"Of course," Sasha said, stepping aside to let her pass. "Don't let me keep you."
Sophie hurried away, still clutching her plate of purloined food, and Sasha was left standing in the corridor wondering what exactly the youngest Sullivan was up to.
But then, everyone in this house seemed to be hiding something.
The question was whether any of them were going to survive the secrets they were keeping.
Chapter Thirteen
Victoria was staring at her laptop screen when Sasha came in. Though she'd been reading the same rejection email for the past ten minutes without absorbing a word of it. She'd received three similar messages today, each one a small death by a thousand corporate cuts, along with notification that next week’s interview with Pemberton Associates had been canceled due to "restructuring priorities."
Which was business-speak for "we've found someone better and can't be bothered to waste an hour pretending otherwise."
She closed her laptop with more force than necessary, the sharp snap echoing in the quiet room. Through her window, she could see the last of the evening light fading over the gardens, where Lukas was securing climbing roses against their supports with the sort of methodical care that suggested he actually enjoyed his work. Unlike Victoria, whose career was apparently dissolving like sugar in rain.
"Not time to change for dinner already, is it?" she said, feeling oddly slightly better with Sasha in the room.
Sasha was still in her gardening clothes from the afternoon. There was a smudge of soil on her cheek that was unreasonably charming, and her hair was escaping from its ponytail in golden wisps that caught the lamplight.
"Yeah, sorry," Sasha said, moving over to where her suitcase sat. "Time goes fast here, doesn’t it?" She didn’t wait for a response, pulling out a sweet sundress that Victoria thought might show the curve of her cleavage more than she might be ready to deal with. "That Sophie’s an odd duck, isn’t she?"
"Sophie?" Victoria said, trying not to look at the sundress. "What makes you say that?"
"Dunno," shrugged Sasha. "She's just… been acting rather mysterious, hasn't she?"
Victoria considered this, turning away from her small worktable to give Sasha her full attention. "Sophie's always been secretive. Comes with being the baby of the family, I suppose. There's such a gap between her and the rest of us that she's practically an only child most of the time."
"That must be lonely."
"Probably. We were all so much older when she came along that she might as well have been raised by different parents entirely." Victoria had often wondered how her baby sister’s childhood could have been so different from her own. "I was seventeen when she was born, practically grown. Ambrose was thirteen, Archie eighteen. By the time she was old enough to be interesting conversation, we were all off at university or starting careers."
"She seems… wise beyond her years, maybe?"
"She is. Sometimes I think she sees things more clearly than any of us." Victoria paused, studying Sasha's face. "She certainly saw through you and Ambrose quickly enough."
"God, yes. That was embarrassing." Sasha laughed, but there was something careful in her expression. "Though I suppose it's hard to fool someone who's watching from the outside."
"Sophie's always been observant. Probably learned that keeping secrets is easier than trying to get our attention when we're all so wrapped up in our own dramas." Victoria shifted in her chair, acutely aware of how the light played across Sasha's features. "She's probably got half a dozen projects going that none of us know about. Secret diaries, mysterious pen pals, elaborate plans for world domination."
"The last one wouldn't surprise me. She's got that strategic look about her."
"Mmm. Why do you ask about her, anyway?"
"Just curious. She's an interesting kid. Reminds me a bit of myself at that age, actually. Always watching, always trying to figure out how the adults were managing to make such a mess of everything." Sasha was studying Victoria's face with those disconcertingly green eyes. "Are you alright? You seem a bit… um, tense."
"I'm fine," Victoria said automatically, the response so practiced it came out without thought.
"Are you? Because you've been hiding in here for most of the afternoon, and you looked rather murderous at lunch. Like you were planning Georgina's demise between bites of sandwich."
Victoria forced a smile. "Just tired. Work's been demanding lately."
"Mmm." Sasha didn't look convinced, tilting her head like a bird considering a particularly interesting insect. "Georgina was certainly something yesterday, wasn't she? All that talk about modernizing the estate. I thought your father might spontaneously combust right there at the table."
"She's exactly Archie's type, unfortunately. Beautiful, enthusiastic, and completely wrong for him in every possibleway." Victoria found herself relaxing slightly despite her mood, drawn into the conversation. "He has an uncanny ability to find women who are fundamentally incompatible with everything he claims to value."
"Poor Cathy looked like she wanted to strangle her with a rose stem when Georgina started talking about replacing the heritage roses with 'something more modern.'"
"Can you blame her? Georgina was practically planning to turn the place into a lifestyle magazine shoot. All surface and no substance." Victoria shook her head. "Did you see her face when Grandmother mentioned the library?"
