I also just realised that the last time I saw him was the night he told me his parents had been murdered.
“I meanyou, sneaking up onme,” I said, my voice sharper than I intended.
He raised an eyebrow; amused or offended, I couldn’t tell. But either way, I wasn’t going to apologize for protecting myself. Not to him. Not to anyone.
He plucked the candle from my hand like it belonged to him, and lifted it higher. The flame flickered, the shadows painting a blood-curdling mask across his face.
“It’s hard not to sneak up on someone sneaking around in the middle of the night, isn’t it? What are you doing here anyway?” He glanced around, and I used the opportunity to snatch the candle back from him.
“I could ask the same from you, couldn’t I?”
Now he looked clearly entertained, his eyes glinting with a wild sort of amusement. “I was following a ghost.” He said it so simply, so offhandedly, I couldn’t tell if he was joking or not.
Still, I stiffened, my heartbeat picking up. “Ghosts aren’t real.” I said, rolling my eyes to emphasise my words.
He leaned in, his voice dropping to a mock whisper. “Liar, liar, pants on fire.”
The air thinned. Did he know about my mum? Or the woman haunting the corridors, always leaving behind that faint trace of lavender? Had he told Lilian? Was this some twisted game before they locked me away?
“Don’t call me a liar, Davenport.” I stepped past him, the candlelight shivering with every breath. “I’m going back to bed.”
“By all means,” he said breezily. “But make sure you don’t get lost. There are parts of this manor you don’t want to encounter.”
I froze, glancing down the unfamiliar hallway. It felt as though the manor had rearranged itself just to spite me. I would probably get lost. But I wasn’t about to admit that. “I can handle it,” I said, stepping forward, my pulse climbing into my throat.
No footsteps sounded behind me—just the suffocating silence wrapping around me like a wet blanket. Preston didn’t follow?—
“Well then.”
I sucked in a sharp breath, as he suddenly appeared beside me, out of thin air.
“I’m headed the same way. We can get lost together.”
He didn’t wait. He moved ahead, passing windows and unlit candles, clearly knowing the way and expecting me to follow. He should have known me better. And yet, after a moment of staring at his back, I did what a month ago I wouldn’t have.
I followed him.
We walked in silence. The candle between us flickered with each step, throwing long shadows that danced along the cracked wallpaper. The manor groaned and whispered like it had secrets too old for words, but Preston didn’t seem bothered. He walked like he owned the night. Like it would never dare touch him.
“Is this something you do often?” he asked after a while, and I frowned, meeting his dark green gaze. It reminded me of shadowed moss.
“Do what?” I asked, picking on the edge of my sleeve, my mind back in the attic. It was left between the rotten box and moth eaten papers… and secrets too old to read.
“Tiptoe through haunted corridors—barefoot.” He glanced down pointedly, and I followed his gaze, heat blooming across my chest.
“I was in a hurry,” I muttered.
The candle fluttered as if exhaling for me.
“To follow a ghost.” He finished the sentence like he truly knew, except I could sense a question beneath his words.
So hewasn’tsure. He was just mocking me before.
We turned a corner, and a gust of cold air slipped through a cracked panel. It caught my hair, lifting it off my shoulders. I reached up to tuck it back, but Preston was faster. He brushed my hair aside, gently, like he’d done it hundreds of times before. There was a brief, hesitant tenderness in the movement that made something tight pull behind my ribs.
His hand didn’t fall away immediately. His fingers hovered, barely grazing the edge of my jaw.
Everything stilled.
