Page 23 of Darkest at Dusk (Revenant Roses)

Chapter Ten

R hys took a step closer.

The pulse at Isabella’s throat fluttered against her skin.

Then his gaze flicked to the letter in her hand.

“Am I interrupting something?” he asked. The words were laced with dangerous amusement, but there was a steel thread of something sharper running beneath them. Something that should have felt like suspicion, or anger, but sounded more like…satisfaction.

But that made no sense.

“I—” She pressed her lips together then continued, “I was only beginning my work, Mr. Caradoc. Familiarizing myself with the space.”

His eyes swept across the desk, the open drawer, the scattered letters, the ornate box sitting askew at the corner.

“Familiarizing yourself, indeed.”

He stepped further into the room, slow and deliberate, his limp doing nothing to diminish his sinuous grace. For an instant, pain ghosted his features when his weight shifted.

Isabella’s breath hitched as he drew closer, his eyes fixed on her face with an intensity that made her stomach tighten. She inhaled sharply, the faint scents of lemon and linen coiling around her.

“You rose early this morning, Miss Barrett,” he said, his voice low, each word shaped with precision, the hint of a rasp at the edges. “I would have expected you to sleep late, given your… adventures during the night.”

Her cheeks flamed.

“Tell me.” His voice was softer now. “Was it the light that woke you? Or something else entirely?”

The questions were innocuous enough, but she felt as if he was looking for a depth of reply she was not willing to offer. She swallowed hard, straightening her spine as though it might steel her against his perusal. “The light, I suppose.”

His lips twitched, not quite a smile, more a suggestion of one.

“The light,” he echoed, his gaze dipping briefly back to the letter in her hand before returning to her face. “Yes, I imagine it reveals quite a great deal, doesn’t it?”

Isabella could barely breathe. The game of cat and mouse he played with his words, his proximity, the way he looked at her, it was too much…yet not nearly enough.

With a sharp motion, she tossed the letter onto the desk, breaking the invisible thread strung taut between them.

“Why do you keep these letters, Mr. Caradoc? Why did you keepPapa’swords, when you had already decided to disregard them?”

The air went still, dense with things unsaid.

His dark brows lifted. “I do not disregard the words written by a man as intelligent as your father.”

“But you did . You persisted when he denied you,” she said, her voice rising, anger and fear twining together in her chest. “Why couldn’t you leave us in peace?”

“Peace.” The word came out soft. His jaw tightened, and for a moment, something unreadable flashed in his eyes, something raw and untamed.

Then it was gone, replaced by that cold, enigmatic mask he wore so well.

“Because there are certain truths one cannot turn away from.” He tilted his head, studying her as if he were measuring something within her, calculating how much she could bear before she broke.

“Your father knew it, even if he denied it.”

She blinked against the sharp sting of tears.

“You speak of truths and what my father knew,” she said, her voice low and steady. “You barely knew my father, yet you claim to understand what he did and did not know? All I see is a man who wants something he cannot have.”

Almost did she ask him about St. Jude’s then. That was a truth he could not turn away from. But she could not make herself be so unkind, confronting him with a memory that surely must be terrible for him to revisit.

Silence stretched between them, vibrating with tension.

Mr. Caradoc took one more step forward, and now there was barely a breath of space between them. The light from the window cut across his face, silvering the edges of his hair and painting shadows in the hollows of his cheeks.

His jaw tightened, a muscle twitching beneath his skin, but his voice remained calm, almost lazy as he said, “And yet, here you are. In my library. With my secrets in your hands.”

His gaze dropped to her lips, his pupils dark and dilated, surrounded by only a thin rim of gray. For one breathless instant, Isabella thought he might close the distance, might claim her mouth.

Her breath caught. Her chest rose and fell in sharp, uneven bursts. She ought to step back, step away. She ought to turn and flee. Instead, she stood perfectly still, her own gaze dipping to his lips before jerking back to his eyes.

“And if I were to tell you to leave this library right now, Miss Barrett?” His voice was barely more than a whisper, soft, intimate. “To go back to London. If I were to offer a full year’s wages and pay your way home, would you go?”

Would she?

She ought to.

