Beyond the Sea: A Modern Gothic Romance Read online

  “Somebody’s been through the wars,” came a voice, startling me. I quickly pushed my skirt back down and stood up straight.

  Noah stood in the doorway with his arms folded, an indecipherable expression on his face. His eyes landed on mine for a moment before wandering to the delicate gold chain around my neck. He seemed intrigued as his gaze lowered to the small cross pendant that hung on the end of it. It was a gift from Dad I rarely took off. The intense way Noah studied it made the tiny hairs at the base of my neck stand on end.

  As he was studying me, I took the opportunity to study him, realising just how physically attractive he was. I’d noticed he was handsome before, sure, but he really was unusually stunning, brooding and intense. He was tall and broad shouldered, with a confidence that seemed almost dangerous. Like he could handle himself in a fight.

  “Let me guess, today was P.E.?” Noah said.

  I frowned and shook my head, wondering why he cared. “No. A girl in my class tripped me over.”

  He tilted his head. “Why?”

  I shrugged. “She’s always had a problem with me,” I paused, casting him a quick glance. “She’s also a massive bitch.”

  His lips twitched, like he found my statement amusing. He came fully into the room and leaned against the table. “How did you retaliate?”

  “I retaliated by ignoring her. She’s not worth my time.”

  “Coward.”

  I widened my eyes at him. “Excuse me?”

  “You know what I would’ve done?” he went on, ignoring the question. “I would’ve taken my maths compass, gotten her alone somewhere and stuck her with it. She wouldn’t be tripping anyone up after that.”

  “You’re disturbed,” I said, casting him a wary look.

  “I’m creative. And I’m not the one who’ll be dealing with a bully for the rest of the school year. Do something to show her you mean business, and she’ll back off. That’s the way things work with those types of people.”

  Pulling out a chair, I sat down and thought about it. Perhaps I should do something to scare Sally. Then again, knowing my luck I’d probably get caught and expelled for it.

  “Did you get bullied at school, too?”

  Noah’s gaze darkened. “Someone tried.”

  “What happened?” I asked, leaning forward, strangely eager to know.

  He sat on the tabletop, lifted his feet up onto a chair and looked down at me. There was a wild, untamed quality to his eyes I was captivated by. “This one boy tried spreading it around school I was in the business of sucking cock for money,” he said, and my mouth fell open.

  I blinked, my cheeks heating at what he said. “Were you?”

  He stared me blandly, completely unoffended by the question. “No.”

  “So, what did you do?”

  “You know the Bath Estate where they have all those ginnels behind the houses?”

  I nodded. “They’re like a maze.”

  Noah almost smiled. “So, this boy, he used to walk through the ginnels to get home. One night I followed him, got him in the dark and saw to it he wouldn’t be spreading his lies ever again.”

  “How?” I asked, my voice barely a whisper. It took a long time for Noah to answer, and I thought maybe he was censoring his reply, like the truth was too explicit for me to hear. But then, he didn’t censor a thing.

  “I threatened to sodomise him with the handle of a spear point machete.”

  I gasped, my hand going to my mouth in shock. My stomach twisted as I recoiled. “That’s horrific!”

  “It worked,” Noah said, and I saw something in his expression that made my gut twist. I wondered if he’d actually done that instead of only threatening it. I instantly rejected the idea, because only a psychopath could do such a thing, and I didn’t want to think I was sleeping in the same house as a psychopath.

  When I spoke again, I wasn’t sure why I said what I did, only that the need to be honest gripped me tight and wouldn’t let go. “I wanted to stab Sally in the eye with my pencil,” I confessed, guilt trickling in.

  One dark eyebrow arched slightly, like I’d surprised him. “Why didn’t you?”

  I exhaled a harsh breath, repeating his earlier statement. “Because I’m a coward.”

  We locked eyes, and the moment seemed to last forever. “I don’t think that’s it,” Noah said finally.

  “You don’t?”

  “No. I think you didn’t hurt your bully because it’s not in your nature to be violent, no matter how you might fantasise about it.”

