“Oh, you’re not interrupting anything. After one thousand years of friendship, we’re out of things to talk about.” Rhion laughs but Bram doesn’t.
“What did you do with her body?” I ask flatly.
Bram looks up from his plate.
“Her body,” I say again. “Where is it?”
He clears his throat. “Sent home to her family. I saw to it.”
“And the men who killed her?”
Bram shrugs. “I don’t know.”
“You let them go?” I ask, horrified.
“She bargained with them of her own free will. I’m not a governess. My citizens can do as they please.”
“She was an old woman and they killed her for entertainment!”
I push back from the table and my chair topples behind me. I want to tell him I hate him, but I know too well what harm it would bring. First it was the girl in the deer mask, then it was Ethel. It could so easily be Marion or my mother next.
I’m nearly to the door when Rhion’s voice calls out. “A promise.”
I stop and turn. “What?”
“That’s the answer to my riddle. What can you shatter with just one word.” He glances to Bram. “A promise.”
That’s funny. I would have saidheart.
I’m not supposed to be in the kitchens. The poor old cook startles as I walk through the door, and the rest of the staff jump up and begin washing pots and sweeping the floor in an attempt to look busy.
“No, please,” I say, but they don’t listen.
I don’t intend to stay for long. I’m only looking for something to eat—and more importantly, a moment alone with Ben, the most unexpected member of our little rebel group.
Only eighteen, he’s the cook’s apprentice, mostly responsible for breakfasts and desserts. He joined us completely by accident. The first time I took notice of him was two months ago when he walked into the morning room with a plate of scones, tripped over his own feet, and sent them flying into our laps.
He looked up and fell in love with Olive at first sight.
From that point on, he found excuses to come to the sitting room when she visited me. He asked me about her favorite desserts and made them for her with painstaking care.
And then he followed us to Marion and Faith’s town house, innocently enough.
Olive had left her shawl behind and he was attempting to return it, and, he confessed to me later, have the opportunity to talk to her about something more than bread flour.
The problem was he arrived a moment too late. We shouldn’t have been speaking so openly in the drawing room and Ben’s footsteps as he approached were silent, a symptom of his years in domestic service.
“What did they use to lock up his mother—iron, was it? Could we get more?” Marion was saying as Ben hovered in the doorway.
I swore and jumped out of my skin when I saw him standing there. “Are you spying on us?”
“Are you talking about Queen Mor?” he asked plainly. “What an awful woman. Killed my dad. The son doesn’t seem much better. It’s a pity.”
He was so profoundly unselfconscious, I trusted him immediately.
“That’s my husband you speak of,” I replied, just to see what he would say.
He bowed his head. “My condolences.”
