Page 1 of The Tyranny of our Longing

PROLOGUE

November 1879

It is unfortunate when clarity comes only when everything else is taken from us. And despite all I have endured—be it forced upon me or allowed by my own volition—this I cannot. I will not.

And as my steps resound among these cursed walls like harrowing bells of reckoning, the fury burns through my veins like never before, my fingers clasped like talons over the stained tatters of this final anguish. It is a fire, this rage. The shame, the horror, the desperation building until it would incinerate me whole. But if I shall be consumed by it, then so shall he. For this is the final thing he will be allowed to destroy.

For this, he shall burn.

PART I

LURE

“Behind every exquisite thing that existed, there was something tragic.”

— Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890)

CHAPTER 1

March 1880

The eyes that watched her from the walls did not seem of this world.

Candlelight flickered over the painted features, the pallid morning light unable to cast away the shadows crawling up the deep green wallpaper of the drawing room. Artwork lined almost every inch of available surface, the quivering light dancing over the thick, smooth paint. The vibrant colors seemed to ripple in the confines of their gilded frames, the figures within as if inching closer to their beholder, drawn by the force they no longer possessed.

Life.

Phaedra had seen the article in the newspaper the year before, the engraving of the fiery devastation shocking in its horrid detail. But to witness the wreckage in person had been something else entirely. She remembered how her steps had halted after alighting from the carriage, the sight before her stealing the very breath from her lungs.

Brackenhurst Hall had sat imposing and grim against the softness of its surroundings, the flanking woods fading into morning mist, the ground giving way to soft gray clouds as it dove off into the cliffs beyond. But it had not been the estate’s austere beauty that had made her pause, nor the chill in the early spring air that had sent a shiver down her spine, but the jagged remains of the manor’s west wing, staring back at her, black and crumbling.

It had resembled a wound, dark and festering, its edges bleeding into the pale gray stone of the central block, the contrast almost vulgar in its intensity. And when she had finally gathered the fortitude to move her feet once more, she had found that the eeriness of the house had not ceased with its exterior.

Phaedra’s eyes moved over the crowded wall before her, wondering if it was merely her imagination that lengthened the shadows around her. If it was but her knowledge of the transpired tragedy that gave the gloom its weight to push down on walls and furniture and people, as if yearning to bend everything in sight. As if it had a⁠—

She started as the door scraped open behind her, the sound jarring against the preceding silence.

“I apologize to have kept you waiting, Mr. Mercer! I hope⁠—”

The words halted a tact before the footsteps, and Phaedra bit down on the spark of amusement tugging at her lips. It felt as if it could push back against the shadows, slowing the spreading chill in her body, and she turned around to face the man who had just entered.

He stared at her in apparent and very understandable confusion.

Although Phaedra had seldom found herself in such a case—indeed she had made sure she rarely needed to—the situation would always unfold a certain way. She would return the greeting, then proceed to explain herself, making light of the misunderstanding—or rather misdirection—of her identity. But this time, her own practiced words stilled as she beheld the new master of the house.

Nathaniel Hawthorn was young, maybe twenty-three or twenty-four years of age, tall and trim, and dressed in a dark suit that contrasted the golden tresses of his hair. The green of his eyes was striking, even at a distance. Yet it was not this, nor the ghastly paleness clouding his handsome features that arrested her words, but the almost astounding likeness to the man in the paintings around her.

A dead ringer for his father.

A thrill rushed down her spine, leaving behind dark tendrils easing into her veins.

They stared a moment, each transfixed by the other, then it was Nathaniel who found his words first.

“You must excuse me, Madam,” he said, bowing his head. “I was expecting…”

His words trailed off, uncertainty evident in every movement of his body. There was a rough timbre to his voice, like an instrument long unused, and he cleared his throat, setting off a bout of coughing.

Phaedra blinked, finally finding her own bearings. She waited for his fit to pass before stepping closer.