  I was a little bothered that he thought he could read me so easily. “You don’t know my nature. You barely know me at all.”

  “I see you, though,” he said, and something about the sincerity in eyes made my breath catch. Thick silence hung between us. What did he mean he saw me? A swarm of bees filled my stomach for no apparent reason at all.

  I was so consumed by Noah’s statement I barely noticed when Vee entered the room. She wore a flower print house coat over her pyjamas, sheepskin slippers adorning her feet. Glancing between Noah and me, she took her time narrowing her gaze. “I hope you’re not bothering my brother, Estella.”

  I frowned and tensed, defending myself. “I’m not.”

  “I was entertaining her with a story from my school days. Do you remember Adam Fowler?” Noah said.

  Vee wrinkled her brow at his question, tightening the belt around her house coat as she went to turn on the kettle. “Should I?” she asked, disinterested.

  Noah blew out a breath. “Probably not. You weren’t around much then.”

  “What are you talking about? I’ve always been around.”

  Noah eyed her meaningfully, his voice surprisingly softer. “Have you though?”

  Vee looked perturbed, turning away from him and fussing with the teacups. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  A quiet pause fell over the room before Noah stated blandly, “Estella’s being bullied by a girl at her school.”

  I stared at him, aghast. I’d thought our conversation was confidential. More fool me.

  Vee turned to glance at me, her ginger eyebrows drawing together. “Are you?”

  I nodded but didn’t speak.

  “By whom?”

  I didn’t see the point in refusing to answer. It wasn’t like Vee was going to march down to the school in my defence and demand Principal Hawkins punish Sally for how she treated me. In all honesty, I wouldn’t be surprised if Vee sought her out and congratulated her for a job well done. After all, her third greatest pleasure in life was making me suffer. Her second greatest was making Sylvia suffer and her first was drinking herself into a stupor night after night.

  “Sally O’Hare,” I said, noticing Noah’s eyes flare at the name. Did he know her?

  Vee pursed her lips, eyeing me a moment. “And are you doing anything about it?”

  “What can I do? She has more friends than I do. It’s a losing battle.”

  “The O’Hare’s are a bunch of dim-witted Neanderthals. You have your wits, Estella, and they far surpass those of Sally O’Hare. Use words as your weapon, and you’ll win the war.”

  I blinked, unable to believe Vee had just given me a compliment, not to mention advice verging on maternal. My mouth fell open slightly, but I didn’t breathe a word. Vee opened the cupboard, swearing when she discovered we were out of tea bags.

  “Take some money from the drawer in the entryway, and run down to the shop, Estella,” she ordered irritably, slamming the cupboard shut. “Every time I want a cup of blasted tea in this house, we’re either out of milk, tea bags, sugar or all three.”

  Without a word, I did as she asked and left the room in a hurry. I hesitated in the hallway when I heard a bang, like someone slamming their hand on the wooden surface of the table. The sound was so loud and harsh the house practically shuddered. It had to be Noah.

  “Why don’t you go shopping if you’re always running out, sister? You look like you haven’t eaten a thing
since 2008.”

  I quietly gasped at the way he spoke to her, my heart pounding as I waited to see how Vee would respond to his challenge. I expected her to shout at him, lash out, but she didn’t. Instead, her voice grew watery and weak.

  “I eat,” she stated. “You know the women in our family are naturally thin.”

  “You’re not thin, you’re skeletal. But dare I comment on it? Dare I fuck. You go around acting like it’s perfectly normal. While I’m here scared we’ll have to start feeding you those foil nutrient packets they give to starving children in Africa.” What he said was insulting and mean, but he also sounded angry at her for not taking better care of herself.

  “You have no right to talk to me like that,” Vee replied, a quiver in her voice.

  “We’re family. I have every right to tell you when you’re making yourself suffer unnecessarily.”

  Vee didn’t reply. Instead she fled the room. I pressed my body to the wall, hoping she didn’t notice me and take her emotions out on me.

