I strode into the Ashfield house. I wondered if Lucian and John had finished their tasks. My steps echoed in the empty rooms, up the empty stairs. Empty of Marietta, who was somewhere else, somewhere a murderer was not. Repressed emotions clawed to the surface. Anger, pain, betrayal, longing, fear. I tugged my neck tie. I should have gone back to the Ember Square house and valet. Why had I come here?
If she hadn’t hated me before, she surely did now. Daggered comments. Cruel remarks. I’d taken my pain and rage and twisted it against her. And even though she had done the same, it still made me feel ill. Unforgivable.
Why had I come here?
I ripped the silk from my neck and tossed it on the side table, then worked on the buttons of my shirt. I opened the linen press to grab a change of clothing and froze as I looked into the mirror above the table.
“Marietta.”
Chapter 19
GABRIEL
I slowly closed the linen press and turned around. She was sitting in a chair in the corner—her legs pressed together and to the side, her hands folded in her lap—the calm presence of a lady but for the nervous twitch in her right foot.
Someone who thought they might have to fight for their life would never sit calmly in that cage.
“Gabriel.”
She had suppressed the spell to alert me of her presence. I had given her access to the wards days ago, but she hadn’t used them. I hadn’t thought to hope she might now.
“Come to do me in?”
“Well, I lost that advantage now, didn’t I?”
Her exhaustion was palpable, her magic thin.
Being here cost her. But she wasn’t afraid.
I leaned against the press and fiddled with my cuffs without looking away from her. “I thought you would be well away from here. The house registered your exit.”
“I did leave. To help Lucian and Alcroft with their tasks.”
“Oh?” The cage I had constructed wobbled, the foundations pulling free.
“Then I returned,” she said. “Here.”
“I see.” I carefully placed a link on the side table without using magic, not wanting to destroy whatever this was with sudden movements.
“Do you?”
I touched my other cuff, for once unsure how to answer. I shook my head without taking my gaze away.
“I know you didn’t murder those women, Gabriel.”
“That is good to know.” I carefully removed the other link and set it down too. “When did you figure that out?”
“I knew by the end of the conversation in the kitchen this morning.” The wordconversationmight have been amusing at another time. “Hearing you with the others confirmed it.”
“Eavesdropping?”
Her right foot stilled. “Yes.”
I nodded. “That doesn’t explain why you are here. You wanted to be far from this house.”
