His mouth tightened, brittle with memory. “She slammed the door in my face.”
I said nothing. Could say nothing.
“When Lydia turned eighteen,” he continued, “she came here. Alone. Her mother had passed. She had nowhere else to go.” He raked a hand through his hair, taking a deep breath before continuing.
“I wanted to sponsor her. Raise her as a lady. Give her a chance at a proper life. But my aunt refused, and Lydia… Lydia didn’t want that either.”
“What did she want?” I asked softly.
He looked at me then, really looked, and the sorrow in his eyes nearly undone me.
“A place,” he replied. “A purpose. So I gave her a position in my household. Not out of impropriety, not out of affection of the sort you feared, but out of duty. And… and love. A brother’s love.”
A sharp, aching breath escaped me.
Oh God.
What had I done?
“I never told anyone,” he said. “Save for my aunt and Mrs. Ashby.”
A hollow, sickening weight settled in my stomach, like I had swallowed something rancid.
His sister.
His sister.
Lydia… who may have died by my hand.
I suddenly felt ill. Every doubt I had forced away in the days before came crashing back in as memories of all the things I’d supposedly imagined or dreamed played in my mind.
“Lucy?” Sylum’s brow knit. “What is it?”
My throat squeezed painfully as tears rushed hot and sudden to my eyes. “I killed her,” I whispered hoarsely.
His entire body stilled.
“No,” he said sharply. “No, Lucy. Don’t do that. Don’t say that.”
“I did,” I breathed, the words tumbling from me like stones rolling down a cliff. “Your sister… your family. How can you even look at me?” My voice cracked. “You should hate me. You should loathe the sight of me.”
He moved from his seat, kneeling in front of me, reaching for my hands. I jerked free, pressing myself against the back of the chair.
A tremor ran through him. “Lucy, listen to me. What happened to Lydia was anaccident. An accident.” His voice gentled, though his eyes were fierce with conviction. “She fell. That’s what the coroner said. That is what I saw.”
“But I—” My breath hitched. “I remember things. I see pieces. She was holding my wrists and I hit her… she screamed and I heard a cracking sound…”
“You were hallucinating or dreaming,” Sylum said firmly. “Perhaps you were sleepwalking. You were terrified and unwell.
“There was blood on my nightgown, Sylum.” My voice rose, wobbling on the edge of hysteria. “What if parts of it were real? What if I imagined some things and… and others actually happened?” I gripped my temples as the memories curled like tiny phantom fingers around my thoughts.
His hands framed my face before I could recoil, gentle but unyielding, anchoring me.
“Lucy. Look at me.”
I did. I wish I hadn’t. Because there was sorrow in his eyes. And fear. And raw, undeniable love.
“You did not kill Lydia,” he promised, slow and deliberate. “I swear to you, on everything I have ever been, you didn’t.”
