Rampant

And—more to the point—I want to know more about you.

10

ZOË PEERED AT HER HAVEN DUBIOUSLY.

“Does it feel any different,” Grayson asked, “now that you’ve seen her?”

“Let’s just say that having seen…something, I am more willing to listen.” He’d been watching her reaction as they approached, she was well aware of that.

“How about you listen while I cook you dinner, at my place.”

That sounded good. “Do you cook dinner for all your research assistants?”

“Only if they look like you.”

How many women had he seduced because they had a key to the house next door, she wondered. If it was the only way he could get inside, there might be a legion of notches on his bedpost. Luckily for her, he still hadn’t found out whatever it was he wanted to know.

“Come in, please.” He rested one arm up against the door as he ushered her in. The leather jacket he wore was open, and the planes of his chest and abdomen were visible under the T-shirt he wore beneath. Casual and relaxed, yet so rangy and hot, the very look of him lured her in, as if she were on a piece of elastic whenever he was around.

Curiosity split her attention as soon as she stepped inside. The space was arranged differently from next door. Here on the ground floor there was a tiny kitchen to the front, with minimal-fuss cupboards and a breakfast bar that looked as if it had been there since the 1960s.

No fancy restoration work here. He led her into a second small room at the back of the house, which housed a desk and shelves crammed with books, and a large, rather dated-looking sofa. It was definitely a weekend retreat, rather than a proper home.

“You can put your bag and things there.” He gestured at the sofa. She shrugged out of her cardigan, warming through fast when she saw the way he looked at her as she settled in.

“How did you get into this, ghost hunting?” she asked as she followed him into the kitchen area.

He pulled out a tall stool from under the breakfast bar for her, before walking around to face her over it. “The ghost hunting, as you call it, can prove valuable for the research. You’re more likely to get the truth about what happened in the past from the dead than the living.”

That was a pretty weird concept to get her head around. She climbed onto the stool, resting her forearms on the breakfast bar. “I really meant how did you get into this field of research?”

“Ah, right. I started out in psychology, and for various reasons I got drawn toward the history of belief and the supernatural.” He reached under the breakfast bar and pulled out a bottle of wine.

The cat appeared from somewhere upstairs and sat close by Zoë’s feet, observing Grayson at work in the kitchen, purring loudly. She watched him uncorking the wine. There was something fluid about the way he moved that attracted her immensely. Despite his size, there was a subtle sense of physical ease and self-confidence about him that made her wonder. She sensed it would magnify, if need be. Like up there at the restaurant the night before. He was guarded, and yet he’d faced up to Cain Davot on his territory. “What do you know about her, the ghost?”

“Her name is Annabel McGraw. She lived here in Carbrey during the early 1700s.”

It was kind of odd hearing him talk about the woman she’d seen. It was compelling, too. “Have you seen her?”

“Not as such.” He went to a cupboard and lifted out two glasses. “I can tell you the facts I’ve gleaned so far. She wasn’t originally from this area. I tracked her down in the Glasgow registry of birth. She was an illegitimate child, no siblings, and her mother was in service.”

He poured out the wine and Zoë watched it turn the glass dark, thinking about how hard life must have been back then, so different to what they knew and took for granted these days. “Why did she come here?”

“I don’t know. I’m not even sure when she came. There are various accounts of her in association with practicing witchcraft, and some quite lurid accounts of her death, but we have to treat that kind of information with a degree of caution. All I have in terms of official records is a note of her death in the council registry, where she was recorded as a beekeeper. That in turn led me to find her name on the candle maker’s register.”

“Beekeeping?”

“Yes. I imagine that’s how she supported herself. Both the honey and the wax for candles were in great demand at that time, as you might imagine. People had to hold a license in order to be able to make candles, because of the value associated with them. You can still see the remains of the bole at the back of the house.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s the place where the beehive is stored. In this case it’s built into the wall out back. The keepers had to keep them close by for security. As far as I can discover, there wasn’t a local supplier of honey until Annabel came and started her hive. Before that the villagers would probably have bought from neighboring towns where someone else kept a hive. Honey and beeswax were valuable commodities.”

“You think maybe she came here and figured what the place needed, and set about supplying it?”

“Possibly. She could have learned the skill from a keeper in another town. From all accounts she was a canny woman.” He smiled. “Of course, most of those accounts mention that in terms of being in league with the devil.”

“There’s that dark side thing raising its head again.”