Page 44 of A Treason of Thorns

I smile and run one thumb across the bricks behind me. In response, Burleigh unfurls tendrils of honeysuckle and their flowers open, spilling sweet fragrance onto the breeze.

“Show-off,” Wyn grumbles from where he’s splitting and stacking firewood in front of the woodshed. “You were insufferable when we were small, you know. Always flaunting the House’s preference for you.”

He sets the ax aside and straightens up, wiping the back of onehand across his damp forehead. I gnaw at a fingernail and try not to look too long or too hard. Wyn’s so... competent now. He never was before. And while I don’t like to dwell on why he had to become so, the result can be a little distracting. Especially when I’ve got Papa’s ledger open on my lap and am supposed to be looking through it for anything useful.

“The House is a fusty old building that plays favorites and doesn’t appreciate the people who do the most for it,” I tell Wyn. “Look at Jed and Mira—they oversaw all the upkeep during Papa’s time, and when has Burleigh ever even acknowledged them?”

A skein of honeysuckle pokes me in the ear, and I bat it away.

“You love it, though.” Wyn’s voice is carefully empty, devoid of emotion. He might be speaking of the weather. “No matter how selfish or unfair it is. No matter what it’s done to your family, or what they’ve done for it. That’s why you came back.”

I frown at him as he stacks split logs beneath the overhang of the woodshed. “There were a lot of reasons why I came back.”

“Have you found anything new today?” Wyn asks, gesturing at the ledger with a stick of kindling. I know he’s changing the subject, but let it slide. Instead, I squint down at the pages of the ledger.

“Actually, I think I have. I’ve been charting the locations of all my father’s journeys, and during the last year before his arrest, he kept going to Cornwall. Over and over, without recording why. So either he had a lover there I knew nothing about—”

“Unlikely,” Wyn says.

“—or he’d found out the deed was somewhere in Cornwall. Somewhere along the coast, in a sea cave.”

Wyn glances over at me and he’s almost smiling. “And you usedto tell me you weren’t clever enough for riddles.”

“I am who Burleigh needs me to be,” I answer, looking at the weed-choked gardens, the crumbling walls, and the low places in the ground where wet mortar has pooled.

Wyn’s just about to speak again when the air grows deathly still. The sky clouds over and shifts to a sickly green. A sudden gust of chill rain falls, followed by eerie calm.

“Burleigh?” I ask. “What’s wrong?”

The House, of course, does not answer, but Wyn squints around the corner of the building.

“I think there’s someone at the gate,” he says. “It’s storming out in the lane. And the brambles patching the wall look especially thorny.”

Closing Papa’s ledger, I heave a sigh. “I expect it’s Lord Falmouth. He came into the Shilling yesterday—the king sent him to keep an eye on me and the House.”

“That’ll be trouble,” Wyn says with a shake of his head. “Burleigh loathes Falmouth. And I can’t say as I was particularly taken by him, either, though we only met the once.”

Getting to my feet, I walk over to Wyn and hold out the ledger. “Will you take this for me? I’ve got to go play charming hostess. I do wish Burleigh would be charming, too—the last thing we need is for a poor report to get back to the king.”

Wyn takes the ledger as I’ve asked him to, but I don’t let go. For a moment we’re caught with all that’s left of my father between us.

“Don’t go, Violet,” Wyn says without looking at me. “Don’t let Falmouth in. It’ll end badly.”

“Oh, Wyn.” It pains me to tell him no, but if I don’t follow theking’s rules, it’ll be a torch and a quick end for Burleigh. “I have to.”

“I still don’t like it,” Wyn says. This time he glances up at me and there’s a bleakness in his grey gaze that cuts me to the quick.

“I’ll try to get rid of him as soon as possible,” I promise, and at last I let the ledger go. Pulling myself together, I gather up my worn fen skirts and hurry toward the front grounds, and the bramble gate beyond.

At the head of the drive, I peer through the mess of thorns that patch the hole in Burleigh’s wall. A stiff, cold breeze is whipping at me on this side of the bramble gate, but on the other side, it’s pouring rain. Falmouth is sitting astride a black charger and scowling over the weather. His menservants flank him with hunched shoulders, seemingly resigned to their fate of ending up soaked to the skin.

“Hello,” I call out. “What can I do for you?”

“I’m here to see your mistress,” Falmouth calls back, his voice terse and clipped. “Is she at home?”

I smile grimly, and oh, I should know better, but I can’t resist baiting him. “She was last I checked.”

Falmouth’s horse dances in place and it saws at the bit in frustration. “Let me in at once, then.”