“You wouldn’t laugh if you saw the company my parents keep. The ladies ruling the historical society would throw people in jail in a heartbeat, if they could make ill-thought renovations illegal. I suppose we’re just lucky that they don’t use guns to enforce their point.”
Nadine made a small noise—it took him a moment to recognize it as a laugh, swallowed back before it could fully escape. Her smile was heartstoppingly lovely; it lit up her face, softening the tense lines of her jaw and making her eyes glow like sunlit rainclouds.
“You’re smiling,” he said, a little surprised.
She ducked her head. “Because you’re ridiculous.”
“I was wrong.” Still studying her face, he clarified, “At the wedding, I said you only might be prettier than your sister. But when you smile, there’s simply no question. It lights you up.”
Nadine’s face looked somber now. “That’s an awful thing to say while she’s missing.”
“I know. But I still thought you should know.”
She didn’t respond but she didn’t rebuke him, either. And Cal knew her well enough to suspect that she would have, if she had truly been offended. She seemed very inclined to fairness, perhaps because she hadn’t received much of it herself. Losing her parents so young, always living in her sister’s shadow: a casualty to the whims of fate.
The wallpaper gleamed darkly in the electric lights, the bronze powder adding layers of luminescence to the shadowy fan palms, if none of the sparkle. Cal imagined that the effect would have been even more intense back when the house had still used gas lamps and the dance of flickering flames would have added motion and depth.
Nadine stayed close as he led her through the house, nearly pressing up against him. He rather liked that, even if her trust were unwarranted. It made him want to protect her.
“This is my father’s room.” He stopped outside the master bedroom. “I think he’s in there now, so we won’t go in. But traditionally, it has always belonged to the Master of Ravensgate. The family crest hangs over the walls—Venari, dormire: in hoc est salus. To hunt, to sleep: that is the life.”
Caledon Cullraven had wanted everyone to be reminded of who—and what—he was.
“I’ve seen it.” Nadine stared at the door warily. “I went in by mistake.”
She didn’t elaborate, but her face was wan as she looked away from the door. “Have you,” he said grimly. “You move quickly, then.”And so does he. “This is Mother’s room,” he went on, urging her down the hall. “Though she keeps her apartments locked during the day. Not even the maids are allowed in. She doesn’t like being disturbed.”
“What about your father?” she asked presciently.
“He has a master key.”
His siblings’ rooms were no less opulent, and these, he opened to give Nadine a quick look. Odessa’s room had once been the nursery but it had been remodeled in the 1930s to reflect a more art deco flair. In another house, the swan lamps and tapestry might have been charming, but not even fairytale splendor was exempt from the pall of Ravensgate, and in the darkness, the glass eyes of the molded swans looked like the dead.
Ben’s room was much more traditional with its heavy mahogany furniture and dark gold jacquard and black color scheme. Some of his projects were laid out on the desk with the blue pencils he custom-ordered from Japan. A few of his late wife’s things were still in the room, which Nadine immediately zeroed in on. She picked up one of the dresses—it was the nightgown Noelle had been wearing beneath her robe the night that she’d happened upon him in the library.
He thought about that night often, wondering what he might have said to dissuade Noelle from the path that would ultimately lead her to her death.
Nadine’s fingers closed around the thin fabric, bunching it. Then she let the silk slip through her fingers. “Where are the rest of her things? Nathaniel said her room used to be mine.”
“They’re in storage.”
“Already?”
Cal said nothing.
“I might like to go through them,” she said, almost like a threat.
“Of course. I can take you there later.”
He saw no problem with taking her up to the attic. The secrets in this house tended to fall downward like sinking stones.
She stopped him again in the hall, putting her palm on the varnished surface of one of the servants’ doors. “Why are these doors closed?”
“We keep a lot of them sealed to save on heating. The insulation is very poor. It gets drafty. A lot of these doors just lead to the old servants’ corridors anyway. Back in the day, it was considered in better taste not to see the help. That a house should run itself.”
“That’s pretty shitty,” she said mutinously.
“I agree.” She looked up, shocked—what a cad she thought he was. His smile, when it came this time, felt thin. “That surprises you?”
