He passed the small parlor. It was also empty.
He turned down the gallery toward the east wing where sunlight streamed in unevenly through the tall windows, warming the portraits in a way that always felt slightly unnerving. She would be here. She would have found her way into some nook she had no business being in, full of whimsy and poor impulse control, poking at heirlooms and family ghosts as if they were pages in one of her beloved novels.
Wherever she was, he would find her. And he would tell her that there were parts of this house, and parts ofhim, that were not hers to touch.
And heaven help her if she tried to charm her way out of it.
“… and truly,” Cordelia was saying as she gestured with great passion toward the glinting glass on the sideboard, “the clarity is improved immeasurably! You see, Phillipa, when one decants a spirit into a vessel and leaves it to gather dust and spider corpses—which, I assure you, I did not find butcouldhave—the entire experience becomes one of menace rather than merriment. One must respect the process.”
Phillipa, a long-suffering maid with the blank expression unique to servants often cornered by loquacious young ladies, gave a single noncommittal nod and continued dusting the mantel with deliberate concentration.
Cordelia sighed, satisfied with her own domestic ingenuity, when the door opened. Even before she turned, she could sense his presence. She was not yet entirely sure how to describe it, but Mason Abernathy, the Duke of Galleon, had a way of entering a room that made it feel as though the room ought to apologize for not being more prepared.
He did not speak at first, but oh, she wished he had. Silence, in his mouth, was somehow louder than any proper shouting.
When she looked up, she saw him in full: tall, thundercloud-tempered, jaw clenched, eyes sharp and golden like coin under firelight. To say that he was angry would have been a dire understatement. It was sheer fury, the kind that simmered beneath the surface, disciplined and dangerous.
“What,” he said, each word crisp as glass underfoot, “do you think you are doing?”
Cordelia blinked, still crouched beside the table. She glanced quickly at Phillipa, who refused to return the gaze, instead dusting even more vigorously.
“I, uhm… we’re cleaning, of course,” Cordelia smiled.
“Not here,” he growled. “In the library.”
It took her a moment to remember. “Oh!” She patted her forehead slightly. “I was organizing… Isabelle’s drawings, I mean. They were all jumbled and pressed between books, some bent, some entirely backwards. And I thought, well, how lovely it would be for your mother to have them displayed in a proper portfolio. Perhaps by theme. Or, or chronology! You see, her landscapes become bolder over time, and I daresay there’s a love story hidden in the portrait sketches if one pays close enough attention. So, I just thought, well, I should help.”
There was a silence, the kind that made her want to crawl into one of the decanters she’d so proudly scrubbed.
Mason turned to Phillipa.
“You may leave us.”
Phillipa did not wait to be told twice.
Cordelia remained kneeling by the table like a child caught attempting to forge her governess’ signature. She stood abruptly, brushing her skirts as though that might restore authority to the moment.
“I wasn’t prying,” she said quickly. “Not really. I mean yes, technically I opened a cabinet, but it was unlocked! And in the library! It’s a room meant for inquisitive minds!”
He took a step forward, and her mouth continued without her permission.
“And I hadn’t thefaintestidea it would upset you. I thought it would please you in fact! Or at the very least, please yourmother, and truly, if pleasing her is not enough reason to?—”
“Enough,” he said.
It was just one word, but it was said softly. That made it worse.
Cordelia’s smile, that same one she wore like armor, the one that had braved awkward dinners and careless insults and countless stiff introductions, dimmed under the weight of his fury.
“You are not to touch those again,” he ordered her.
She opened her mouth to defend herself again, but he raised one hand, a simple gesture that silenced her more effectively than a dozen declarations.
“I believe,” he continued, “that it might be wise to add another rule to our arrangement.”
She blinked.
“Rule four,” he said. “You are not to snoop.”
