Page 108 of Immortal Rose

This was what Felicity and the others couldn’t understand, why these decisions couldn’t be made with emotion. This was why Uncle Giles had warned of becoming too involved, too attached, with anyone. It clouded your judgment, undermined your choices, and opened the door to fatal mistakes. Agonizing over another’s feelings was like fighting with a hand tied behind your back. Glenmoor had certainly never allowed himself to fall into that trap.

If he was going to keep her alive, he had to cut away any piece of himself that was softening to her.

“Shall we go home?” Hugh asked.

Viola’s lips pressed in a tight line as she took one last look around her. Then, to his relief, she nodded.

Had it been any other night, Hugh might have been more alarmed at the sight of Keyes waiting for them at the back garden door. Now, it only seemed to fall in line with the dark pattern that was emerging.

“There you are,” Mrs. Keyes said, taking Viola’s arms as she drew her inside. She cast an arrow-quick glance at Hugh over the younger woman’s shoulder, as she asked, with that terrifying cheerfulness, “All in one piece, I hope?”

Hugh grimaced. He knew that tone.

“Yes,” Viola said, sounding even more exhausted than she had on that first night, when he’d dragged her to the palace on the King’s orders.

God, he really was the beast of this story.

Viola’s gaze drifted toward the door to the still room—no, to the scullery just beside it, her brow creasing. Mrs. Keyes cast an anxious look—well, what passed as an anxious look for her—toward it, then Hugh, and his heart made a swift descent into the pit of his stomach.

Salvation appeared in the form of Felicity, rushing out of the servants’ wing, barefoot and in her favorite pink wrapper. Her dark braid whipped about her as she seized Viola by the shoulders. “Oh, I’m so glad you’re well!” Another sharp look knifed him. “Let’s get you up to bed, shall we? You look ready to topple over.”

Viola nodded, accepting the girl’s arm as it wrapped around her shoulders. She leaned into the touch like a cat seeking rare affection. He heard her tell Fizzy, “I’m sorry to have made you worry—” just before the kitchen door swung shut behind her.

A hard finger jabbed into Hugh’s kidney, and he doubled over, wheezing in pain.

“She wanted to come,” he gasped out, fighting to straighten. “I would never have allowed it if I thought she’d be in danger—”

Keyes raised another finger in warning.

Hugh winced, lowering himself to sit on the edge of the dining table. “I should have left a note. I’ll apologize properly to the others tomorrow.”

She patted his cheek fondly, and he felt all of eight years old again. “See that you do.”

Keyes was a woman whose soul was joined with sharp angles rather than tender curves, but she was ruthlessly uncompromising in her love. That she expected much of him only made him want to strive harder to reach those heights, and he regretted disappointing her.

Having apparently satisfied herself that he was fine, her expression hardened.

Hugh looked to her, alert. “What is it?”

“We received a delivery while you were out,” she said.

“The letter from Mrs. Silver’s sister?” he asked.

Mrs. Keyes shook her head. “Not yet. I expect it’ll be a few days more before you have an answer on what Gallia knows about the poisoning.”

Hugh rubbed at his neck. “If not that, then what?”

“It’s best you see it yourself,” Mrs. Keyes said. “It was left at the gate. Celine and I carried it into the scullery.”

That same cold dread he’d felt at seeing Viola’s door ajar returned.

Mrs. Keyes picked up one of the candles that had been left on her wife’s worktable. Her gray silk wrapper, the one she’d insisted on keeping for nigh on a decade, gave her the appearance of a specter as she moved through the kitchen’s ominous darkness. Hugh followed close behind, steeling himself as she opened the door into the cool, dark scullery.

Somehow, it was worse than he’d thought. And what he had imagined had been quite bad.

“It couldn’t have been another explosive?” he groused. “Or a venomous snake? Whatever happened to mysterious, threatening missives?”

“It’s a lost art,” Mrs. Keyes agreed solemnly.