Page 10 of Bloodgrove

“Bloodlust?”

“He drank too much blood and summoned too much of it. His will was not strong enough, and he broke.”

Will wanted to push him further, but his mouth merely opened in silence before he turned away with a frown. What was one supposed to say to something like that? The man appeared entirely serious.

Will decided to ignore it and paced the length of the ballroom in long strides, then its width.

“Her Grace has prepared the floor plan for you.”

He counted twenty yards in one direction and eight across. Eight glass doors opened onto a narrow balcony. There were three other doors: one to the stairwell and two to a parlor where guests could take refreshments or rest. Balancing the small notebook on his forearm, he wrote down the measurements.

Though rain clouds were gathering outside, he could already imagine the ballroom glowing during the New Year’s celebration, its lights shining through the windows onto the street below, guests waving down from the balcony to new arrivals and watching the fireworks. The ballroom should be the shining heart within this dark shell.

He forced his mind to remain with the familiar and locked magic and dreams inside a forgotten chamber in his chest. He would finish what he had lost in the queen’s cousin’s ballroom, facing whatever it takes.

“Does Her Grace wish to keep the chains?” he asked, his expression carefully controlled.

“I do not believe she has any further use for them.”

Will raised an eyebrow. Perhaps he had misinterpreted the devices, and they had served a far more pleasurable purpose, though he doubted it. That would, at least, explain the grotesque mask.

“When was the last celebration held here?”

“Last winter.”

He found it difficult to imagine what kind of woman the duchess was. His gaze kept catching on new details, and each time the image he had formed of her began to waver. Her seemingly frail body and the empty expanses of the house told the story of a lonely woman. The chains in the ballroom—whether intended for fetish or cruel ritual—contradicted it. The missing furniture and scarcity of valuables suggested financial trouble, but the scale of the renovations and the salary she had offered him argued otherwise. Even so, he made a mental note to contact the bank.

He was on the verge of forming a harsh judgment when his eyes caught on a pale mark where a cabinet had once stood. On the bare stone wall behind it, a child had drawn stick figures of a family, along with a horse and several birds.

Smiling, he crouched before it and made another note. Perhaps the duchess had drawn it as a child. The dust along the baseboard showed that the chest had not been moved in years.

“Does the duchess have any siblings?” he asked, glancing back at the butler. The drawing showed a mother, a father, and four children.

“She had two sisters. One died with a dead child in her womb. The other took her own life.”

Will gasped, inhaled a mouthful of dust, and dissolved into a fit of coughing.

“Who is the fourth child?” he finally managed as he rose again.

“There was no fourth child.”

Will was beginning to hate the butler’s neutral expression. Whether he was warning him against moonlight, recounting the tragic deaths of two women, or speaking of blood magic, he never so much as blinked.

“How old is she now?” Will prodded, since the butler seemed unusually willing to answer.

“She is twenty-six.”

“Oh.” Will stopped, clutching the notebook to his chest. “The same age as me.”

“If you say so…” Hedgefort looked bored.

Over the days that followed, the duchess’s presence followed him through the grand townhouse.

To his surprise, the conservatory was the most inviting room among all the townhouse’s cryptlike chambers. Ribs of granite curved over half the room, the spaces between them filled with slender steel bars and glass. Perhaps large tropical plants had once crowded the space, but now only a handful of orange, grapefruit, and lemon trees remained. Here, too, most of the furniture was gone; only a large table had been placed in the center of the room. Rolls of paper and books waited there, along with rulers and pencils. The duchess had thought of everything, and her presence seemed to linger in the two empty chairs.

Tradespeople came to introduce themselves. Carpenters, upholsterers, painters, and glassblowers were led one after another into the conservatory by Hedgefort, where tea and sandwiches were served.

Every one of them seemed startled by Will’s requests. Their eyes moved nervously, while they perched on the edges of their chairs as though prepared to flee at any moment. Seasoned men and women with callused hands sat with their shoulders drawn high until he dismissed them.