  Instead, she passed by, ran up the staircase, and slammed her bedroom door shut with a loud thud. I chanced a peek into the kitchen. Noah stood by the table; his posture slumped and his head in his hands, clearly regretful for what he’d said to Vee. He must’ve sensed me looking because he glanced up, his eyes locking with mine. My pulse pounded as I instantly turned and grabbed the money from the entryway, hurrying from the house.

  ***

  About five minutes away from the convent, there was a community school, and that meant one very important thing.

  Boys.

  I’d never really had friends who were boys, aside from Aoife’s boyfriend, Jimmy, so it was safe to say I’d never had an actual boyfriend either. Maybe that was why I was having all these confusing feelings about Noah. Aside from Dad, I’d barely interacted with the opposite sex in my life.

  Sometimes, a few of the community school lads would come over and hang out by the convent gates to leer at the girls as we headed home for the day. Claire McBride was not only Sally’s evil sidekick, but she was also annoyingly gorgeous, attracting lots of attention from the boys. If there was a beauty contest going, she’d be the winner, though I suspected in a bigger pond she’d simply be considered “cute”.

  That was the problem with living in a small town. You never could tell if you were extraordinary, or if everyone else was just very ordinary, rendering any small talent unnecessarily amplified.

  “Hey sexy!” one of them called as I ducked my head and hurried through the gates as fast as I could. They weren’t talking to me. They were talking to the girls behind me since Claire was among them. It was a pity Aoife had basketball practice today. I’d feel less anxious if she was here.

  “Show us your tits,” another shouted, and I quickened my step. I couldn’t help chancing a quick glance in their direction, recognising Kean Riordan. He lived just down the street from Vee’s house. But unlike Vee’s, his house was well-maintained. His parents were wealthy, with his dad owning a local pipe factory.

  We made brief eye contact, and he shot me a small smile before I turned and continued walking. That was weird. Had he really just smiled at me? Kean was a hot commodity, and lots of girls in town fancied him. I might’ve been more excited by his smile if it wasn’t for the fact that my head was full of Noah. I couldn’t stop replaying his words from yesterday over and over in my head.

  I see you, though.

  I wished I could stop thinking about him, but it was a losing battle. When I got home, I entered through the back door, and the house was quiet. Like usual, I dropped my bag on the floor, pulled a glass from the cupboard and filled it with water. I downed a gulp when I heard a voice from the living room say, “There are two sides to every story.”

  “Be that as it may, your mother is a lovely woman, and she doesn’t deserve to be spoken to that way.” This sounded like Irene.

  I frowned and put the glass down. When I walked into the living room, Irene sat next to Sylvia, who was in her wheelchair. Noah sat on the armchair by the window, facing them both, a mocking slant to his mouth as he leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees. The TV was off, so the room was completely silent. I looked from Noah to Irene, the tension unmistakable.

  “Ah, you’re home. Good. I’ve been waiting for you,” Noah said as he stood and moved toward me.

  Before I could react, he took my hand and pulled me into the hallway. I didn’t allow myself a single moment to contemplate the feel of his palm against mine as I yanked my hand from his grasp. “What are you doing?”

  “Taking you out.”

  “I’m not going anywhere with you.”

  “You’d rather stick around here?”

  “I’d rather you tell me what was going on in there between you and Irene.”

  “A difference of opinion. Nothing to concern yourself with. Come with me.”

  I studied him a moment, suspicious. “Come with you where?”

  “I need to see a man about a dog.”

  I folded my arms. “And why do you need me there?”

  He hesitated. “For appearances.”

  I frowned, not getting him at all. In fact, Noah said a lot of things I didn’t get. “Fat chance. I have homework.”

  When I turned to walk back down the hall, he caught me by the elbow. “Now, now, don’t be so hasty. What if I paid you?”

  This was getting weirder and weirder, but … well, money was something I was always in need of. “How much?”

  “A fiver.”

  “Twenty.”

  He smirked at my highball offer. “Fifteen.”

  I sighed. “Okay. Just let me go change out of my uniform first.”

  I made it one step before he pulled me back. “No. Keep it on.”

