Page 30 of Ashwood (Wallflowers and Demons #1)

GHOSTLY THINGS

KATHERINE

T he corset digs into my ribs as I straighten.

The music swells, the violin’s shrill crescendo comes. Then, a scream.

“Murder!”

A lady has seen the corpse.

Glass shatters as she drops her flute of champagne and promptly wilts to the floor. A handful of gentlemen catch her.

All at once, the music ceases playing.

Lord Gabriel Hawke stands from the body as a few of his men drape a linen cloth over it.

“No one leaves,” he commands. “There’s been a murder in the east wing.

* * *

The heat strikes me first. It is oppressive and thick, like walking into a forge. The great hearth blazes inside the cast iron. Pans clatter. Bread cracks open in the ovens. Boiling onions and sweat perfume the air. This is not the Ashwood that the gentry see.

But it is mine.

Nora walks beside me, straight-backed and sharp-eyed, her skirts brushing the soot-stained stone. Dozens of staff fill the kitchen—some working, others lingering too long, their eyes darting toward me and back again. It’s not reverence I feel. It’s an assessment.

Not all of them are mine.

Usually, I know every regular maid, every footman and every butler. But these faces? Some are strangers.

A footman tall enough to strike a bell with his head. A scullery maid who holds her broom like a musket. A woman whose apron is spotless in a kitchen full of chaos.

They wear Ashwood’s colours.

But they are not Ashwood.

Arriving at the centre of the kitchen, my presence stills the movement of every employee. A spoon clatters into a pot. A door creaks. A kettle hisses long and sharp.

“Everyone,” I say. At my presence, the kitchen silences. “We have three hundred guests upstairs. A killer is among them. And panic creeps through walls. That ends now.”

No one speaks. Some glance at each other.

The boy by the potatoes stiffens.

“From this moment,” I continue, “Ashwood must above all, remember its people.”

Someone shifts near the ovens. I turn toward the movement and spot her—a woman with the pristine apron. She is unfamiliar.

“You,” I say. “Where are you stationed?”

She blinks. “Beg pardon?”

“Where do you serve? Your name?”

“Anne, Your Grace. Housemaid. I—” She hesitates. “I was sent from the Dowager’s manor.”

My stomach plummets.

What?

“And you?” I turn to the tall footman. He straightens.

“Robert, Your Grace. Same. Assigned to the receiving hall for the evening.”

More murmurs. Two others nod subtly. A cook mutters something in a corner and is quickly elbowed into silence.

I glance at Nora. Her jaw’s gone tight.

“The Dowager sent a missive stating illness but she’s sent staff in her place.“

“I wasn’t informed,” I say calmly.

“Last-minute decision, Your Grace,” Mrs. Grange offers. “Meant to help. ”

“Help,” I repeat.

My eyes sweep the kitchen again. Too many faces I don’t know. And the ones I do—some of them look rattled. They’re not used to uncertainty. Not here, in the one place where order has always reigned.

“Mrs. Grange,” I say without turning my head, “how many staff were added tonight?”

“Eight,” she answers. “Six from the Dowager’s manor. Two from her hunting estate.”

“Who approved it?”

“The dowager’s butler. Sent a note by hand.”

Of course.

Nothing official.

Nothing traceable.

And yet, here they are, watching me and donning my crest.

“Very well,” I say aloud, bring my skirts to me and turn away. “We will proceed with what we must do. But I want a full accounting of every name, every face, and every assignment. By sunrise. No exceptions.”

“Yes, Your Grace,” everyone replies in succession.

I raise my voice again.

“Blankets from the west wing are to be brought to the east corridor. I want fresh linen in the guest chambers by two. All corridor lanterns are to remain lit until dawn. Every fire stoked, every stair swept. If a guest stirs, you meet them. If they panic, you calm them. If they ask for Ashwood’s protection, you say: yes — and you mean it. ”

A ripple shudders through the room. Fear is gone. It’s momentum. They have duties to tend to and a Duchess who is prepared.

Eyes follow me as I walk away. My gown brushes the floor as I pass rows of scullery maids and stable hands, backs now straightening, shoulders rising into the weight of purpose.

“We are not prey,” I whisper to myself. “We don’t succumb. We win.”

Nora doesn’t let the air rest and picks up where I leave off.

“John, take two boys and bring up the casks from the cellar. Nothing that needs cooking. Cold cuts, cheeses, and fruit. Maud, inventory the soap and lavender—any woman crying needs warm water and something to calm her. Edith, you’re on corridor watch with Francesca and the new maid—Marianne, is it? ”

She nods stiffly as I glide past her.

