Page 32 of Darkest at Dusk (Revenant Roses)

She dipped a curtsey that was acknowledgment more than deference, then withdrew, leaving him to the cold and the silence.

The air was sharp and fresh as Isabella stepped out into the courtyard on Wednesday morning, her breath puffing white. The scent of damp earth and hay filled her lungs as the horses snorted and stamped, their flanks steaming in the chill.

She slipped her hand into her cloak pocket and rubbed the length of pink ribbon coiled there between her thumb and forefinger, the burned and blackened edge stiff.

The ribbon was proof she had not imagined the events in the library.

Proof she was not mad. She had carried it with her since but had not been visited again by the wraith.

Mrs. Abernathy stood with Tom Grange near the carriage, the low murmur of their voices threading with the creak of leather harnesses and the click of metal buckles.

But it wasn’t the housekeeper or the coachman who held Isabella’s attention.

Rhys stood at the lead mare’s shoulder, one gloved hand skimming the sleek rise of her neck, the other tucked in his coat pocket.

He was dressed in a sharply tailored black coat and waistcoat, the crisp folds of his cravat stark against his throat.

A lock of dark hair had shaken loose and fell across his brow.

He looked every inch the gentleman he was meant to be, yet something untamed ran beneath the surface, restrained energy in the set of his shoulders, the balance of his stance, one boot angled as if he might pivot in an instant.

He turned his head, his slate-gray eyes meeting Isabella’s across the courtyard, the intensity of his gaze making her feel as though a wire stretched between them, pulled taut. For a moment, neither of them moved.

“Miss Barrett,” he said at last, his voice low and smooth, unspooling into the cold morning air. “Out for an excursion, are we?”

“Yes,” she said, hating that her voice went soft. “Mrs. Abernathy invited me to the village.”

His gaze dipped to the housekeeper and back, a not-quite smile shaping his lips, sharp and cold. He stepped nearer, gravel crunching beneath his boots. The mare’s ears flicked then flattened.

“The village is a place of many voices,” he said. “Some truthful, some false. All loud. You would do well to be careful about what you ask, and whom you ask.”

Her chin lifted, a prickle of defiance straightening her spine. “Are you warning me, Mr. Caradoc?”

“Consider it advice.” The almost-smile visited the corners of his mouth, not so cold now. There was amusement there, yes, but something else as well. Calculation. Wariness. A guarded wall. “Advice I suspect you’ll disregard.”

He was close now, close enough that she could see the faint shadows beneath his eyes, the tightness in his jaw, the crease between his brows, as if some less than pleasant thought pressed there and would not ease. The scents of citrus and leather folded around her.

Heat rose, traitorous and bright, as memory supplied the taste of lemon on his lips and the slow, deliberate weight of his hands on her arms.

“Will I regret going to the village?” Isabella asked, her heart beating too fast.

He studied her, the silence filled with the thrum of her pulse.

He reached out, so slowly she might have stepped away had she wished, and brushed a loosened strand back from her cheek.

His gloved fingertips barely grazed her, yet his touch felt like an ember sparking against her skin.

Her world narrowed to that small, shameless trespass and the weight of his gaze.

She ought to protest. She did not.

“You may regret many things before your time here is done, Miss Barrett,” he said, the words low and deliberate. “But I doubt visiting the village will be one of them.”

His thumb hovered near her cheekbone for just a breath longer than was proper, then withdrew, the space between suddenly feeling both too vast and too narrow all at once.

His gaze dropped to her lips, lingering there for a single stolen second before lifting once more.

Knowledge struck her with bright, dangerous clarity. He wanted her.

Her own want was a tightening low in her belly, an ache that made the cold air feel thin.

This desire between them unraveled something fragile inside her. Her life had been quiet, careful, filled with ink stains and orderly shelves. She was not the sort of woman a man like Rhys Caradoc wanted. But when he looked at her as he did now, she thought the air itself might catch fire.

From the corner of her eye, she caught Matty’s quick, curious glance, the housekeeper’s stillness. Impropriety had witnesses.

Heat stained her cheeks.

Rhys took a step back, the cold wind swirling into the distance he’d made. The lead mare tossed her head; steam drifted from her nostrils.

“Safe travels,” he said, his tone civil and measured. He strode toward the manor, his gait favoring his left leg, his coat flaring behind him. At the foot of the stairs, he paused without turning, the line of his back stiff.

“Miss Barrett,” he said, then paused. “Do return.”

The command hummed in the air as he disappeared inside, the door closing behind him with a click.

