Page 123 of The Shadow Key

She licks her lips.

‘The day you arrived.’

A beat. ‘And mine.’

He has never marked his birthdate. A scrap of paper handed over with the pocketwatch, a worthless piece of information that always meant nothing to him.

Until now.

‘I’m not Julian’s son,’ Henry says, the truth of it barely comprehensible. ‘I’m Hugh’s.’ He raises his eyes to hers, brown to grey-green. ‘You are my sister.’

‘Twins.’

Henry and Linette spin around. Standing in the open doorway of the upper chambers is Linette’s mother – his mother – crumpled nightgown trailing on the floor. Mrs Evans supports her meagre weight, clasping her mistress’ hand so tightly that the whites of her knuckles stand sharp against her thin skin.

‘Twins,’ she says again, taking an unsteady step forward. ‘Linette is older by two minutes. I remember now. I remember it all. The watch, you see …’

Beside him, Linette stills.

‘Mamma?’ she whispers, and Lady Gwen smiles weakly, a small sorrowful smile that makes a lump form in Henry’s throat.

‘It is time you both knew the truth.’

BRANCH IV.

I must have your soul ;

Must have it mine, and mine forever.

MATTHEW LEWIS

The Monk: A Romance (1796)

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

‘I hated Penhelyg.’

Gwen Tresilian is seated now on the narrow ottoman beneath the window in the corridor, thin and waif-like in her cotton nightgown, hair coiling like rope to her waist. She looks frighteningly wan, seems scarce able to put one word after the other.

‘My mother – your grandmother – died in childbirth. With no siblings all I had for company was my father and Enaid.’ Her face splits into a rueful smile. ‘I’m sorry to say I was a resentful child. I had no friends, nothing to entertain me. I felt trapped. Soon I became precocious, in severe need of discipline which no one had the will to give.’

The smile fades into a troubled frown.

‘My father, Emyr, never remarried. He took to drink and gambling, spent weeks on end away in the city. I was jealous of that, begged him to take me with him but he never did. I think he considered children as nuisances. To be seen but only briefly, and never ever heard. Then, one day, he began inviting his English friends back here to Plas Helyg.’

She stops. The corridor is silent but for the muted churn of the grandfather clock on the landing below them, the galleon’s tipping axis.

‘The things I witnessed as a child,’ Lady Gwen whispers, ‘things I know now I never should have seen!’ She shakes her head. ‘My father did not wish me to have any dealings with his friends, but they were new to me and exciting; when everyone was abed, I would sneak downstairs. Oh, I must have been very wicked not to have been disgusted or afraid, but I confess I found your grandfather’s sordid gatherings intriguing. I’d look through keyholes and listen at doors until I became too tired and cold to keep vigil.’ Her face darkens. ‘There were names for gatherings such as Emyr Cadwalladr’s, I later learnt.’

‘Hellfire clubs,’ Henry says, and her mother – their mother – gives a resigned nod.

‘These ones called themselves the Order. They would gather here once every few months, usually at the turning of the season. Solstice or equinox, without fail they would come. To begin with they merely drank and gambled, conducted silly little ceremonies that bordered on the ridiculous. Sometimes a whore or two would join the party, and you can imagine what happened when they did. But then, when I was sixteen, they started to bring girls from the village to the house.’

At this Enaid ducks her head, but not before Linette has seen the shame writ upon her face. She knew this too, then.

‘There have always been rumours,’ Miss Carew ventures quietly from her station at the cabinet. ‘The Einions …’

‘Ah yes, the Einions.’ A pause. Pale fingers knead cotton. ‘Often the girls were enticed away on the promise of money or some favour to their families, then used in whatever way my father and his friends saw fit. All of them, all at once. Old flesh on young. Who knows how many children he and his fellow Hellfires fathered? Still, many returned to their homes relatively unscathed. Until, that is, Heledd Einion.’

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