

Then that thought, too, was scattered, because Cecilia was talking to Audrey, and Silas realized he’d already missed whatever question she had asked. When he heard Audrey reply, however, he realized Cecilia had asked about his great-great-et-cetera grandson, and why Silas was here annoying Audrey about him.

“Before I explain about Silas’s great-great-whatever, I should put on a pot of tea. Because trust me, Cecilia, this is going to take a while.”

 

BY THE TIME THE TEAPOT WAS DRAINED, CECILIA
learned everything Audrey Magill knew about her ghost and his soulless—literally, at least for now—descendant. But, like Audrey, she had no good ideas on how to make Nathaniel Summerfield accept the truth of the situation. She wasn’t even sure what to make of the situation herself. Cecilia definitely believed in an afterlife, but thanks to her experiences with Grandma Dorothy, she didn’t embrace a conventional view of it. Nor had she ever really given any thought to the idea that a person’s soul could actually be removed from him or her at some point while they were still walking around with a beating heart. But knowing that now, she realized it explained
a lot
about the state of the world.

“So what are you going to do?” she asked Audrey as she settled the porcelain teacup decorated with tiny pink roses back in its saucer.

Her neighbor’s china was as impossibly feminine as the living room in which they sat. Which was odd, because Audrey herself didn’t seem like much of a girly girl. Then again, she supposed her neighbor was going for the look of Ye Olde Hat Shoppe—or, even Ye Olde Hatte Shoppe— and she’d achieved that in spades. If Cecilia didn’t know better, she would have thought she’d just dropped into one of the historical romance novels she so loved to read.

“I don’t know,” Audrey replied, punctuating the statement with a soft sigh. She leaned back against the poufy sofa and rested her head on the intricately carved woodwork of its back. “The fact that I have to convince some guy of the seemingly impossible is bad enough. That it’s a guy like Nathaniel Summerfield, who’s pretty impossible himself, makes it even worse. And since it’s coming at an impossibly bad time, that makes it even more hopeless.”

“Why is this time worse than any other?”

Audrey threw out a hand at their surroundings. “Does this shop look ready to open in two days? Because I’m supposed to be opening in two days, and I’m not near ready. But I can’t put it off any longer. I’ve already done something risky by waiting until two weeks before Derby to go live. A lot of the local boutiques and department stores have had hats on sale since February. I mean, I’ve been taking orders all along, but still. I have got to get this place up and running by Thunder over Louisville, because downtown will be crawling with people. Granted, most of them will be down by the river, but a lot of them will wander around town before the fireworks start, and they might just wander into Finery. But I haven’t even found anyone to fill the salesclerk position I advertised for a month ago.
A month ago
. Everyone I’ve interviewed has been on the wrong side of suitable.”

As they always did when she heard about some job prospect, Cecilia’s ears perked up at that. “You need a salesclerk?” she asked. To herself, she added,
For your impossibly feminine hatte shoppe that no one with a Y-chromosome would dare enter upon pain of death? That any man with a mere drop of testosterone would run screaming like a girl from if he got within a hundred feet of it? You need a salesclerk for
that
shop?

Audrey, too, seemed to perk up at Cecilia’s question. “Yeah, I do. You sound like you might be interested.”

“I am interested,” Cecilia said. “I need a job.”

“I thought you were making desserts for Finn and Stephen.”

“That doesn’t pay all that well,” she said. “That’s mostly to cover my rent until I find something full-time.”

“I need somebody full-time,” Audrey told her. “I’ll be full-time in the showroom, too, for the first two weeks, of course, but after that, I’ll need to spend my time making hats, not selling them. There won’t be a lot of business after Derby, but I’ll still need someone to woman the shop and take care of orders from the Internet. I’ll only have weekend hours seasonally once Derby is over, so I’d need you Monday through Friday from eight to five, with an hour for lunch. Do you have any background in business?”

Cecilia smiled. “I have a business degree from Berkeley.”

Audrey’s smile fell at that. “Then you’re way over-qualified. I can only afford to pay minimum wage right now. And the medical coverage is laughable. Which, I suppose, is why all my applicants have been on the wrong side of suitable.”

Cecilia lifted a hand before she even finished talking. “Not a problem,” she said. “I have simple needs, and my health is excellent.”

“You’d take the job even with the ghost of Silas Summerfield lurking around?”

“Madam, I do
not
lurk,” Silas complained. But he didn’t show himself. “I live here the same way you do. If I happen to overhear your conversations, it is only because you speak overly loud. It’s very unbecoming of a woman, actually.”

