Serafina and the Black Cloak - Robert Beatty Page 0,35

to be crammed inside the carriage together, with nothing to do but look at each other in the darkness.

Braeden sat down and patted the seat beside him. “Perhaps you should sit here, Serafina, on this side. We’ve got to stay warm somehow.”

Despite the uncomfortable tightness forming in her chest, she slowly moved toward him.

She hoped she didn’t smell like the basement. If he was accustomed to ladies like Anastasia Rostonova, with her lavish dresses, or even Miss Whitney, with her rose-scented perfume, she couldn’t imagine that her own scent would be too pleasant for him. Excuse me, Miss Serafina, he would say, gagging and coughing, on second thought, perhaps you should indeed sleep on the floor with the dog.…

But he didn’t say that. She sat beside him, and the world didn’t come to an end. As they snuggled together a little to stay warm, she fretted that he’d discover some bizarre characteristic about her that she didn’t even realize was bizarre. She just hoped there wouldn’t be a reason for her to take off her shoes in Braeden’s presence and have him notice her missing toes. She didn’t want him to get too close. Would he be able to feel her missing bones? She wasn’t even sure which ones they were. How many bones did a person usually have, anyway?

She had always been content to snuggle into small places on her own, but she was surprised to find herself so comfortable cuddled up beside him. She was able to relax a little and breathe again.

Earlier that morning, when she’d woken up wedged in a metal drying rack in Biltmore’s basement, the last place in the world she would have thought she’d spend her next evening was nestled in the velvet warmth between the Vanderbilt boy and his valiant guard dog. Gidean, for his part, seemed to have gotten over his initial reaction to her. They’d fought together on the same side, she and this dog, and maybe they were a little bit friends now, at least temporarily.

“Serafina, I need to ask you a question,” Braeden said in the darkness.

“All right,” she agreed, but she knew it wasn’t going to be good.

“Why do you live in the basement?”

She didn’t know if he considered her to be his friend or if they were just shoved together by happenstance and he was making the best out of a bad situation, but after all they’d been through together, it didn’t seem right to lie to him. And she didn’t want to.

“I’m the machine mechanic’s daughter,” she said finally. She just said it. Just like that. Out loud. Even as she said the words, she felt both pride and a sickening feeling of impending doom that she had betrayed her father.

“I’ve always liked him,” Braeden said casually. “He fixed the buckle on my saddle and made it much more comfortable for my horse.”

“He likes you, too,” she said, although she remembered that her pa had spoken more about the buckle than the boy that day.

“So, have you been down there in the basement all this time?” Braeden asked in amazement.

“I’m good at staying out of the way,” she said simply. She wanted to tell him that she was the Chief Rat Catcher, but she held her tongue, not sure how he would react to the thought of her grabbing rats. He might want to know when she had last washed her hands. She suddenly doubted if he even cared what she did. All sorts of rich and famous people and their children came to Biltmore, so why would Braeden care what she did all night?

“So you were down there in the basement when you saw the Man in the Black Cloak the first time…” he said. “Who do you think it is?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t even know if he’s a human or a haint.”

“What’s a haint?” Braeden asked, his eyebrows raised.

“A shade, a haunt. You know, a ghost. The Man in the Black Cloak may be some sort of wraith that comes out of the woods at night. But I think he’s a mortal man. I think he’s one of the gentlemen at Biltmore.”

“What makes you think that?” Braeden said in surprise.

“His satin cloak, his shoes, the way he walks, the way he talks. There’s something about him…like he thinks he’s better than everyone else…”

“Well, he’s certainly scarier than anyone I’ve met,” Braeden said, but then said no more.

She could tell that her theory that the Man in the Black Cloak was