Rassmussen Plantation part 11

Cinnamon didn’t answer. Instead, she took a few steps past him and knelt down, near Ajax, who was still in his original spot on the rug.

“Be careful. He doesn’t always take to strangers.” Jeremy’s voice was swift and stern.

Cinnamon patted Ajax on the head and Ajax whined and leaned into her lap. Jeremy looked surprised.

“What were you doing on my lawn, Jeremy Tarleton?” Cinnamon asked, never lifting her eyes from Ajax, “You ought not to go walking on grounds not your own at such an hour.”

Jeremy chuckled again, and sat down on the red couch where Cinnamon had been laying.

“Do I make you nervous, little lamb?”

“No. I’m not afraid of you or anyone. And don’t call me ‘little lamb’.” Cinnamon’s eyes flashed up at him with a burst of ill-disguised hostility, but quickly returned to the wolf in her lap.

“I do make you nervous. Your speech suddenly became more formal. And you were very quick on the defense. But I suppose it’s partly ingrained into you; the moment you regained consciousness you sat up, as if you expected an attack, or sensed an enemy.”

“Are you a gypsy then, Mr. Jeremy Tarleton? and do you make a habit of telling fortunes to strangers?”

“Not I, Miss Cinnamon Rassmussen. ‘Tho I confess my mother was a Roma, and was known to entertain with cards and smoke and trinkets. Perhaps it’s inherent.”

“I knew a man like you once.” Cinnamon patted Ajax, “He was a sniper in the Great War. He noticed everything, saw every detail and never forgot a thread. He told me they trained him for it;  my father can read Latin, but I cannot.”

“You don’t like me.” Jeremy smiled, “You don’t trust me and you don’t like me. That’s unusual.”

If Jeremy was trying to change her mind about that, he was doing rather a bad job.

“No.” replied Cinnamon, lifting her chin just a little, “I don’t like you and I don’t trust you, either. You dodge all of my questions.”

Jeremy chuckled again, and said to himself, “And never been taught how to play games.”

“Games, Mr. Tar- Jeremy?” Cinnamon corrected herself.

“You know, games, Little Lamb. Cat-and-Mouse, Cloak-and-Dagger, Hard-to-Get. Games people play with each other.” Jeremy knelt down next to Cinnamon on the rug and joined her in petting Ajax, “I’m just playing with you, Cinnamon.”

“Well I don’t like your games. I can play them well enough, but I’d rather be frank.”

“Very well. Let’s begin again, shall we?” Jeremy stuck out his hand to her, “Hello, Miss Cinnamon Rassmussen. I am Jeremy Tarleton, but I do insist you call me Jeremy.”

“Cinnamon Charlotte Rassmussen.” Cinnamon shook his hand, “And thanks for taking care of me tonight.”

“Ah, my duty and my pleasure, Miss Rassmussen.”

“You may call me Cinnamon.”

“You’re beginning to like me already!” Jeremy smiled.

“Don’t be so sure,” thought Cinnamon.

A knock at the door announced the arrival of an old man, carrying a basin of fresh water.

“Thank you, Ben. Is that tea coming soon?” Jeremy greeted him.

“Indeed, sir, indeed it is,” the old man replied.

“Thank you, Ben. And let me know if you need my assistance.”  Jeremy smiled at his old, bent servant  in a kind way.

“Oh, no, Master Jeremy, no indeed. It will be my pleasure,” the old man said, waving his hand dismissively at Jeremy, and shuffling back out the door.

Jeremy chucked and looked down at his wolf, but spoke to Cinnamon, “I think Old Ben has taken care of me for his entire life. Never lets me raise a finger to help him, or to help myself. The most loyal friend I could ever have had.”

Ajax whined and looked up at his master, cocking his head to the side.

“Except for you, Ajax, old boy,” laughed Jeremy.

“He seems to need at least a little help,” Cinnamon commented, not unkindly, “The house seemed perfectly deserted when I first spied it, and there seems to be a lot of dusting to be done.”

