Grim Shadows (Roaring Twenties #2)(38)

Hadley didn’t care a thing about ghosts; she had her own to worry about. “Do you know where her urn was housed?” she asked. A few local churches had niches for funerary ashes, but she questioned whether churches would welcome a pagan urn shaped like a jackal-headed god.

“The family kept it, far as I know. Nice display piece like that? Probably on someone’s mantelpiece.”

• • •

Lowe relayed the caretaker’s directions to the waiting taxi outside the Columbarium, and then rode in silence with Hadley as the car sped down rain-darkened streets. He’d done his damned best to leash his feelings and pretend as if nothing had happened between them the previous night. Well, nothing had happened on Hadley’s end, so the charade was more a matter of his own self-preservation. Reclaiming his bruised male pride.

But it would’ve been a lot easier if the Cinderella spell he’d prayed she’d been under had magically faded overnight. After all, she wasn’t wearing the fantasy whirlpool dress. No flower in her hair. In fact, she was back to her normal, funeral-colored, straightlaced curator self.

And even more damned beautiful than the night before.

God help him.

She didn’t smell like lilies today, so that was helpful. But when he’d held the taxi door for her, he’d noticed the backs of her stockings were decorated with a line of black bows. Different. A subtle sort of daring, especially for her. But the stockings weren’t his primary distraction at the moment. No, that honor went to the thing that had caught his attention the moment he’d seen her in the Columbarium.

Her coat was mis-buttoned. Unusual for her to be sloppy. The top buttonhole was circling the second button instead of the first, which created a tunneled gap under the edge of the wool—a little shadowed hidey-hole. He imagined small woodland creatures burrowed inside it, right next to her breast, and had to refrain from teasing her about it.

But when the cab turned a corner and headed into North Beach, he spotted something more interesting than a wee mouse beneath her out-of-line buttons. A flash of skin. Was she wearing a low-cut dress beneath that drab gray coat? His thoughts strayed to her brightly colored underthings and it took the fortitude of a monk to stop himself from mentally flicking open the coat button.

Remember the terrible kiss, he thought. Should’ve been enough cold water to shift his concentration to their mission. But it only revived something that had been niggling his thoughts since he’d left Hadley the night before.

She caught him staring and offered a tight smile. “Dreary day.”

“Hmm.”

“Should’ve brought an umbrella.”

“Are you and that fellow seeing each other?”

Sharp eyes widened. “Who?”

“That Oliver Ginn fellow.”

“Oh.” Did her shoulders fall? She definitely looked more relaxed, didn’t she? “Mr. Ginn has been calling on me for a couple of months now, I suppose.”

“I see.” He didn’t. “Serious, is it? Wedding bells in your future?”

One brow lifted. “None I’m aware of. I suspect someone would inform me first.”

He tapped a random rhythm on one knee. She was teasing him. That was good, surely? Because it definitely didn’t sound like the sort of response a girl who was madly in love would give. He thought perhaps the reason she’d been so unresponsive when he’d kissed her was because she had feelings for someone else.

“Oliver wasn’t the reason,” she said in a small voice, eyeing the taxi driver.

His hand stilled. “Pardon?”

“Firstly, I wasn’t sure if you were only doing it to trick me.”

Her voice was almost too low to hear, so he leaned closer. “I’m not following.”

“Tricking me out of the canopic jar paintings.”

Hold the line one second: she was talking about the kiss. “No, it wasn’t a trick,” he said quickly. “I mean, yes, I wanted the paintings. But I kissed you because I wanted to.”

She blinked rapidly. “Well, regardless, my doubt about your motives wasn’t the entire problem. It’s just that I suppose I have trouble with touching.” She watched the city rolling by her window, gloved hands clutched in her lap. “It’s indirectly because of my . . . well, what happened with the chandelier.”

“Death by crystal,” he said.

She nodded, a nervous smile briefly lifting her mouth before she continued. “There was an incident when I was younger.”

“What kind of incident?”

“I don’t like to speak of it.”

He paused. “Did someone hurt you?”

“No, not that,” she said. “The details aren’t important. It’s in the past, but I haven’t quite been able to overcome my negative feelings associated with it. It’s usually not an issue, as people unconsciously tend to keep their distance from me. Which is fine. Things are easier at work, especially, when people stay out of my way. However, because of all this, I’ve become accustomed to having my private space.”

“I see.” Partly, anyway, but she didn’t seem to be budging on the “incident.”

“I’m sure it sounds pathetic. Maybe it is, I don’t know. I’m just unused to being . . .” She struggled for words, gesturing with her hands in a way that didn’t help to get her point across.