The study door clicked shut, leaving Alistair alone in the sudden, ringing silence. The scent of Julia's presence—something clean and sharp like rain on stone—lingered in the air, a stark contrast to the room's heavy scent of old leather and his father's ghosts.
He did not move. He stood by the desk where he had remade himself, his hands resting on the cool, solid oak. A grim, savage satisfaction coursed through him. He had seen it in her eyes. Beneath the fear, beneath the loyalty she felt for the poet, he had seen the flicker. Understanding. Empathy.
He had cracked her perfect, logical façade. He had shown her the boy bleeding amidst the ruins, and she, with her compassionate heart, had not been able to look away. It was a start. A significant one.
Then, the fury returned, cold and sharp. Silas. The poet had appeared like a wraith, his timing perfect, his hand reaching for what was not his to claim. He had looked at Julia with that same desperate, possessive grief he had once reserved for Marian. A starving man laying claim to a feast he had no right to attend.
Alistair's hands clenched into fists. He had miscalculated with Marian. He had seen her as a beautiful, pliable ornament for his restored life, a perfect portrait to hang in the gallery. He had not accounted for the depth of her sentimentality, the weakness that had allowed the poet's words to remain rooted in her heart. Silas hadn't stolen her; her own weakness had pulled her back towards the rot of her past.
But Julia was different.
She was not an ornament. She was granite where Marian had been porcelain. She had a mind that cut and a strength she didn't yet realize she possessed. She was not a prize to be won; she was a fortress to be conquered, a kingdom to be earned. She was the only one he had ever met who felt like an equal. The rightful queen for the empire he had built from nothing. And the thought of the poet touching her, whispering his empty verses in her ear, was a sacrilege that made his blood run cold.
He left the study, the grim satisfaction solidifying into purpose. His house was infested. His family—a word that felt like acid on his tongue—had breached his walls. He could hear their voices echoing from the drawing room below. Howard's booming, false laugh. Cordelia's sharp, whining complaint. Lucien's drunken mumblings.
He descended the staircase silently, a ghost in his own home. He stood in the shadows of the hall and watched them. Howard was gesturing at the tapestries, no doubt telling Vespera how he would replace them with something more modern, more his. Cordelia was running a disdainful finger along a mantelpiece, likely calculating its worth.
Vultures, Silas had called them. It was too kind a word. They were maggots, feasting on a body they had abandoned long ago, now trying to claim the resurrected form as their own. His mother stood by the window, as ever, lost in a world of her own making, her presence both ethereal and suffocating. She had left him with a corpse and a mountain of debt, and now she stood there as if she had only just stepped out for a stroll in the garden.
A cold, methodical rage settled in his chest. He would deal with them. He would excise this rot from his house. But first, he needed to secure his future. He needed to secure Julia.
An idea began to form, a need to purge the last remnants of the past to make way for the future. He turned from the spectacle and made his way to Marian's rooms.
The housekeeper, Miss Thorne, kept them like a shrine. The air was stale, heavy with the cloying scent of dried flowers and preserved grief. It irritated him. It was the scent of failure, of a past he had no desire to revisit. He had no sentimental attachment to his dead wife. She had been part of the restoration, and she had failed to live up to her role. Her memory was now just an inconvenience.
He began to search, his movements efficient and unsentimental. He was looking for leverage, for anything his family might see as valuable, anything he could use to control their narrative or expedite their departure. He opened her writing desk, rifling through bundles of old letters—gossipy correspondence from friends, receipts from London dressmakers. It was all trivial, the mundane paper trail of a life of leisure.
He was about to close the desk when his fingers brushed against a false bottom. He pressed it. A hidden compartment clicked open. Inside was a small, lacquered box.
He opened it. More letters. But these were different. They were unsent. At the very bottom, beneath a half-finished, tear-stained letter to her sister, was a single, sealed envelope.
The script on the front was Marian's, but it was frantic, spidery, almost illegible.
Miss Evelyn Harrow.
Marian's mother.
Alistair's pulse quickened with a hunter's instinct. Why was this here? Why had it never been sent? Without a moment's hesitation, he broke the wax seal. The letter inside was dated just three days before Marian's death. He unfolded the crinkled paper. Her words were a desperate, chaotic plea.
Mother,
You cannot send her. I beg of you, whatever you do, do not let Julia come to this place. You must find an excuse. You must forbid it. This house is a prison, and he is its warden. He is not the man you think he is. He is not a charming man, the perfect husband.
He is something else entirely.
Alistair's eyes scanned the page, a cold smile touching his lips. Marian's usual melodrama. But then, the letter took a turn.
You know what he is capable of. I told you. In my last letter, I told you everything. I begged you for help. You promised me you would speak to him, that you would arrange for me to come home for a time. But your silence has been my cage. He saw the letter before I could send it. He knows that I told you.
He said that my family would not wish for a scandal. He said you, of all people, would understand the need for quiet discretion. And you have been quiet, haven't you, Mother? So very quiet.
He watches me constantly. I cannot breathe here. If you send Julia, you are not sending her as a companion. You are sending a sacrifice. You are feeding her to the wolf to save yourself from the inconvenience of the truth.
He wants her. I see it already. He speaks of her, of her strength, her intelligence. Everything he found lacking in me. Don't let him have her. Don't let him replace me. For the love of God, keep her away.
Alistair read the last line again. Don't let him replace me.
He lowered the letter, a slow, triumphant thrill spreading through him. This was not the confession of a murderer. This was not proof of his own guilt. He had known Marian was writing desperate letters; he had allowed it, to a point. It was a valve for her hysterics. But this… this was different.
This was a weapon.
A perfect, beautiful weapon.
The letter did not implicate him in a crime; it implicated Evelyn Harrow. It proved she knew of her daughter's distress. It proved she had been confided in, and that she had chosen silence over intervention. She had chosen to protect her own comfortable life over her daughter's frantic pleas. And now, she had sent her own precious Julia into the very house Marian had warned her against. It was not just negligence. It was a quiet, damning complicity.
A plan, cold and brilliant, bloomed fully formed in his mind. The board was set. His mother and her parasitic brood were a nuisance, a localized infection he could easily treat. But Silas was a poison that needed a potent antidote.
And Marian's mother was that antidote.
He could use this letter. He could force Evelyn's hand. He could make her an ally, an unwilling co-conspirator in his grand design. He would not ask her to help him win Julia. He would compel her. She would become his most powerful advocate. She would be the one to convince Julia that a match with him was not just advantageous, but necessary. Safe.
He carefully folded the letter and placed it in the inner pocket of his coat, the paper a warm, powerful weight against his chest. It was the key to everything.
He strode out of the stagnant, cloying room, leaving Marian's ghost behind. His purpose was clear now, his path illuminated. He walked down the grand staircase, his steps sure and steady. The vultures in his drawing room looked up as he passed, but he paid them no mind. They were a problem for another day.
He found a stable boy in the courtyard.
"Have my fastest horse saddled and ready in ten minutes," he commanded, his voice ringing with an authority that left no room for question. "I ride for London."
He was no longer on the defensive, waiting for the next attack.
He was taking control. The hunt had begun.