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“Simon’s treachery might have been the final blow.” Conor thought back to Glynnis’s face as she passed him last night. Years of grief had stripped her raw. “I hate to think it. Are you sure there’s no way of knowing?”
“None. Perhaps her heart just gave out. Or she saw something in the wood. Maybe—”
Conor’s head came up. “You said she was found near the barrows? Then They know what happened to her. They must have seen.”
“The fey?”
Conor nodded. “It looks like I have more to discuss with them than I thought.”
Jamys shot him a look of surprise. “You’re planning on summoning the fey? Do you think they’ll show themselves?”
Conor’s voice was firm. “They’d better. I don’t have time to play their game. I need answers, and I need them now.”
As if she’d been forgotten or—she preferred to imagine—as if she were already a part of this family, Ellery had been left to find her own way through the morning. Glynnis’s unexpected death had thrown the household into shock. Servants huddled in knots as if unsure how to proceed. Messengers came and went from the house, riding to Plymouth, Penzance, London to deliver the news. Ellery tried to feel a sorrow. But Glynnis’s venomous words haunted her. He’ll take you like the beast he is.
Conor had taken her. More than once. And Ellery had reveled in the sweet, hot pleasure. So much for her soul.
She ran into Mikhal and Morgan in the great hall, Conor’s father pulling on his gloves. “I’m riding into Penzance. I’ve got to see to Glynnis’s burial.”
Seeing Ellery approach, they broke off thei
r conversation to greet her, their smiles strained but welcoming.
“After the threat you suffered last night, I hope this tragedy hasn’t unsettled you further. I instructed everyone to let you sleep undisturbed as long as you wished,” Mikhal said.
“Conor included.”
“That was kind of you, but I’m fine. Really.” She flushed. Was it her imagination or was her loss of virginity like a brand on her forehead? Neither treated her with any less respect, but she swore she saw a spark of something pass between them. She ignored it. After all, what could she say without sounding a fool—or a slut? “I’m sorry about Glynnis. Is there anything I can do?”
Mikhal shook his head. “All is in hand. It’s just a shame that in her view God and fey must always be in opposition. The conflict broke her.”
Morgan scowled. “She was too weak for such a life. Too weak to understand.”
Mikhal turned a wizened eye on Morgan’s pronouncement. “Mayhap, but Talan should have known better than to wed her. In his arrogance, he thought he could change her. Make her understand, but he never did. And then he was gone.”
Ellery swallowed hard around the knot in her throat. “Someone once told me that it doesn’t take belief to make the fey world real. It just is. And that some things you simply have to take on faith.”
Mikhal’s lips curved in the barest hint of satisfaction. “Sounds like my son has been sermonizing at you. He’s quite right, you know.”
Again Ellery had the sense that Mikhal knew about her and Conor. Knew and, for some reason, approved.
She found Conor in Glynnis’s dressing room rummaging through a dainty white and gold lady’s writing desk. No one could have seemed more out of place surrounded by the feminine pale yellow walls, lace curtains, and slender gold-accented furniture. And yet there was something touching about the care he took with each item he uncovered. Letters, diaries, scraps of ribbon, pressed flowers; all the mementos of a life gently laid out piece by piece. Her heart ached with an unexpected jolt at the consideration he took over someone who had hated him. Who had tried to kill him. It was a glimpse into the man beneath the well-armored exterior.
Slump-shouldered over his task, it was easy to see how tired he was. How tension, grief and the effects of injury and illness had worked to wear him down. It was a wonder he’d held together for as long as he had. She wanted to take him in her arms, smooth the frown from his brow. She couldn’t destroy Asher, but she could ease Conor’s burden for a little while. Long enough to allow him to heal. Strengthen.
He raked a hand through his hair, blew out a breath and pushed back from the desk. “There’s nothing here. No note. No journal entry. I’ve searched this entire room. If it was suicide, she wasn’t confessing.”
She wasn’t surprised he knew she was there. Only that he’d allowed her to witness his weakness. Perhaps last night signaled more than the loss of her sanity. Maybe there was hope for more with him. She’d keep that thought pushed down deep. No sense in getting carried away.
“But Glynnis wouldn’t, would she?” Ellery asked. “She’d have known the consequences of taking her own life. No burial in consecrated ground. Eternal damnation. She seemed a very…Christian woman.”
He snorted his derision. “If you mean fires-of-hell, sins-of-the-flesh Christian. Yes, she was that.”
“She suspected there was something between us. She warned me away from you.”
“Did she?” His voice was even, noncommittal, but she knew him well enough now to know the effort it took to sustain that control.
She lost her patience. “Your whole family knows, don’t they?”
