Page 28 of Lair

And he looks at me and places one cool, pale hand to my cheek like a benediction.

FIFTEEN

I wake to voices. My head is pounding and groggy, I don’t know what time it is. The curtains are drawn, the cabin dark as the pit. The door is open a crack and in the slice of light I catch a glimpse of two figures in the passageway outside. The voices are hushed, and I know immediately this is a conversation I am not meant to hear.

“I won’t do it,” says a voice with chilly froideur—Mrs. Colding.

“Please.” Unmistakably Voper. There’s a pleading tone there I have not heard before.

But Mrs. Colding won’t have it. “I know what this is, and I’ll have no part of it.”

What is it?

“I don’t—” A sigh. I’m sure he’s just put his hands in his pockets. “I’m afraid of what will happen to her.”

I am shivering now.

“Is that the only thing you’re afraid of?” Mrs. Colding sniffs. “You’re not afraid of feeling again?” A long pause follows. When she speaks again, the cool sympathy in her voice denotes a role that extends well beyond chief stewardess. “I won’t. I won’t see her disposed of like the others. She’s different, and you know it.”

Me. She is talking about me.

She is defending me.

Her. Mrs. Colding.

Voper makes a noise of protest, but she interrupts. “I’ve seen what you’re like around her, Adrian. Don’t think I haven’t. I’ve seen what’s she done to you. She’s the best thing that’s happened to you in a long time.”

I lie very still. There’s a beating in my ears, a cavity in my chest. I don’t know what to think. I have been waylaid. I have been wrapped up in radiant consolation.

“I am done with this conversation,” Mrs. Colding is saying. “You will give her a chance, and that’s that. I’ll see you tomorrow, Mr. Voper.” Swift, punishing footsteps. She’s gone.

My heart is hammering now. After a long moment the slice of light widens and I shut my eyes. He is watching me from the door.

He is so quiet he must have flowed across the room like liquid, because I do not hear him until he lowers himself into the chair beside the bed. My thoughts are hurtling about, I don’t know if I can ever sleep again. But I do. I sleep, and dream. I dream of Adrian Voper sitting at my bedside, watching over me.

I wake to a polite rap on the door. I jerk up, holding the covers to my chest, and look over at the chair beside the bed—but it’s empty. I swallow back disappointment. “Come in.”

Mrs. Colding breezes into the dim cabin with a breakfast tray. “Good morning,” she says with tempered aloofness. “How are you feeling?”

“Better. I think.” I hold a hand to my brow, and remember Voper’s hand there.

Mrs. Colding sets the breakfast tray before me. “The doctor said you’d be fine in a day or so. Just need to keep liquids in you.”

“I don’t even remember him coming by.”

Mrs. Colding wipes her hands on her skirt. “I suppose you wouldn’t, you were quite out of it. Mr. Voper was worried.” She goes to the curtains and I squint as they’re drawn back in a glare of sunshine. The sea stretches beyond the massive windows, chipped into diamonds of glittering light.

That’s when I see the note on the breakfast tray.

My heart thuds as I pick it up. The handwriting is in tall, elegant cursive: Rest up. Take your time. Perhaps we’ll bump into each other later, wandering the boat at some strange hour.

So it’s a date, then.

My hands are trembling when I set the note back down.

Mrs. Colding has turned from the curtains and is watching me with an expression I can’t pin down. “I’ll check on you in a few hours,” she declares. “Rest. Take a shower. Change your clothes.” She gestures at the cabin’s walk-in wardrobe, and I see the horde of Hermès shopping bags I left there yesterday.

I look at her. “I don’t understand. How long am I to rest for?”

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