St. Silas shrugged, not at all disturbed by that knowledge. “My father was a weak man. He could not control the demon, so it controlledhim—to his demise. I will be different. I will curtail the beast underneath, eradicate it in time.”
She stared at him uncomprehendingly. She could not understand this ferocious tether to a land, being perpetually unmoored herself.
A refugee was just another type of ghost.
Leena shifted her bare feet against the hard rocks in frustration, her entire body tense with thought.
St. Silas had been watching her movements in silence, his eyes slightly out of focus as he once more traced her soft outline in the dimming light.
“If this is to be a fair fight”—his voice was gruff, that unguarded look in his expression again—“then my concentration cannot be shredded to pieces.” He reached for Leena’s coat buttons and roughly fastened them, one at a time. “This cannot remain open.”
It took all her strength not to redden further as she stood rigid, allowing him to perform the task intently, not daring even to breathe.
The intimacy of having a man—thisman—slowly fasten the buttons of his own coat on her, his hands large and focused on their task, caused a maddening havoc to momentarily overtake her mind.
She let out a staggered exhalation. His gaze pinned itself to hermouth before he abruptly dropped his hands and stepped away, a high color on his cheeks.
“Did you not hear what I just said?” When Leena spoke again, she sounded hoarse to her own ears, even as the threads of frustration still tugged at her. “The First Marquess of Avon made a contract—bound by blood—that every Avon henceforth would be irrevocably tied to that cursed demon until it killed them. And that includes you.”
The return of the resolute gleam in his eyes told her what his silence did not—that he would not give up Weavingshaw even if his own death walked hand in hand withit.
For a moment, they were engulfed in the sound of crashing waves and violent wind.
Leena could not stop herself this time. She turned away from him first and started to furiously pace the tight enclosure of the cave. She found an old, corroded kerosene lamp. The oil in the reservoir was depleted, but she opened the cap to check, just to have something todo.
She heard his movements as he came up beside her, gently taking the lamp from her hands and putting it back down on the ground.
“How did you find out?” he asked, and Leena knew that the mild curiosity in his voice belied a much deeper void that he needed to fill.
She withdrew the timepiece and thrust it toward him. Leena still could not understand the meaning behind these timepieces—why Margery and Lord Avon had both possessed one—but she sensed that this was not the time to question St. Silas. The moment Leena returned to Golborne, she would go to Margery and demand some answers.
“Avons can cross,” Leena said. “The old housekeeper—yourold housekeeper—told me that the current LordBramwellAvon had visited her. That was all.” The night they had both followed Lady Hargreaves flashed into her mind with clarity. When she had metSt. Silas just outside the inn, boots caked in mud, cravat undone, mood alight. He had been returning from his visit to the housekeeper. And, as the old lady had boasted, had restocked her firewood while he was there.
St. Silas took the timepiece, staring hard at the engraved message for a long moment, before giving it back to her wordlessly. “That is not all,” he said roughly. “You’ve been watching me like I’m one of your phantoms.”
“My phantoms,” she whispered, clutching the timepiece in her cold fingers, “are far less stubborn, reticent, guarded, unholy…”Bewitching,she thought desperately, remembering Moira again and her destruction at the hands of an Avon man who put Weavingshaw above all else. “If you continue down this path, my lord, it will not be long before youbecomea phantom, and I will have to spend my days trying to release you.”
The return of the intensity in his eyes was so harrowing that Leena brought a hand to her chest to steady the ache.
His words were slow, guttural. “Is that why I found you half frozen in the ocean? Because you are afraid you will grieve my loss?”
She could not tell a convincing lie; of that they were both certain. It was not only her voice but also Moira’s, spanning across a decade, that at last answered, “I would grieve it.”
His eyes flashed. But there was no satisfaction in his look, no victory, onlystarvationfor more.
“I won’t come back to haunt you.” He made this vow like it was a cursed thing, burning his tongue on its way out. His head imperceptibly tilted toward her as he drank her in, his eyes lingering on her lips. “The contract forbids me to.”
She didn’t take a step away this time. Her pulse pounded, and she imagined what it would feel like if he closed the space between them, if his unyielding mouth met her own. If this would soften the iron of their bitter contract.
She was deaf to the sounds of the downpour calming and thesnow finally starting its descent, nor did she see the last orange rays of the sun break through the black clouds.
Leena, who had never been kissed before—not while ghosts haunted her every step—wanted to experience for the first time in her life the abandon of doing something shewanted.Not for survival, not because it was the right thing to do, but because sheneededto.
Yet his mouth never met hers.
St. Silas jerked away before it could happen, his breathing ragged. He dragged a hand down his face. For a moment, he looked undone. Conquered.
Likeshehad bewitchedhim.
