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“Sandra, enough,” Caleb said, pain in his voice.
“Everyone is grieving, Sandra. It doesn’t give you license to act like a complete bitch,” Victoria said, shaking her head.
“Tell me more about how my daughter’s death is affectingyou, Vicky,” Sandra shot back with a sneer that transformed her whole face into a mask of grief and anger.
“Sandra.”Caleb rose from his chair. His voice cut through the argument so effectively it took me a moment to realize he hadn’t raised his voice at all. “Please.”
“Sorry,” she said casually. “I’m drunk.”
“What else is new?” Roman asked, but Sandra just laughed. I stared at them. Iris started eating again without comment, and Sandra reached out to claim a bottle of wine to refresh her glass, and no one else said a word. I looked down the table at Desmond, but he was staring at his plate in fixed silence. Celia looked on the verge of melting into the rug.
Caleb sat back down. He cleared his throat and looked at me. His expression was one of perfect control, as if nothing at all had just happened, but when he spoke, his voice broke. “Tell me, how are you finding Harrow thus far?”
Right. Change of subject. So we weren’t going to acknowledge what had just happened. You didn’t talk about your problems at Harrow; you talked around them. The family strategy apparently applied to more than the supernatural. “Strange, if I’m being honest,” I managed. I didn’t see a point in lying about that, not when we all knew it was true. “I can’t imagine growing up here.”
“We didn’t exactlylivehere,” Mom said, sounding cautious as if afraid of another outburst. “I mean, we were at Atwood most of the time.”
“The last child to actually live at Harrow full time was at the turn of the century,” Eli said. “Though, traditionally, all the children of the family spent the summer and holidays here.”
“We never really have,” Desmond said. “I split holidays with my other grandparents and my dad in Geneva. I’ve only ever spent a week at Harrow here and there.”
“Things aren’t as they once were,” Eli replied, looking uncomfortable.
“Harrow has been a bit less suitable for guests the last while,”Iris allowed. “Certain problems with maintenance, that sort of thing.”
“What, like a leaky roof?” I asked.
“It is very difficult to find workers who will come all the way out to Harrow,” Eli said, which didn’t seem like an answer.
“That might have something to do with how they keep disappearing,” Sandra said blithely. The whole table went tense. “All thoseterribleaccidents. Not to mention all those girls.”
“That’s a nasty rumor, and I would think you knew better than to spread it,” Iris said. Her tone was mildly cross, like she was admonishing someone for confusing the salt and pepper shakers. Still, everyone shifted uncomfortably as if she’d just dressed them all down. I might be sitting at the head of the table, but there was no doubt who was at the head of the family.
“My point,” Eli said, “was that Atwood has been more of a consistent home for the youth of our family than Harrowstone Hall itself. It’s a pity that you returned to the fold so late, or you might have attended yourself.”
“I wish I’d gone earlier,” Celia said with a little sigh. “Everyone already knows each other. It’s been hard making friends.”
“You have like eight hundred friends,” Desmond said, rolling his eyes.
“Those arefriendly acquaintances, Desmond—there’s a difference,” she shot back with a hearty eye roll of her own.
“I’d much rather have gone to London with you,” Desmond said. “Just saying.”
“London?” I asked.
“I was doing some work for the London offices of the company,” Victoria said. “With Celia still being so young, we decided to hold off on Atwood until high school.”
I caught a glimpse of Roman as Victoria was talking and blinked in surprise. The look on his face was one of flinty anger. I wondered if it had something to do with what Sandra had hinted at—that Victoria had given up her career so she wouldn’t outclass her husband. She had to make herself small to fit around him, I thought. I could see it under the surface, the pieces of herself she’d carved away so that he could feel mighty.
I looked away quickly. I didn’t want to see these things. Those were her secrets, not Harrow’s. I shouldn’t be prying into them.
Soon conversation turned to meaningless topics, and I found my mind drifting.
One of these people might be a murderer.
I wished it was harder to believe, but under the current of every conversation, I could feel the tensions that ran like fault lines beneath the surface of the family. Roman simmering with discontent, furious that his efforts to ingratiate himself to Leopold and the family had failed. It would be easy to underestimate Roman, I thought. He had that frat-guy-all-grown-up air about him. He drank and sulked. But he was smart, too. And he thought long term. I could see him poisoning Leopold if he thought it would get him closer to the family’s money—or whatever power he thought being Master of Harrow would grant him.
Except that ithadn’tgotten him closer. He only made sense as a suspect if he hadn’t known that I would be heir. Maybe that hadbeen the point—Leopold had suspected that someone meant to do him in, and he’d left everything to me as a way of frustrating their plans.
