Another heartbeat between them, reverberating through the walls of the chamber. She understood what he was doing even if he did not speak it. He was ensuring she had a chance—a safe passage home.
Instead of turning to go, St. Silas reached out and carefully unfastened the pins holding her hair, letting them clatter to the floor one by one. He watched the curls tumble to her back, and for a moment, under the glimmer of the candlelight, there was no mistaking the look in his eyes.
She could not say or do anything to stop him; tears obscured her vision.
He did not deny it. Itwasa farewell.
Roughly—as if having to extricate himself from the image of her standing before him, hair unbound, the unsaid goodbye flickering in her gaze—he turned toward the door.
“My lord, I ask you again: Do not bleed and do not give me a reason to use this. Come back so that I can return it to you in person,” Leena said to his retreating back.
He exited the room quietly, leaving her to the silence of the gun.
On the nightbefore the duel, Leena did not encircle her bed with salt.
She understood the risk, felt the fear of being possessed curl in her stomach, but her desperate need to find any means to help outweighed the consequences.Especiallyon this night, above all others, as her brother and St. Silas readied themselves to face the sword.
“Lady Hargreaves,” she whispered into the empty room. Theo Daye had not re-emerged and, for the first time, Leena ushered in her own haunting. “Return. Finish your story.”
It took some time before Leena’s restless mind fell asleep, the copper coins nestled in her hands.
When sleep finally took hold of her, she dreamed of Lady Hargreaves.
—
It was only a few months into the marriage when Lady Hargreaves felt the first inklings that something was not right.
Her husband was often busy. This was not unusual; he was an important man, with estates and lands to oversee. It was the host ofmen who entered his study at all hours that bothered her—some of them of the undesirable sort that made the skin crawl on her neck. There was that loathsome Orley, with his long, trailing fingers and expanding eyes. And, almost always, there was Lord Avon.
Lady Hargreaves disliked him most of all.
Lord Avon had a way of speaking that was designed to smooth and manipulate any obstacles from his path. She had seen him twist the truth, threading wrong into right, turning water into wine. She’d seen the influence he had over her husband.
Oftentimes, she’d catch the tail end of their conversation.
“…if His Grace is to continue business with us, we must provide him with more boys. He won’t take prisoners; says that their emotions are tainted.” That was Lord Avon.
Lady Hargreaves stopped in the stairwell to listen. Frightened, she wondered who these boys were. A shiver overtook her spine.
“I do not like this, Percy.” Her husband’s tone was uneasy. “We are walking down a path of no return.”
She heard the disappointment in Lord Avon’s voice. “Hargreaves, these boys are from the workhouses. They are half starved, the refuse of society. We are giving them a chance…”
Their voices began to drift down the hall, and Lady Hargreaves could hear no more.
Later that night, as Lord Hargreaves prepared for bed, she asked him about the conversation she’d overheard. While it was custom for husbands and wives of the nobility to sleep apart, her husband never followed that rule. She’d heard some of the servants remark upon it, but she paid no heed, preferring the way her husband’s body felt cradled by her own.
He looked momentarily taken aback that she’d overheard them, then his voice turned mild as it always did when he tried to hide something. “It is nothing, my dearest Gemma. Do not trouble yourself over such petty matters.”
Lady Hargreaves shook her head, putting down the brush she’d been running through her hair. “Be wary of Lord Avon, my love.He cares about nothing save Weavingshaw and begetting an heir. The way he keeps his wife all alone…”
“Do not speak of what you do not understand.” It was the first time her husband had spoken sharply to her, and Lady Hargreaves halted, her fingers still clutching the handle of the brush.
When her husband saw the hurt on her face, his expression softened, and he leaned across to brush a kiss over her hair. “I apologize for speaking to you in such a boorish manner, my love. It is only that Percy is my oldest friend, and he has had some unfortunate luck.”
“How so?” Lady Hargreaves asked tentatively. She’d heard rumors, but she’d often dismissed them as idle gossip.
Her husband reached for her wrist, his eyebrows furrowed as he concentrated on unbuttoning the cuffs of her nightgown. Goosebumps pebbled her skin at his touch. “Excuse the vulgarity of my frank speech, but Percy married his wife for the money her father had promised him. He owned a shipping company.” He took her other hand, undoing those buttons as well. “A few days into the marriage, it was revealed that all of the money that had been promised to Percy was gone. The girl’s father had made some bad investments, and a ship he’d been counting on to restore his wealth had sunk in the Westin Ocean a day after the wedding. When the girl’s father learned of this, he suffered a heart attack, leaving all his debts to poor Percy.”
