Page 48 of A Treason of Thorns

“You said yourself Burleigh dragged Falmouth off the grounds. This House isn’t right anymore. What if it did the same to Wyn? What if it broke its bond and did away with him?”

“Did away with him?” The anger that courses through me is ahot and electric thing. “Are you calling Burleigh a murderer? My House would never.”

Mira looks profoundly weary. “Violet, my love. Your House already has. And I know what your father taught you to be. What you’ve always thought was your role. But can you, Violet Sterling, really put this House before anything else when it comes down to it? Beforeanyone? Think on that. Think long and hard. And do it while you’re packing—I can’t, in good conscience, let you stay in a place that constantly puts you in harm’s way.”

For a moment, I think of stamping my feet or raging at her, but my anger’s already collapsing into grief. If Mira looks weary, I feel as if I’ve lived on this Earth for a thousand years.

“It doesn’t matter if you don’t want me to stay,” I tell her, and my voice breaks on the words because I love Jed and Mira with my whole heart. I’d be lost without them. “I can’t go. Not until I’ve unbound this House or it lies in ashes.”

Violets spread around my feet like ripples as I speak.

“Why?” Mira asks. “Help me to understand, Vi. Why can’t you just leave this place behind?”

I sniff, and give her a long look through my tears. “Who else does Burleigh House have to speak on its behalf? No one, Mira. No one. Without me, it would be entirely alone.”

“Where are you going?” she calls after me as I stumble off.

“To look for Wyn. He can’t have got far.”

16

WYN IS WELL AND TRULY GONE.

I search the House from top to bottom. I scour the gardens, and the meadow, and the graveyard. I look in every outbuilding. At last, I have to leave for the Shilling, but going without having found Wyn tears me to pieces. The knowledge that either he left or came to some sort of harm sits inside me, cold and poisonous as mortar.

At the Shilling, there’s no sign of Esperanza and Alfred—presumably they’re in hiding, avoiding an encounter with Falmouth, who’s still in residence at the inn. But he’s sequestered in the gentlemen’s gaming room so I see nothing of him until late in the evening. Then a clatter sounds from the kitchen. At the end of the bar, Frey glances over her shoulder toward the corridor.

“Here, Vi.” She hands me a tray of glasses filled with strong, expensive whiskey. “You take this into the gaming room while I see what’s going on out back.”

I do as I’m bid. As I go, I repeat over and over to myself,You will not lose your temper you will not lose your temper you will not lose your temper.

But as I walk into the smoky, lamplit room, I can feel my shoulders tense and my stomach tie itself up into knots. Falmouth sits at the farthest table, intent on a hand of what looks to be whist. I weave through the tables, replacing empty whiskey glasses and ignoring the bawdier comments from traveling merchant men—the folk of the Halt who frequent the public room never pester me so. As I work, I watch Falmouth. I watch him win his hand and smile, as if he expects the world to hand him whatever he wishes for. I think of him forcing his way through Burleigh House’s wall, leaving a wound that even now hasn’t really healed. I recall my House’s rage at his presence. And I think of the fact that when I go home tonight, barring some miracle, there’ll be no Wyn faithfully keeping watch over my bedroom door. All because of Lord Falmouth.

“Well, here she is, the Caretaker turned barmaid,” Falmouth drawls as I freshen the table. “I was just telling these gentlemen that I’m off to Bath first thing in the morning, to recommend His Majesty torch your foul-tempered House. No one wants another Ripley Castle, now do they?”

I grit my teeth and silently replace his glass.

But the Duke of Falmouth keeps speaking, his voice low and his words insidious. “Did you know I was acquainted with Marianne Ingilby, too? Yes. The girl who brought down the Sixth House and ruined all of Yorkshire. We were thick as thieves back in the day, Marianne and your father and me. I rather think George fancied Marianne, until Ripley Castle finished her off and he had to settle for your mother.”

Everyone’s attention is fixed on us, and I keep my face a careful blank.

“You don’t like hearing about the Sixth House, do you?” Falmouth taunts. “It always struck a nerve with your father, too. And isn’t it odd how history seems to be repeating itself? Another failing House. Another desperate girl. Another county on its way to ruin.”

A discontented murmur runs between the listening travelers, and I swallow. Of all the things I’m risking, trying to set Burleigh free, the good of the West Country weighs heaviest on my shoulders.

“Burleigh is nothing like Ripley,” I answer sharply. “For eight hundred years it’s guarded this piece of the country, and been only gentle.”

With slow, deliberate motions, Falmouth rolls up his shirtsleeves, revealing the angry red welts at his wrists where Burleigh’s vines caught and dragged him. “Is this how your House deals gently with people?”

The murmurs among those watching grow louder.

“You deliberately provoked my House!” I say. “You walked onto its grounds and did nothing but bluster and threaten and speak of its death as if it can’t hear or feel a thing.”

“It isn’t human, Miss Sterling.” Falmouth shakes his head, as if I’ve taken leave of my senses. Blood and mortar, I think I hate him worse than the king.

“No. No, it isn’t. But Burleigh is alive,” I insist. “It can think and it has a will of its own and it knows what everyone’s saying about it—that it’s not worth saving. That it would be better to just let it burn. So yes, of course my House is on edge. It’s suffering.”

“And what is the kindest thing to do for a suffering creature?” Falmouth purrs smoothly. “Put it down. The greatest impedimentto the well-being of the West Country right now is not Burleigh House, Miss Sterling. In point of fact, it’s you, and your foolish insistence on attempting the impossible. If your father, a Caretaker in good standing, was unable to save Burleigh, what makes you think you have the slightest chance? Whatexactlyis it you’re doing to try and restore Burleigh House?”