At last, I broke the silence. “Did your business in the village go well?”
“Hmm?” He dabbed the corner of his mouth with his napkin, just a touch too carefully. “Oh, yes. The village. Routine matters—rent disputes, repairs, nothing of consequence.”
His voice was smooth, but he kept his eyes low, focused on his food with an intensity that felt… evasive.
I took a sip of wine to steady my nerves. “You must have inherited quite a responsibility after your father’s death. The estate, the tenants, the household…”
“And the ghosts,” he finished lightly, a teasing smile not quite meeting his eyes as he looked up at me.
I froze, my glass halfway to my lips.
“Ghosts?” I repeated, setting my glass down. “I thought you didn’t believe in such things.”
“I don’t,” he replied with an easy shrug. “But some of the servants do. Old stories tend to linger longer than the people who tell them.”
“I see,” I murmured, smiling at his tease. “I thought I heard one earlier.”
He looked up sharply and I laughed, the sound coming out a bit too strangled. “It was only Poe.”
He studied me for a moment then reached across the table, brushing his fingers lightly against mine. “I don’t want you to be afraid here, Lucy.”
I swallowed, forcing a reassuring smile. “I’m not.”
His thumb traced the back of my hand, his touch warm, steady. “Good,” he said. “Because there’s nothing in these walls that can hurt you.”
A small, involuntary shiver ran through me. His words thudded strangely in my chest. His reassurance felt too pointed, too deliberate, as if fear was expected of me, or worse, warranted.
I swallowed hard. “Sylum…” I hesitated, the question creeping from me before I could soften it. “Is there something I should be concerned about?”
For the briefest moment, something in his expression shifted, too quick to name, too soft to trust. Then he exhaled lightly, almost amused, his features smoothing back into practiced calm.
“Only the drafts,” he said with a soft laugh. “Blackthorn is an old house. It creaks, it groans, and the servants love to invent ghost stories to make themselves feel braver. Nothing more.”
But his eyes did not quite match the ease in his voice.
I let the matter fall away, realizing that Sylum had no intention of sharing whatever horrible weight he carried.
I would let him keep his secrets… for now at least.
We lingered over what little remained of the meal until even the candles seemed to grow weary of burning. Sylum pushed back his chair at last and rose.
“You’ve eaten almost nothing,” he observed, frowning.
“I wasn’t very hungry,” I murmured.
He circled the table slowly, his gaze tracing my face. When he reached me, he extended a hand. “Come, I’ll walk you to the stairs.”
I hesitated only a moment before placing my hand in his. His fingers were warm, his grip sure. The air in the corridor was cooler, scented faintly with old stone and candle wax as we stepped from the dining room into the vast hall beyond.
Neither of us spoke at first. The silence between us seemed fragile, almost sacred. The house had gone still again.
When we reached the base of the staircase, Sylum stopped.
“Lucy,” he said quietly. My name in his voice did something to me. It trembled through the air like a secret prayer just for me.
“Yes?”
He turned to face me, his expression unreadable in the half-light. Then, slowly, he reached out, his fingers brushing along my jaw. “Please don’t wander the halls tonight,” he pleaded softly, attempting to take the edge off of what I knew to be a command.
