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Down we go, the curve and switchback of the stairs unending. It keeps giving me miniature heart attacks until we get to the bottom, and I'm grateful to be on solid ground. I hear the crinkle of creek water over rocks, and a low bridge crosses a stream that emerges from the brush as he walks forward and I follow.
"Right through here," he says, our feet beating hollow on the bridge's planks. I'm so far from the big house that there's no going back at this point, and when I look up the ravine behind me, the stairs gleam in the moonlight like a threat.
"I didn't know this part of the estate existed." It's not on the maps I've seen, and it's not on the map on my phone either. Maybe I hadn't been searching for the right thing, though.
'Deathly Ravine' wasn't something I'd exactly been looking for.
There's a forest on the other side of the stream, once we cross I'm plunged into darkness, hidden from the moon.
"Benedict!" I hiss again. He's tugging faster than I'm comfortable, forcing me to walk quickly.
"Relax," he says, sounding the opposite of that, a note of tension in his throat. "They should be right—"
Light spills across my face as he pulls me into a small clearing.
I exhale at the sight of a cabin, smoke puffing out of it's tall chimney, steeped roof and stone walls welcoming as much as they're surprising here. What was I expecting, in the middle of a wooded area, down a murder staircase and over a troll bridge away from the estate house?
The light nearly blinding me is from a front door that has swung open, and a man's silhouette stands there, beckoning to us.
"Hollywood, you finally came," that man calls, and I swallow, looking up at Benedict. He steps forward, assured of himself. I hang back for a moment, the man who called to us disappearing inside the cabin. The door swings shut behind him.
"Wait, what is this?" I ask, pitching my voice low. I dig my heels in and refuse to go any further until Benedict turns around to look at me, frustration evident on his face.
"What do you think it is?"
"I don't know, your den of inequity? A Turkish bath?" He scowls at my words, glances behind him before grinning at me, mysterious and infuriating.
"This is nothing more, and nothing less, than the beginning of my brother's downfall," he says. "We're replacing the duke with yours truly." He rests his hand on his chest, as dread spills out of my heart and races along my veins, filling up my body. "And you, sweet girl, are going to help me."
17
Eva
"Who's the girl?" There are men ranged around a table, cards stacked up high and dealt between them. There's a tower of chips in front of each man. They look like Benedict, a group handsome, entitled noblemen dripping in expensive clothes and bad attitudes.
I barely acknowledge them. Benedict's words gripped me and pulled me into this viper's nest. Now I stand here, to his left and slightly behind him, trying to be absorbed into his shadow.
"Ignore her. She's bound to me." He waves a hand toward me like I'm nothing, easily dismissed and small. The rest of the men glance at me for a moment before turning back to their card game. I give him a look that I hope is menacing, but he doesn't even notice, crossing the room to take a spare, empty seat.
I stand there, dumbstruck, and count them. There are seven of them seated at the table. Seven men plotting the duke's downfall. Demise? I'm not sure. How often are dukes deposed from their titles and lands? I can't even remember it ever happening. Not in recent, modern history.
Back in the early days of America, sure. There were poisonings. There were hangings. Evil men did evil things. But that doesn't happen anymore. No matter his crimes, there’s no way for someone at the top to fall so low.
And the duke might be a cold, unfeeling recluse who seems disinterested in anything but the contents of his computer screen, but that doesn't mean he deserves the same kind of fate that met his kind two hundred years ago.
A snapping of fingers brings me out of it, and I look at the person trying to get my attention. It's the man who came to the door, his mustache as blond as his hair, his eyes dark brown and humorless. He looks like he'srealfun at parties.
"If you're good for something, serve," he says, pointing at me and then flicking his hand toward a kitchenette in the corner of the room. This cabin is small, enough for a main living area and a staircase that leads to a loft upstairs where I think I see a hint of a bedpost. There's a single door other than the front, which I'm guessing holds a bathroom. How they have plumbing and electricity out here when I've never seen this place on any of the maps of the estate I've studied is a mystery.
My gaze meets Benedict's for a fleeting moment, and he nods at me, giving me the go-ahead. Never mind that I'm not a footman or a serving girl, I've strayed into deep waters, and if I'm not careful, the current will pull me under here. What Benedict has planned is far more dangerous and removed from my past mistakes.
His one look tells me everything.Not a single wrong step here.
There are beers in the fridge, frosty-cold on my fingers, and I snap off the caps, bringing them around to the men. Benedict'sgot a handful of cards already, although he's watching me out of the corner of his eye as I go.
"My lord," I say to the first man, offering him a beer and taking away his nearly empty.
He catches my arm with his hand, yanking it forward and pulling me off balance. My eyes widen, and I jerk.
