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He went silent then, rubbing his lower lip with his finger languidly as he gazed at me. I did not know how much more of this I could bear. I drained my cup of tea, placing the cup and its saucer back on the table. I opened my mouth to speak, and Azriel chose that moment to break the silence.

“He was so very lucky to have you as a wife.”

I could not help but narrow my eyes at him, my jaw tightening as I held back all the cynical laughter I wanted to throw in his face. “You are so full of praise for me now, and yet I always thought, all these years, that you did not like me much.”

“No?” He lifted an eyebrow. “And what gave you that impression?”

“Well, quite aside from your fondness for my nickname, you always seemed… impatient in my presence. As though you had not much time for me.” I crossed my arms over my body, closing myself in, an instinctive defense. “And yet, now you sing my praises as a wife and stepmother, lauding me for my devotion, and I must confess I am quite confused by it all.”

“Do you think me insincere?” Azriel’s jaw ticked lightly, his lips curling briefly into a grin. “For I can say that I always rather thought the same of you?”

“The same?” I asked with a frown.

“That you did not like me much. Indeed, you seemed to downright reject my presence.” He leaned forward, his touch lingering on the armrest of his chair. “Was that my father’s influence, or are those your true feelings?”

I quickly looked down at my hands. “I never had any reason to dislike you.”

Azriel’s laugh rumbled quietly through his chest. “I have always given the people around me plenty of reasons to dislike me. But, perhaps, we have simply misunderstood each other.”

“Yes, perhaps.”

“It is a shame that it has taken my father’s death for us to find some… levity in our relationship. Just a touch too late. Perhaps we must find comfort in that, that his death has made us reappraise our priorities.”

I nodded, staring intently at my hands curled in the blue velvet of my gown. “Indeed, we must take what good we can from it.”

“Perhaps it was his voice that called me back, to care for you.”

Now it was my turn to gaze at him curiously. “Whatever do you mean?”

He rose from his chair, his black trousers stretching across his muscular legs. He leaned a hand against the dark wood mantle, and stared intently at the dancing flames of the fire.

“It is the strangest thing, but perhaps three weeks ago, I had this sense, this… urgency, that I must return home. As though a voice was calling to me, telling me I was needed.” He tapped his fingers rhythmically, then tutted softly. “Something was calling me back, perhaps to prevent it all from happening. Though I suppose we shall never know.”

The feeling of struggling for air began to encircle my chest, my heart fluttering wildly in my ribcage. It wasn’t possible for him to know, he had returned hours after his father had taken his last breath. And there was no reason for him to suspect me, or to even suppose I was capable of what I had done.

And yet, his words set me back on edge, and I was sure that if I didn’t usher him out of my room immediately, I would go mad.

My emotions won out, and tears began to spill from my eyes. Not for Acton, of course, and certainly not for Azriel. These were tears for me. I wanted so much to live, to runaway from this awful old house with its cracked walls and dark corridors.

I was so close to being free, so close to having gotten away with it all, and now Azriel’s presence suffocated me so that all I could sense was dread and fear, tightening my chest and threatening to squeeze out all my secrets and sins.

As a small sob escaped me, his head jerked in my direction, his eyebrows drawing together. In an instant, he was in front of me, dropping to his knees to take my hands in his. His skin was hot from the fire, and his eyes searched my face.

“You need not cry, Evie, I assure you.”

I couldn’t speak, simply shook my head.

Azriel’s frown deepened, and he reached out to gently clasp my chin between his thumb and forefinger.

“No tears now, beloved.” He shook his head slowly. “You need to rest. The coming days will be challenging.”

His touch was anything but comforting, his words even less so. Everything he did, every word he uttered, felt like a threat. When he released me, I swallowed down the sigh of relief, and when he finally turned and left my room, closing the door behind him, I slumped in my armchair, almost panting.

Good god, I did not know how I was going to get through these next weeks. But I had to get a hold of myself. I would have to become a much more confident actress than I had been today, or risk the truth tumbling out and betraying me to them all.

And I had come too far for that.

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