Page 70 of The Beautiful Ones

“Gone with the Georges.”

Relief crossed her face. She glanced at my reddened cheek and then toward Mother, who stood rigid beneath the archway.

“Good,” Elin said. “Now we go.”

“Father is going to the glasshouse.”

“Let him.”

The bell rang again.

Gardenias perfumed the foyer so strongly that my eyes watered.

“Commander Vale is there,” I said.

Elin’s expression told me I was right.

“You do not need to see him.”

“Yes.” I took her hand. “I do.”

Mother ordered us to stop. Neither of us obeyed.

We followed Father into the garden.

Morning heat pressed upon the lawn, but frost silvered every place his boots had touched. Blue butterflies circled the glasshouse in vast turning columns, entering through the broken roof and pouring out again. Their wings made a single low sound—not a flutter but a hum, like voices gathered behind a wall.

The dead gardenias had opened.

White blossoms covered every bush around the rotunda. Their petals were perfect, their leaves brown. The beauty of them was obscene.

Elin and I stopped behind the ruined rose arch as Father kicked open the glasshouse door.

The Fairhavens waited inside.

All three wore black.

No servant had unpacked those clothes. Their narrow cases had been empty. Yet Octavia stood in a gown of midnight silk, Nicholas lounged upon a moss-covered bench in a black coat, and Adrian occupied the center of the rotunda as though the iron ribs and shattered panes had been constructed around him.

Father crossed the threshold with his pistol raised.

“Get off my land.”

Adrian looked toward the open doorway.

“You are no longer welcome here,” Father said. “I withdraw every courtesy of this house.”

“The welcome was not yours alone to give,” Adrian replied. “Your wife opened the door. Nathaniel’s blood held it open.”

Father’s hand shook. “What do you want?”

“Nothing you can keep.”

Nicholas turned a white gardenia between his fingers. Octavia watched from the shadows, her face bright with terrible anticipation.

“Dewey and George are gone,” Father said. “If you came for payment, they have cheated you.”

“They have merely carried their debts home.”