Hemlock Veils

She stopped before one that grew so high it almost reached the top of the wall. Every rose adorning it was perfect, far more bloomed than she would have expected for April, and she found herself reaching out to one, just to make sure it was real. Its petals were a rich blood red, and silky to the touch. She grazed the back of her finger over it.

“Ms. Ashton?”

With a sharp inhalation she turned, dropping the tool belt in the process. Henry stood with bare chest and a drink in his hand. His brows pulled together, as though her being here was an enigma he couldn’t grasp. He stepped closer, narrowing his eyes. She couldn’t tell if he was angry or just surprised. Perhaps both.

It took her a moment to process coherent words, with the way adrenaline made her heart race. But it raced from more than her surprise. It raced at the sight of him, eyes on fire and torso shirtless. She’d almost forgotten how stu

“I—I’m sorry, Mr. Clayton,” she said, trying to divert her eyes as she bent and retrieved the tool belt. Her eyes instead found the fist-sized dark spot over his right pectoral, just below his collarbone—the one she hadn’t been able to make out beneath his shirt before, on the morning with Brian and the rain. A tattoo. She needed a better look, but he wasn’t close enough, and she didn’t want to stare. Her eyes shot to his, off his nakedness. Warmth flooded her, from chest to cheeks.

“How did you get in here?” he asked, his tone as clipped as she’d ever heard. A lock of dark hair fell between his eyes.

“The gate was open and—”

“The gate is never open.”

“It was—”

“Even if it was, you think that gives you the right to trespass?”

She released a breath through her teeth. “Mr. Clayton, I wasn’t trespassing. Arne told me to come by, said he would leave the gate open for me.”

He seemed surprised.

“This morning, before you left Jean’s.”

“He did, did he?” He ground his teeth.

“I wouldn’t have come, but he asked if I would bring your tools by. I knocked on the front door, but…”

He sighed. Looking to the ground with a troubled brow, he pondered. That was when Arne emerged from the glass doors, smiling as though letting people in Henry’s gate was an everyday occurrence. “Elizabeth!” he said, lifting his hands. “Glad to see you let yourself in.”

Henry turned on him. “Ms. Ashton says you left the gate open.”

“Of course, Mr. Clayton. I wouldn’t have heard her otherwise.”

“You didn’t hear her.”

As Arne waved a hand, Elizabeth closed in on them, avoiding a tempting glance at Henry’s magnificent physic and his mysterious tattoo. She placed the tool belt on the stone bench beside him. “I’m sorry to have intruded. I’ll let myself out.”

“I don’t know what Arne told you, but I don’t want the tools, Ms. Ashton.”

She paused, confused.

“I left them there on purpose, in case you might need them again.”

“That’s…um, thank you. But I really—”

“Oh dear,” Arne said. “I’m sorry for the mix up, Elizabeth. I must have misunderstood. I thought Mr. Clayton needed them back.”

“It’s…all right.” It wasn’t difficult to understand what was going on here, what Arne was trying to do. And Henry knew it, too. He placed his glass on the bench, next to the tool belt—just a trace of caramel-colored liquid resting within ice.

“Well, now that we have that cleared up,” he said, still throwing Arne daggers as he folded his arms. Arne didn’t appear the slightest bit affected.

Elizabeth wasn’t sure she could handle another second of tension between him and Henry, or between herself and Henry. “I should get going then.”

“Nonsense!” Arne said. “You just arrived. Please, Elizabeth, stay a short while. I’ll get us some iced tea. I do owe you after the drink on your porch the other day.”

“Arne, it was only water,” she said, almost laughing. “Besides, you helped me move in. If anything, I still owe you.”

“You already paid me this morning with that delicious coffee. Now, you stay here and I’ll fetch the tea.” He looked at Henry, as though he was the master here. “Mr. Clayton, why don’t you show her around the gardens while I do?”

“Why don’t I fetch the tea for you and Ms. Ashton?”

“We both know you make a poor batch of tea, Mr. Clayton.” They engaged in a stare-down, and Elizabeth wondered if they would notice her sneaking out.

“I’m barely—”

“I’ll bring you a shirt.”

Another stare-down. Really, she could have left three times now without them noticing. Why hadn’t she?

Arne left, back inside those glass doors.

“Really, Mr. Clayton, I can go…”

“It’s all right, Ms. Ashton. Arne might poison my food if I allow it.”

She chuckled, and he smiled ever so subtly. And before she knew it her curiosity won out, allowing her eyes to travel to the tattoo. It shouldn’t have surprised her, but it did, so much so that a tiny electrical jolt ran through her chest. It was a monster—a fearsome cartoon-version of his nighttime self, down to the ears and eyes and ridge of fur. It actually looked similar to Eustace’s drawing, the one he had shown her that first night. Only this tattoo, a lot like Eustace’s drawing, was pure evil—something truly gruesome and frightful, like a demon character from a comic book, with extended claws and gnashing fangs. It was him, or his interpretation of who he was. He had branded himself. Perhaps as a reminder?

Then, on the skin of his right arm, over his curved triceps, she spotted a pink, fresh scar, recently healed. Like a forgotten memory suddenly recalled, she knew this was where Eustace had shot him that first night, when her distraction had so unfairly allowed it—the first time Eustace had ever been successful. Again, like she had then, she absorbed the blame. That scar was on his arm because of her. But she had to admit, as guilty as she felt, she was more awed that it appeared so healthy after such a short amount of time.

He must have noticed her staring because he turned that side of him away from her and began to walk. The way he walked slowly down the broadest path told her she was welcome to walk beside him. “Well, Ms. Ashton,” he said, both their strides casual, “as painful as it is for me to admit, it would appear Arne is trying to play matchmaker.”

Her face warmed, but she chuckled. “I suppose I should have picked up on that when he told me the gate would be open and you wouldn’t be available.”

He chuckled too, shaking his head. After a moment, when the path led them beneath a canopy of trees that cut them off from the rest of the modern world and made the atmosphere itself appear green, he said, “I’m…sorry for overreacting. I shouldn’t have expected you trespassed. I don’t often have guests here. Ever, to be exact.”

She paused briefly before picking her steps up again, surprised the words “I’m sorry” had left Henry’s mouth. He began talking before she could. “I don’t know why he calls them gardens. They haven’t been for many years.”

“It’s lovely like this,” she said, glancing up at the trees singing with birds, only the slightest, threadlike beams of sunlight breaking through. “Untamed, overgrown…it’s quite picturesque.”

He looked at her with a severe brow and put his hands behind his back. His feet were still bare and he walked them over the terrain with an ease that said he was used to shoeless walks. “Yes, but…your idea of beauty is peculiar.”