Page 47 of Darkest at Dusk
Isabella slipped out onto the terrace, skirts skimming the stone. The sky was darkening, the air clean and fresh without a hint of dust or beeswax or old paper. She walked down into the garden, past box hedges gone leggy, bristled and black rose canes, and a sundial covered in lichen. Still, she could taste the house on the back of her tongue. She took a deep breath, letting the wash of cold air ease her nerves.
As always, she heard them, the whisper of the wraiths, murmurs without words, quieter than they had been in London, but still there at the periphery of her senses.
But other than the girl, she still had not seen one here at Harrowgate, a lack that left her uneasy.
From behind her came the crunch of gravel.
“Miss Barrett.”
Mr. Caradoc stood just beyond the terrace steps, a lantern in one hand, casting a golden circle around him. His other hand was tucked in his coat. A lock of his sleek, dark hair had fallen across his brow.
“You should take a lamp if you plan to walk the garden after dusk,” he said. The words could have been censure or concern. She did not know him well enough to decide.
“Is the garden so dangerous, then?” Her chin tipped up.
He glanced to the thicker growth and darker shadows to the north. “Not all dangers strike quickly,” he said mildly. “Some prefer to wait.”
She ought to have thanked him and gone inside. Instead, she stayed.
As he came to stand beside her, the lantern threw their shadows long across the ground. The ever-present hum at the edge of her senses quieted, as if a hive had settled after swarming. Beside her, he went still and drew a slow breath through his nose, as if he felt it too.
Then he said, “It is quieter.”
She turned to face him fully, surprise warring with wariness. He could not mean the voices, the whispers. Surely, he could not mean that.
She swallowed and asked, “What is quieter?”
He studied her for a long moment, his eyes locked on her own. Then he said, “The wind. It dropped at sundown.”
A deflection, neatly done. Her mouth curved. His gaze flicked to her lips, then back to her eyes.
“Do you always lie so easily, Mr. Caradoc?” she asked. She surprised herself with her own temerity. She dared much to speak to him so, and had she been pressed to explain herself, she did not think she could have.
“I do not lie,” he said. “I omit.”
She could have laid bare the unspoken fact he had omitted, his time at St. Jude’s. But just as he had not revealed his experiences there, she had not revealed hers. She did not owe him that, nor did he owe her. He did not owe her a revelation of his pain.
“Ah,” she said softly. “A distinction.”
“A useful one.” One corner of his mouth curled as if at some inward jest.
He lifted the lantern and turned, light skimming the ruined, overgrown beds. “My mother planted rosemary there. Rue there.” He indicated a tangle off to one side. “The plants hold their shape only so long after the hand that cared for them is gone.”
Grief lived in the words, the tone, the set of his shoulders.
“Rosemary and rue,” she murmured. “Memory and warning.”
He glanced at her, quick and sharp.
“You miss her,” she said, thinking of Papa, thinking in that moment how much she missed him.
“She remains,” he said, and paused. “In my heart.”
The breath he let stretch between the first words and their gentler correction pricked at her. For an instant, she had thought he meant his mother remained here in more than memory, in walls and drafts and a watchful hush.
A thread of heat swirled around her ankles, like the heat of a fire breathing against her skin. The lantern flame leaned. From the house came a sound, a rhythmic tapping. Mr. Caradoc stiffened, a muscle in his jaw clenching.
“You hear it,” Isabella murmured.
