Page 43 of This Haunted Heart

As long as she was here in my house, forced to suffer the spirits who walked these halls, same as I was, she could do as she pleased for the most part. I’d had more severe intentions originally, but Rynn had always been very good at destroying my plans. I was finding it harder and harder to treat her with the same cruelty she’d once shown me.

Speaking of the devil, she joined me in the drawing room.

Rynn wore a shirtwaist in green that did pretty things toher eyes—an article of clothing that must have escaped my notice at the inn. No corset. She had on a pair of my brown tweed breeches. On me, the garment was made to be baggy. On her, it hugged her hips and thighs and left nothing of her lush silhouette to the imagination.

“Hm,” I said, forgetting momentarily how to string words together into a proper sentence. “You offered to wear my clothes yesterday . . . I see the appeal now.”

She tugged at her waistband. “I’m wearing your drawers too,” she added, her voice full of silky seduction.

I sat up, wanting to see for myself what she was offering, but she was up to something, and it was never wise to play her games. Hiding from temptation, I lifted my newspaper to conceal her from my eyes. “No trades.”

“Hear me out.” Rynn pushed the paper down and sat on the arm of my chair, crushing the print between us. “I haven’t been mushroom hunting since I was a girl. There are a good number of ash trees outside. I spotted them from your bedroom while I was pilfering your clothes. I want you to take me mushroom hunting since you know the grounds far better than I.”

We used to hunt morels this time of year when we were young. Fondness warmed my chest at the pleasant memories, but I squashed them, narrowing my eyes at her. “What are you really after?”

“Mushrooms.”

I shook my head. “That’s not it.”

“Well,” she said, her plump lips in a droll twist. She lifted a foot into the air and wriggled her toes in her black stockings. “I’ll need my boots to hike through those trees.”

“There it is,” I said, twice as suspicious as before.

“I’m not going anywhere without my cash, and I haven’tfound it yet. Besides, you’ll be right there, and aren’t the gates locked? Where could I go?”

“I wouldn’t dare underestimate you, Rynn. You could pick the lock or recklessly climb the fence, and you could get a lot farther faster in boots.”

She rolled her eyes. “Not if I’ve got you following me about like a bird dog. Come on. I’m tired of being inside. I need to feel the sun on my face. Don’t you want to show me the grounds?”

I did want to show her the grounds. And every other room in the house she still hadn’t seen. Every board and every molding, every ornament, every fixture, every cornice, every book. It had all been built and bought and decorated for her, and I wanted her to see it. To revel in it.

To haunt it with me.

But I wasn’t a fool and I knew she was up to something, so I shoved down the impulse and fixed my face.

“No,” I said, freeing the newspaper from between us.

Rynn ripped it out of my hands, rolled it forcefully, and swatted me on the head with it like she was swatting a fly. Before I could wrestle it back from her, she pressed her lips to mine, and my body responded immediately against my wishes. My heart jumped, and my pulse hammered in my throat.

I forgot all about the paper. Forgot how to even read. Forgot letters and their sounds. Forgot how to breathe.

“Please,” she said, against my mouth.

I pulled away from her. “You can kiss me all day, Rynn, if you want.” I dug my fingers into the arms of my chair so they would stay out of her beautiful hair and away from her beckoning body. “I’m not giving you your boots. I’ll take you mushroom hunting, but you’re doing it in your stockings.”

She kissed me again, more fervently than before.

“It’s not going to work,” I told her, my hand finding the small of her back and resting there.

We weren’t twelve anymore, and my heart was a withered thing. She couldn’t crack it open with tenderness and attention. Not like she had back then.

* * *

Well, it worked.

We crossed the lawn, headed for the trees. The vixen trailed after me in her boots and a borrowed wide-brimmed hat, ducking low branches as we delved deeper into the forest. I loved hiking. I liked it even more with her beside me, chirping excitedly each time she spotted a mushroom to put in her wicker basket.

In my own basket, I’d brought a cold lunch of assorted berries and cornbread. After an hour of hiking and hunting, we ate it together in the sunlight on a bed of clover, passing a canteen of water between us. Rynn stared off at the house in the distance where it peeked between the canopy of trees, studying it in the afternoon light.

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