“Bram. But I really cannot imagine him collecting spiders to put in my room; I’m quite sure he’d consider that beneath him. Hawley doesn’t know my feelings on spiders or he’d constantly be mentioning it.”
“Might Bram have told Wynn about your fear?”
“Possibly. But there was that writing on the wall, you said, and Wynn doesn’t know I’m queer, so—”
“Doesn’t he?”
That sounded meaningful. “No? That is—does he?”
Gideon took a deep breath. “You recall what I said about him hiring me. In retrospect, does that sound even remotely plausible? That Wynn went out of his way to find and help a total stranger because I got in trouble alongside a cousin he’d barely met in his life? That he’d give me access to his affairs without asking about the gross misconduct I was sacked for? It’s nonsensical. I knew it was nonsensical when he hired me, but I was desperate enough to persuade myself it was charity.”
“What are you saying?”
Gideon took his hand. “I think he knows I was your lover and we’d parted badly. I think he brought me here because of you.”
Zeb blinked. “You can’t mean to get us back together?”
“Jesus wept, Zeb. No. I think my purpose here was to unsettle you. To provoke you to misbehave.”
“Um.” Zeb gestured at their bare bodies.
“Very much not like that. Look, suppose you were less honest, less generous—in a word, more like your family. Suppose you wanted the incredible fortune on offer as much as the rest of them, but here I was, able to ruin your chances if I opened my mouth. What might you have done—what might Hawley do in your shoes—to silence me?”
Zeb thought about that. “Oh.”
“And equally, I was terrified you might lose me this job. I thought you would try to get rid of me, and I was quite prepared to make this a battle. If you hadn’t made us talk, what might we have done to one another?”
“But why would Wynn want me to fight you? Heinvitedme here.”
“He invited two estranged brothers, one with an illicit ex-lover, one with an adulterous wife, plusherex-lover, and then threw a tiger among all those pigeons with this legacy business,” Gideon said. “If he wanted to create the conditions for you all murdering one another, he’s gone the right way about it. And I will tell you what else: on his account, you knew about the inheritance, you came here for it, and you’ve been actively scheming for it all along. He’s told me all about his letters and conversations with you, which bear very little resemblance to what you’ve told me. Come to that, he made everyone think you’d slandered Mrs.Bram. He’s doing a damn good job of making you look as bad as the rest of them.”
“Oh God,” Zeb said. “Is this his illness?”
“What illness?”
“He’s sick. Dying. That’s how he made me promise to stay. He says his doctor told him he had six months; he won’t live till summer. He begged me for time while he has it.” Wynn had also asked Zeb not to tell, but at this point, he was putting himself and Gideon first. “Maybe what’s wrong with him is affecting his brain?”
Gideon’s brows had gone up. “Well, possibly, but I’ve been here since September, and in that time he hasn’t gone to see a doctor, or been visited by one, or had any letter that looks remotely medical or official, or had a visit from a solicitor, or spent any time in bed, or had me put his affairs in order. If he’s dying, he’s doing so in a remarkably self-effacing manner.”
“He looked pretty bad in the dining room the other evening,” Zeb suggested. “He needed your arm to leave.”
“That was the first time he’s done so. Are you absolutely sure about this? When did he tell you?”
“It was when I said I was going to leave, and…wouldn’t be persuaded to remain by any other argument… Oh, no,” Zeb said hollowly. “Really. He said he wasdying. He can’t have been joking about that.”
“None of this is a joke. There was nothing funny about what was done to your room.”
“But that couldn’t have been Wynn. We were talking downstairs, right before I came up—Oh.”
“What?”
Zeb grimaced. “He called me in to play cards when I was going to go up and then said he wanted to talk to me afterwards, but he didn’t have anything to say. He just chattered on about Laura and Jessamine.”
“In order to delay you while someone filled your room with spiders,” Gideon said. “It’s Wynn, Zeb. Whatever is going on, he’s behind it.”
“But why would he set out to make us all miserable? Anyone might dislike Bram or Hawley—it’s hard not to—but why bring me into it? He’d met me twice in my life before this, both times as a child! What did I do to deserve this?”
“I have no idea, and I don’t care. This is escalating towards dangerous cruelty, and I want you well out of it.”
