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He squinted, raising a hand in greeting. “Morning! Can I help you?”
“Sorry, I’m just out for a walk,” I said.
“Ah. Then you’ll be the new Ms.Vaughan,” he said.
“Not that new. I’ve been a Vaughan all my life.”
“Fair enough,” he said. He stepped forward and stuck out his hand, then realized it was grimy and winced, wiping it off on his jacket. “I’m Benjamin Locke, Master of Hounds.”
“Master of Hounds?” I repeated. I hadn’t seen a single dog on the grounds since I arrived, apart from the strange paintings in Annalise Vaughan’s gallery.
He smiled. “It’s an old title, but I like the grandiosity of it, don’t you? Harrow’s hounds are gone, though, so I guess I’m just the groundskeeper.”
“Bryony’s your daughter.” He looked like her—the fair skin and black hair, the sharpness to his face—but his eyes were brown and warm, in contrast to her gray-green.
“That she is,” he said—and then something passed over his face. The corner of his mouth tugged in a frown. His pupils contracted, ever so slightly. He shifted a fraction of a step back. “I didn’t realize you’d met.”
His voice was wary now. I’d almost gotten used to the way the people here treated me—like I was just a normal person. I had almost forgotten that instinctive revulsion.
“I’d best get back to work,” he said gruffly. He jerked his head toward the hole. It was maybe four feet deep, the sides ragged. I curled my fingers under. There was no way I could have dug a hole that deep with my bare hands, in the cold, in my sleep—was there?
“What did that?” I asked. I eased back a step, giving him space. Sometimes that helped.
He scooped up a shovelful of loose dirt and tossed it into the hole. “Could have been a dog. Or a fox. Sinkholes, I’ve heard suggested. They crop up all over the grounds. If you see one, let me know. They’ve got to be filled in right away. Don’t want anyone tripping and breaking a leg.” He worked steadily as he spoke and didn’t look at me.
“They show up a lot?”
“As long as I’ve been working here, and as long as my father did.” His eyes kept darting sideways toward me, and I could see the need to be civil to his employer warring with that bone-deep dislike.
“You’ve lived here all your life, then?”
“Just about. Wandered off sometimes, but I always seem to find my way back. Harrow has a way of laying claim to folks.”
“I’ve noticed.”
He straightened up and looked at me. He frowned, but his gaze was steady. “I decided a long time ago I could either find it frightening or take it as a compliment. I take care of Harrow, Harrow takes care of me, and I don’t listen to the stories.” He said it firmly, like he was reminding himself of that, too. His fingers tightened around the shovel, though, and I could see it, a twitching urge in his muscles.
A little voice telling him to swing it hard at my head.
I fell back another step, trying to make it seem natural. No one had ever attacked me. It didn’t take them over, this affliction of mine. It didn’t force them into anything. But if anyone ever decided to listen to that little urge, I didn’t want to be standing too close.
“What kind of stories?” I asked.
“You know how people can be,” he said. “Especially around here. Old Estoners still spread the rumor that the house snatches little girls from town every so often. Any time a girl with black eyes is born in Eston, that’s what they say—they came from Harrow, and to Harrow they will return.”
“Is it true?” I asked, alarm squeezing my chest.
He grunted. “That girls have gone missing? Sure. Girls go missing everywhere. That Harrow’s gobbling them up? I doubt it. My mother could’ve told you more. She was the head of Eston’s historical society. Collected all sorts of things about you Vaughans.”
That must be where Bryony had gotten the notebook.
“Do you know where Bryony is? I think I’d like to talk to her.”
His jaw worked. He didn’t like me. But maybe he could tell that it wasn’tmehe was reacting to, not entirely, because he nodded. “I think she’s up by the folly. It’s down that path there, past the big bent tree, next to the pond.”
“I have no idea what a folly is,” I confessed.
“It was a fashion back in the day. It’s a fake ruin. Old Nick Vaughan had it made from the stone that was left over after building the house.”
