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"Not a serious one," I tell him, and he looks taken aback that I have opinions at all. He's between me and the door, but at this point, I'll charge him if I have to. I need to get out of here and marshal my thoughts. This is way beyond anything I'd ever imagined I could be involved in or walk in on. "A massive plot to kill all of the elder sons across seven of the nation's founding families?" I ask him softly, taking a step toward him. "You're crazy."
"Insane with thwarted purpose," he replies, "you wouldn't understand. You can go anywhere and be anything." He turns away, and his shoulders are tight.
He is not the playboy I met outside of Revenge in North Hollywood. He's not the flirtatious younger son who teased me after my interview in the carriage house. He's not even the man who's kissed me, touched me, and made me want him even though I shouldn't.
He's someone else entirely, dark-shadowed and dangerous, if only to himself.
"They'll find you out, and you'll hang for it," I tell him.
"Not another word," he replies and opens the door. "They're gone."
"To their waiting cars, butlers, and drivers? Not exactly subtle." I'm twisting the knife, treading the line, even as his back stiffens and he turns, expression irritated.
"A gentlemen's gathering of cards in the old huntsman cabin is nothing suspicious."
"It is when none of you brought your phones," I reply. "Who needs to hide their whereabouts? People who are plotting." I point my finger at him. "Do you even know the first thing about planning an assassination? About not getting caught?"
"You're under the delusion that I care for your opinion." He's irritated with me, and I follow him out. Someone's going to be by to clean up the mess. Has he thought ofthat?
"What about every time you and your little crew meet up? Who's cleaning up the glass bottles and emptying the ashtrays?" I ask him. We're outside, the night air so fresh it prickles my lungsafter the smokey innards of the cabin.
He doesn't answer me, and I track behind him. Over the bridge. Up the nauseating staircase. I'm trying not to pant hard, sweating by the time we get to the top.
"Somebody is going to see something they shouldn't," I needle him, my breaths puffing out of my lungs between words. He's still silent, and the trip back to the house is faster than the trip from it.
"See, now I have all these questions," I hiss at him as we go inside the big house. Something's changed between us, with how quiet he is, and how, oh, I don't know, he's let me in on the fact he's trying to commit murder. Mass-murder. Of the 'hung drawn and quartered for treason' kind. Maybe it's that, or the night air, or how tired I am, that's taken ahold of any sense of self-preservation I have.
The servants' halls swallow us up, silent and still with everyone in bed. Even the hall boys will be asleep, although I'm not trying to keep my voice down. He's got his back to me, walking onward like he intends to just go upstairs to the family levels as if everything is normal.
He's insane.
"You're going to end up dead, and I won't have any part in this," I call after him. He stops in his tracks and turns. He comes back to me.
"I could have had you," he says, without addressing anything I've said to him over the last fifteen minutes. His eyes are burning. There's an exit sign hanging above us, casting off demonic light, and he looks like the devil, handsome and deadly.
I swallow the taste of metal in the back of my mouth and smoke.
"What—"
"After what you did today? Your body was as good as mine. I could have used you for my own desires, made you love me, and had you take care of him out of love for me. But I thought, why waste time seducing you when I could just implicate you in the same plot?" Benedict tilts his head, his sharp cheekbones thrown in red relief, and I inhale. "I made that first mistake with the last version of you. Not this time. You were there tonight. If I swing, so do you." He grabs my arm, fingers digging into the flesh of my skin. My heart is hammering like a bird's wing, slamming into my ribcage so loud I can barely hear him over it. "So what will you do?"
"I—"
He doesn't even let me get out another word, chasing me down, stealing my breath.
"You think my brother is so saintly? Maybe I should let you know what he has in store for you." His eyes are liquid glass, bottle-green with blown pupils.
"I wouldn't believe it," I whisper because nothing Benedict says is the truth. All of it is twisted words like sharp, broken glass.
"No, I don't suppose you would," he says and then pulls away. "Go to your room," he rasps. "Before I do something I regret."
I shudder at that because something in the way he talks to me makes the fire in my belly grow stronger. It's not right. He's planning to murder the duke, and he wants me to go along with it.
His eyes narrow, and he gives me a gentle, if firm, push.
"Go," he demands, and when my breath catches and I don't move, he lunges toward me. I scramble back, feet slipping on the floor, turn, and run, my feet pounding on the wooden floor. Benedict's laugh, whiskey-laced and terrifying, follows me, echoing off the walls.
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