Page 55 of The Dravenhearst Brides

—Excerpt, Dravenhearst Distilling Inventory Log as maintained by Merrick Dravenhearst

The days became routine, tentative and new.

Margot went to the pasture in the mornings, where she stood and chatted with Ruth, watching Merrick and Julian ride. Ruth would speak of bloodlines and training but never ghosts. She didn’t have to. They both knew they lived amongst them. What more was there to say?

At midday, Margot went to the distillery to help Merrick work. Julian was there for much of that as well, a star pupil under Merrick’s tutelage. Some days they filled barrels, some days they made mash.

But most importantly, hour by hour, Merrick let her into his world.

“Ten percent of this product will be lost when we crack the barrel open to harvest in two years,” he told her, grunting as he and Julian lifted, pouring clear distillate into a barrel. White dog, it was called at this stage. He’d taught her that only two days before.

“Six percent is lost to the barrel itself.” Merrick ran a finger around the wooden rim.

“I told you once, do you remember? It’s called the devil’s cut, the amount lost to absorption.

It’s a necessary evil, the devil’s take.

Gives the bourbon its color and flavor, pushing in and out of the porous wood. Loss makes it stronger.”

Yes, she remembered. Transformative loss. Strengthened by loss…

When she looked at Merrick, she saw it. Clear as day. How his losses had sharpened him, same as the bourbon in his barrels. Aged him smooth. He was richer for it.

“The remaining four percent,” he continued, “is lost to the air. Evaporation.”

“And what’s that called?” she asked, captivated.

He smiled. “The angel’s share. The part heaven itself can’t resist taking. What we lose never truly leaves us. Traces always linger—that’s why bourbon warehouses smell as good as they do. It’s in the air.”

She inhaled deeply, agreeing. The air in the rickhouses went down sweet, a reminder with every breath.

It’s his version of fresh baked cookies, she realized. Of coming home to bread warming in the oven. Most children loved their mother’s baking, grew up carrying those smells in their hearts.

This was Merrick’s home—the distillery, the rickhouses. The place that gave his life meaning, where he’d been both lost and found. No matter the personal cost, Margot wouldn’t take him away from it, would never make him choose.

Every day, she found a way to stay. And every night, after they crawled into bed, to his credit, he always asked.

“Margot, should we leave? Should we go to Louisville?”

Her answer was always the same. “No.”

As December unspooled under their feet and Prohibition was repealed nationwide, demand soared. Bourbon brands were being relaunched, but there was no triumphant return for Dravenhearst Distilling.

“There’s no stock left,” Merrick said, shaking his head. “I emptied all my barrels and pawned off my bottles to bootleggers. Demand is high, but we simply can’t meet it yet. Bourbon takes time. It needs the barrel.”

It was a very real danger, the threat of becoming obsolete. Run out of town by the big dogs who’d been sheltered by pharmaceutical licenses and never stopped producing.

Merrick was right. Bourbon needed the barrel, needed it for a minimum of two years. Margot could learn many things about the business, but she would never learn to turn ahead time.

“No,” a voice whispered, raising the hairs on the back of her neck. Soft and tantalizingly smooth. “Not turn ahead, fledgling. Turn back.”

Margot spun around, expecting to see her, but Babette wasn’t there.

Something else was though.

Something else stood tall and proud in the midday Kentucky sun.

Margot gasped.

The solution was staring them square in the face. They traipsed in and out of the rickhouses all day long, all but one. The one frozen in time. Shuttered and locked, full of bourbon aged twenty years.

It was a little bit crazy, a little bit mad. All her best ideas were.

Rickhouse One.

“Let me get this straight,” Ruth said, putting down her gin rickey with a thud.

“Your husband was poisoned by an unknown assailant, nearly killed. You lost your baby drinking the tea of a certified madwoman. You continue to have dreams, continue to be haunted by the ghosts of former Dravenhearst brides. And not only are you not vacating the premises—which for the record, I wouldn’t just vacate, I would run from screaming bloody fucking murder—you want to open Rickhouse One?

The beating heart at the center of it all? ”

Margot fidgeted in her seat like a child before a schoolmarm.

“Merrick is here,” she said simply.

“Merrick is a Dravenhearst.” Ruth narrowed her eyes. “They’re not the racehorse you bet on, Margot. It’s bad business, bad blood.”

“How can you say that about him?” she cried. “Don’t you care for him, after all these years?”

“Of course I do. But I can say it because I watched my best friend die for it, for a Dravenhearst. I’d prefer not to put another body in the ground for the same reason.”

“I thought Babette was leaving Richard,” Margot said, her tone sharp. “What really happened the night she died? You’ve never told me.”

Ruth paled and fell silent.

“You kept secrets from me.” Margot raised her chin. “You spoke to me so many times about Babette and motherhood. You made me believe…” She trailed off. She didn’t want to get upset. She knew Ruth wouldn’t value it. Ruth valued levelheadedness and straightforward discussion. No bullshit.

But Ruth’s omissions felt like betrayal. Margot was tired of the secrets. Of having only half the story, never the whole.

“You’ve learned about Julian,” Ruth finally said.

“Alastair told me.”

“The same Alastair who probably poisoned your husband, had an affair with his mother, and has proven himself, time and time again, to be the catalyst behind dark events at Dravenhearst Distilling? The puppeteer behind the curtain, that Alastair?”

