“Good. Because you won’t get it.”
“I don’t deserve it. I carry what I’ve done with me every day.”
“As do I. Your carelessness will never be forgotten.”
“Good,” Graden retorted.
It wasn’t enough for Ella. “Edwin should be alive. Edwin should be here. But you took him away from me. You took him away from all of us. I will never forget or forgive.”
“I’m not asking you to. I’m asking for your tolerance. Miles is my friend. He is your brother. He deserves–-”
Ella shot to her feet, her fists clenched. “Don’t tell me what my family deserves. You have no right to be here. Or to ask anything of me.”
“Miles is my friend. I don’t want to see him torn between us.”
Ella lifted her chin. “That won’t be a problem. He will always choose family over you.”
“As he should.”
She ground her teeth, her gaze narrowed. “I know about you.” Her voice was soft and threatening. “I made it my mission to know everything I could about you. I know what you did.”
Graden froze. How much did she know?
A satisfied grin twisted her lips.
His gaze swept her face. Her deep blue eyes flashed with anger, her jaw clenched. Her skin was smooth and touchable. A second passed and then another and still, she did not elaborate. He relaxed slightly. “You know nothing.”
“After you killed Edwin, I made it a point to find out about you. All about you. You would be surprised how much servants talk.”
Graden shook his head, still not concerned. “Mere gossip. If you think you know me from gossip, then you know nothing at all.”
She nodded. “I had to wade through some wild stories. Like you drink the blood of children and you dance naked beneath the full moon.”
Graden chuckled. He hadn’t heard those, and he wondered if she was making them up.
“Of course, I discounted nothing until I could prove it. Miles certainly would have noticed you dancing naked beneath a full moon.”
Graden nodded in agreement. “As would the king.”
“Your mother was sick.”
Graden’s humor left him as tingles of foreboding danced up his spine. “Aye. She died from an illness.”
“The same illness your father recovered from.”
He nodded. That was common knowledge. “I suppose you spoke with the physician.”
“Halacre. He relayed to me what happened that night.”
Graden had never liked Halacre. He was the one man who knew that Graden had given his father something to drink and he recovered. He never would have guessed the man would have told others about it.
“It was a miraculous recovery. Your father was very ill. Halacre told me he was certain he would die.”
“Father had just come back from war,” Graden remembered. “I was a boy. I didn’t want to lose him.”
“Halacre told me you ran from the room and disappeared for the entire night. Strange. I mean, your father was dying. Your place was by his side.”
Graden shook his head. “Don’t, Ella. Whatever you think you know is not what happened.”
