Page 46 of A Legacy of Lies

She bowed her head and whispered, “Yes, Your Grace. Of course.”

Eleanor sat back, satisfied. Her cane tapped once, like a gavel. A judgment rendered. A door closed.

*

Across the hall, Nathaniel lit the second lamp. Still, the corners of the study clung to shadows. Outside, the storm rattled the panes in their lead frames, as though even the house feared what waited on his desk.

The pouch lay where he had put it. Velvet against the polished wood.

He had passed it a dozen times, resisting the pull. To open it was to admit what he already feared, the reasons for Clara’s silence. The house whispered ruin.

He exhaled, the last of his reticence slipping with his breath, and untied the cord.

Jewels spilled across the blotter, tumbling into the lamplight. Rubies, emeralds. A string of pearls that hissed against the wood. He stared at them, his throat tightening.

So many hands. So many lies. From auction rooms to private collections to a servant’s trunk.

Something shifted, struck his thumb, and stilled. A ring. Gold. Heavy. The Hartleigh crest, sharp in the lamplight.

His breath caught. He knew this ring. He had seen it tap a desk while Charles urged him to take a case. He had heard its scrape against parchment while a man begged for his life. “He set me up. Look at him, not me.”

Nathaniel had fought. Had torn his voice raw with argument. But a rebuttal had arrived too swiftly. Too clean. The verdict came anyway. He had walked out of that court with his name intact, but not his honor. He had not saved a man, only shortened his sentence. His reputation never recovered.

Now, the ring burned in his palm. Heavy. Too heavy. Its heft dragged at him like a body, slumped against him, Familiar. Helpless. Dead.

He clenched the ring tight until it cut crescents into his skin. Pain. Small. Honest. Something he could carry.

The wind screamed down the chimney. For a heartbeat, it twisted into a sound, raw and desperate.

Adrian!

His own voice, echoing out of the past. Memory didn’t rise. It slammed.

The coach, lurching. The wheel, gone. Horses screaming. The jolt. No time to brace. No time to cry out. Adrian’s body, pinned beneath the wreck, blood on his temple like ink poured too fast.

Nathaniel tore at the splintered door. Dragged him out. Stumbling through the road, breath ragged, arm wrapped tight. One horse, already still. The other, caught in the harness, wild-eyed.

He cut the leather straps with hands that didn’t feel like his, freeing the living beast.

He lifted Adrian. Mounted. Rode. Hard. Every hoofbeat a prayer. Every jolt a plea. Hold on. Just hold on.

The smell of scorched leather filled his nose, though no fire burned in the grate. His hands tingled, remembering splinters that used to be there. His knees ached with the ghost of bruises from his fall. And still the horses screamed. None of it was real, not now, but close. Too close.

The pounding storm matched the pounding in his skull. Rain on stone. Hooves in mud. Thunder, or something breaking open inside him.

Adrian lingered for two days. When the end came, the light went out of him.

Nathaniel blinked, but the image came anyway. Charles’s hand on his shoulder. Steady voice. Hollow eyes. You brought him home. You did all you could. You are as a son to me now.

No anger. No blame. Only comfort.

Still, the ring in his hand gleamed like judgment.

He shut his fist until the crest bit deeper. If Willie had carried this ring, perhaps it had been stolen. One more crime lay at that thief’s feet.

Yet, the sight of it unsettled him. Why here? Why now? Why among jewels hidden in her cloak?

Lightning cleaved the sky, white fire spilling across the study. Nathaniel didn’t flinch. Didn’t breathe. His heart hammered, not with fear, but with fury, with grief too old to soothe.