But she couldn’t leave. Not yet. Not without answers. Not without understanding this man and the intricate knot of secrets surrounding him. Because she suspected that his secrets were tangled with her own, that she would find answers here that had eluded her all her life.

The truth settled, sharp and heavy. Her lips parted, but no words came.

He seemed to see it, her answer, written plainly on her face. His head tilted ever so slightly, and his lips parted as though he might say something vital.

A second ticked past. Then two. The moment closed like a book. He offered no revelation. Instead, he stepped back. The absence of his nearness felt cold, hollow.

Finally, she said, “I have no home. Not anymore. Papa was my home.”

“Then we are alike,” he said quietly.

“In what way?” She gestured to indicate their surroundings. “Is this not your home?”

“Harrowgate is my duty. What made it home is lost to me.”

His words struck like a bell. Home was the people that made it so, not the walls and floors and roof.

She thought of the life she had left behind, and an ache of bittersweet regret and loss tinged by guilt swelled in her heart.

Because she had loved Papa, loved being part of his world, the days filled with books and learning and fascinating conversation.

But sometimes, in quiet moments, she had imagined something else. A different life. Her life.

Something in his expression acknowledged that ache, as if he recognized it, knew it, lived it.

His gaze pierced her, unblinking, unyielding. “Do you ever wonder what your life might have been like if things had been different?”

“Different how?” she asked cautiously.

“If you could have chosen it yourself. If there were no debts to pay, no secrets to protect, no shadows to chase. What would you have wanted?”

She gasped, startled by how closely his question mirrored her secret thoughts.

Seconds ticked past. Almost did she deflect, deny, refuse to answer. Then for reasons she could not name, she found herself telling him the truth.

“Sometimes I dream of a cottage somewhere warm and quiet, with flowers spilling over the edges of painted window boxes and sunlight pouring in through lace curtains. Sometimes I dream of Paris, a city I have only read about, the wide boulevards lined with trees, the air thick with the scent of fresh bread and roasted chestnuts. I imagine walking along the Seine in a dress the color of cornflowers, a book tucked under my arm, free to go wherever my feet might take me.”

Free from the wraiths that were her forever companions. He waited in silence for her to continue.

She offered a sad smile. “But those were the dreams of a girl who had not yet buried her father, who had not yet felt the crushing weight of unpaid bills and unanswered letters.”

A girl who had not yet been drawn into a house like Harrowgate Manor, a house that seemed to breathe and shift in the darkness, a house where the shadows pressed too close and whispered things she had no wish to understand.

A muscle moved in his jaw. “Perhaps you will find new dreams. Perhaps you will find something here worth staying for.”

His words hung between them for an instant and then she whispered, “And you? What do you dream of?”

“I cannot afford to dream,” he said, something like longing in his eyes. “Dreams are for men unfamiliar with the cost. I want no dream. I want an end.”

His gaze touched her lips again. Her pulse stumbled and she gathered it back.

“An end to what?”

The softness flickered and was gone, a shutter dropping over his expression. Deliberately, he shifted his attention toward the open drawer.

“Tell me, Miss Barrett, what were you hoping to find in my desk?”

She hesitated, baffled by the rapid shift in both mood and topic. “Answers.”

“And what if you do not like the answers you find?” he asked.

“I think…” She swallowed hard, forcing herself to hold his gaze. “I think I need to know them anyway.”

For a long moment, he said nothing. He simply stared at her, his expression unreadable, his eyes deep and endless.

“Then I suggest you tread carefully.”His tone was cool now, a sharp edge of authority coloring the words.“The library is yours to work in.”

He turned, his coat sweeping behind him as he walked back toward the door. At the threshold, he paused, one hand resting on the carved wood frame.

“You think you want knowledge,” he said over his shoulder, his tone regretful. “But knowledge, Miss Barrett, has fangs.”

And then he was gone, the heavy door clicking shut behind him, leaving Isabella alone with the silence, the dust, and the severed ends of the fragile threads that had connected them for one fraught moment.

Her lips tingled with the ghost of a kiss that had never happened.

The pull was undeniable now, the sharp edge of fear softened by something else.

Desire. For him. For the feel of his hands on her skin, his lips on her own.

It was a heady thing, wild and overwhelming.