Isabella stood on the gravel drive, feeling as though she had been hollowed out and refilled with something restless and alive. Her skin tingled where he had touched her cheek. Her lips felt sensitized, as if his look alone had been a caress.

“Miss Barrett?” Mrs. Abernathy called from near the carriage. “If we’re to reach market early….”

“Yes,” Isabella said, forcing her feet to move.

Tom handed her up, and as the carriage jolted forward, she allowed herself to glance back at the looming facade of the house. The rows of long windows stared back at her, unblinking.

Two words danced through her thoughts, winding tight.

Do return.

Not an invitation. A command she had no wish to disobey.

Rhys listened to the carriage roll away, carrying Isabella with it. Hoofbeats struck the ground, wheels creaked, and the house changed its breathing. Her absence unspooled the hush she carried; the needling susurrus rushed back like a blow.

He stood a moment in the entrance hall with his hand on the newel, riding out the swell.

He thought of her.

The dusting of sugar beneath his thumb. Lemon on his tongue. Her mouth had been soft and willing, and he had forced himself to let her go.

Send her away, said the last decent part of him. Put her in the coach and keep her on the road until London takes her in and Harrowgate forgets her.

But decency was the smallest part of him now. Without her, the dead he loved would go on as they were, trapped in the circle that eats its own tail. He would not doom them to that. He would sacrifice morals and honor to give them rest.

He went down the passage to the library. The knob turned under his hand and a breath of wet ash met him. The brass box sat on the corner of the desk, the lid closed.

He had no proof, but instinct assured him…she had opened it.

He had wanted her to open it. He had baited the snare.

He had purchased the damned box because her key would fit.

His gaze went to the toppled books and the faint scorch licked into the nap of the carpet. The thing had come to her here. It had shown its teeth.

“You will not have her,” he told the empty room, and the house answered with a steady tapping in the wall.

He crossed to the desk and touched the box. Cool under his palm. He could all but see the letters inside, his mother’s elegant hand, the perpendicular cross-writing when she’d run out of space.

How many had she read? Some? All? If not yet, then soon. She was too curious not to want the story in its entirety.

Let the gossip in Marlow tell her what he could not: locks set after the fire, masons who would not finish, tools that walked, and most damning of all, that a girl had burned behind a door others swore was barred from without.

Wasn’t that precisely why she had gone to Marlow?

To discover his secrets…his and Harrowgate’s. But they were one and the same.

The chorus in the walls thinned and gathered, listening.

He looked toward the door and thought again of the coach, of Mrs. Abernathy’s sensible obedience and the ease with which he could command it: Take Miss Barrett to see the Burns sisters.

What she heard there would turn curiosity into hunger and send her back starved for answers. He would make certain they lay in wait for her to discover.

He left the library and climbed. On the landing the air was warmer by the wall, wrong as breath in a sealed room.

He paused outside Isabella’s chamber, set his hand on the latch, and let his knuckles rest there without pressing.

Boundary. Courtesy. He had already trespassed against both in both thought and design. He eased the door open and stepped in.

The bed was neatly made, the heavy curtains parted an inch, allowing a spill of daylight onto the carpet. Against the far wall, the trunk waited, iron-banded, brass-cornered. He crossed to it and crouched, ignoring the clutch of pain in his left leg.

Thorn the same hand had cut both wards.

He sat back on his heels and studied the trunk. He could unlock it now, while she was away, rifle through the contents, find the grimoire if it was there. Doing that might win him the book, but he would lose the prize if she discovered his trespass. Her trust. Her willing collaboration.

“Not today,” he said. If he breached her privacy and she learned of it, there would be no coming back from that.

He rose and left her room as he had found it.

In his workroom, the half-grimoire lay where he’d left it, brass inlay shaped like a broken coin gone dull with handling.

The diagram at its heart named two halves, hands joined.

Two willing halves joined and the gate will open.

He had chased that promise for years until it brought him to London and to the girl who quieted the house’s noise simply by breathing in it.

Willing was the hinge. If he told her what he wanted, what he needed, she would think him both mad and monstrous. She had spent a lifetime being taught not to see what she saw, not to hear what she heard. Push too soon and she would flee.

No, she must tease the threads apart herself, discover the pieces and solve the riddle on her own. Only then might she be willing. Only then might they end this.

The wall at his back ticked. A child’s thin cry threaded the sound; a mother’s sorrow shaped the air, thick and heavy. He set his teeth until his jaw ached.

“I hear you,” he said. “I am coming.”