Page 74 of The Pearl (The Godwicks 3)

He reached over and squeezed her knee to show he wasn’t cross with her. No need. She knew. She knew and she’d never felt so loved. If only she could let herself love him back.

They drove on through the night on roads dark and empty but for the occasional lorry. The last time she’d been out at three in the morning was the night Sir Jack died, and she’d driven alone from the hospital to The Pearl, unable to stomach returning to Ferry Hill. It was supposed to be a temporary move. She hadn’t been back to their house—herhouse, now—in seven months, she told Arthur.

“So this is sort of a homecoming,” he said.

“It’s not home,” she said. “It was Sir Jack’s home, never mine. Like I told you, I wasn’t even allowed to move the saltshaker from one side of my plate to the other. The Pearl’s the only place that ever felt like home to me. And even then it wasn’t home so much as just…safe.”

“Are you selling Ferry Hill?”

“That’s the plan, as soon as I can make myself go in and clear out my personal things.”

“I’ll help you. Anything you need,” Arthur said.

“If you’re still around when all this is over, I’ll let you.”

“If?” He glanced left at her, just a split second before putting his eyes back on the road. All she’d needed was that split second to see the hurt and fear in his black eyes.

“Don’t you feel like we’re driving into a dragon’s lair?” she said.

“A little,” he said with a shrug. “But there’s always treasure in dragon’s lairs, right?”

“Always dragons, too.”

They continued on in silence.

* * *

ToweringEnglish oak trees lined the winding drive of Ferry Hill. Arthur drove slowly through the tunnel of shadows and toward the house.

“There it is,” she said, feeling stupid, as if he couldn’t see the ten-thousand square-foot Tudor-revival manor looming in front of them, its exterior facade pale ivory and glowing under the spotlights in the front garden.

Arthur parked the car at the front steps. There were no other vehicles in sight. No sign that anybody was here but them…no sign except for the light still on in the master bedroom window. The housekeeper could have left it on, she told herself. Except that didn’t explain the alarm…

Regan waited as Arthur got out. He came around and opened her door, helping her out though she didn’t need the help.

“You’re all right?” he asked as she stared up at the house—its steeply-pitched roof like a witch’s hat, its white walls ghostly glowing, its timbering giving it the faintest impression of medieval prison bars…

“I swore I’d never set foot in this place after Sir Jack died.”

“I can go in alone,” he said. “You can stay in the car.”

“No, I want to go with you.”

“We’ll go in together,” he said, “but stick to me like glue. I mean it. If you have to use the toilet, I’m watching.”

She laughed. “Good thing I went before we left.”

She took a deep breath, steadied herself and started toward the enormous front double doors, so grand she could have ridden a horse through them and put on a circus in the entryway.

Inside, Regan took a breath, breathing in the scent so familiar. Sir Jack’s cologne lingering in the air, sandalwood and orange bergamot, a scent she would forever associate with old men and older money.

The house was quiet, mostly dark. She disarmed the security system and turned the overhead lights on. She peered right into the music room where Sir Jack would play records on his father’s ancient Victrola, the sound warped by age and time. She looked left into the sitting room where she’d spent a thousand interminable evenings entertaining the wives of Sir Jack’s friends, women decades her senior.

Between the two rooms stood a large double staircase that curved to the west and east wings. The master bedroom was in the east wing, and that’s where the security guards had said they’d seen a light on when they drove by.

“Upstairs,” she said. “To the right. You don’t have a gun with you, do you?”

He laughed. “I haven’t been issued a sidearm yet, but I’m not sure what a gun would do against a ghost.”

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