Harold turned and knelt over Edmund’s body, rifling through the papers that lay scattered near his sleeve. A bundle of correspondence slid from the table beside him, including authentication records, the red wax of the Society’s seal now smudged across the corner of a page. And Catherine could only watch.
Harold muttered as he worked, shoving items into a satchel at his side. One by one, he removed artefacts from the cabinet nearest the window, careful even now with how he wrapped and packed them.
“Had to interfere,” he mumbled. “Always meddling. Just like Oxford. Just like the rest. They never listened. Never saw the truth. But I know what these are. I know what they’re worth. You never understood that, did you, Edmund…”
His laugh was soft and breathless and entirely detached from the scene before him.
Catherine’s hand rose instinctively to her mouth. She pressed her fingers hard against her lips, barely holding in the cry that threatened to escape.
He is mad, she thought with numb horror.Entirely mad.
Every trace of humanity she had once seen in him, every social grace and scholarly quirk, had vanished. The mask had fallen; what remained was precise, controlled, and unnervinglycalm. Edmund had tried to stop him. Now Edmund lay broken by the hearth.
I am next,she thought, trembling.He will see me, and I shall end up like Edmund. Marcus will never know that I love him.
Her throat tightened. Harold turned again, stooping to collect a seal-press and a fragment of glazed pottery. Catherine took one trembling step back from the door. Just enough to breathe. Just enough to consider how to run. The lamp within wavered. His shadow stretched toward the shelves. She swallowed a sob, silently willing her limbs to obey.Do not move. Not yet.
The wood beneath Catherine’s slipper shifted just then with a faint creak. Harold froze. His head snapped toward the door, eyes wide and white with something beyond surprise. The poker dipped in his grip.
For one terrible heartbeat, he merely stared. Then, his expression rearranged itself into something more unnerving than rage.Politeness.
“Well,” he said lightly, straightening. “This is truly unfortunate.”
Catherine backed a step away from the threshold. She had seen men unmoored by grief, had witnessed the unravelling of reason in her father’s last days, but this was not sorrow. This was madness.
“Lady Penwood,” he said in the same composed, affable voice he had used over tea and artefact discussions. “You ought not to be here. This is delicate work. Necessary work. And now you have become part of the difficulty.”
His voice did not rise. That frightened her most. She turned to run.
She managed two steps before something slammed into her from behind. Her shoulder struck the wainscoting as Harold seized her, his hand finding her mouth with brutal precision. She tried to cry out, to twist free, yet his grip tightened—not with finesse, but with the grim determination of long practice.
“You understand,” he said near her ear. “Cannot allow chaos. Not now. Not when I am so close.”
Catherine fought, but her movements were slow and clumsy with fear.
A cloth pressed suddenly to her face—kept ready and meant for Edmund before steel and fire had proved swifter. A cloying vapour flooded her senses—bitter, sharp, like crushed leaves steeped in oil and thickened with something noxious. Her lungs recoiled.
Cannot breathe, she thought as she coughed and choked.Cannot scream.
She thrashed, her slippers scraping against the boards, her elbows striking blindly behind her, but he held her fast, pressed against him with arms too strong to be reasoned with. The clothsealed over her mouth and nose. The burn reached her throat, then her eyes. The room blurred.
Marcus. His name rose unbidden, bright and searing. He was upstairs, unknowing and vulnerable.
I have to warn him, she thought groggily as the chemical began to overtake her.Harold will kill him if he gets the chance.
She struggled again, weaker now. Her limbs no longer obeyed with the same clarity. Her thoughts scattered like dry leaves caught in sudden wind. Darkness pressed in from the edges of her vision.
Stay awake,she pleaded silently with herself.
The hearth flickered. Edmund’s body lay still. The blood no longer shocked her, as it had become part of the room’s pattern. Catherine clawed at Harold’s arm. Her fingernails connected with wool, flesh, something. He hissed but did not let go. The smell deepened, her chest heaved and then stopped. Her knees gave way.
Marcus. Please, do not come. Do not let him draw you here. She could not bear for Harold to ensnare him as well. Her vision fractured. Light burst behind her eyes. Her hand twitched once near her collar, then stilled.
He will not know.
The last sound she knew was the faint rustle of paper and Harold’s low murmur, still murmuring to himself, as though she were nothing more than another study fallen into silence.
***
