“Hmm, yes I suppose at the time I didn’t really think about Poe much. He was here being cared for by the staff while I was in London.”
“To find a wife,” I finished quietly.
Sylum looked up at me, guilt flickering unmistakably before he smothered it.
“I wasn’t lying,” he began, voice soft, “when I said I did want to marry you.”
“I understand,” I replied, shrugging. Though a deep ache settled in my chest. “You needn’t explain.”
Outside, the wind moaned against the shutters, and I thought, just for an instant, I heard a faint tapping somewhere above.
But when I looked up, Sylum was grinning faintly at me, his dark eyes glinting in the candlelight.
“Just an old house,” he murmured. “The stones groan and creak when the wind turns.”
And though I tried to believe him, I could not shake the feeling that Blackthorn’s walls were listening, alive with watchful eyes.
For a time, our conversation drifted into gentler waters. He spoke of the gardens—his mother’s beloved roses, long untended but stubbornly blooming. I commented on the wine, and he confessed he often forgot he even owned the vineyard. He told me he loathed London, found its noise and gossip suffocating.
It was easy then, to slip back into the rhythm of who we had been. To remember the young man who once read poetry at my knee, who kissed me beneath falling chestnut blossoms, who swore he would love me until death.
It was as if the years that had passed between us never existed. I realized then just how much I’d truly missedhim. Despite the hurt he had caused me, I wanted to let the past go.
He was mine now. Perhaps not the way I wished it had come to be, but I could only hope that in the future, it could be a real marriage.
For the first time since our wedding, Sylum looked almost at ease. There were moments, fleeting but real, when I almost forgot the strange undercurrent that ran through the house and its inhabitants.
But the mind, treacherous organ that it is, rarely loosens its grip on unanswered questions. Perhaps it had been the easy flow of conversation or one too many glasses of wine, but I suddenly felt brave enough to ask.
I set my fork down, tracing a finger along the stem of my wine glass. “Sylum,” I began quietly, hesitating before I continued. “May I ask you something… personal?”
He lifted his gaze from his plate, amber hues dancing in his dark eyes. “You may ask me anything, Lucy.”
I swallowed hard. “It’s about your… your fiancé. Elizabeth.”
His expression didn’t change, but the air between us did. It felt heavy.
“I’ve tried not to pry,” I added quickly. “I only… people talk, you know how they are. I don’t believe any of it, of course. But I thought perhaps you might tell me the truth.”
For a long moment, he said nothing. The fire popped softly in the hearth, the only sound in the room. When he finally spoke, his voice was low.
“There isn’t much truth to tell.”
I frowned. “What do you mean?”
He leaned back slightly, his gaze shifting toward the window, where rain had begun to gather against the glass. “Elizabeth was kind. Proper. Everything my aunt thought a Duchess should be.” He paused, his tone hollowing. “But she was never meant for this house.”
Something cold slipped down my spine. “Did she truly die here?”
He nodded once, the movement barely perceptible. “She fell from the east wing balcony. They said it was an accident.”
“They said?” I repeated, my brows furrowing.
He turned to face me then, his jaw set. “I wasn’t even here.”
A silence bloomed between us. I could hear the faint tick of the mantel clock, relentless and too loud.
“She was alone,” he went on, his voice roughened now, fraying at the edges. “I was away that night attending business in the village. When I returned, she was already gone.”
