Whatever else this woman is, she’s not cruel. Her plump mouth turns down with genuine dismay, like she’s worried she hurt my feelings with her careless question. It’s laughable. I don’t have any feelings left to hurt.
“Keep the windows closed.” I step back, breathing freer away from that hint of cinnamon. “And try to keep your volume down, if you please.”
She huffs. “Fine. But—”
“That’s enough cleaning in here for today.” I nod at the open door, my chest thudding. Here I am, being an unrepentant ass again, but right now there’s no room in my brain to care. There’s too much noise, too much jangling horror, too many memories to fend off.
I need to be alone.
Everything is better when I’m alone. It’s tolerable, at least.
And yet, when the door closes behind Madeleine and the silence presses in from all sides… I catch myself breathing deeply, longing for another whiff of cinnamon.
Four
Maddy
For the record, I last the whole rest of the day before I cave and snoop. It’s not until I’m tucked up in my attic bed, the covers piled high with ancient wool blankets, burrowed deep beneath the sheets before I crack and look up Lord Westmore on my phone.
There are pages and pages and pages of results. Some are about West, the Lord WestmoreIknow, but most are about his father or his father’s father.
Chewing on my bottom lip, I tap an extra word in the search bar.Lord Westmore accident.
There.
Suddenly my screen fills with news articles from eight years ago, some of them paired with grisly photographs of a younger West laid out on a stretcher, his leg mangled and his clothes soaked with blood. In all of the different photos, West is chalky white with shock, his eyes sunken with despair. It’s clear even without reading the headlines that this is a man who has just seen horrors.
But the headlines make it so much worse.
Nine Dead on Scientific Expedition to the Himalayas.
Freak Storm Decimates Scientists’ Mountain Camp.
Young Aristocrat the Only Survivor of Deadly Disaster.
My thumb trembles as I scroll down the search results, my face lit with bright, sickly light from my screen. Every now and then, I hover over a headline… before swallowing hard and scrolling on.
I can’t. It feelswrong. It’s bad enough that I snooped this much, that I went behind the boss’s back to Google his tortured past. It would be so much worse if I read all these articles, soaked up the gory details like a nosy little sponge, when really, it’s none of my business.
I mean, how would I feel if Lord Westmore read a bunch of articles aboutmyworst memories and greatest regrets? Sure, those articles don’t exist because I’m a nobody, not a charismatic aristocrat, but if they did…
Coughing once, I close the browser on my phone. It’s dark in here, but bright spots from my screen linger in my vision. Lying in the shadows, shivering in my never-warm-enough bed, I listen to the wind howl and rage and headbutt the window pane until the glass rattles in its frame.
A freak storm…
Lips pressed together, I burrow down until the sheet is pulled all the way up to the icy tip of my nose. Overhead, the white ceiling is ghostly in the gloom. Somewhere deep in the manor, someone slams a door. Mrs Ainslie, maybe. She got all red-faced and sour at dinner, when the lord turned away his tray. He normally eats alone in his study, poring over his precious research, but tonight he didn’t eat a single bite.
Because of me?
Because I reminded him of… the accident?
Guilt churns my stomach, and I wriggle against the firm mattress, trying to get comfortable. Determined to drift off to sleep, even though it’s hopeless. I’m too wired. Too curious, even now.
Because… where is Lord Westmore right this second? Is he hunched over his desk in the study, rereading the notes in his own cramped handwriting? Is he out in the greenhouse, limping around with a pair of tiny pruning shears that look like a toy in his large hand? Or is he lying in his own bed, staring up at the ceiling, unable to sleep?
Is his stomach growling? Is he lonely?
“God,” I mutter, letting go of my death grip on the sheet to scrub both hands down my face. The tip of my nose is shockingly cold, and I can’t believe I’m about to do this. Am I really going to do this?
