Marcus’s voice was steady when he spoke again.
“The guests admire your diligence,” he said. “You have earned their confidence.”
A flicker of warmth touched her chest, quickly tempered by the chill of distance.
“Thank you,” she said simply, resisting the ache to reach for him, to break the silence neither dared acknowledge.
***
Edmund adjusted the position of his chair, careful to keep the ledger open at a neutral page as he pretended to transcribe notes.
In truth, he was watching Harold from across the library, noting the man’s trajectory between displays, the moments he lingered too long by the locked cabinets, the questions he posed with feigned casualness to unsuspecting guests.
He made no move to confront. That would be premature. Instead, he kept his posture loose, his pen scratching a steady rhythm that disguised the calculations turning in his mind.
His fingers slid discreetly over the pocket in his waistcoat that held the letter from London, the weight of its contents growing heavier by the hour. The testimony it contained, the forged credentials it exposed made the beginnings of a case. But not enough. Not yet.
If Harold sensed the net drawing tighter, there was no telling how he might respond. Edmund remained unaware that he had already crossed a line. That his calm pursuit of truth had placed him directly in the path of a man whose charm concealed designs far removed from scholarship—and from honesty itself.
Chapter Twenty-two
The house had long since gone still, that peculiar hush settling after midnight when every tick of the clock sounded unnaturally loud. Catherine lay in the darkness of her chamber, unmoving atop the counterpane, her nightgown clinging where damp with restless heat.
Though she had extinguished the candle over an hour ago, she had not drifted anywhere near sleep. Her mind kept circling, always returning to Marcus, to what had passed between them, and what remained unsaid. She turned onto her side, staring at the faint outline of the windowpane. The moon cast enough silver light within to trace the shapes of the furniture. She exhaled slowly, then sat upright, her hands clasped in her lap.
I cannot bear this silence another moment,she thought sternly.
She had tried to speak during supper. He had tried not to stare. They had both failed, and the tension between them remained, despite their short time speaking after breakfast.
If only she could explain that she did not regret anything. What unsettled her now was not shame, but the gnawing fear she had somehow disappointed him.
She rose and crossed to the dressing chair, drawing her wrapper around her shoulders. She tied the sash with practised fingers, then stepped into her slippers and opened the chamberdoor without lighting a lamp. A reading lamp in the library would suffice.
The corridor was cool and quiet. She passed the tall case clock on the landing, resisting the temptation to glance at its hands. Time felt irrelevant in such hours.
The door to the library stood ajar. Lamplight flickered from within, soft and golden against the dark walnut panelling. Catherine paused, startled. She had assumed the house was asleep. Was Marcus wakeful too?
Her first instinct was to retreat and give him space. But another thought quickly followed. If he had also found the night unbearable, perhaps this was the moment—the one where honesty might outrun fear.
She moved quietly toward the door, the runner muffling her steps. Her hand hovered near the frame as she debated on what she should do.Perhaps this is the perfect opportunity to apologise for my awkwardness today, she thought.Perhaps I can tell him that whatever he is feeling about last night, I do not want it to ruin what we have begun to build.She leaned forward.Or, perhaps I should just turn and return to my chambers and never speak of this again.
The sound that met her ears was not the gentle rustle of turning pages nor the low clearing of a throat. It was sharp and final, like a crack against stone.
She stilled.
There was another sound. A low grunt, then something was overturned. This was not study. Not any form of laborious sorting she had come to recognise as Marcus’s nighttime habit.
Catherine pressed herself to the wood and drew a silent breath before peering through the slender gap between the door and its hinge. Her vision narrowed to the hearth. The oil lamp on the far table cast a flickering arc of light across the carpet. Something dark spread beneath it, too wet and too viscous for ink.And too red…
Atop the spreading puddle, a body lay sprawled in front of the fire.
She clutched the edge of the door, her knuckles whitening. At first, she could not look directly at the face. Only the shape. The stillness. A slight gleam of wire-rimmed spectacles crooked beneath the edge of the hearth rug.
Edmund, she realised with sickening horror. A shattered inkstand lay near his shoulder, its black contents running alongside a trail of deeper crimson. She did not scream. She could not. From beyond the writing table, a figure stood panting with one hand tight upon the poker drawn from the grate, its iron end red-streaked and faintly aglow.
Harold…
Not the polished, affable collector with tidy cravats and careful smiles. Not the man who quoted Horace at dinner and laughed at Beatrice’s dry wit. This was someone else entirely. His eyes gleamed with something feral, hollow and cold. Shestared at him through the gap, rigid. Her breath stopped. Those were not the eyes of a man clinging to reason.
