Riots seemed suddenly to be not enough.
“Then Lord Avon must be in Weavingshaw,” Leena said with growing certainty. “I can only imagine how the deceased Lord would feel about the object of his obsession being purchased mere months after his death.” She shook her head and continued almost to herself, “If what you say is true, Lord Avon must be irrevocably tied to Weavingshaw—in life and in death.”
St. Silas allowed her to muse out loud, his attention focused outside the window, on the gray courtyard alight with a single flickering lamp.
Then he nodded once.
“Martin holds an annual hunting party in a few weeks’ time at Weavingshaw. I have already arranged it so that we will go as his guests.”
Leena tried to stifle the sudden ignition of hope that flared in her chest. “You’ve arranged it already? If you have known all along that we were going to visit Weavingshaw, why did you not tell me?”
“I am not obligated to alert you of all my plans, Miss Al-Sayer.”
“How have you managed to get an invitation?” Leena asked, but didn’t wait for a response. “Let me guess: You have blackmail material on Mr. Martin.”
“Does it matter? We will have our admission before the start of winter.” His mouth was a thin line. He seemed irritated by her,more than he usually was when she asked questions. In fact, even more than when Leena had held a gun to him. “Mustyou wear that scent?”
Genuine surprise brought her head up. “What scent?”
“The lavender,” he said curtly. He did not glance at her, his stare still firmly planted on the gray courtyard outside. “The perfume you’ve been using to interrupt my confessions.”
It was such a sudden change of subject that it took Leena a moment before she cleaned her expression. Shehadworn it in the beginning to spite him, bringing the scent of floral growth to his barren confession room. When she had realized that it did nothing to alleviate the burden of confessing, it had just become a part of her daily morning routine, a comfort amid the fear.
She folded her arms. “If you are implying that I am using it to distract your con—”
“I am not implying it. I am stating it as fact.” The words seemed to be forced from him. “I do not condone any distractions in my consultations, Miss Al-Sayer.”
“No one has taken notice of it.”
“Ihave taken notice. That is enough.”
He stared at her for another long moment. “Can ghosts smell?”
She furrowed her brows, unsure what exactly he was asking and for what purpose. “Not that I am aware,” she replied slowly.
He acknowledged her answer with a curt nod before throwing the carriage door open, descending swiftly and holding out a hand to her. “Even now,” he said, as she took his hand with a gloved palm, his skin still searing through the layers. “You are a distraction.”
Somewhere within thenorth of Morland, in the grand and marbled Weavingshaw, three men met in a room.
The chamber they chose for their purpose was discreet. Not the gilded ballrooms nor the mahogany-lined studies that the ancient house was famous for, but a windowless room that contained only a table alight with tall candles and four seats. The chair at the far end remained empty even after all the men had arrived.
It was Lord Hargreaves who had called the meeting. He held a special interest in the fate of Algaraa, and the report of the Malik’s fall had reached him days earlier than the rest of the world. Rather than assembling in his own Hythe House, known for its grapes that made drunkards out of half the kingdom, the meeting was held in Weavingshaw.
The house was isolated upon the grieving moors, desolate in its loneliness, and he knew the northern winds would keep their secrets buried.
Years had passed since Lord Hargreaves had last visited Weavingshaw, back when the estate had still belonged to Percy. He and Percy had been only boys when they had sat in this very room,plotting to restore their crumbling fortunes, and Hargreaves felt the stirrings of unease at being here again.
It had been a decade since Percy’s funeral, but his presence still saturated Weavingshaw—so strong Hargreaves thought he might choke onit.
Hargreaves grappled with this feeling of doom. He was no longer a fresh-faced boy; he had now inherited the viscountcy after his father’s death. But he would not allow the tragedies of the past to mark his future.
Percy’s linen shirt had been drenched in crimson. He looked down at it mutely, touched his abdomen, then looked back up at Hargreaves, his eyes beseeching.
For years, Hargreaves had had to learn to speak casually while hiding the blood that stained his skin. His voice was calm when he asked the two other men in the room to sit.
Directly to Hargreaves’s right was Lord Kilworth. Once the second son to an earl, Kilworth had been set to receive only a paltry country manor while his twin brother, born just a few minutes earlier, was deeded the entirety of the title, lands, and fortune, as was the law.
The Kilworth twins had shared the same shock of red hair, the same pointed chin and freckled skin, but while the eldest had been handed a silver spoon, the younger twin had been force-fed resentment. Hargreaves still remembered the night George Kilworth had come to him—his words slurred, his tall leather boots still splattered with fresh animal blood courtesy of the hunt they had attended earlier—and uttered the five words that would allow Hargreaves to manipulate him from then on:I should’ve been the heir.
