yell.
He flinches at my words, but says nothing. I back up a few steps, and almost yell at him again, but then he folds in on himself. His knees hit the floor. He leans forward until his head is in his arms.
Is he crying, perhaps overcome with guilt?
But no. A moment later, Brandon slides to the floor with a thump and lays there with a white face, closed eyes, and a still chest.
Dead. He’s fucking dead, Pippa. You gone and killed ‘im. Howard’s laugh has me wrapping my arms around myself as I bite down on my lip hard enough to taste blood.
“No,” I murmur, shaking my head. “It wasn’t me. I never—”
I squeeze shut my eyes, but they spring open again, serving me a perfectly preserved portrait of the dead baron lying sprawled on his bedroom floor.
Nausea chases acid into my mouth. I swallow it down as I make a run for the study door. But as I pass the crib, movement inside gives me pause.
Sweet child. What pain you must have endured when your father tried to burn you alive.
I can’t leave her behind, not now that I know what the baron is capable of. I scoop her up in my arms, breathing in the fresh scent of her linen.
Lavender, just like her mother’s pillow.
I push away the thought, turning toward the study. At the same moment, I hear that familiar creak.
Someone’s coming, Howard whispers. Coming, coming, coming for you. His snicker sends goosebumps all through my flesh.
I don’t know how I manage to make it so fast — yet so silently — to the servant’s door. Perhaps that same hand as before is leading me.
Not the one who dragged me into Howie’s nursery last Friday night, a pillow in my hands and murderous thoughts in my mind. No…this is a different spirit. This one is gentle, and kind.
This one wants the baby to live.
Brandon
A vise squeezes, determined to break open my skull and force my brain through the cracks.
Rose.
Rose.
Rose!
“She’s taken Rose!” The shrill voice echoes in my head, so loud I can easily hear Mrs. Potter’s words above the pounding.
“Thank the Lord,” she whispers when I focus on her with unsteady eyes. “I thought you were dead.”
The world shifts around me as I push myself into a sit. “What?” is all I can manage as I run my hands through my hair and then down my face.
How have I come to be here? I locked myself in a guest room downstairs so I couldn’t get to Pippa, so I couldn’t defile her…
I stand on unsteady legs. “Where is she?”
“She took her ’n run, m’lord!” Mrs. Potter sidles into my view, ducking her head before peering up into my eyes. “Took Rose and run away.”
Run away? From what? I laugh at the absurdity of the thought, but when Mrs. Potter frowns at me in concern, the sound tapers off.
“Then find her,” I rumble, stabbing a finger at the door.
Mrs. Potter makes as if to leave, but then shakes her head at me. “I’ve looked everywhere, m’lord. She’s hiding, she is. Hiding somewhere with the babe.”
The room bobs when I take a step forward intent on searching every cranny of this blasted hell myself. I reach out instinctively, clutching the bedpost as I wait for both the room and my mind to settle.
How much did I drink? I remember pouring two shots, and then nothing after that. I strain for the slightest memory, but all I can come up with is the shape of Norm as he laid some new logs on the fire before disappearing—
The world turns lazily, and I nearly puke before it can catch up with me. This isn’t right. I’ve been drunk before, and it’s never felt like this.
“The walls,” I murmur as I head for the servant’s door so masterfully concealed in the corner of the room. “She’s in the walls.”
13
Pippa
In the dark, there are no stairs. No walls. No landing. I move through a shapeless void where my feet glide over invisible surfaces and my shoulders scrape against things unseen.
The faint thudding of my bare soles and my own pathetic panting shroud me as I descend ever deeper into the manor’s belly.
Rose hasn’t made a sound, and for that I’m grateful. Except if I’ve managed to smother her on the way down. My jaw clicks when my foot meets solid ground and not the empty air above another step and I pause to check that she’s still breathing.
At the third landing, I pause