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Backing the single dram, I cast a glance about me. Having gone over the security footage from the palace and Hush the night my father was murdered, there’s only one conclusion: it was an inside job. And while there’s nothing for me to go on yet, given my father’s driver still hasn’t been found, I find myself scrutinising every set of eyes watching me. The instant Arthur smashes his glass into the Victorian hearth, the howls start, a tradition of the Wolfsden Society when we lose one of our own.
It’s what wolves do when one of their pack is lost. They howl to guide them home, physically or spiritually. The howls have barely quieted when the music starts. The steady chords of the piano in the corner fill the panelled walls, closing them in with the flicker of the fire. It’s not until the violin joins in that it all becomes stifling.
Memories of countless parties and quiet mornings where my father would have Fauré on repeat. It’s as though I can hear him humming along now. His desk could be in the corner of the room while he makes notes in his journals that will eventually become texts for future doctors. My father, the doctor, was a pioneer. My father, the Duke of Gloucester, was a hard man. He was Jekyll and Hyde.
While I’m in my reverie, the men disperse, leaving our round table empty, barring the two seats to either side of me.
Arthur calls one of the girls over with a wave of his hand. As she comes our way, he gestures to our empty glasses.
“A toast,” he announces as the almost naked girl puts a fresh glass down for him after he smashed the last and pours our drinks. Lifting his Welsh whisky, he levels me with steely eyes while he flattens his other hand on the table in front of me. “To His Grace, the Duke of Gloucester,” he says, revealing my father’s signet ring beneath his palm.
Again, I back my drink instead of dressing my finger with my family’s heirloom. The air is growing hotter and turgid. It’s getting harder to breathe as the music echoes around me.
Two weeks, and I’m still searching for a needle in a fucking haystack, any fucking clue as to what happened the night my father walked out of this place with his briefcase in his hand, and got into his car, to be found in the morning by my mother. Sans briefcase and most of his blood. The irony isn’t lost on me—the man that dedicated his life to studying blood died soaked in red.
“Henry would want you to wear it now,” Percival tells me in a hushed tone when I flip my empty glass over the ring like a cloche.
I don’t want it, and I don’t want anyone else to have it. Much like my duty.
Even though I’m not a sentimental man, it seems wrong to step into my father’s shoes so quickly. He was laid to rest only hours ago, locked away in our family’s vault to rot.
“It’s just jewellery,” Simon murmurs on my other side, and when I look up at him, I find him twisting the ring that used to belong to his father before he burnt to cinders along with their country manor.
Just.
“What if I just don’t want to?”
“Put it on, Henry,” Arthur coaxes.
I glance at the ring again, trying to ignore the wail of Fauré’s Opus as it grows to a deafening crescendo. The pitch of the strings rakes through me. I can feel the weight of the gold ghosted around my finger. The weight of the promise I made my mother when my father’s blood stained my hands. The only just left is to give her the justice she wants.
“Put it on,” he presses, punctuating his words with the slam of his solid crystal tumbler on the mahogany tabletop.
His insistence throws the last of my patience and control. Today needs to be over fast. My sensibilities are on edge, and every nightmare I’ve had every fucking night of my father’s drained body assaults me.
I can’t think. I can’t breathe. And their fucking eyes on me, eagerly waiting for me to fill in the hole my father left, make me feel sick.
The music.
The expectations.
Every fucking memory that’s ghosted around this fucking place. The fucking drone of the never-ending song.
“Quiet,” I snap at the duo in the corner as the whirlwind in my head overwhelms my control.
It’s the shrill rip of the violin that causes me to glance their way, pulling me from the storm inside.
I hate tea, and I hate that fucking sound. But the instant the echoes of it disappear, the hole in my chest screams louder until I’m searching for it.
The girl is the first thing I see clearly in days. Percival arranged for her to play tonight. Apparently, she was one of my father’s favourite gems from the Royal Conservatory, which he and my mother are patrons of. I’m not sure why Percival was so adamant about having her here, and I don’t care either. For all I know, he’s trying to recruit another girl onto Hush’s books.
“You’re being absurd.” Arthur blows out an irate breath.
He’s annoying the fuck out of me. If he could disappear, I’d be grateful. In fact, right now, what I need is a distraction. Pushing my chair from the table, I focus back on the corner of the room. The girl is watching me intently without a shudder or quiver when I glower her way. She’s a small thing, not like the other girls in the club. Her long blonde hair is styled in loose waves that hang down past her waist, covering up pale golden skin that her skimpy dress has left exposed.
A faint, pitying smile tugs at the corner of her full, deep-caramel-painted lips. There’s not enough beauty in the world that could tame the loathing that blazes inside me. Pity is for the weak, and I am not weak.
I could wrap my hands around that delicate neck of hers and snap it like a twig. Dark eyes narrow on mine as though she can read my thoughts, even from a distance.
