“This may be the truth you need to hear,” she read softly. “But it should come from me, not like this.”
Her breath caught. She rose, crossed to the fireplace. The flame took the paper greedily, blistering the wax and curling the paper to ash. The truth reduced to ember.
Later, alone, she opened the drawer and lifted the brooch from its cloth. It lay in her palm, small and silent, terrible in its simplicity. No gleam now. No deception.
She held it to her chest.
No one else needed to know. Let the Order come. She was the next. And the last.
And she was ready.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The garden behindLady Eastbury’s townhouse should have smelled like autumn roses, fading and sweet. Instead, it carried only the chill of earth and endings. Leticia stood beneath the arbor, hands folded at her waist, trying to quiet the unrest rising beneath her skin.
Gabriel had sent word.
Her aunt had passed along the message in the hall, her voice clipped and unreadable. “He’s asked to see you in the garden.” There was no look, no tone. Only the words.
Before she left, her aunt crossed to the escritoire, drew out a small sheet, and wrote a few quick lines. When she finished, she sealed the note and handed it to a waiting footman.
“Take this to the address written and wait for a reply,” she said.
The man bowed and disappeared down the corridor.
Only then did she turn back to Leticia. “Don’t keep him waiting.”
Now, alone beneath the arbor, Leticia pressed her fingers to the edge of her skirt and exhaled slowly. She had nothing to fear. The brooch was hidden. She hadn’t said anything. He couldn’t know.
The gravel stirred with the sound of heavy, deliberate steps. She didn’t turn. She knew his step.
Gabriel emerged from behind the hedge, coat collar turned against the wind, expression shadowed. Not angry. But close.
“I came as soon as your aunt said you were here.” He stopped a pace away, giving her space.
Leticia inclined her head. “You said you needed to speak with me.”
“I did.” He stopped just out of reach. His gaze slid to the rosebushes beside her, back to her face. “I saw the portrait again. At Ashcombe Hall.”
Her chest tightened. “Your uncle and my mother.”
His eyes held hers. “And the brooch.”
Leticia didn’t move.
“I didn’t recognize it at first. Not truly. But the artist, the way he captured the light, it’s the same piece, isn’t it?”
She hesitated. “Gabriel…”
“Do you have it?”
His voice wasn’t unkind, but it carried consequences.
“Yes,” she said at last. “I have it. It’s safe.”
“Safe.” He said it as though the word itself were bitter. “Where?”
“No one knows where it is.”
