A sharp blast of winter air hit Marquess Lucian Fairchild as he stepped outside his mansion. The remnants of dinner still lingered in his mouth – a perfectly cooked piece of beef that had gone cold as he'd conversed with the corpses of his parents. Such was his nightly ritual, a mockery of the family dinners they'd once forced him to endure.
"Will you be needing anything else tonight, my lord?" my butler asked, his eyes carefully averted from my face.
"No, Fletcher. You're dismissed until morning," I replied, noting the flicker of relief in the man's eyes.
Fletcher had served me loyally ever since I'd made an example of a maid who'd tried to flee after discovering what lay in my cellar. Her screams had been particularly instructive to the rest of the staff. Fear, I'd found, was a far more reliable motivator than money.