Although the ghost’s outbursts still gave Cecilia a start, she knew she could get used to them. His Y chromosome and testosterone had to have turned to dust decades ago. And the fact that he wasn’t visible would make him even easier to handle.

“Even with the ghost of Silas Summerfield . . . um . . . living here,” she said.

“Thank you, Cecilia,” he said, his voice softening.

“You’re welcome,” she replied, smiling. And, strangely, for the first time in more than a year, the smile didn’t feel false at all.

“Are you serious?” Audrey asked. “You’d actually consider taking the position, even with the lousy pay, the lack of benefits, and Silas?”

“Madam . . .” Silas cautioned.

Cecilia nodded. “There’s nothing to consider. I want the job.”

Audrey’s smile went supernova at that. And hers didn’t look false, either. “Then it’s yours,” she said. “When can you start?”

Cecilia looked around the room, noting the boxes that still needed emptying, the displays that needed straightening, and the stacks of paperwork that needed sorting. “How about now?” she asked.

Audrey nodded. “Now it is.”

Seven

AT JUST PAST MIDNIGHT THURSDAY, NATHANIEL
stood on the balcony of his sprawling condo at 1400 Willow, looking down at what few lights still lingered in the lesser-priced park-side apartments below. And he wondered what the poor people were doing tonight. Not that anyone who could afford to invest in Cherokee Triangle real estate was poor by any means, but they weren’t as wealthy as he was. And a handful of those apartments—and maybe even a few of the smaller houses—were shared by penniless students who split the rent two or three or even four ways to make them affordable. Nathaniel knew that, because sometimes, when he stood by this window looking down into the park, he saw—and heard, even on the twenty-second floor, even when he wasn’t standing out on his balcony—their battered, muffler-deprived cars rattle to a halt at the four-way stop below before churning to the left to go to some party in one of the less expensive apartments up on Everett.

He also knew that because there had been a time in his own life when he had been one of those penniless students driving one of those battered cars to one of those less expensive apartments on Everett. He’d shared a place on that street with three other guys from the University of Louisville when he was an undergraduate. So many nights, he’d looked out his bedroom window at the majestic brick monstrosity that was 1400 Willow, an icon of wealth and refinement, even amid wealth and refinement. And he’d sworn to himself that someday, some way, he would look out one of the windows in that high-rise and he would thumb his nose at his humble adode and the lifestyle it represented.

But as many times as he’d stood here looking back at that brick building on Everett, Nathaniel had never quite been able to thumb his nose at it. In fact, after enjoying a sip of the expensive single malt he’d poured into the Baccarat highball glass a half hour ago, he lifted his glass to the building instead.

Man, he needed to have his head examined, if he was saluting his old way of life. The last place he wanted to admire was that dump—both the apartment, and the lifestyle he’d had to suffer while living there. Being poor sucked, even if you could do it close to wealth, like you could in the Highlands.

But then, that wasn’t the only reason he needed to have his head examined. Even though more than twenty-four hours had passed since Audrey Magill had made her second visit to his office, Nathaniel couldn’t stop thinking about her. About the things she’d said. About the way she’d looked at him. About the way she’d made him feel.

Warm
. That solitary, momentary physical contact he’d had with her had provided the only relief he’d enjoyed in three days from this damnable cold. He’d tried everything to allay the chill that plagued him, from generous pourings of the single malt he held in his hand—even the false warmth of alcohol would be welcome at this point—to wrapping himself in an electric blanket set on high. But nothing had made him feel even the tiniest bit warmer. He’d even spent time on the Internet, trying to find an explanation for what would cause a person to be cold all the time. He’d narrowed the possibilities for himself down to poor circulation, anemia, or a problem with his thyroid.

Never mind that he spent sixty minutes on the treadmill every damned day, something that gave him excellent circulation; or that he ate red meat—rare—the way a real man should twice a week, which meant his iron levels ought to be just fine; or that he’d had his thyroid, and everything else, for that matter, checked a month ago for the annual physical his insurer required, and had been given a thoroughly clean bill of health. Clearly, he’d come down with
something
this week that made him feel cold all the time. Because what other explanation could there be?

Audrey Magill had mentioned Dante’s
Inferno
in their conversation, he recalled. How hell grew colder the farther down one ventured. He’d had to read the
Inferno
in college, so he already knew that. He knew how, by the time one reached the last circle, where Lucifer himself dwelled, hell was nothing more than a vast lake of ice in which the souls of the most heinous were frozen. So if he’d lost his soul, and now he felt cold all the time, did that mean that, when he died, he was destined for—