  I was about to tell him how odd he was being but instead shook my head and played along. “Fine.”

  When we got outside, he pulled the keys to Veronica’s car from his pocket.

  “Vee will be mad when she sees you took her car.”

  “My sister just finished polishing off a bottle of vodka. She’ll be staring into the abyss for the next hour or two at least,” he replied.

  I eyed him speculatively as he approached the passenger side, opened the door and gestured for me to get in. I walked around him, lowered myself into the seat, then asked, “Doesn’t it concern you?”

  “Doesn’t what concern me?”

  “That your sister is a day drinker.”

  He cast me a quick side glance. “She’s a night drinker, too.” At this, he slammed the door shut and walked around to the driver’s side.

  I narrowed my gaze at him, my lips firming at he lowered himself into the seat next to me. “You should be more worried about her.”

  “Who says I’m not?”

  “You don’t seem like you are,” I said just as a memory of yesterday entered my head. I remembered how he’d looked standing in the kitchen after his argument with Vee about her weight. He’d seemed sad, regretful of how he’d gone about things. Maybe I was being too harsh on him. After all, it wasn’t like I’d done a whole lot to stop Vee’s drinking either. She hadn’t done much to warrant my help, sure, but that didn’t mean I shouldn’t give it. After all, the Bible taught me it was more blessed to give than to receive.

  Noah cast me a side glance. “What are you thinking about?”

  “I was just wondering why Vee never mentioned you. I didn’t even know she had a brother until the day before you arrived,” I said. It wasn’t what I’d been thinking, but I suspected Noah wouldn’t appreciate me quoting the Bible at him.

  His hands flexed on the steering wheel. “That’s because I’m the dark horse of the family.”

  “I still think you would’ve gotten a mention. At least once.”

  “It’s easier to pretend I never existed,” he said, and I frowned, watching as he slotted the key in, the engine humming to life as he put it in first and pulled out of the driveway. The house was on Bowery Street, which ran along th
e coast. There was an old Victorian stairway that allowed you to bypass the road and go directly to the other side, where you could climb down some stone steps to the beach.

  “Anyone ever tell you the story of Lady Maeve’s Staircase?” Noah asked after a minute of quiet driving.

  I glanced at the stairway in the distance through the overhead mirror, and a cold shiver trickled down the back of my neck. “Of course. Everyone in this town knows that story.”

  I hated thinking about it though. The tale of a wealthy noble woman throwing herself to her death was one that never failed to make my stomach twist. I was pretty sure one of my recurring dreams was about her, and I feared her ghost haunted the grounds around Vee’s house.

  The story went that the noble woman was married to a cold and abusive landowner, and the only place she could find solace was on the private staircase that led to the beach beyond the grounds of their castle. One night it all became too much, and she decided to end her own life. Lots of people say that in the earlier hours of the morning you could see her ghost running up the stairs and down to the cliff where she threw herself into the sea.

  The castle still exists, but it’s been empty since before I was born, having fallen into disrepair long ago. Sometimes teenagers broke into it to drink and smoke.

  “You look spooked,” Noah commented. “Don’t tell me you believe in ghosts.”

  I glanced at him. “Don’t you?”

  “Not particularly,” he answered. “There are plenty horrors in the real world, there’s no need for invisible ones, too.”

  My palms grew sweaty. “So, you don’t think Vee’s house is haunted?”

  “Technically, it’s Sylvia’s house. And yes, it’s haunted, but not in the way you might think.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Like I said, plenty horrors in the real world,” he repeated.

  A silence fell before I continued my line of questioning. “What about your dad? Sometimes I wonder if his ghost is still hanging around.”

  Noah frowned, his expression perturbed. He didn’t answer my question, and I felt guilty all of a sudden. Maybe I shouldn’t have asked him that. After all, I knew the pain of losing a parent. Vee and Noah’s dad, Victor, died of a heart condition years ago. I’d seen a few old pictures of him. He was a jolly looking man with a bushy grey beard and a dark complexion. Noah resembled him in that regard.