Page 6 of Darkest at Dusk (Revenant Roses)

He released her immediately and stepped back, leaving several feet between them.

He did not look directly at her, but rather past her, to a point beyond her left shoulder.

For an instant, she wondered if he saw something there, if he saw the wraiths as she did.

And then she pushed the thought aside. Of course he did not.

She frowned as a flicker of recognition stirred again, stronger now. But those eyes…no. Had she seen them before, she would remember.

Looking down, she took a second to steady herself on her feet and twitch her wet skirt, so it fell in some semblance of order. Almost did she try to brush away the mud, but stopped herself, suspecting she would only smear it and make things worse.

The voices dulled to a hush. Only then did she realize they had not sounded alarmed. They had sounded … expectant. Excited.

“My condolences, Miss Barrett.”

“Thank you.” She glanced at him.

“May I see you to your carriage?” he asked, offering his arm.

She gingerly accepted, grimacing as she left smears of mud on his coat. Together, they started toward the hedge.

“Did you know my father well?” she asked. Given that he knew her name, it seemed likely that he was here for Papa’s funeral after all.

“Not well,” he said, eyes forward. “We corresponded several times but met in person only once.”

“I see.” She did not see. It was odd that a man who had barely known her father should make time to attend his burial. “I’m sorry, I don’t believe we’ve met. You are…?”

“Rhys Caradoc.”

The name was not familiar to her. “You corresponded with Papa about books?”

He cut her a sidelong glance. “On occasion. But mostly about something else.”

His answer struck her as both evasive and deliberate. What could it have been if not books? Her father’s interests had been rather limited.

As they neared the carriage, he leaned in and said, “There are things I would discuss with you, Miss Barrett. But not today. Today is not the time.”

She knew then that this meeting, however accidental it might seem, had been anticipated, perhaps even orchestrated. She opened her mouth to question him, but Mr. Christopher stepped forward, clearly dismayed as he took in her mud-splotched form.

“You’ve taken a tumble,” he said. “Are you injured, Miss Barrett?”

“Not at all, Mr. Christopher,” Isabella replied. “It is only my garments that are the worse for wear.”

The solicitor offered a polite nod to the man at her side just as the clouds opened and the rain began once more.

Mr. Caradoc handed her up into the waiting carriage and closed the door.

Then he exchanged a brief word with Mr. Christopher, the content of their discourse drowned out by the patter of raindrops on the carriage roof.

A moment later, Mr. Christopher joined her inside.

She looked out the side window, her gaze fixed on the man walking away. She hadn’t noticed it when they had walked side by side, but now she saw that his gait was slightly off-kilter, favoring his left leg.

Her breath caught. She knew him.

He was the stranger who had met with her father, the one who had elicited Papa’s uncharacteristic ire. She had not recognized him because she had seen him only from her window and his face had been obscured by the brim of his hat the morning Papa had chased him into the street.

And because she could not have imagined he would be so bold as to come to Papa’s burial given the enmity between them.

“Wait,” she called, shoving open the carriage door, ignoring the startled look the solicitor gave her. “Wait!”

She wanted to question him, to know what he had said to anger her father so. She wanted to know how he dared show his face here. His relationship with Papa had not been cordial.

But he did not wait.

He walked on, his long strides eating the ground, his limp barely a hindrance. Within seconds, he was too far away for her to catch.

And then, as if summoned by her distress, the whispers returned, not as a murmur or a breath, but as a ravenous chorus, howling through the rain.

Rhys cut behind an angel, past a row of stones worn by years of wind and weather, then stopped by the hedge.

From here he could see the open grave, the raw edge slumping in the rain, the small splash of cyclamen on wet soil.

He had learned through too many shapes of farewell that grief had a variety of sounds: the shudder of the coffin settling; the small, obscene thud of the first clod of earth tossed in the hole; the muted sob or gasp or sniffle.

He had not expected the silence.

When he had grasped Isabella Barrett’s wrists, the ever-present hum that was his penance had dropped away.

It had not disappeared completely; he was not granted such tender mercy.

But it had quieted to a degree he had not experienced in years.

The hush had struck like cool water on fevered skin.

He had wanted, absurdly, to keep hold of her hands and let the world go still.

Which was precisely why he had let go. Want was not his compass; duty was.

Rain soaked the brim of his hat and found the burn scars on his leg. He reached into his pocket and withdrew the chemist’s tin, clicking open the lid. He set a lemon drop on his tongue, tart and sweet. A habit he had built through loss after loss, telling himself citrus mellowed the taste of grief.

He reviewed what he had learned simply by observing.

There had been no family to stand at her side.

Her dress was mended twice at the cuff, her gloves worn thin.

And then there were the things he had learned through inquiry.

The house was rented, the landlord unforgiving.

Enough leverage to move a life, if one were the sort to put a shoulder to it and push.

He dismissed the notion of buying the freehold.

There was no need of a cudgel when a hard landlord and a quiet word would tighten the vise.

Finally, there was the ally he had made with little effort.

“My condolences,” he had said to the solicitor, and then added, low, the bait for the trap.

There would be an offer for legitimate work, respectable lodging, an ample wage.

“Mr. Barrett’s books will be cared for,” he had added, letting the man hear the reassurances his conscience required.

Rhys had deliberately let the solicitor see a benefactor, a persona the man had been eager to accept.

As he heard Isabella’s carriage pull away, he did not track the hedge-line for a glimpse of her profile in the glass.

He stood in the lee of the angel as an icy chill swallowed his left shoulder and the beautiful quiet frayed back into noise that tunneled beneath his skin.

He tamped it down with the taste of sugar and lemon and the clean geometry of his plan.

He thought of how Isabella had looked up at him from the mud, the wet curve of her mouth, the refusal to let grief and sorrow make a spectacle of her.

He had known too much of grief to do anything but admire her composure and the work it took to maintain it.

What caught him as surely as a hook beneath the breastbone was the way that, even kneeling in mud, Isabella Barrett had more dignity than most men on their best day.

He smothered the thought that rose, unbidden and disloyal to the moment—the heat of her lips parting beneath his, the soft catch of breath if his thumb found the pulse at her throat.

He would bring her to Harrowgate. He would use her. He would keep her safe. He could live with the cost; he would have to.

With the dead dogging his every step, reaching clawed fingers to drag at his coat, clinging to his arms, hovering at his back, he strode through the rain and pushed open the cemetery gate on its rusted hinges, the sound shrill and discordant, too loud for the business of death.