He didn’t care for the newly desperate look in her eyes, though. It reminded him too much of another woman who had looked at him that way, pleading and resigned, all at once.
(You were too serious)
He hadn’t been able to help her, either.
To distract himself, Cal registered with the state bar and scheduled the dates for his exams, holing himself up in his room to study. He had his meals sent up and to keep Odessa out, he locked the doors. Sometimes, as the night bled into the early hours of the morning, he could hear shuffling in the bridal suite next door that must have been Noelle, pacing, but he paid it no mind. He couldn’t afford to and neither could she.
She was a clever girl, he told himself. And Ben could be easily led.
When he wasn’t studying or seeing Rael, he took long walks in the woods. Passer Woods was named for the sparrows that lived there, and stretched nearly as far as the eye could see, cresting over the foothills and into the mountainous vista that lay behind them. The warbling of the birds was deafening in the morning, until he trod on a branch and they all fell silent at his approach.
He’d brought others here once. But it had been a long time since he’d come here with company. The land was as much a part of their legacy as their various traditions, but it was the lightest part of the mantle. Breathing in the resinous scent of pine, Cal looked around the spacious clearing. It was deep enough in the woods to deter all but the drunkest of degenerates.
Ghost pipes were blooming, pale pink and red, like arteries sprouting from the soil itself. The red color was rare and he’d been watching them for a while, guarding them as jealously as he did anything else that he considered his.
A pair of misty-grey eyes popped into his head and his chest tightened.
He wanted to see her again.
???????
“How’s your brother’s wife?”
Cal swirled his shot glass, watching the dim lights of the bar ripple over the surface instead of meeting his friend, Rael’s, eyes. They were in the Blue Bar, and Christian was standing behind said bar, wiping glasses like he wasn’t trying to listen.
“Like a shadow of her former self,” he said, in a low voice.
“Ben told her?”
“No. Not yet.” He knocked back the contents, swiping his mouth with the back of his wrist. “But she suspects something is amiss. Ben caught her writing a letter.”
“Who to?”
“Her sister, I think.”
Demonstrating the minimal amount of sense, Ben went to their father instead of confronting her directly. He then summoned them all to the study to castigate them in person after the sparrows had gone to bed.
“Remember,” he reminded them all grimly, “your marriages might be valid under the eyes of the law, but they will never be true Cullravens unless they pass the test. I gave you my permission to marry early with the understanding that this would be a temporary measure.”
“Temporary?” Odessa scoffed. “At this rate, she won’t make it to spring.”
“Shut up,” Ben hissed.
“It could be nothing. A letter is far from urgent.” His father looked at him. “Write one back to the girl, Caledon. Don’t be incriminating.”
Cal flipped a page in his study guide. “Paper trails are incriminating.”
“Is this attitude what we get for paying to send you to law school?”
“This isn’t legal advice. It’s just advice. And on that note, I’m surprised you aren’t more concerned about the book that Ben lost. There’s no statute of limitations on murder.”
“I didn’t lose it.”
His father’s eyes slid to Ben. “You were the one to see it last, weren’t you?”
“I made an entry. Then I put it back. And locked it.”
“Well, it didn’t grow legs and run away,” Odessa said. “Otherwise Cal would have fucked it.”
