Page 66 of A Legacy of Lies

And Clara listened. She turned.

“Out late, love?”

The voice curled through the air like smoke.

He stepped forward from the trees, his coat darker than shadow, his face worn and familiar in all the worst ways. Her father, his presence heavy as the fog.

Clara did not speak. The lantern in her hand did not tremble.

“You’ve been avoiding me.” His grin never reached his eyes. “No kiss for your poor old da? Not even a kind word after all these years?”

She said nothing.

He tilted his head. “Ah. The silent treatment. That’s how you play it now?”

Still she did not speak. A crow flapped overhead, its wings beating hollow against the dusk.

Willie clicked his tongue and took another step, blocking the path between her and the garden wall. “You think you’re safe here. All tucked away behind your fancy walls. But you’ve forgotten something, little girl.” He drew a folded scrap of parchment from his coat, shaking it once in the lantern’s glow. “I still have teeth.”

Her gaze dropped to the page, to the smear of ink and names scrawled across it.

“Debts. Tied to that fine upstanding duke of yours.” His voice thickened with satisfaction. “Scandal waiting to happen, if one knew where to place it. Tuck it somewhere tidy, hmm? Somewhere the right eyes will see.”

Clara met his gaze. Her pulse beat once, steady and clear. “And if I don’t?”

His face twitched. “Then I’ll tell him myself. How you’ve lied. How you’ve helped me all along. How you’ve always been a little thief with soft hands and a guilty conscience. You think he’ll keep you once he knows?”

She stepped forward, not far, but enough to let the lantern’s glow find her face. Enough for him to see her clearly.

“I am not yours to command.”

His smile faltered.

“I will not help you,” she said. “Not again. Not ever.”

His arm shot out. Fingers closed around her wrist, bruising tight. “Blood tells, Clara. You can’t wash me off you.”

She looked at his hand. Her voice was low, certain. “Then perhaps I’ll burn it clean.”

He stared at her, waiting for the tremble, the tears, the flinch. But there was only stillness. The kind that comes after a decision.

“You’ll regret this,” he muttered. “You’ll see what I can do.”

“I already have.”

A voice called faintly in the distance. Fletcher shouted for a stable lad. Willie’s head snapped toward it.

And just like that, he released her.

He stepped back, swallowed by the mist. “Choose, Clara. Or Hartleigh burns with us.”

With a rustle of the greenery, he was gone.

Clara stood motionless. The lantern flickered against the stone wall beside her. She pressed a hand to her chest, not to calm her heart, but to keep it from breaking through.

Her arm throbbed where he’d grabbed her, but she did not look.

The fog tasted of metal now, the air heavy with something final. She’d been holding on to a man who no longer existed, if he ever had. What had faced her tonight wore her father’s shape but none of his soul.