It was Hargreaves who had then suggested to Kilworth, a few months later, that a drop of poison be slipped into his twin’s nightcap. And when Kilworth had finally inherited his brother’s title and the several strategic lands outside Golborne that would be most useful to Hargreaves in the future, Hargreaves had made sure Lord Kilworth would never forget to whom he owed his loyalty.
Lord Kilworth’s voice was already hazy from alcohol.Goddamn drunkard.“Still with the old traditions, eh, Charles?” Kilworth asked Hargreaves, waving a hand at the chair left empty. “How long has our good friend Lord Avon been dead?”
Hargreaves spared him a long glance, and Kilworth shifted beneath the look.
“Yes, Percy has been gone for many years, but it washewho created the Wake. We keep this seat empty to honor him,” Hargreaves said with finality.
“Percy betrayed the Wake in his final days,” Kilworth insisted. “He turned against us. Why should we still honor him?”
Kilworth’s belligerence irked Hargreaves, but he kept his expression tepid. “Blessthe dead.”
Lord Kilworth’s mouth twisted, but rather than respond, he took another swig of the amber liquid in his glass. “Dead or alive, Percy still has his grip on this group of ours.”
Hargreaves had always wondered why Percy had named their group “the Wake.” He used to think it was merely boyish fancy, a macabre name picked on a whim. Now he knew better.
It had begun with just the two of them: Hargreaves and Percy—only schoolboys at the time. Over the years, they had acquired and disposed of people according to their usefulness, the Wake now branching out to encompass a sovereignty of men, wealth, and trade.
Still, the day the Wake was founded was a vivid memory for Hargreaves: the creaking dorm rooms in Hardwick’s Boarding School, the two boys repeating the oaths they had ghoulishly created, the red leather diary in Percy’s hand. The goal had always been simple: to restore their dying bloodlines to their former wealth and glory.
Percy’s father, the 15th Lord Avon, had gambled away what was left of the family fortune, leaving his son to inherit a Weavingshaw drowning in debts and disillusionment.
It didn’t matter that Hargreaves would inherit the viscountcyand the riches his father had safeguarded for him. He was ahalf-breed,born to a Morish father and an Algaraan mother. Even as a child he had known his very existence was a jest among his peers, and that respect must be taken by other, more ruthless, means.
Before he met Percy, Hargreaves had been relentlessly tormented by the other aristocratic boys at Hardwick’s. Then golden-haired, blue-eyed Percy—who wore his popularity like a sheen—had reached out a hand.
Everything had changed that day. No one had dared to taunt Hargreaves after that.
They had been only children back then, but the oath Hargreaves had sworn with his boyhood friend still wore heavily on him, like hooks that sank into his skin and ripped out flesh every time he shook them away.
Percy had laughed when Hargreaves came to give his condolences. Percy always knew how to make his presence felt; even his happiness carried claws. They had only come of age that year, wild boys who trawled the seedy streets of Golborne with the heedless abandon known only to those born with privilege.
“My father’s dead, old boy,” Percy had said, grinning blithely. “Congratulations are in order, not commiserations. Say, what do you think of going up to Weavingshaw? That land is mine now, completely and utterly. We ought to baptize it anew.” Percy was so earnest Hargreaves should’ve known then that there was something amiss.
Percy was never earnest.
“Bless the dead.” Hargreaves uttered it like an oath for the second time. It had been more than twenty-five years since Percy had rejoiced at his father’s death, ten since his own, but the memories came back to Hargreaves so vividly now.
“Weavingshaw hoards ghosts,” Percy had once told him. “I’d much rather it collected wealth instead.”
He was right about the ghosts, for Weavingshaw seemed to have collected the remnants of Hargreaves’s drowned wife as well.
He carried her with him always, but here at Weavingshaw—amagpie’s nest for the dead—he swore he could hear her humming in the next room. That he could feel her thick hair between his fingers. Her touch on his cheek.
Couldn’t save her, couldn’t save her, couldn’t—
They’d never had children. His dear Gemma. She’d told him she couldn’t before they’d wed; she’d never received her monthlies. Yet he had loved her past the point of madness, past the need for heirs, past the completion of his bloodline.
Percy had always called him a fool for that. Bloodlinesmustbe completed.
It was one of the few times he and Percy had disagreed.
John Martin, the third member of the assembly and the smallest in stature, was known to invest wildly, and he speculated even more. His clothes were impeccably cut, the high-collared jacket tailored to fit his bullish form perfectly. His nose stood crooked on his face, and his accent still held traces of the backstreets of Golborne where he used to run barefoot as a child.
Martin was a social climber—any blueblood could smell thenew moneywafting off him—a mere tradesman with an excellent head for business. Factories were dotted all over the country bearing his name, but Hargreaves knew that Martin would not be satisfied until he entered into the last echelon of society that had been barred to him: the ranks of the aristocracy.
Knowing his immeasurable wealth, Hargreaves had allowed Martin to buy his way into the Wake.
Martin had purchased Weavingshaw shortly after Percy’s death nearly a decade ago, but everyone still referred to Weavingshaw as Avon land. It had been that way for nearly nine hundred years. It felt almost obscene to rename it now. Yet by not leaving any viable heirs, Lord Avon had left Weavingshaw defenseless, to be purchased byanyonewith money.
