She stilled, measuring, not yielding but not resisting. Rough palms. Smoke on their sleeves. Hands seized her arms. Not violent, but certain.
“You’re making a scene,” Erica said.
Leticia turned toward her. The other woman’s face was calm, too calm. Her tone lacked all urgency now, all pretense.
“I had hoped you would come quietly.”
Leticia held her gaze.
The garden drew in around them, the lantern light thinning, the path narrowing to a line she had already crossed.
She did not speak again.
*
Gabriel searched theballroom. The terrace. The garden. No Leticia. No Erica.
He pushed through the guests, faster now. Elbows brushed him. Voices murmured. Nervous, oblivious laughter sprang up in pockets. Some guests had already begun returning to their seats. The scream had already turned to curiosity, a tale to be embellished by morning.
But not for him.
His jaw locked. “Leticia?” The word was low. Controlled. No answer. He strode across the threshold into the garden. Cool air closed around him like a glove.
His boots hit the terrace stone, gravel, loud, deliberate, unmistakable. The sound grated, deliberate, meant to be heard.
He paused. Turned his head. Had someone else walked this path? There, drag marks. Disruption. A scattering of stone that hadn’t settled yet. The faintest scrape across the gravel where someone had moved sideways, not forward. Gabriel followed it.
“Ashcombe.”
He turned at the voice. Professor Tresham stood near the edge of the terrace, wineglass in hand, his silhouette framed in soft lanternlight. Impeccably calm. Not a wrinkle in his coat. No sweat on his brow. No breath visible in the cool night air. And no dirt on his boots.
Gabriel froze. A beat too long.
Tresham lifted his hand. “I need a word.”
Gabriel didn’t break stride. “Not now.”
“I believe you’ll want to hear.”
“I said not now.”
He passed him without another glance. But the timing lingered. The direction. Tresham had come from the hedgerow. The same direction as the hoofbeats. The same path that led to the back gate.
A fraction too precise. Too well placed to be chance.
Gabriel’s pace quickened.
The farther he moved from the lanterns, the more his instincts took over. His eyes swept the edges of the hedge line. He searched for silver silk. For a pale ribbon. For anything that did not belong.
He passed the arbor. Nothing. A chill coiled in his gut.
The scent of roses lingered faintly, but it was mingled now with something else. Horse sweat. Damp leather. Earth, freshly gouged.
He broke into a run.
The gravel roared beneath his boots. A part of his mind registered the sound, not just loud, but uneven. Disturbed.
At the curve of the garden path, he found it.
