He swallowed, forcing old memories from his mind. “Clear the chamber.” The others started when his words came out too loud, but he suddenly couldn’t stand to be in the same room as another lifeless body. “Return to your rooms. I’m returning to mine. Breakfast…breakfast will be ready by eight.”
Slowly, they shuffled out of the room and dispersed into the corridor.
“Well, I for one shan’t sleep a wink,” said Lady Stanton as she preceded her daughter down the hall.
“Lioncroft will sleep like a baby,” came Edmund’s slurred rejoinder. “He’s used to family members popping up dead in mysterious circumstances.”
Gavin took two quick strides out of the room and into the hall, prepared to have it out with Edmund then and there.
Before Edmund even registered his approach, however, Gavin’s footsteps faltered. Thrashing a sotted Edmund lost its allure the more distance Gavin put between himself and Heatherbrook’s cold, bruised body. Whether Edmund deserved a fist to the face or not, Gavin had had enough violence for one day.
Tomorrow would come soon enough.
Chapter 12
Evangeline jerked awake from yet another nightmare long before a maid arrived to open the bed curtains. She staggered out of bed and over to the small washbasin in the corner, hoping the freezing water would splash the memory of her mother’s broken body from her mind. As usual, the shock of icy wetness sent gooseflesh shivering across her skin but did little to dispel the images trapped in her head.
Another day, another death.
Eventually, a slight lady’s maid slipped into the room with a candle clutched between her rough hands. She used the orange flame to light the tall tapers dotting Evangeline’s chamber before disappearing into the connecting dressing room to gather new garments and undergarments.
“Your morning dress, mum,” the girl murmured, returning with an armful of borrowed silk.
Evangeline winced. What should have been amourningdress was instead a flowing mass of palest green, trimmed beneath the bodice by a strip of satin the deep hue of pine. Soft, gorgeous, and a mockery to her mother’s memory.
She forced herself to hold still as a shift, stays, and the mint-colored gown replaced her nightrail.
What now? Now that Lioncroft had killed again? Surely Lady Stanton didn’t mean to proceed with her machinations, no matter how badly they’d all secretly wished someone would avenge the cruelty done to Lady Heatherbrook.
While Evangeline suspected most of the guests wouldn’t much miss the late lord, the earl’s four children couldn’t help but suffer at the loss. She missed her own mother terribly. Her heart twisted in empathy. The children should not be alone. She could find the nursery, could she not? As soon as she could excuse herself from the breakfast table, she should make her way directly there to check on the children.
“You should’ve seen it coming,” the maid muttered under her breath as she fastened the last of the buttons on the back of Evangeline’s neck.
“I—what?”
“Should’ve seen it coming,” the maid repeated. “Or did you, an’ you just didn’t see fit to tell anybody?”
Mouth agape, Evangeline whirled to face the young girl.
The maid’s complexion was more or less the same shade of pale green as the borrowed morning dress. Nonetheless, she stared up at Evangeline with shaking hands and a determined gaze. A strand of red hair fell from her bonnet to her face and she shoved the offending lock away without breaking eye contact.
“I heard what you were,” she insisted, the faint quiver in her voice giving away her fear of speaking out, even to a nobody like Evangeline. “All of us know.”
“Us” no doubt meant the staff of Blackberry Manor, just like “witch” was no doubt the word that went unspoken.
Back home, servants had been Evangeline’s staunchest supporters. Here, they were…not. She could expect neither understanding nor tolerance under the best of circumstances. A dead body abovestairs was not the best of circumstances. Especially for a runaway suspected of witchery. And after helping Ginny, Evangeline could hardly deny her visions.
“I didn’t know,” she said at last. “I swear.”
The maid flinched, as if she’d half-expected Evangeline to toss her bodily from the room rather than respond to a mere maid. Was such skittishness because she was used to violent treatment from Mr. Lioncroft? Or because the maid feared Evangeline herself?
“What’s your name?”
“Molly.”
“You’re a smart woman, Molly. You’re right about my visions. But what you may not know is that the only way I can attempt to guide the content of my visions is by concentrating on a single question as I touch another person. And even that fails more often than not.” Evangeline paused. How much did she need to reveal in order to keep her biggest secrets? “I had no reason to anticipate Lord Heatherbrook’s death. Accidental visions are useless at best. Were I to touch you now, I’d be just as likely to see you toddle behind your mother in leading strings as to see you snuggled before a fire with your husband and three children.”
The girl blinked. “I’m to have three children?”
