Page 74 of The Beast's Heart

Then I’m alone with Adam. Close and quiet.

At length, he speaks,“Your father… you said he’s…?”

This is the last thing I want to talk about, but I owe him an explanation. “Yes. Brain tumor. But he needed the money, so he was going to come here anyway. And I couldn’t let him. If something happened…” I swallow, looking anywhere but at Adam’s face. “Last year he went on a field trip with Zane’s class. They were in London when he had the seizure. Help was right there. But here…”

I let the sentence trail, and Adam finishes for me, “we’re isolated.”

“I’d have no way of knowing if something happened. He’d have no way of getting help. I’m fully aware that this was a bullshit plan. That’s what Zane called it. But if I could just make it here, it meanthecouldn’t. Not without exposing me. And he’d be forced to stay home, where it’ssafe.”

I’m shivering once more and Adam wraps his jacket around me again. “You should probably take off your pants too.”

I flush, the heat in my face almost welcome. Now doesn’t feel like the time to quip about the different meaning of ‘pants’ in British English.

My trousers are muddy and cut up, cold and clinging to me. Adam’s jumper is large enough to preserve my modesty. I tug off my shoes and wriggle out of my trousers, all too aware of my pale legs and my skinned knees.

He takes the trousers and goes through the pockets, carefully extracting pieces of glass, bent wire, a pen, the pager I forgot about and the library key.

“It was a bullshit plan,” he murmurs. “But a courageous one.”

“I’m so sorry. I should have come clean earlier.”

“Belle, stop.” He sets aside the contents of my pockets. “Please stop apologizing. I’m the one who should be begging for forgiveness for the way I acted. I was… hurt, scared but also…” His eyes focus on the floor between us. “Embarrassed. No one else knows I live like that.”

His voice is so small.

“I think they do,” I say softly. “Inside at least.”Desolate, broken, incomplete, abandoned.

Adam’s breath catches.

“Sorry,” I say again, before he can respond. I feel sleepy, my mind buzzing with echoes of the storm, my limbs heavy with exhaustion and skin purpling with new bruises. “Do you think I can go to bed?”

Adam hums. “Adrenaline wearing off?”

“Must be.”

“Could also be a concussion. I’d rather not leave you alone.” He rises and offers me his hand to help me stand.

My legs feel leaden but I’m steady on my feet, I don’t really need the supportive arm around my waist, but I don’t protest it either. He guides me out of the kitchen, away from the blissful heat of the fire.

I hesitate at the foot of the stairs. “I— If the children see me?—”

But he guides me past the stairs. “Don’t worry about that.”

We go down the darkened passage to the heavy library doors, which he opens with my key. I think this is our destination, but he leads me past the reading area. My eyelids are heavy, and it feels a little like I’m already in a dream when he reveals the secret doorway and helps me up the steep stairs into his bedroom.

He’s taking me to his bedroom.

I find myself holding my breath as we exit the narrow servant’s passage. I’m still hoping that his room is complete, if not decorated. That it’s at least warm and clean like the children’s. But even without my glasses, it’s immediately clear this isn’t the case. My heart cracks at the sight of the space. It’s an empty shell. The antithesis of everything one would expect the master bedroom of such a grand house to be. Rain-dim patterns play across the old wooden floorboards. Even though there are rolls of plastic-wrapped wallpaper piled against the far wall, the walls are bare, gray plaster. A chandelier lies on its side, covered in dust, near the center of the room, like something left by an opera ghost. And, saddest of all, is the unmade bed. A king-sized mattress on a bare base. The thick down duvet is as gray as the walls, tossed haphazardly across only one side of the bed.

We’ve exited from a doorway beside a standalone closet and items of clothing lie strewn over and around a chair beside a floor-to-ceiling mirror. Adam mumbles an apology and gathers the clothing quickly into his arms, disappearing into an adjoining room that must be the en suite, but my blurry vision can’t make out any distinct shapes beyond.

“I don’t understand,” I say, as Adam returns. “My room… why don’t you sleep there?” My room is lavish luxury compared to this place.

He avoids my gaze, moving to the bed to shake out the bedding. “That was, uh, Lloyd’s room.”

A fresh chill runs through me and my chest aches like I’m being crushed. All at once I’m whisked back to the pages of Wuthering Heights, to a ghost at a window calling to be let in.Lloyd’s room.The record player, the records, the beautiful decorations, Lily-Iris’s superstitions. I feel stupid for not guessing that sooner.

“You didn’t share a room?” I ask.

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