Margot had never quite thought of him that way. She disliked the man, but he seemed like a sideshow player, a foil to Richard. A lover of Babette. He was a supporting character, not the leading man.

“I will tell you what I know of that night in exchange for not telling you about Julian months ago.” Ruth looked carefully at Margot.

“But I don’t much like talking about either.

These are painful things you’ve come here to ask about today, Margot.

Shameful things.” She lowered her eyes, quite uncharacteristically.

“I will tell the story once but never again. So listen closely.”

Margot leaned forward.

“There was a party scheduled for that night, same as every other at the estate. A masquerade ball. Babette had been planning for months. She was going to dress up as Marie Antoinette, had a ballgown specially made. It had half a dozen layers, if you can believe it, and she planned to walk around handing out slices of cake all evening.” She snorted in amusement, remembering.

“She was always so terribly irreverent, which I simply adored about her.

But when she found out she was expecting, everything changed.

“She was certain the baby was Alastair’s, and it was the final push she needed to leave the manor.

When the party began, Babette descended the stairs, not in her Marie Antoinette costume, but in her wedding gown.

She pulled me aside and said she planned to tell Richard she was leaving him during the party.

She was going to walk out of his house wearing the gown she’d married him in, wanted it to be the last thing he ever saw of her. She simply couldn’t resist the irony.”

Ruth’s face darkened. “Just before midnight, she had a row with Richard, very public. Nasty. I can’t remember precisely what was said, but halfway through, Richard had the grace to take her outside, away from prying eyes.

They were out there for almost an hour, and Richard returned alone.

He said she was leaving, and that was that. I never saw her again.”

“What? That’s it?”

Ruth nodded. “I always thought it strange she didn’t come in to say goodbye. We found her the next morning in the rickhouse.”

Margot’s mind raced. “Did anyone besides you know she was leaving?”

“Xander knew,” Ruth said. “He helped pack her bags and stowed them by the stables, waiting for her departure.”

“Anyone else?”

“Alastair knew, of course.”

“Was he there that night?”

Ruth frowned. “He wasn’t invited. Richard would no longer welcome him in the house. But he was lurking outside, waiting for Babette. They planned to run away together that night.”

Two men unaccounted for. Two men who were each potentially the last person to see Babette alive.

Margot drummed her fingers on her lap. “It could have been either one of them who harmed her.”

“I’ve always believed it was Richard,” Ruth said. “Merrick was right to lock up that rickhouse, mark my words. There’s a malevolence living in there. Spirits are never stronger in our natural world than at the places where they lost their lives. No good can come from dredging up the past, Margot.”

“I disagree.” She straightened in her seat. “I think what’s been buried and hidden here has long since rotted out. I think we tiptoe on decayed ground. The way forward is through, not around.”

This house was like a canker sore—a living, pulsating wound that festered across generations. It had been bandaged for far too long. Cauterized but not cured.

Ruth paled. “You really mean to do it, then? You want him to reopen the rickhouse.”

“I do. He’ll turn a profit from the bourbon to secure our future, and I’ll ferret out these final family secrets to set us free from the past.”

Margot found Evangeline next. She was mixing elixirs in her gardening shed, humming to herself under her breath. Margot nearly turned tail when she recognized the tune.

Rock-a-bye baby on the tree top,

When the wind blows the cradle will rock.

Evangeline wore gardening gloves as she chopped a cluster of green herbs with a long-handled knife. Her fingers moved with precision, dumping the pieces into a pestle, preparing for pulverization.

“Remember when you told me I needed to talk about the things that hurt?” Margot asked, leaning in the doorway.

Evangeline looked up, startled.

Margot took a deep breath. “I think this entire family needs to do the same thing.”

When she shared her plans to open the rickhouse, Evangeline smiled. Oh, how she smiled. The most beatific grin, larger by the second.

“It’s the only way,” Evangeline agreed. “Those women need to be set free. All of us do.”

“You missed a bit there.” Margot pointed, but Evangeline swatted her hand away.

“Careful, sugar. Not with unprotected skin. That there’s belladonna cuttings.”

Belladonna? Margot flinched back. “What are you working with that for?”

“What, this?” She tilted her head, amused. “I grind it up to make a tincture for Xander. For his hands. It helps with his tremors.”

“But isn’t it poisonous?”

“Not after I dilute it. If it’s poison you’re after, you want the berries. Those are the easiest to extract. Which reminds me.” Evangeline picked up the knife and pointed it at Margot. “Have you been skulking around my garden in the evenings?”

“No.” Margot frowned.

“I found the gate unlatched a few weeks back. And again only a few days ago. I always keep my special friends locked up tight. It’s no place for midnight wandering. Very dangerous.”

“I’ve not been inside,” Margot said truthfully, backing away.

“All right, sugar.” Evangeline nodded, satisfied. She plucked a few fresh leaves from her bundle and continued dicing.

A memory tickled, faint. Evangeline dropping green cuttings into a bourbon glass before a toast. The night Merrick was poisoned. Mint leaves, she’d said.

Margot watched the quick, sure slide of the knife. The flash of green underneath the blade.

But…no, it couldn’t be. Margot turned to depart, shaking her head.

“You come back and visit soon, you hear?” Evangeline called. “Toodle-oo!”