of survival of the fittest, over man’s coddling and nurturing. Proof enough was the gift he’d given her for her fifth birthday. She believed the baby rabbit to be a pet. Father thought otherwise, forcing her to watch as the eagle swooped the front lawn and plucked its meal with a single flex of its talons. She never forgave that bloody bird. And in many ways, nor had she ever forgiven her father. Him being alive one minute and dead the next was news she accepted without even the slightest show of grief. It was simply the Ogilvy way. The hardened view of life that had been taught to her since birth.
Placing the letter on the sofa cushion, Sarina fanned her fingers over the thick rag, the paper’s fibers scraping gently against her flesh. She glanced across the drawing room.
“He’s dead, isn’t he,” Nevan said, refusing to look up from the assortment of wolf fangs scattered on the table in front of him. His unnatural fascination with the teeth had grown since their arrival in Edinburgh. Though if she were to admit it, she doubted Nevan’s attachment to the hideous things could have been prevented even if they had remained living in New York. The boy had an obsession for strange objects, much like had their father.
Frowning, Sarina nodded. “I’m afraid so.” She hated having to tell her younger half-brother the truth, but for a twelve-year-old, Nevan was far wiser than his age normally allowed. “I’m also afraid Lord Lycansay’s letter does not give an explanation.”
“Death needs no explanation.”
“That may be, but I do feel we are owed one. The letter says nothing of Father’s final moments.”
Nevan stroked one of the teeth. “Death is sometimes swift, Sister. You need only look at my own mother, dead and gone not a minute into my life.”
As if she could ever forget the lovely Elsbeth. The woman’s screams from that night, along with the requiem of haunting noises that followed her death—sounds Sarina still could not accurately decipher twelve years later—plagued her dreams nightly. Even the scent of that moment—the faint trace of moss coupled with citrus—teased her nose to the point of near suffocation most days. Ogilvys had minds that trapped all things brutal and unnatural. Father claimed the ability a gift. She claimed it a curse.
“I’m sure we’ll learn the details soon enough,” Sarina said, her hand still on the letter. “It could have been anything from a fall from a tree, to poisoning from eating something he’d wrongly identified.”
“Or the bite of a feral animal.”
She raised her eyebrows at Nevan’s answer. “What makes you say such a thing?”
“Father studied animals.”
“True, but he also studied berries and leaves and flowers and everything else the outdoors has to offer.”
“A beast would make for a better story.”
“Death is not fiction, Nevan.”
Her brother shrugged. “Still, my money is on a beast. Care to wager, Sister?”
She most certainly did not. “Father would be ashamed to hear you talk of such sins.”
“The dead can’t hear, Sister. That, and wagering is more a gentleman’s folly than it is a sin. And being that Father is gone, I am the man of this family. Which, considering Father was a gentleman, so too, am I, now.”
“Father may have come from an esteemed bloodline, but he squandered the family fortune on his damn expeditions. A penniless gentleman is not at liberty to place bets, Nevan.”
“Not all wagers are based on coin, Sister.”
There simply was no winning with Nevan. There never had been. Even in the cradle he’d been able to one-up whoever had been looming over him, cooing and smiling. Back then his insistence on having the last word came out as a soft little whine. The endearment was considered adorable. But the smart-arse sentiments of a twelve-year-old? Not so much.
Conceding this round to her brother, Sarina shifted focus back to the letter. While the note wasn’t the least bit remarkable in its choice of paper or ink, the handwriting was extraordinary. Precise, to be exact. Each letter, whether it be small or large, sat properly placed almost as if it were measured purposely so as not to make a single mistake. She couldn’t even begin to imagine Father living in such a rigid world. His letters to her were almost exclusively difficult to read, blotches of ink smeared across the sheets, whole sentences scratched out and rewritten more times than she could count. The contrast between Lycansay’s handwriting and her father’s scribble couldn’t be more different, and yet, the