My thoughts tangled themselves into knots, then stuttered to a halt as the pieces refused to fit together properly. I tried to make sense of why he would be here. Why would he have come here to speak to Dr. Ambrose instead of me?
"Mr. Finch," I said, my voice emerging more confused than accusatory. "What are you doing here? Is there something wrong at my father’s estate?”
Mr. Finch's mouth opened, then closed. He glanced at Dr. Ambrose, pleading, or perhaps simply desperately uncertain about how to proceed.
Dr. Ambrose let out a long breath, the sound carrying more exhaustion than exasperation. "Mr. Finch is my solicitor, Miss Reed."
I stared at him, my mind working through the implications of that simple statement and finding them thoroughly inadequate to explain the situation. His explanation did little to account for the tension in the room or the way Mr. Finch appeared ready and willing to disappear into the wallpaper.
"I do not understand," I said, turning to Mr. Finch, and studying his face. "You did not tell me you knew Dr. Ambrose personally."
Mr. Finch's expression flickered with guilt perhaps, or discomfort, before he chuckled uncomfortably. "Did I not? I thought I had mentioned that he was also a client."
His tone was too casual, the words delivered with forced lightness that suggested careful construction rather than honest recollection. At my puzzled look, he spread his hands, refusing to meet my eyes.
"Well, I really must be going," he said, already slipping past me with unseemly haste for a man of his age. "Much to attend to, you understand. Nicholas, we will continue our discussion at a later date. Miss Reed, a pleasure as always."
He was gone before I could formulate a response, the front door closing with a brutal thud that punctuated his desperate flight. I stared after him, my confusion deepening into suspicion.
Everyone is lying to you, my companion whispered.
I turned my attention back to Dr. Ambrose, following as he moved to his desk. I angled around him, forcing him to look at me.
"Did you know Mr. Finch was my solicitor?" I asked, watching his face carefully for any sign of deception. "Did he tell you about me before my interview? Is that why you hired me?"
Dr. Ambrose simply stared at me, his composure that of someone who had expected the confrontation and had already prepared his response in advance.
"Not at all. I had no idea."
I narrowed my eyes, studying him. His expression revealed nothing—no tension in his jaw, no avoidance of my gaze, no tells that might suggest dishonesty.
And yet.
Something felt wrong. The timing was too convenient, the connections too neatly arranged like a spider’s web that looked beautiful until you realized what they were designed to catch.
Mr. Finch just happened to be solicitor to both my father and Dr. Ambrose? Just happened to bring me an advertisement for a position with a client he knew personally? Just happened to encourage me to apply with such enthusiasm?
But there was no evidence in Dr. Ambrose's face to support my suspicions. Either he was telling the truth, or he was far better at lying than I was at detecting it.
They’ll never tell you the truth,the voice replied to my troubled thoughts.But I will.
I nodded slowly, taking a step back. "Very well. I am going for a walk before the sun sets."
I needed air, space to think through what I had just witnessed without Dr. Ambrose's presence clouding my judgment—without the magnetic pull of him disrupting my ability to reason clearly about what was actually happening in this house.
"A splendid idea,” he replied casually.
He turned away, rummaging through a stack of papers on his desk, unbothered by the tension still palpitating in the room. I stared at his back and imagined opening him as one might open a book, spine cracked gently, with all his secrets spilling out from the pages, exposed and ugly.
Some secrets were merely private. Others were deadly—truths that killed through their revelation or through their concealment, that destroyed lives whether they were spoken or hidden.
I wondered which kind Dr. Ambrose was keeping.
I turned and left the room, escaping the study and its deceptive atmosphere for the relative clarity of the outdoors.
The garden was cool in the late afternoon light, the air crisp with approaching nightfall. I walked without conscious direction, my mind churning through the encounter with Mr. Finch, trying to make sense of connections that felt significant but remained frustratingly opaque.
Why had Mr. Finch seemed so uncomfortable when I appeared? And why did I have the persistent feeling that I was missing some crucial piece of information that would make all of this make sense?
