“But I’m not the one on trial right now, am I?” Ben hissed. “Sheis.”
“Yes. Timid thing, isn’t she?” Nathaniel Cullraven strolled through the doorway like he’d been peeled from the very walls of Ravensgate, sitting down at the head of the table. He had another, expensive-looking bottle of wine cradled in his hands. Despite the somber mood of the room, he appeared to be in good spirits. “I had a run-in with the girl upstairs. Thought she was going to jump right out of her skin from a single look at me.”
He sounded pleased by the thought. Cal glanced at his mother’s drawn face and said nothing while his father sloshedwine as red as blood into his crystal glass. “At least this one eats meat,” he commented. “That’s an improvement.”
“Cal’s interested in her,” Ben said. “He’s been quite protective since the wedding. I was just about to inform him that that’s out of the question.”
“Well, it’s far too early for himto be thinking about settling down.” His father swirled the glass, scrutinizing the contents, before taking a long drink. “You remember what happened the last time you were carnal with the wildlife, don’t you, boy?”
“How could I not?” Cal reached for his father’s bottle and filled his own glass. “You keep reminding me.”
“Only because you require reminding.” His father’s eyes shifted from the level of the wine in Cal’s glass to his face. “This house only stands because of the foundation it was built on, Cal. It takes a certain breed of woman to be a sparrow. EvenI dois sometimes not enough.” His yellow eyes turned to Ben, who was following them closely. “Your brother found that out.”
Ben’s satisfied smirk died. “I didn’t have time to prepare her,” he argued. “If she hadn’t found out—”
“But she did find out,” his father interrupted smoothly. Like he’d been lying in strike, in fact, waiting to dig his claws into Ben’s open wounds. “You were clumsy. And now, here we are, with another fly-by-night sparrow.”
“I can take care of her.” Cal froze, his eyes snapping to his brother. “She’s younger; she’ll be easier to mold. And she came here all alone. Perhaps Cal had the right idea all along and the solution is simply to bring her into the family and clip her wings before she flutters too high.”
“No,” Cal growled.
“Caledon.” His mother’s voice was pleading. He ignored it.
“You killed your wife,” he said. Brutally. His wineglass was resisting his tight grip, a mere increment of force away from shattering. “I watched you do it. I won’t again. You aren’t going to touch this one.”
“I’m the heir of Ravensgate, Baby Cal. Father owns the house now, as is his right, but you’re living here at my largesse as the spare—and so is she. You couldn’t’ even drive her away. What makes you think you could bring her to heel? It only takes one raven to bring down a sparrow and we all know you have a soft touch.”
His father smiled and sipped his wine, looking pleased—with himself, with Ben.
Cal’s fury spiked and he rose unsteadily, tossing his napkin down over his empty plate. “Better a soft touch, than a hand that moves at another’s whim,” he hissed.
Then he turned on his heel and stalked out of the silent dining room.
As a child, he had never questioned the legacy. He had been homeschooled and the doctrine had been heavy-handed. But then his father and brother had killed the first girl he’d ever lain with, and then they’d killed the one woman he’d been absolutely certain would be safe. If being a sparrow wasn’t enough, what was?
He stripped out of his formal clothes and pulled on a pair of loose pajama pants. But he couldn’t relax enough to find his way to bed, pacing into the night with the wind ruffling through the curtains and making them flutter and dance as if trying to hold the room itself in their ghostly voile embrace. This house never could let anything go.
If he let Ben handle things his way, Nadine would never leave here alive. She would not survive his brother’s rule and Cal already knew what awaited the woman that couldn’t please him.
(“How can he be sure he’s hunting the right deer?”
“He marks them.”)
Cal pushed the heavy medieval tapestry aside, releasing a tide of dust. Reaching around the fabric, Cal gripped the hidden door handle in his fist. The brass had been worn smooth over the centuries from repeated handling and the small hallway he revealed on the other side was thick with cobwebs and more of that old, yellowish dust.
There were ghostly outlines where furniture had once stood. Cal reached down, groping for the knob of the second, secret door, which he also opened, flooding the cramped space with silvery moonlight. Two more steps and he was in the unicorn room, with its painted mural and matching tapestry. A room built for innocence, even as it designed to mock it.
The window was open, filling the air with the scent of pine. The cold air nipped at his bare shoulders, and he looked around, gathering his bearings, reminded that the last time this space had been in use, it had belonged to Noelle.
A soft sound made his eyes shift to the bed, where Nadine slept. Her hair was a dark stain on the white pillows: a stark contrast to the pale half-moon of her face. She was wearing a nightshirt, which had ridden high on the smooth curve of her hip.
His eyes flicked around the room again. Her suitcase was open and she appeared to be living out of it directly, rather than unpacking. So she’d be ready to leave in a hurry? She had draped a sweater over the painting of the hunter and the deer and that almost made him smile, even in spite of his grim mood.
Slowly, he approached. His feet made no sound on the boards.
Cal tipped her head towards his, trailing his fingers down the bare expanse of her throat. There was a worried line between her eyebrows that he longed to smooth away. Bad dreams, he thought, pausing at her shirt buttons. Then he began undoing those, too. She deserved better than this but he was not the prince charming she seemed to think he was. And he was not entirely sure he wanted to be.
With a tug, he bared her whole throat and the slope of her right shoulder. She stirred, and he paused again, holding his breath as he kept his eyes on the dusting of freckles covering her nose.
