If someone had asked her to describe the presence she’d lived with for a couple of days, all Tamsyn would’ve been able to come up with was that it felt wrong, and the whole thing had scared her so badly that she’d sworn off any acquiring for months after.
Tywyll House didn’t feel like that, exactly, but she knew Bowen was right: there was something here, and suddenly a million bucks didn’t seem worth it.
From somewhere deep in the house, a clock chimed, and sighing, Tamsyn glanced over at her phone, precariously perched on the windowsill just above the tub. Quarter past six.
She hauled herself out of the tub, picking up a slightly scratchy towel folded on the corner of the sink, and started getting ready for what she already suspected would be a very long night.
Bowen hadn’t provided any more explanations past Hey, this house is haunted, because why would Bowen ever explain anything, and as she situated her wig back on top of her head, Tamsyn tried to remind herself that whatever—whoever—was haunting this place wasn’t going to have any beef with her. Weren’t these the kinds of houses that had family ghosts? Dead Auntie Clara, or whoever the spirit was wandering these halls, wasn’t going to go after some random American lady staying here only for a few nights. She was no doubt too busy trying to tell her descendants where the hidden treasure was or who had murdered her, something like that.
“That’s how ghosts work, right?” she said aloud as she fished an eyeliner pencil out of her makeup bag.
Tamsyn was halfway through her second smoky eye when she paused, the eyeliner wobbling.
“Unless the ghost is attached to the brooch,” she muttered, her stomach suddenly twisting.
A ghost definitely would go after someone lifting family heirlooms.
“Shit.”
Tossing down the pencil with a clatter, Tamsyn braced both hands on the sink and stared hard at herself in the mirror.
“How badly do you want that money?” she asked her reflection, and after a beat, she nodded. “Right, really badly. Okay, Bligh, big-girl panties and all that. Besides, you’ll have Bowen with you.”
God, it was annoying how warm that thought immediately made her. Just like it was annoying how, after the panic had lifted, she’d been glad to see him.
No, not glad. Happy. It had made her happy to see him there in the hallway in this weird-ass house, handsome and familiar and . . . solid.
Safe.
Like how she felt when she came back from a job and saw the soft glow of the lamp through the windows of her Airstream. Happy, relieved, at peace . . .
And the thing was, she was pretty sure he’d been happy to see her, too. Irritated, for sure, and definitely not thrilled about what she was doing here, but Tamsyn had still seen it, the softness in his gaze as they’d sat there across the table from each other.
But none of that mattered because: A) Tamsyn didn’t mix business with pleasure, and B) even if she did decide to Risk It All where Bowen was concerned, she wasn’t sure he’d be able to do the same. Bowen was brilliant and hot and—in his gruff way—kind, but he was also closed up, walled off, keeping secrets she didn’t fully understand.
Once a girl hit thirty, any idea of I can fix him had to go out the window, and that rule was even more sacred to Tamsyn than not hooking up with a coworker.
She finished up her makeup before moving into the bedroom, the space a good deal chillier than the balmy warmth of the bathroom, her bare feet sinking into deep gold carpet. Sir Madoc had called this the Yellow Room, and he had not been lying. The massive canopy bed that dominated the room was covered in yellow-and-cream-striped fabric, and the wallpaper was a dizzying riot of yellow roses and daisies. Even the two wingback chairs situated in front of the fireplace were the burnished color of old coins, and if she hadn’t been so nervous about the job—and freaked out about how haunted this place apparently was—Tamsyn would’ve been thrilled to have such a lush and luxurious room for a whole long weekend.
As it was, she got dressed in a hurry, wanting to spend as little time alone in the room as possible.
She’d dipped into her savings putting together a wardrobe for this job, telling herself it would be worth it once she was a million bucks richer, and as she appraised her reflection in the full-length mirror in one corner, Tamsyn had to admit the indulgence had been worth it. For tonight’s dinner, she was wearing a black velvet jumpsuit, the sleeves long and loose, the neckline plunging. She’d paired it with ropes and ropes of pearls in all different lengths and another pair of sky-high stilettos, plus black-rimmed cat-eye glasses.
“It’s a look,” Tamsyn said as she turned one way and then the other, the subtle diamanté buckle at her waist catching the lamplight.
Smoothing her hands over her hips, she gave herself one final nod of approval, and was just turning away from the mirror when a movement over her right shoulder froze her in her tracks.
At first, she thought it was just a trick of the light or some flaw in the mirror, but no, there was definitely . . . something. Almost like a haze hovering just there near the footboard of the bed, curling like smoke several feet off the ground.
Tamsyn’s reflection was pale and wide-eyed, and she suddenly realized the temperature had dropped in the room, her breath coming out in faint white clouds.
You’re okay, she wanted to say to herself, but her mouth was too dry, her heart pounding so hard she was surprised it wasn’t rattling her pearls.
The haze was still churning in the mirror, not getting bigger, but not dissipating, either, and Tamsyn made herself turn around, stumbling a little as her heel caught in the plush carpet.
But when she looked at the bed, at the very spot where she’d seen whatever it was floating around, there was nothing there.
And when she turned back to the mirror, all she saw was herself—or Anna Ripley—staring back at her.
Christ, but witches are annoying.
Not the most charitable thought, Bowen could acknowledge, and probably fairly daft given that he himself was a witch, but after just fifteen minutes of making small talk in Tywyll House’s library, he suddenly understood those fuckers with their pitchforks and their burning stakes a little bit better now.
“And so your grandfather Harri was actually the third cousin of my grandfather Corwin. Now, Corwin was known to be one of the more powerful witches of his generation, as I’m sure you know,” the man standing next to Bowen went on, his warm, whisky-scented breath wafting over Bowen, who hid his grimace with a sip of his own drink. “And I don’t believe Harri ever did all that much, which is why we were all so surprised when your father turned out to be so talented in magics. But your grandmother Elspeth, now she . . .”
The man continued to rattle on about the Penhallow family lineage, entranced enough with his monologue that he didn’t seem to notice that Bowen wasn’t paying attention. But to be fair, if this man—what was his name again? Something poncey. Peregrine, maybe?—knew as much as he claimed to about the Penhallows, then he would’ve known that Bowen knew every bit of his family history, had had it drilled into him by Simon Penhallow until Bowen could recite every ancestor since the ninth bloody century.
Still, he had to admit that Declan had been right—Bowen’s last name was all the currency he needed in this place, granting automatic acceptance, no questions asked, even though there weren’t that many guests actually staying at the house for the entire weekend. Most, Sir Madoc had told him, would be arriving just for the event itself on Sunday, but about twenty or so people were currently milling around the library.
Tamsyn wasn’t one of them, and Bowen’s eyes darted toward the library door for what felt like the thousandth time that evening.
He’d thought about stopping by her room to escort her downstairs, but that had seemed . . . presumptuous. And he was already uncomfortable enough, wearing a fucking tuxedo. Could’ve been worse, of course. The Merediths could’ve been sticklers for tradition like Bowen’s father and made everyone wear formal robes. The penguin suit was not his favorite, but it was a damn sight better than those stuffy gowns with their flowing sleeves that always seemed to end up in the soup or dragged through sauce on a plate.
Besides, Tamsyn mocked him enough as it was. If she knew about the robes? St. Bugi’s balls, he’d never live it down.
“And that is why my aunt Griselda stopped speaking to your aunt Bronwyn!” The man finished up with a hearty laugh, slapping Bowen on the shoulder so hard that the ice rattled in Bowen’s now-empty glass.
