questioned your venture from the moment you confided in me. I hated everything about it. I realize now I didn’t know anything about it. I didn’t understand what you sought to create because there’s never been anything quite like it. But then, there is no one in the world like you.
Hugh.
Emotion wadded in her throat, and she stroked her fingers lovingly over the words he’d written and intended to give her.
She wanted a future with Hugh, a home with him.
Knock-Knock-Knock.
Lila stiffened. It had been inevitable. She wouldn’t have simply said her piece and that would’ve been the end of it. Nor was it fair for Lila to expect as much. She’d withheld information from her sister, all the while knowing how Sylvia felt about fighting. And yet Lila had conducted work in her household.
And in that careful omission . . . were you really any different from Hugh?
Knock-Knock-Knock.
Shaken by that realization, she called out. “Enter.”
The panel opened a fraction and then widened as her sister stepped inside.
It was the first time she’d shed her widow’s weeds. Gloriously attired in robes of burnt orange and red, with gold wings and a gold crown atop her flaxen curls, she was every bit the Phoenix she’d come in as, a young widow risen from the ashes.
Lila stuffed the damning page in her hands into the notebook. “Sylvia,” she greeted. She dropped that last volume into the bottom of the valise and then snapped it shut.
Her sister fidgeted with the black diary in her hands. “You’ve not changed into a costume.”
Taken aback, Lila glanced down. “You . . . want me there?”
Tears filled her sister’s eyes. “Of course I do.” She brushed the drops back, and a glimmer shone there. “Would it have stopped you from joining me tonight?”
From the moment she’d learned Sylvia would attend Lady Prendergast’s masquerade, she’d resolved to be there. Lila managed a watery smile. “No.”
“Good.”
Balancing her weight onto her right side, Lila made to struggle to her feet, but her elder sister waved her back into a seated position. Instead, Sylvia joined Lila on the floor. Her makeshift wings knocked awkwardly against the armoire. “You expected I shouldn’t understand what your dream was . . . is?” she asked without preamble.
“I . . . thought you might not be able to look past what it is.”
“I hate fighting,” her sister said, a fire to match her costume flaring in her eyes. Passion drew forth every word from Sylvia’s lips. “I hate Gentleman Jackson’s and boxing.” She drew in an unsteady breath. “But I understand what you wish to create, and more importantly why you wish to do so.” Inching over, she took up a spot beside Lila’s shoulder. “Since you’ve spent time with His Grace . . . and learned how to fight, you’ve been empowered. In ways that music didn’t even do for you. As such, I’d not hold your dreams against you because of my nightmares.” Sadness traipsed across Sylvia’s eyes, and she glanced down at the book in her fingers. “I never understood Norman’s deep love for fighting . . . until I did.” She held the diary out.
Lila moved her gaze from the cracked and aged leather back to her sister.
Sylvia nodded. “Go on, take it.”
Collecting the small volume, Lila opened the book and read through the words written there. All the while her sister spoke. “It began with his family”—the marquess?—“and grew . . . because of them.”
Lila went absolutely still as the full weight of what she had read slammed into her.
A lone tear wound a trail down Sylvia’s pale cheek, and Lila’s sister caught that drop and dashed it away. Angling her head away from Lila, she stared off to the opposite side of the room. “I found it the day of the funeral. Entirely by chance. In fact, I don’t think I would have come across it otherwise. That morn, I was ill . . . because of the babe, and had to slip away to be sick. I found the marquess rummaging through Norman’s desk. He was frantic. The moment I came upon him, he stopped and said something about a special note he wanted to find as a keepsake for his wife, and then rejoined the viewing. After the guests had gone, I scoured Norman’s drawers, searching everywhere. There was a hidden panel. I found that.” She tipped her chin toward the diary.
Lila read each damning word. An accounting of years of atrocities.
And her very soul ached for the