“This isn’t about duty,” he said quietly.
Before he could reach her—and, heaven forbid,touchher—she crossed to the door and opened it with a practiced motion, letting in the soft patter of rain and the hush of the outside world.
“I don’t want you in danger,” she whispered. “Norton never stopped looking for me. If he discovers I’m alive—”
“Then he’ll answer to me.”
The fierceness in his voice startled her. She lifted her eyes and was drawn to him like never before. “You were always brave.”
“And you were always brilliant,” he said, almost reverently.
She flinched, the memory too raw.
“I’ll come back tomorrow,” he added.
“You’ll waste your time,” she replied, though the words lacked conviction.
“I’ve wasted too many years already.”
He stepped out into the rain, coat collar turned up, shoulders squared. She watched him go until the fog swallowed him whole. Only when the door was shut did she lean against it, pressing her forehead to the wood. Her breath trembled on the way out.
She had spent five years being a ghost. But now Elias Blackwood had seen her. And ghosts, she feared, were not meant to be seen.
Chapter Three
Elias Blackwood hadspent the better part of his adult life deciphering hidden motives. In war, one learned to read between the lines, to study shadows, to understand when a man’s silence spoke louder than words. And in the drawing rooms of London, the battlefield was no different, only quieter, perfumed, and far more polished.
He hadn’t intended to return to Society so soon, but desperate circumstances required swift action. So, dressed in his old regimental coat—freshly brushed and still bearing the faint scent of gunpowder and Turkish tobacco—he entered the Harrington Club as if he belonged there. Because once, he had.
The smoking room was thick with cigar haze and conversation, the air heavy with the scent of overindulgence and entitlement. Elias moved to a quiet corner near the chessboard and waited for an opening.
“A shame about Fairfax’s ward,” a corpulent man in a burgundy waistcoat was saying, swirling cognac in a crystal glass. “Beautiful girl, wasn’t she? Shame what happened to her. The fire, I mean.”
“Tragic,” another murmured. “Though I always found that business a bit too convenient. Didn’t she have some sort of falling out with her guardian? What was his name… Norton?”
“Lord Norton,” the first man confirmed with a slight grimace. “A powerful figure, to be sure. He invests in railways. I’ve heard even cemeteries are under his thumb now.”
Elias tilted his head. “Cemeteries? That is an odd thing to invest in, do you not agree?” he asked, his voice calm and measured.
The man glanced at him, blinking as if surprised he’d been overheard.
“You must be new back in London,” he said, sizing Elias up. “Norton’s been acquiring land. Speculation, they say. And there’s profit in the dead, apparently. Highgate’s the new fascination. Everyone wants a family plot there. Gothic is fashionable.”
“Was Norton ever investigated after the fire?” Elias asked.
A few chuckles followed.
“Investigated? You must not know the man,” said the second fellow. “Heownsthe constables in his district. The only thing Norton’s afraid of is scandal, and even that’s short-lived when you have the Crown’s ear.”
Elias gritted his teeth. So, Norton hadn’t just escaped scrutiny—he’d prospered. The death of Isobel Fairfax had freed the bloke of responsibility and likely secured him further wealth and influence. And now, he was expanding his reach into the very earth itself.
Excusing himself from the conversation before his temper betrayed him, Elias left the club with clenched fists and a tighter jaw.
The afternoon was gray and damp as Elias made his way toward the edges of Highgate. He stopped at the cemetery’s south gate, where the old grave keeper sat beneath the crooked archway, a pipe dangling from his lips.
The man looked up as Elias approached, squinting through the mist. “Back again, captain?”
“I’m looking for a man,” Elias said. “Slick hair. Dark coat. Watches more than he speaks.”
