At the inn’s lane, she stopped beneath the creaking sign, exhaling her temper. “Do you think it is haunted?” Her tone held genuine curiosity.
“Not in the usual sense,” he said after a beat. “But houses, like people, remember what they wish to forget.”
She liked the thought, though she kept it to herself. “Are you ready for whatever waits?”
His shrug carried steel. “If you are.”
“I was born ready. Or born incapable of refusing a dare.”
He offered his arm. She took it—not from need, but because it was easier to walk side by side.
Inside, the inn’s public room was nearly empty, save for a boy sweeping ashes. Lydia ignored him, heading straight to the private parlor with the ledgers. Maximilian shut the door behind them.
For the next hour, they pored over records, silence broken only by Lydia’s snorts of disbelief and hissed curses when numbers refused to align. Inventories cut short, staff rosters scrubbed, ledgers with entire years missing—as if the estate had gone dormant by design.
“It is a mess,” she muttered, stabbing at a column. “Someone erased every inconvenient detail.”
“And Caldwell expects us to accept it,” Maximilian said, voice edged with disdain.
Lydia drummed her fingers. “If you were him, what would you do?”
“Pray you did not take offense,” he answered, closing the ledger.
She grinned, the first true smile of the day. “Too late.”
They planned how to question the caretaker, how to inspect the sealed wing without betraying their mistrust. Lydia rehearsed what she intended to say. Maximilian offered corrections, most of which she waved aside.
They bickered over whether red riding bootswere too conspicuous. She insisted, he conceded—until midday found them ready.
At the inn’s threshold, Lydia paused, hands on hips. “Do you regret it yet?”
He shook his head. “Not a single day since London.”
She let the words hang, her heat giving an involuntary flutter, then strode into the street, boots striking a frantic rhythm. Maximilian watched her a moment, then followed.
Together they walked toward the unknown, conspirators wrapped in silk and certainty. Whatever ghosts or schemes haunted the estate, they would meet them head-on, and, if Lydia had her way, leave them sorry they ever tried to stand in her path.
