“
t’s all right, Lori,” Kit soothed. “Calm down, relax,
breathe. . . .”
I “What bee got up her bum?” Rory grumbled.
“Hush, Rory,” scolded a third voice. “Can’t you see that the poor girl’s upset? I’m so sorry, dear. I didn’t mean to startle you.
It’s this ridiculous ointment. It’s enough to give anyone a fright.”
I was back in my chair and trembling like a leaf. I wasn’t sure how I’d gotten there, because I had no clear memory of what had happened after I’d screamed.
Kit was kneeling before me, holding my hand and peering up at me solicitously, but the corners of his mouth were twitching in an all-too-familiar way.
“What’s so funny?” I snapped, glaring at him.
“Nothing,” he said quickly. “You’ve been very stressed lately, with the twins going off to school for the first time, and you haven’t been getting much sleep since your husband’s been away, and you and I had been having a heated discussion, so no one blames you for reacting as you did when you saw Charlotte.”
“Charlotte?” I repeated as Kit’s cue sailed over my head. “But Charlotte can’t be Ren—”
“Can’t be angry with you for opening the door and screaming in her face,” Kit filled in hastily. “And she’s not. Are you, Charlotte?”
“Certainly not,” said someone standing behind me. “I’d be the last person to criticize anyone’s behavior, after the show I put on the last time we met.”
I turned slowly in my chair and saw the tall, slender figure of Charlotte DuCaral towering over me in a pair of pointy-toed black Aunt Dimity: Vampire Hunter
215
leather boots. She’d thrown open her voluminous black cloak to reveal a lining of crimson silk that had a small, neatly mended tear near the hem. She was wearing bloodred lipstick, and she’d covered her face with a gooey white substance that made her look deathly pale.
“Your face,” I said shakily. “What’s on your face?”
“Zinc oxide,” she replied. “Dreadful, I know, but quite necessary, I assure you. It’s difficult to tell now, but I was once a flaxenhaired blonde, and my skin still burns quite easily. On a sunny day like today, I won’t leave the house without my cloak and my zinc oxide, but since the ointment bothers you, I’ll wipe it off. I can always reapply it before I leave—which, by the way, won’t be for a while. I have a few things to say to you, Rory.”
As she turned to leave the parlor, the cloak billowed around her, and I saw superimposed upon it a vivid mental image of an afghan swirling around Rob as he twirled in a half circle in my living room.
“He swooped, ” I said under my breath.
“What’s that?” said Kit, getting to his feet.
“Nothing.” I faced the bed again and rested my chin on my hand.
“You didn’t ought to scream like that,” said Rory. “You scared the birds.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, staring blankly into the middle distance. I had no idea why Charlotte had been standing beneath the apple tree on Emma’s Hill ten days ago, but I also had no doubt that Will and Rob had seen her there. Rendor wasn’t a creepy psycho pervert voyeur who was menacing my children. He was a middle-aged woman who sunburned easily and liked to wear red lipstick when she went out. My vampire hunt, which had begun with so much promise, had ended in farce, and Kit would never let me forget it.
I felt ten times a fool.
“Charlotte seems quite chipper, don’t you think?” Kit said as he carried another chair over to Rory’s bedside.
216 Nancy Atherton
“Does she?” I said. “I didn’t notice.”
“She’s a different woman from the one who played such mournful music in the music room,” said Kit. “She looks ten years younger.”
“Must be the zinc oxide,” I said indifferently.
“I think we could all do with some tea,” Kit said, rubbing his palms together vigorously. “I’ll be right back.”
Rory took up his binoculars and I continued to stare disconsolately at nothing until Kit shoved a cup of tea under my nose and pulled me out of my cheerless reverie. I looked around and noticed for the fi rst time that Charlotte had returned, with a clean face but without her cloak. She was wearing a gray silk blouse with a blue tweed skirt and looked every inch the country matron.
While I’d been contemplating the mortifying depths to which my vivid imagination had dragged me, Kit had set up an informal tea party on the coffee table, using china from Rory’s kitchen and the food Henrietta had packed for us. One plate was filled with crustless sandwiches, one held eclairs, lemon tarts, and cream puffs, and still another was piled high with jammy biscuits.