Page 114 of The Shadow Key

‘Can we fetch you anything else?’ the butler asked as he and Angharad cleared the plates, and Linette managed a tight smile and a small shake of her head.

‘No, thank you. That will be all.’

Her hands full of plates, Angharad dipped her knees and departed, but the butler did not move. He watched them, dour face a careful blank, and Linette shifted uncomfortably in her seat. There was something suspicious about the way he watched them, for all that his face was devoid of expression, and she longed to know what he was thinking. Could he be trusted? Or was he, like Enaid, one of Julian’s pawns?

‘You may leave us now, Cadoc,’ Linette said softly, and the butler bowed his head.

‘Very good.’

But at the door he hesitated.

‘You will forgive me for saying so,’ he said quietly, ‘but I feel you should speak to Mrs Evans. She asks after you constantly. She is most distressed.’

It was the first time – the first time in twenty-six years – that Cadoc Powell had ever spoken out of turn, and the shock of it together with the mention of Enaid made Linette’s stomach clench.

‘That will be all, Cadoc,’ she told him tightly.

A beat. Then, a pointed bow. He shut the study door behind him with a click that felt harsh and dangerously final.

When Linette turned back it was to find Henry and Miss Carew looking at her across the table. The latter politely turned her face. The former cleared his throat.

‘Have you not spoken to Mrs Evans at all?’

Linette sniffed, rose from her seat, crossed to the window where it was open a little in its casement. The smell of jasmine whispered through the gap, and Linette took a deep calming breath of it.

‘No, I have not.’

Behind her, Henry sighed.

‘Linette. While I feel she has acted terribly I do not, on reflection, think Mrs Evans meant to cause intentional harm. Don’t you think you are being, perhaps, a little cruel?’

Linette turned, stared at him aghast.

‘Cruel?’

‘She is upset,’ he said simply. ‘When I saw her this morning she looked—’

‘I don’t wish to hear it, Henry.’

‘Don’t you think she might explain more to you? I’m still a stranger to her, but you … If you asked her, I’m sure—’

‘No, Henry.’

‘But—’

‘Please!’ Linette snapped, raising her hand. ‘I’m not ready. Don’t force me to do something I do not wish to.’

He watched her, troubled. ‘All right,’ he said eventually. ‘But you cannot ignore her for ever.’

Linette turned away again, could not look at him, stared instead at her reflection in the windowpane. Her face was drawn, eyes like black holes, and she did not like what she saw.

From the moment Linette locked herself in her bedroom, sleep became an elusive dream. Instead she listened to the grandfather clock below strike its hour of eleven, then twelve. At half past, a wind outside picked up in a restless moan. At one o’clock Linette thought she heard the sound of vomiting come from her mother’s bedroom, but over the wild rustling of trees she could not be sure. Then, as soon as the grandfather clock struck its sonorous chimes to the appointed hour, Linette slipped from her bedroom, silent as a wraith.

She is the first to arrive on the landing below. While she waits Linette watches the clock’s galleon tip back and forth in time to the heavy clunk of turning cogs.

Back and forth. Back and forth. Back and forth.

It is mesmeric, calming. And she needs that calm now, needs something to stem the beat of nerves in her chest.

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