“You’ll get no argument from me,” replied  Jeremy, “Tho you’ll get quite a lot from Old Ben. I am usually away from home, and only recently returned. I’m afraid that Ben is taking a turn for the worse, and the house suffers for it. If I hired someone to help him, I know it would deeply offend the old chap, and since I don’t entertain much company, I’ll just let Ben enjoy his last few years as he likes, since he refuses to retire.”

Cinnamon smiled, despite herself. There was a tender, genuine tone in Jeremy’s voice when he talked about his old servant. He really cared for the old man as he would his own father. 

“But what about you, Miss Cinnamon?” Jeremy turned his eyes to her, and took her by her two hands, lifting her to her feet from the rug, “Come, let’s sit back on the sofa,” he added as a side note.

“What about me?” Cinnamon asked, following him obediently.

“Your house must be no better than mine. And you haven’t any help there at all, have you?”

“No. But I can get along just fine. I am stronger than I look.”

“No doubt, no doubt. You’re not there all alone, are you? I don’t think that would be a good idea. Not for any extended period of time, anyhow.”

“I’m not alone. I have Tybalt with me.”

Jeremy laughed aloud this time, a bark of a laugh, a legitimately surprised and pleased one.

“You mean your cat, don’t you?”

“Well, yes, but he’s good company.” Cinnamon answered, a little sullen.

“I don’t doubt it. Animals can be the best of companions. Ajax!” Jeremy called his wolf to his side, “But a cat isn’t much for protection.”

Ajax came at once, and laid his head in Jeremy’s lap.

“Oh, he does as well as a cat can,” defended Cinnamon.

“Would you consider keeping Ajax with you, for a time?”

Ajax seemed to know that his master was talking about him, and his eyes glanced back from Jeremy to Cinnamon.

“He’s a good fellow,” advertised the wolf’s master, “and he’s very well trained. He’ll protect anyone I instruct him to.”

Cinnamon hesitated. The idea of a big, black wolf was appealing as it was certain to deter her home invaders, but she didn’t know how Tybalt would react to it. And she wasn’t keen to be beholden to anyone; fast way to trouble, that was.

“Thanks, Jeremy, thanks, but I think not. Ajax….he’d attack my cat, I think, and I’m too attached him to let anything happen.”

“Cinnamon, I promise you he will not attack your cat,” Jeremy smiled, with that impossible smile that said he knew just what she was thinking

Another knock at the door announced that Old Ben had arrived with the tea. The couple remained in the red room for another hour before Cinnamon could no longer stifle her yawns, and she stood to excuse herself back home.

“Ah, not tonight, Miss Cinnamon,” Jeremy insisted, “Ben has prepared a room for you, with a drawn fire and fresh sheets; he’d be quite hurt if his work went to waste. And in any case, I’m not letting you walk all the way back to Eau D’Noir; I’ll find you in a dead faint halfway there tomorrow morning.”  

Cinnamon was too tired to argue. Her eyes were closing as Jeremy walked her down the hall, carrying a candelabra. The candlelight cast strange shadows against the walls, and, being in an unfamiliar house, Cinnamon had the feeling of a mouse in a maze. At last they stopped before a door, and Jeremy opened it slightly, then slightly bowed.

“Goodnight,” Jeremy said, leaning forward and kissing her lightly on the forehead. Before Cinnamon had a chance to respond, Jeremy and the light of the candelabra were gone, and Cinnamon was left in the dark.

Chapter Ten

The next morning Cinnamon awoke before Jeremy or Old Ben had a chance to, and hurried back to Eau D’Noir in her bare feet. She wasn’t sure how her host would take this, but the house made her uncomfortable, and so did he; Jeremy Tarleton with his cat-and-mouse games and his handsome, piercing eyes that looked just a little too deep into her own.

She shook her red tangles as she entered the last clearing and took a resentful look at her mansion.

