That earns me his first real reaction. The centre of his brows bunches together, and he exhales quietly. “Do you believe in ghosts, Lady Francesca?”
My smile comes easily. “I live with them.”
He waits, expecting me to laugh. I don’t. Finally, his attention locks onto me as he comes to the slow realisation that I’ve said something that doesn’t belong in this century—and now he’s wondering whether I belong here too.
I want to tell him they’re here. They’re watching him.
Two fingers press against the outside of his thigh as he watches me, beginning a short, steady rhythm of taps. By the time I realise he’s following sheet music only he can see, he’s already gone still.
I speak before he can. “Forgive me; it’s been years since Redford has entertained anyone who doesn’t share our blood. I forget what shocks polite society.”
“Is that what I am to you?” A pause. “Polite society?”
A gust rolls down from the woods, fidgeting with the edges of my dress. Whatever light filters through the canopies begins to thin, painting the side of his face in a bruise. A cluster of blackbirds wheels above the trees, never landing anywhere close to this spot.
“No,” I say finally. “You’re not.” The wind lifts strands of my hair, threading through the roots and urging me to proceed, to prod at the curiosity a little longer. “My grandmother seems to think you’re here to retie the thread, to remind Sheffolk we’re still sewn to the rest of the kingdom.” I shake my head. “But Gran has always seen politics in everything.”
Eric doesn’t miss a beat. “And you don’t?” The question is intentional, as though he’s expecting me to bare my fangs.
I nod towards the cottage and gesture for him to follow. He’s walking slower this time, so I glance over my shoulder when I say, “You don’t want to know what I see.”
A single muscle jumps at the hinge of his jaw, and he tracks the motion of my throat when I swallow down everything else I wish to say. In the hush that follows, the lake’s ghosts lean in to listen.
Once we pause before the cottage, I don’t say anything, as my tongue suddenly refuses to work. Nobody comes this far north, and how does one explain to a complete and utter stranger what this little plot means to me? To lie or merely present it as a simple inheritance feels like a disservice to my parents. The door is locked, and the curtains are drawn. Percy’s clearly left with her father, yet it still feels as if something watches from the windows.
Similarly to his brother, Eric appears to sense the hesitation in the air, the very thing I warned him against, and speaks. “Lovely cottage. Is this the part where you kill me, cut out my heart and bury it beneath your floorboards?”
The deadpan tone is what gets me, and a breathy little laugh is my first response. “Doubt I’d be able to find it. I’ve heard you Atherbournes don’t keep your hearts where most people do.”
There’s a faint scrape of gravel beneath his heel as he turns to cast me a sidelong glance. “Is that so?” His calmness sets my pulse racing in my throat. “And where do you believe I keep mine?”
I let my gaze slide down him. “Somewhere impractical, of course. Perhaps sewn into your pride? Maybe behind your tongue or even your throat, but I do know it strays far from the ribcage.”
He studies me, eyes half-lidded. Somewhere in the distance, a crow makes its presence known with an almost deafening caw. Neither of us flinches.
“You do realise you’d need a blade and determination to verify this, no? Tell me, where would you start the incision, my lady?”
A sinner’s invitation in a gentleman’s voice, he asks as if he were offering me wine. He’s giving me the stage, so I take it. My breath mists before me when I feign an intrigued sigh, letting my eyes travel again, charting clavicle to sternum. My gaze drops to his wrist, the obvious answer, where the skin is soft and truth is easy to bleed out.
Eric watches me watch him, and something is unnerving about the way he lets his eyes rest. That stare doesn’t ask; it’s patient, as though he knows I’ll feed into it eventually, so I try not to. My attention shifts from his wrist to his fingers, where I spot the signet ring amongst others.
From his pinky, I trail up his arm, catching his subtle smile when I eventually say, “Between the shoulder blades.” His thumb drags once across the seam of his mouth, a futile effort to hide how his smile grows. “That’s where the weight of duty rests, isn’t it? Besides, nobody ever thinks to guard their backs; it’s too cowardly a spot for somebody to attack. Where else would the heart crawl to hide?”
I expect him to laugh at me, to mock what I now realise sounds like morbid poetry. But he doesn’t. For the space of a breath, he looks away just long enough to make me think he won’t respond. His head tilts slightly, and another crow caws. When he finally turns to me again, the action is done so slowly, like the act of looking away isn’t about dismissal or gathering his bearings.
No, it’s to prove hecanlook away from me.
“Makes sense,” he says, sounding just amused enough to make the tension in my body ease. “Well, Lady Francesca, you’ve found your answer. Are you going to carve it out or let it keep hiding there?”
“Are you offering yourself up so easily? Then again, you’re on Sheffolk soil despite our history. Either you’re brave or plain stupid.”
“Would you rather I run?”
God, I nearly tell him that the woods behind him would welcome him all too gladly. They love a man who doesn’t know what he’s walking into.
“You wouldn’t get far.”
Instead of retreating, he leans in. “Awfully confident for a woman who’s yet to draw her blade.”
