Her lips moved over my ear, over my cheek, then connected with my mouth, fiercely kissing me. Pulling my lips between hers, swallowing my groan as she made a particularly long downward thrust and swiveled her hips.
“Gabriel, I—”
I curved my hips upward again and her eyes rolled briefly back, her chin tilting and breath catching. Her hands fell to my shoulders to keep her upright. She looked into my eyes, her brown eyes completely smoked with desire and emotion, but not hazy from incomprehension. “Gabriel, I—”
I captured her lips and framed her cheeks in my hands, my fingers curling into her hair. But I didn’t make her eyes roll back, I didn’t cause her head to fall to the side, none of the tricks thatwould make her look away or lose eye contact with mine. No tricks that would hide my own completion, the expression on my face, the power that would give her. Our bodies met, our eyes held. And when we both fell apart moments later, I never looked away, and neither did she.
~*~
I picked up Octavia’s journal. I didn’t even like touching it, but Marietta thought the answers were inside. I had known they would be—it was the reason I had never fully destroyed it. It was also the reason I hadn’t been able to read what it said.
I had a copy of Melissande’s list. All I needed to do was go through the journal and check off each name, cross-referencing to what I remembered of each. See if there were any discrepancies, any allusions to events that might have pushed someone to murder.
Turning the pages was a struggle, but I began to make headway. One servant identified. Another. A village boy. A summer guest. When I reached my own section, I began flipping the pages more quickly. I didn’t need to read it to remember.
I paused in the act of flipping a page. Marietta had read this. Had probably gone back when I wasn’t looking and scoured the parts concerning me. She knew all of it, and yet she was still here. Still with me.
I flipped the page, my eyes barely skimming the pen strokes. Marietta saved her pity but extended her empathy. My feelings for her had already been strong, but they were now past a point where I could call them back.
Always searching for ways not to be broken, maybe I just needed the person who could hold my seams.
And because I was skimming the entries that concerned me, I almost missed it.
Only the early morning chime of the clock woke me from the stupor those written words invoked.
My finger pressed into the page, Octavia’s hated voice reading the words in my mind—just last summer. Horrible, as usual...
A firm knot settled in my stomach. The strange thing was the flicker of relief—from finally figuring it out, from never having to go through this journal again, from ending the nightmare.
Only to begin a new one.
I pounded the table with my fist. And then did it again, for good measure.
Marietta ran into the room, sleep rumpled but alert, scanning the space as if looking for a threat. “Gabriel?”
“I know who the murderer is.”
She stared at me, mouth agape.
I started penning notes to my father, brother, John, and two of my men. “We will need to discuss a plan.”
“Who is the murderer?”
“Someone you don’t have to worry about.”
She started to protest. I reached forward to kiss her, to thwart her, then stopped.
I touched her cheek instead, rubbing my thumb along her soft skin. “Soon. This will be over soon.”
~*~
MARIETTA
“I found a match,” Gabriel said.
Lucian, Alcroft, Crane, and I huddled around the kitchen table, no one in the mood for the breakfast spread laid out in the middle. Men I recognized, but couldn’t name, were running in and out with messages as Gabriel paced. Methodical, removed, nothing like the man on the bed with me hours ago.
I wanted to ask questions about the future, about us, but they would have to wait. Not while this nightmare neared its peak. Gabriel was not telling me something, but he wasn’t hiding the fact. He wasn’t doing it because he didn’t trust me. The reason was something else.