            “You creepy old thing,” she thought, stopping and observing the house from afar, “What am I going to do with you?”

The thought of converting the mansion into a Bed and Breakfast reoccurred to her. What a job that would be. Perhaps she could convince Alexandra to come and stay with her for a while, to clean and cook and split the profits when they came in. Assuming that they would, in fact, come in.  

She sighed deeply and walked up to the house with her muddy feet.

She was met in the porch by a harassed-looking Tybalt. He’d spent the night searching and searching for her, and now wasn’t going to let her off lightly.

            “Rrrrr-owww,” he scolded, rubbing and rubbing against her ankles, “Rrrrrr-owwww. Where have you been!? How could you just disappear like that without a word? And the smell of wolves thick in the air! I just knew that I would find your body scattered from here to New Orleans! Don’t run off like that again, I’m warning you!”

Cinnamon largely ignored him and hurried up the stairs to change into her usual uniform; the sleeveless white shirt, the rolled-up overalls and a tattered newsboy cap. She looked funny in the fancy embossed-bordered mirror in the Master Bedroom. Perhaps this would be a popular room for guests.

Cinnamon left off her shoes and went back down the stairs, tying her hair back as she descended them.  Suppose she was to convert the place to a hotel. What rooms should she need to open? She’d need an office. Old Rassmussen’s office would do the job well. And the grand foyer would serve as a lobby, the kitchen was all ready for use, and the dining room wouldn’t need too much work, apart from polishing the silver. Assuming she could find the silver.  There seemed to be a lot of assumptions to throw around.

Cinnamon went first to the kitchen, and there made herself a ham and cheese sandwich from the ‘fixin’s’ left her by her lady visitors the other day. As she ate, she glanced around the kitchen, rather pleased with her work there. The counters and sinks were all cleaned, as well as every dish in the cupboard. Strange that she had not found the silver in all the drawers. It would have been an easy target for thieves, or one of the first things sold off, had the family fallen on hard times. But then, the silver-handled mirror and brush were still upstairs when she’d arrived, and they would’ve been sold off even before the silverware.

The practical mysteries of the place were as baffling as the supernatural ones.

The morning passed with Cinnamon on her knees, scrubbing the floors and up on chairs, scrubbing the walls. Many of the rooms were already cleaned to a degree, and Cinnamon didn’t have a terrible time getting them clean to her satisfaction. Regular light maintenance would keep them very well. The curtains were taken down and beaten out-of-doors, then taken back up and re-hung, and the rugs were all treated similarly. There were the many sheets which had been covering the furniture and beds that needed to be beaten out and stored, mirrors and windows to be treated with a homemade mixture of vinegar and water, armies of dead flies to me swept from the windowsills, and occasional mold to be scrubbed or pried up from the floors and windows. Cinnamon was unwilling to re-visit the attic where she had stored the photograph album, so she searched all over the house for another place to store them, and ended up putting the majority in the vacant maid’s quarters, next to the attic.

“Silly,” she thought, “to be afraid of the entire attic because it has a photograph album with a picture of a woman long dead. I’m not even sure it’s Alyce!”

“You do know it’s Alyce,” contradicted another voice in her head.

“I do not,” Cinnamon insisted, and started humming ‘Bill Bailey, Won’t You Come Home’ to block out any other thoughts on the matter, and went back to scrubbing.

A few hours later, after she had eaten another ham and cheese sandwich and fed little scraps to Tybalt, Cinnamon was back up in the maid’s quarters, storing sheets, when a sound turned her head. It sounded like a door shutting, coming from the attic. When the thought had time to sink in, her sink crawled involuntarily.

“It’s just a draft, Tybalt,” Cinnamon assured the cat at her ankles, “just a draft in a drafty old house.”

“Rrrrowww,” replied the cat.

Then came the sound of footsteps running out of the attic, and down the hallway, and the out of hearing.