Page 23 of Cursed

“Friends?”

“Old folks home on Sea Haven. The whole lot of ’em ferry back and forth several times a week to play cards, wander the grounds, paint, you name it. Today’s Wednesday, so they won’t be here.”

“And that’s because . . .”

He grinned at her. “Bingo tournament. Gotta have your priorities straight. But that works out. I wanted you to see the collection without the grandparents hovering.”

Vince knew he shouldn’t feel this happy simply squiring around a woman on Pearl Island, but he couldn’t help himself. He hadn’t taken full week of vacation since he first started the business ten years ago as an idiot college kid hustling house sitting jobs. Now the week ahead stretched out like an open promise, and he knew instinctively that bringing Edeena here had been the right decision. She fit the place the way he thought she would, at home on the beach, on the water, the sea wind lifting her hair. And she didn’t even know the surprise he had in store for her, if the professor was up for visitors.

Edeena picked up on his excitement, and cocked a glance at him. “What kind of collection?”

“You’ll see,” he grinned. They entered the grand walk, and sure enough, there was a figure standing on the stairway leading down to the wide front yard. Pinnacle House wasn’t run down by any stretch, but it still possessed the quiet sort of disrepair that had ensured it would never draw too much attention from the untutored eye.

The man who watched over it now was similar, Vince thought, staring at them as they approached. He didn’t know much about Simon Blake, other than he came from a modest amount of money and an immodest amount of intellect, a muckety-muck professor already making news at the College of Charleston though he wasn’t yet thirty. He researched something highly specific and not very useful, Vince remembered, but he couldn’t place it exactly. Like music’s effect on the nervous system or the development language in hamsters. He was a little tweedy, to Vince’s eye, but he wasn’t a bad sort, just a little gruff.

Now the man was on sabbatical or on summer break, Vince wasn’t sure, but as with most summers and weekends, he was out at the big house, running down the endless repairs and managing the occasional guests of his grandparents.

To Vince’s surprise, Simon didn’t bark at them that the museum had closed, as Vince had thought he might. He was tall, slender and built at odd angles, but Vince had seen him up on the roof of the house after a storm. The man didn’t shy away from hard work. “Simon,” he called out.

“Vince Rallis,” Simon rumbled, his gaze swinging to Edeena. “Playing tour guide, I see.”

It was quite possibly the most words he’d ever heard the man utter, and Vince eyed him strangely. “Miss Edeena Saleri,” he said, and Simon’s eyes lit with interest as he studied her, though Vince suspected it wasn’t because of her title.

“Saleri,” he said the word as if tasting it. “An usual name. You’re not American, but not European exactly either. Further south, east. But not Middle East. Greek?”

Edeena laughed with delight and Simon’s gaze darted back to Vince, uncertain of whether he’d guessed correctly.

In that moment, Vince remembered Simon’s primary field of study—a branch of anthropology that tracked the impact of environment on mannerisms and personality. Edeena wasn’t a mere stranger to South Carolina, she was an entirely new research subject, and Simon had picked her out at sixty paces.

Maybe Vince could learn something from the man for his business. Either way, he drew Edeena a little more tightly to his side. Simon was too late, Vince found himself thinking, somewhat irrationally. He’d met Edeena first.

Edeena glanced at him as well, confirming Simon was someone she could tell her story to. At Vince’s nod, she turned her sunny smile on the man and spoke.

“Garronois, actually,” she said, and the sound of her voice had Simon straightening, renewed interest coloring his features. Not the kind of interest a man normally had for a woman, though—it was intense but impersonal, almost clinical.

Vince suppressed a chuckle. He suspected he would not have much to worry about from the professor after all.

“Parents both from the country, yes? And you’ve not been here long. Your consonants are only now beginning to soften, vowels to lengthen.” Simon lifted a finger. “Be careful, it will become a habit quickly enough, and one you’ll need to unlearn when you return. The Garronois appreciate tourists, but they’re quite proud.”

“Quite.” Edeena bowed. She turned again to Vince, her eyes remaining merry. “I didn’t know you had an anthropologist hidden away here.”

Despite his certainty of the nature of Simon’s interest, Vince wasn’t keen on pushing his luck. “I thought Edeena would enjoy the museum, if you’re accepting visitors today?”

“Of course, of course,” Simon waved them vaguely inside, but he still watched Edeena keenly. “You’ve not left your homeland before, have you?” he asked as she passed him.

Edeena shot Vince a startled look. “I . . . well, no. Not in any real sense. A few vacations in foreign countries, but we remained cloistered in private villas or on vacation compounds.” She waved at the house. “Not unlike this, I suspect. Set apart from everything.”

“Excellent,” Simon muttered, and Vince cleared his throat.

“I was hoping you knew enough about the collection here to explain it all?” Vince interjected. “I know your grandparents are in town.”

“Wednesday,” Simon nodded, as if that explained everything. Which it did. “But I know a little about it, yes.” He glanced quizzically at Vince. “Island royalty,” he said succinctly.

“What’s that?” Edeena asked as Vince nodded.

“Why your . . .” Simon hesitated only slightly, blinked, and Vince colored. “Why Mr. Rallis thought you might be interested. The museum here isn’t so much a true museum as a collection of castoffs from Sea Haven’s most prominent residents, past and present. The house at Heron’s Point has been in the family of a Garronois for three, maybe four generations now?” He narrowed his eyes. “Not Saleri, though.”

“It was my mother’s family, Contos,” Edeena supplied. “A century ago, the Saleris and the Contoses were very close—a contingent of them stayed with the Contoses in the…thirties, I think? But they didn’t intermarry until my mother and father.” Simon nodded, satisfied.

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