sits at the back of her head, and bright red lipstick adds a pop of color.
“Hi, I’m Giulia. You must be Isa.” The first person besides Rand who actually knows my name. “I’m a couple rooms down. Just thought I’d stop in and say hello.” The gray double-breasted dress with white collar and cuffs, and a white apron tied to the front, is a dead giveaway that she’s housekeeping.
“Thought all the employees in this place left for the day.”
“Blackthornes keep me overnight. Just in case. But I’m the only one, besides the nurse. And you, it seems.” She peeks past me, as if trying to see into the room. “Can I come in?”
“Sure.” She’s probably been in here to clean it at some point, anyway. Who am I to tell her she can’t come in?
Ambling to a stop in the middle of the room, she tips her head back, as if she’s absorbing something in the air, and when she turns to face me, there’s a slight smile on her lips. “Beautiful, isn’t it? Never in a million years did I think someone with my background would end up living in a castle by the ocean.”
“Your background?”
“Poor. I lived on the streets. My daughter and I did.”
“She lives here with you?”
“No. Didn’t think this was a place for children. She stays in a boarding school now.” Nodding toward the fireplace and back, she asks, “Are you comfortable in here?”
“Yeah. It’s a little drafty, but other than that, I’m fine.”
“This was Amelia’s old room.”
My enthusiasm for this place deflates like a balloon. The long, drawn out squeal of a balloon.
Of the many rooms throughout this castle, why the hell would they place me in the dead wife’s?
“I wasn’t aware.”
She glances over her shoulder toward that creepy-looking, porcelain doll. “Here, I’ll put that in the closet for you.”
“Thanks. Was kind of giving me the creeps.”
“Used to give Roark the creeps, too. He refused to come in here.”
“You knew the two of them? Personally?”
“Oh, yes, but not long. Amelia died only a few weeks after I started. So, so sad, what happened to them.”
“Wait … so they know what happened to Roark, then? I mean, I thought he disappeared? If you don’t mind me asking?”
The smile on her face is empty, as if she’s holding it simply to be polite, while her eyes study me. Perhaps she’s gauging whether, or not, to say anything. Wondering if I’ll take the information and spread it around Tempest Cove, like Aunt Midge would do.
“You don’t have to tell me. It’s okay.”
“Isn’t really my place. But you care for Mrs. Blackthorne, right? Maybe she’ll tell you.”
The woman who thinks her possibly dead grandson is alive? Sure. “It’s not important for me to know.”
“You’ve met Lucian?”
I’m beginning to think everyone keeps asking me about him to see what I think of him, like he’s some kind of deal breaker for me. Devil, or not, he’s not scaring me out of this job. “I have. He’s … pretty intense.”
“Yes. Very. But not so bad, once you get to know him.”
“I don’t think he likes me very much.”
“He’s not a people person. Assuming you stay, he’ll warm up eventually.”
Warm up? I can’t imagine that. I found the guy’s personality frigid enough to replenish the polar icecaps. “It seems I’m not expected to stay long.”
With a sigh, she glances around my room again. “This place isn’t for everyone. Some find it depressing. Morose. Maybe even a little frightening, at times. It’s a matter of perspective, I suppose. It can be a peaceful place for some. And drive others absolutely mad.”
“You find it peaceful, then?”
“Sure. It’s sort of like ... sitting in a cemetery. Being surrounded by death can either make you feel incredibly vulnerable and alone, or it can make you grateful to be alive.”
Giulia’s is a personality that I can’t quite place in our first meeting. A part of me appreciates her perspective, as I’ve always had a sort of fondness for the macabre. A cracked dead rose. A spider web in morning light. Even a cemetery. Yet, I find her demeanor almost oddly un-genuine, unlike Nell’s. It’s as if she’s hiding something.
“I met Sampson, as well,” I tell her.
“Oh, he’s a big sweetie. Scary looking, but a sweetie.”
“Scary, for sure. He looks like he could devour a person in under a minute.”
“Minute and thirty, actually.”
“Excuse me?”
Her head kicks back on a quiet chuckle, and even that strikes me as somewhat fake. “I’m joking. I’ve only seen him go after