His mother floated into place beside his father. In her sleeveless white linen dress, with her pale hair falling loose around her shoulders, she looked like a fallen leaf sapped of chlorophyll. “I’m sorry our house isn’t to your taste, Nadine. Not everyone appreciates history—” her eyes flicked to his father. “Or tradition.”
Cal felt the rebuke for what it was. So his mother didn’t approve of this, either. Even though she, more than anyone, knew what the alternative would be.
He stared at her, trying to meet her eyes, but she refused to lift her head from her charger.
“I’m sorry if I offended you—” Nadine began, before freezing like a rabbit as his brother seated himself at the head of the table.
There were shadows under Ben’s eyes and fresh lines around his mouth that hadn’t been quite so visible in the ambient lighting of Cal’s bedroom. Under the candlelight, he looked sallow and haggard, his jaw ticking like he’d caught a piece of gristle between his teeth.
“I do wonder why you stay here at all, if you claim to dislike it so much.”
“I invited her,” Odessa piped up cheerfully. She was the only one here, apart from his father, who appeared to be enjoying themselves.
Ben gave her a stony glance. “This is no place for the wilting.”
The smell of caramelization intensified as the servants entered the rooms with tureens of soup, all of them steaming. “She has plenty of spirit,” he said, lifting his hand from Nadine’s thigh as Holly placed his porcelain bowl in front of him. “She just likes to hide it away.”
“How long are you going to be staying in Argentum, Nadine?” asked his mother.
“I don’t know. I hadn’t really thought that far.” Nadine spoke hesitantly, looking at everyone except his father, gauging their reception, their potential to scorn.
“That seems a little reckless.” His mother’s voice sharpened, like a piercing needle. “Your place of work is fine with you coming all the way out here?”
“Mother.” Cal spoke harshly and she flinched with a small lift of the shoulders. “Really.”
Nadine sank deeper into her chair. “I don’t have a job. I just graduated.”
“And you came out here—all alone? How brave of you.” His father drank from his glass, his tongue prodding at the red beads that clung to his lips. “I do hope someone knows where you are.”
Nadine dropped her soup spoon. The sound was loud and dissonant, even with those thick wooden walls acting as buffer. The servant set down the bowl she was carrying with a chastising look before bending to pick up the offending piece of cutlery. “I’ll get you a new one, miss.” She slanted a quick look at his father before slipping from the room.
Cal could hear her breathing. She was trying to stay in control but the hunted look in her eyes betrayed her. “It shouldn’t take that long. I still need to get back to my aunt.”
Clever, he thought.Reminding him that you won’t be missed.
“You seem a little high-strung, my deer. My children all have iron constitutions, of course. You can’t fire a gun when you’re shaking like a leaf.” His father drank deeply from his wineglass as if to fortify his cruelty. “Do you hunt?”
Nadine could not quite hide the tremble in her wrist as she accepted the new spoon from the maid. She gripped herself, as if physically holding back. “I don’t really like guns.”
Ben muttered something under his breath. He was closer to Nadine, and it was for her ears, clearly, that he spoke, but Cal caught it all the same:bleeding heart.
His father glanced at Ben but it was not exactly censorious. “Not everyone has the stomach for it,” he commented, in a deceptively placid tone. “Or the heart.”
He bent to the soup, indicating with a subtle cue that everyone around him should do the same. The king of the castle. And that would make the rest of them—what? Courtiers, bound to his whims? Cal had danced to this tune often enough but now the bonds were chafing.
Nadine stared down at the dark broth as if the answers she sought might be lurking beneath its glossy surface.
“So,” his father said, after enough time had elapsed for the illusion of ease to return to the table, “now that you’ve seen my home in its entirety, tell me, what do you think of Ravensgate? Scariness aside, of course—” he smiled to himself, a private joke “—I’m sure my son was very thorough in showing it to you. There must have been something that aroused your interest.”
She choked, as was undoubtedly his father’s intent. Her eyes went to his mother with an expression of flustered panic so endearing that it would have been charming, were it not for what was at stake. For it was not his mother’s permission or approval that she needed to survive.
“Oh, come,” his father laughed. “Don’t be timid or worry about sparing our feelings. Argentum is no kind home to cowards and fools, my deer. Tell us what you really think. It has you jumping at shadows, doesn’t it? Yes, it was not designed to be pretty. The sense of unease when you walk these halls is—” he laughed again, sweeping his eyes over his captive audience “—completely intentional.”
“Like most Victorians, Caledon Cullraven was interested in death and the macabre,” Cal added. It was as much warning as he dared right now.
“He was also a hedonist.” His father refilled his glass from the bottle Nadine could barely bring herself to look at, as their bowls were replaced with the main course. “He valued pleasure above all else, particularly in its most concentrated forms, when experienced intensely and in the moment, often whilst in pursuit of earthly delights he could showcase as testament to his prowess.”
“Like hunting.” Nadine’s voice was a little stronger and there was an inflection at the end of her statement that could have been question or plea.
