mentally cursed myself. Again. I was really a troublemaker, even without a steering wheel between my hands. I proved to be a menace, unforgivably insensitive and only capable of making mistakes.
“Did I offend you, Mr Mc Laine?” I asked anxiously, and he snapped out of his slumber.
“Melisande Bruno, a young woman from who knows where, as weird and funny as a cartoon... How can this girl offend the great horror novelist, the devilish and depraved Sebastian Mc Laine?” His voice was flat, compared to the harshness of his sentences.
I twisted my hands, as nervous as I was at our first encounter. “You’re right, sir. I am nobody. And...”
His eyes thinned, threateningly. “Indeed. You aren’t a nobody. You are Melisande Bruno. Therefore you are someone. Never allow anyone to humiliate you, not even me.”
“I should learn to be quiet. I managed to do so very well before coming to this house,” I murmured gloomily, my head bent.
“Midnight rose has the power to bring out the worst of you, Melisande Bruno? Or am I the one who possesses such an incredible ability?” He offered me a kind smile, with the generosity of a king.
I happily accepted that silent peace offer, and found my smile again. “I think it depends on you, sir,” I admitted in a low voice, as if I were confessing a capital sin.
“I already knew that I was a devil,” he said solemnly. “But am I that bad? You leave me speechless...”
“If you want I could get you a vocabulary,” I said humorously. The atmosphere was lighter, and so was my heart.
“I think you’re the real devil, Melisande Bruno,” he continued to tease me. “Satan in person must have sent you here, to disturb my peacefulness.”
“Peacefulness? Are you sure you’re it wasn’t boredom?” I asked.
“If it was, with you here, I’ll never experience it again, that's for sure. Perhaps, as time goes by, I'll end up regretting it,” he said with emphasis.
We were both laughing, on the same wavelength, when someone knocked three times on the door.
“Mrs Mc Millian,” he anticipated, without looking away from my face.
I reluctantly looked away from him to welcome the housekeeper.
“Dr Mc Intosh is here, sir,” said the good lady, with a hint of anxiety in her voice.
The writer instantly got upset. “Is it Tuesday already?”
“Of course, sir. Do you want me to show him to your room?” She asked kindly.
“All right. Call Kyle,” he ordered, with a harsh voice. He spoke to me in a tone that was even more severe. “See you later, Miss Bruno.”
I followed the housekeeper down the stairs. She answered my unexpressed question. “Dr Mc Intosh is the local doctor. Every Tuesday he comes to visit Mr Mc Laine. Apart from his paralysis, he's as healthy as a fish, but his visits have become a habit, and also a precaution.”
“Is his...” I hesitated, trying to choose the right words “...condition irreversible?”
“Unfortunately yes, there are no hopes” was her sad confirmation.
At the foot of the stairs a man waited, dangling the briefcase with his instruments.
“Well Millicent? Did he forget about my examination again?” The man winked at me, trying to involve me. “You must be the new secretary, right? Then you’ll have to remind him of his future appointments. Every Tuesday, at three o’clock in the afternoon.“ He held out his hand with a friendly smile. “I'm the local doctor. John McIntosh”.
He was a tall man, almost like Kyle, but older, perhaps between sixty and seventy years old.
“And I'm Melisande Bruno,” I said, shaking his hand.
“An exotic name for a beauty worthy of Scottish women.” The admiration in his eyes was eloquent. I smiled gratefully. Before arriving in that village that wasn’t even marked on the maps, I was considered pretty, at the most graceful, but most often just acceptable. Never beautiful.
Mrs Mc Millian was delighted by that compliment, as if she were my mother and I the daughter to be married. Luckily, the doctor was elderly and married, judging by the big wedding ring on his finger, or else she would probably start matchmaking to organize a beautiful marriage in the idyllic frame of Midnight Rose.
Once she ushered him upstairs, she came back to me, with a mischievous expression on her thin face. “It's a pity he's married. He would be a wonderful catch for you.”
Too bad he’s old; I would have liked to add. I stopped myself just in time when I remembered that Mrs Mc Millian was at least fifty years old and that she probably found the doctor attractive and desirable.
“I’m not looking for a boyfriend,” I reminded her firmly. “I hope you won’t start trying to set me up with Kyle.”
She shook her head. “He’s also married. I mean... He’s separated, which is uncommon around here. Anyhow, I don’t like him. There’s something unsettling and lascivious about him.”
I was about to argue on the point that I was the one who was supposed to like him in the first place, then I thought better of it. Mainly because I didn’t like Kyle either. He wasn’t exactly the type of man I would ever dream of, if I could. No, I was being unfair. The truth was that having met the enigmatic and complicated Sebastian Mc Laine, it was difficult to find someone who could measure up to him. I mentally scowled myself. It would have been pathetic and predictable of me to fall into the net stretched by the handsome writer. He was just my employer, and I didn’t want to end up like millions of other secretaries who fell in love with their bosses. Wheelchair or not, Sebastian Mc Laine was out of my reach.
Undeniably so.
“I’ll go upstairs,” I said. “How long do the visits last, usually?”
The housekeeper laughed cheerfully. “Longer than Mr Mc Laine can bear.” She started a series of tales about the doctors’ examinations. I broke her off immediately, with the firm conviction that if I hadn’t interrupted her in time I would still be there the following Tuesday, listening to her tales.
When I reached the landing, my steps noiseless on the soft carpet, I saw Kyle emerge from a bedroom. It seemed to me to be the one of our employer.
He noticed me and winked confidentially. I kept to myself and refused to play along with him. Mrs Mc Millian was right, I thought as he reached me; there was something deeply disturbing about him.
“Every Tuesday the same story. I wish Mc Intosh would end these unnecessary visits. The result is always the same. As soon as he goes away, I’ll suffer his patient’s bad mood.” His smile widened. “As you will.”
I shrugged. “It's our job, isn’t it? Aren’t we paid for that, too?”
“Maybe not enough. He's really unbearable.” I was stunned by such a disrespectful tone. I wasn’t sure if it was just the frankness of country people, genuine in their ruthless judgments. There was more to it,
