“Reckon that’s wise,” Bobby says, always the buffer. “Give us all a week to chew it over.”
“Thanks.” I lower my eyes to my notes, pretending they make sense.
The meeting carries on above me, voices weaving decisions I barely register. Jack cracks a joke. Alma sets another deadline. Bobby thanks the Lord for functioning radiators. One by one, they shuffle out into the snow.
The silence that follows is almost worse than the noise. My throat tightens. My chest does too. I press a hand there, as if I can make room for breath.
When I glance up, Wells hasn’t moved. He’s watching me. His frown deepens before he crosses the room and lowers himself onto the couch beside me. The cushion dips. His hand settles, warm and steady, on my knee.
“You good?” he asks gruffly.
“Do you care?”
“Wouldn’t ask if I didn’t.”
I stare at the flickering fireplace. “I didn’t know a trust was even an option.” I swallow hard. “She warned you, didn’t she? That I might not be able to manage things.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“I really think it does.”
“You’d still get a portion of the estate,” he says. “Even if the inn were held that way.”
It’s easier for him to stick to numbers than admit she doubted me. Easier to talk about money than failure carved into my bones. And somehow, it stings more coming from him—the man who’s spent the past two weeks pointing out every loose board and bad decision I’ve made.
“Right. That’s . . . great.”
“That is what you care about, yeah? The money.”
I let out a brittle laugh. “Yeah. That’s all I care about.”
I stand before he can answer, before the heat—of the room, of his hand still imprinted on my knee—suffocates me. My footsteps echo up the stairs, the fire snapping behind me, the air rising hotter as though the house itself knows the truth.
Elspeth always prepared for the day I’d prove her right. She knew I was too small, too soft, too selfish to carry her house. She may have left me the inheritance, but she planted the failsafe with Wells.
A trust. Because she knew I’d falter when the time came. And I have no one to blame for that but myself.
16
WELLS
I’m slouchedin the second-floor alcove—two chairs under the dormer, a faded runner, a stubby table that always lists to the left. It’s where guests used to sit with their tea and gossip.
Now, it’s past midnight, hours since the committee cleared out, and I’m wrestling a roll of gauze, swearing under my breath, fumbling the edge and losing it again.
“Stay,” I tell the bandage, which is not how fucking bandages work.
The edge immediately curls, sticky side out, like a dog showing me its belly. A fresh jar of plum salve Isla set aside for me sits open on the table. Beside it, a bottle of Mirabelle’s mulled plum wine sweats politely.
It must be embarrassed, I think, to be in the room while I lose a fight with medical tape.
I hear the stair tread above me complain—hers—and then the soft click of a door shutting. I string off another few inches, jaw tight. The tape answers by folding over.
“Is there a reason you’re muttering curse words to yourself?” Elsie asks from the last step of the staircase. “Or is it because you’re still angry with me?”
I look up. She’s barefoot, sweater sleeves shoved past her elbows, hair loose from a braid and falling in a tired wave over one shoulder. Her expression says she meant to stay in her room and her feet decided otherwise.
“This isn’t about you, for once,” I grumble, holding up my hand. The cut’s a thin red seam now, clean and stubborn. “It’s also not my fault they invented adhesive that hates people.”
