Not yet. Not even close.
Observation continues.
And I don’t examine why.
Chapter 7
The Exit Offered
POV:Evie
My uncle arrives without warning. That’s the first problem. Not that he arrives. Rory Brennan has never believed doors applied to him in any meaningful way. He has spent fifty-one years treating thresholds as suggestions and social conventions as things invented by people with weaker shoulders.
The problem is that I didn’t know he was coming. No staff shift. No delayed breakfast. No guard rotation tightened around the main hall. No message through Teresa. No car announced from the drive. No change in a guard’s pattern.
Nothing.
One moment, I’m in the library, pretending to read about maritime arbitration and actually tracking which sections have been handled recently. The next, Teresa appears at the door.
“Miss Brennan.”
I look up. “Yes?”
“Your uncle’s here.”
The page under my hand goes still. “How unexpected.”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“Private sitting room. On the east side.”
Still inside my assigned range. Still my side of the house. But not my room.
A mercy, or a limit.
Likely both.
I close the book. “Is Don Vitale joining us?”
“No.”
Interesting.
“Luca?”
“No.”
More interesting.
“Am I being invited or delivered?”
Teresa’s mouth almost moves. “Received.”
That almost makes me smile. Hospitality is just containment with better upholstery.
I stand and smooth my skirt. Black again. It has been black for two weeks. At this point, mourning has become less a ritual than a useful uniform. People are kinder to black fabric. They assume the woman wearing it is occupied with loss.
