Page 5 of Darkest at Dusk
His plan redrew itself: offer of employment again, but sweeter…wages paid in advance, the restoration of a library long starved of attention. If Barrett still refused, there were other avenues to consider: debts, habits, collectors. He would not use force. He would only invite necessity to do its work. Villainy wore many names, and of them, collector of rents was one the world forgave. He would make immediate inquiries of the owner of the house that Barrett rented, discover what price he must offer to purchase it outright.
He ought to leave London now and let things cool. He ought to think only of locks and shut doors, of the ash-stink that crawled from the north wing at night.
He ought not to think of dark hair and dark eyes, the precise tilt of a chin at the window, the way the curtain had allowed a slivered glimpse and no more.
The air to his left went a degree colder; he did not turn. He had learned long ago not to acknowledge their presence.
Setting off once more, he favored his left leg as little as pride allowed. The ache sang along the old burn scars, a useful hurt, keeping a tally. He would have both the woman and the other half of the book, one way or another. He would empty his house of the thing that had brought so much death to his door, had made a pyre of his father and called it kinship. If the only key to that lock was a living one, if Isabella Barrett was the mechanism by which his goals could be achieved, then he would arrange it. Gently, if he could. Otherwise—not.
“Who was he?” Isabella asked as she joined her father at the breakfast table. He was already seated, a steaming cup of black coffee clutched between trembling hands, his breakfast of shirred eggs, ham, and toast barely touched.
As he lifted the cup to his mouth, his fingers shook so badly that the liquid sloshed over the rim and onto the tablecloth, a dark blotch marring the pristine white.
She took a sip of her tea, forcing her tone to remain soft and even as she prodded him. “Papa?”
His gaze remained on his plate rather than lifting to meet her own.
“No one.” The words came too quickly. “He is no one.”
She set her cup down with exaggerated care. That was not an answer, it was an erasure.
“He is not no one,” she said, the sharpness of her growing concern leaking into her tone. “You were in the street shouting like a fishmonger at someone.”
He exhaled on a ragged sigh then pushed his plate farther away, the silverware clattering. Isabella narrowed her eyes.
An icy hand settled on her shoulder, sending a chill spreading through her like frost spidering across a windowpane.
The hand was not real.
And yet, it pressed cold through flesh and bone.
Breath, damp and frigid, touched the curve of her ear. The hem of a translucent, colorless skirt wavered at the edge of her vision. She glanced up into a face that was the color of lead then back down to her plate.
Too slow. Papa caught it.
“What are you looking at?” His voice was sharp, frayed at the edges.
“I was not looking at anything,” Isabella said, her fingers tightening around her fork. “I was looking away from you in exasperation.”
He did not smile. He knew the shape of the lie. Suspicion hovered, but he let it pass. Isabella lowered her gaze to the tangible things on the table…bread, tea, the gleam of cutlery.
The clang of a door slamming shut. Cold iron on her palm.
Tap…tap…tap.
Never say it. Never show it.
Lessons learned in a whitewashed corridor with a door that locked from the outside. She had trained herself not to look when the ghosts glided into her line of sight, not to flinch when their fingers, frigid and clawed, brushed against her skin, leaving trails of icy dread.
But sometimes, when she was not wholly focused on not looking, she did look as she had just now.
Isabella sighed and took another sip of tea, then reached across the table and pushed her father’s plate back toward him. With a soft exhalation, he resumed his meal. The woman floated to the corner and stayed there.
Only when her father was done, the last morsel swallowed, did Isabella say, “Who is he, Papa? Why were you so angry?”
“He is a scoundrel.”
Isabella arched a brow. “So you indicated with a variety of fascinating words. Why was he here?”
