Page 17 of Once Upon a Midnight Dreary
“She loved you, Victoria,” he added.“But she was raised to keep love at a distance.Like your father.They both were.”
“They may have loved me but I was not enough to keep them home.”She placed her hands in her lap and scooted back, her gaze on the swaying flowers ahead.
It was quiet here in the garden.She quite understood why her mother would prefer it.There was solace in the soil and the blooms.
“Your father had his work.”
“Work,” she scoffed.“Social galas.Political events.Foreign courts.And for what?What did that get them?”
She wondered if her mother had whispered her regrets into the flower beds.If she’d ever looked at the train schedule and considered staying behind, just once.
“Abner lived a prestigious life.Your mother had to attend with him on those social events to show the world he was a man of honor and respect.They were both shaped by duty, not desire.That’s a hard thing to break from even for love.”
Victoria lowered her gaze to her lap, her hands twisting together.“Do you think she was happy, uncle?”
Her uncle didn’t answer right away.When she looked up, he was watching the blooms blow in the faint breeze, as though the flowers might speak before he could.
“I think,” he said slowly, “she was waiting for the day she could stay.”
Victoria nodded, the silence folding in around them once more.
“Then perhaps,” she said quietly, “it’s time someone stayed.”
Chapter 6
Theladyandheruncle returned from their garden walk.Her cheeks were flushed, but she looked happy.Such joy had not echoed through these dark, desolate halls in quite some time.She announced she would retire to her room for a rest and wished to look over the ledgers during afternoon tea.
Gabriel frowned as he watched her disappear up the curved staircase.
“I trust that’s not an inconvenience for you?”came a voice behind him.
He stiffened.The voice jolted through him like a needle.He hadn’t realized the man was standing there, watching him watch her.
Gabriel turned slowly, his jaw tight and his gaze unreadable.“Not at all, sir.”
Hubert said nothing more.He ascended the stairs for his own afternoon rest.
Gabriel’s fists clenched at his sides.He disliked the man’s presence drifting through his halls, peering at him with those beady, suspicious eyes.He did not seem in any hurry to leave the manor and return to his city life.
He sensed the shift in the surrounding air.He exhaled, and his breath misted in the air, curling like smoke.The scent of lilacs and roses followed, faint but unmistakable.He froze.
You should be rid of him.And soon.Before something dreadful happens.
The voice, soft, lilting, disembodied, whispered at his ear.He hadn’t heard her in years.And yet…there she was.
It wasn’t merely a warning.It was a promise.
The malevolent force that haunted Ravenfell had been dormant for many long years.But from the moment Miss Ravenwood arrived with her uncle in tow things began to stir.Shadows clung to the corners of the west wing.Cold patches settled in the child’s room she had insisted on opening.Something unseen awakened.
And he knew it washer.
Stalking.Watching.Waiting.
“Please don’t,” he whispered.“He means no harm.”
Doesn’t he?the voice returned.He doesn’t trust you.
Gabriel closed his eyes and expelled a slow breath.He didn’t need the voice to tell him that.It was evident in Hubert Pembroke’s glances, in the tight line of his jaw, the glint of suspicion in his eyes.
