When she asked his valet, Thomas, in the courtyard, he had answered quickly, eager to show he knew something.
“The Duke of Wycliffe, Your Grace,” he said. “His grace’s cousin.”
“His cousin,” Eleanor repeated.
“Yes, Your Grace. Not Lady Tamblyn’s son, though. Cousin on the other side.”
Eleanor absorbed it. “They are close?”
The valet sighed, then seemed to realize he had already said too much and then excused himself.
Later, Mrs. Hargreaves offered one more piece, almost reluctantly, as though she had decided Eleanor deserved a truth that might help her survive the house.
“His Grace,” she said quietly, “the night the late Duke and Duchess were killed. His parents.”
Eleanor’s breath caught. “Here at Blackmere?”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
“How?”
Mrs. Hargreaves’s hands tightened on the linen she was folding. “There was a stranger. Hooded. No one saw his face.”
Eleanor’s skin prickled. “And the Duke witnessed it.”
Mrs. Hargreaves nodded once. “That night is… not spoken of. But those who were here then remember.”
Eleanor’s throat tightened. She had known, in an abstract way, that James’s parents were dead. She had not pictured violence. Not like that. Not close enough to have a witness.
A hooded stranger.
Eleanor stared at the ceiling again, her mind pulling the attic into the shape of something darker.
That night, she dressed for dinner with a quiet, contained determination.
James did not join her.
A tray was carried up to his chambers.
Eleanor ate alone.
And as the house settled, she listened.
She heard his boots in the corridor after midnight.
She heard the soft close of an exterior door below.
The first night, she told herself he was checking the grounds.
The second, she told herself he was meeting the steward.
The third, she told herself it was nothing at all, that she was not a girl in her father’s house imagining monsters where there were none.
But when she lay awake on the third night, staring at the canopy above her bed, the thought slid into her mind with a cold clarity.
What if he has a mistress?
It was absurd. It was humiliating. It was impossible to prove.