Bodies move in a hurry and they pass around me, a river made of white and black cloth. I feel it now—responsibility. They are watching me.

I turn to Nora who follows. “Keep them moving. Let no one idle.”

She nods. “I’ll post a runner to the steward’s office. I want to see that note.”

“I want the paper. The seal. Everything.”

“Understood. ”

“And Nora?”

“Yes?”

“If any of them disobey. Any of them disappear. You find them. And you bring them to me.”

There is no softness in her nod.

I move toward the old storeroom, where dried herbs hang from the beams and flour coats the floor like snow. I lean a hand against the stone archway and exhale slowly.

I can feel them again—those strange ones.

The Dowager’s staff.

I do not trust them, but I do not fear them.

Because now, this is my house.

DORIAN

Behind me, Gabriel makes demands, and in my own castle, no less.

“No one leaves this estate until we have answers. The east wing is sealed. The body has been secured.”

Everly bolts the front doors.

The sound BOOMS through the hallways.

Frantic murmurs rise — muffled and polite in the way only nobles can panic. My eyes sweep the guests: gowns baked with sweat, powdered wigs slightly askew.

Katherine moves through them and the illusion of elegance quickly disintegrates.

“There will be food, fire, and shelter,” she tells the frightened woman gripping her fan, her skin now an ashy wax. “Ashwood will not abandon you.”

They look at her as though she is already a ghost. Nora is already at work, delivering instructions to the staff. Blankets. Wine. Fresh water. Lock the cellar. Light every corridor. Bring lanterns to the guest quarters.

Gabriel’s men begin the first sweep, interviewing guests, searching for inconsistencies. He looks more hunter than man tonight—jaw clenched, coat bloodstained, pistol always at his hip, and at the ready.

Katherine catches my eye across the ballroom. Her expression is unreadable, but by now I know that look. She is analysing, watching every person like a potential suspect.

Ashwood has never been so full. Bodies crowd every room, every corridor. Whispers meander up and down the stairwells like smoke.

Gabriel barks another question, prowling from one lord to another. He leaves no stone unturned.

And me? I watch like Katherine, except from a different angle.

We case the room together from all sides, speaking without speaking at all.

I watch her every gesture. And their false politeness.

I watch shadows that twitch when they shouldn’t, knowing that I cannot be certain that our killer is not monstrous.

Someone here has already killed once.

They will kill again.

By midnight, we’ve split the castle in two. Ladies to the east. Gentlemen to the west. Temporary, Gabriel says, until he clears each name.

But I see what this is.

It is containment.

Nora leads the women.

There are three hundred guests. I know maybe fifty by name. The rest are strangers in finery. One of the ladies whispered that it was the maid. Another claims she sees something in the mirror move.

The air is thick with perfume, sweat, and dread. Katherine meets me in the hallway.

“Let us return to our suite,” she whispers. “We will speak more there.”

She takes my arm and I am careful to ignore the guests roaming the hallways at this late hour.

It appears that not a soul can rest.

The duchess’s suite has been temporarily donated. As such, we lock the door to the midway room.

There, Katherine removes her corset but keeps her gown and her hair is pinned. She will not sleep.

Neither will I.

Katherine pours two fingers of brandy and hands it to me.

I drink it in one go.

She doesn’t speak at first, just stands beside the map of the estate, tracing her finger along the borders. “Three hundred people,” she says. “One killer. How many more will die before we find them?”

The corridor between our rooms that evening, is too quiet. I stand behind her, watching the flames inside the light, then make myself comfortable in the armchair.

I want to say that all will be well.

But I can’t.

Candlelight bends in its sconces, and the shadows by the wainscoting flicker.

“I don’t think anyone will sleep tonight,” I finally say. “Nora caught a young lord trying to escape through the servants’ tunnel beneath the greenhouse.”

“How foolish.”

He pauses.

KATHERINE

I turn to find him slumped on the armchair with his shirt unbuttoned halfway, down to his navel. The gaslight flickers over the sharp planes of his face, and for a moment, I forget there’s a corpse rotting in the east wing.

“Why don’t you sleep, Your Grace?”

Then he points to the chair, gesturing for me to join him at the window that overlooks the courtyard.

“The guards just finished shifting the last guests into the west wing,” he murmurs. “Gabriel’s making lists. Cross-referencing names. He thinks the killer is a man.”

My eyes narrow as I take a seat in the plush armchair and plop myself beside him. “And you?”

He exhales through his nose. “I’m not sure it matters anymore.”

I study his face. There is slack in his jaw, and a tired furrow in his brows.

“They’re afraid,” I say.