Page 42 of This Haunted Heart

“Do you approve of the cell I’ve selected for you?” Finley rumbled.

I shrugged my shoulders, forcing my expression into something reserved. “It’ll do.”

Lifting one of his lanterns, he brought it closer to my face. He squinted at me, then his lip tugged upward. “You love it.”

I fuckinglovedit! The first second I could I was going to jump on that giant bed like I was thirty years younger. It was still a cage. A gorgeous, gilded cage with bouncy beds and giant bathtubs, but a cage all the same. One I was determined to claw my way out of, kicking and screaming if I had to.

But not tonight. Tonight was for bouncing and rest. Tomorrow would be for plotting.

I waved him off. “I’m too tired to have another row with you. Please go away.”

He ignored the jab entirely. “I’ve added a few of my nightshirts to the dresser over there so you have something clean to sleep in. The rest of your things should arrive soon from Salt Rock. If you need me, I’m just across the hall.”

He handed me back my lantern. The moment my hands were busy, he cupped my cheek in his palm, drawing me closer.

I tried to repress the way my body responded to him, but my heart was not on the same page as the rest of me. It kicked against my ribs. I stared up into his grieving eyes and commanded myself not to feel sorry for him, but the stupid organ in my chest continued to ignore my wishes. The pinch of sympathy was so profound that I discreetly rubbed the sensation away.

My lashes lowered. “I wish I understood exactly what it was you needed from me.”

His breath blew against my cheek, warm and sweet, and I leaned closer on impulse. “I wish I did, too.”

Then he pressed his lips to the furrow between my brows and left.

I set my lantern in the windowsill because I liked the way the glow reflected in the plate glass. One item at a time, I plucked the stolen silver from my garters and hid them under the bed. I hung up my dressing gown beside the door and stripped free of my chemise, changing into one of Finley’s nightshirts. It swallowed me up, but it was clean and smelled like his spicy cologne water, and my heart misbehaved again.

I breathed him in, instructing myself to stop caring that he had a scent I wanted to bathe in.

As a distraction, I threw myself onto the bed, sinking into the billowy blankets, and giggles erupted out of me. I bounced on the mattress briefly, just to test its softness, but movement in the hall stilled me.

“Are you jumping on your bed?” Finley called through the door, voice wobbling.

“That must have been the ghosts you heard!” I called back, climbing under the comforter. “This house is haunted, don’t you know?”

* **

I had terrible dreams that night. Dreams of crimson rose petals and locked rooms and angry voices.

In my nightmare, I was twelve years old, and the baron had ordered me to kill a chicken I had raised and grown fond of. The baron would eat her for his dinner because she wasn’t laying well, but I believed the hen just needed more time. I knew exactly what it was like to be thought incapable. So I stole her away and hid her in the woods to grant her a second chance.

Though kind Cook had tried to offer him an alternative, the baron guessed what I had done, and he locked me in a pantry as punishment. I hadn’t been given enough to drink, and the darkness was absolute. It pressed down on my chest and toyed with my mind. Air sawed through my dry throat. There were too many competing smells in my nose.

As the hours grew longer, sounds came to me in the dark. Whispers. Footsteps. The thump of an infernal heartbeat. Scritch-scratching against wood. The presence of malicious creatures that shouldn’t be real hovered near. I wet myself on the floor.

Lochlan couldn’t bear to hear me crying any more. He found the hen in the woods and brought her to his pa. The baron dragged me out of my prison, and he threatened to shut up Lochlan in the pantry next unless I broke the poor hen’s neck.

I killed her quickly and was too thirsty to make tears for her.

The baron put Lochlan in the pantry anyway for interfering. I kept close to try to help him stay calm. He could hear voices in there, Lochlan told me. Angry voices in the dark.

“They’re hurting me, Rynn,” he whispered through the crack below the pantry door. “They’re hurting me again.”

I awoke before dawn with a silent scream stuck in my throat.

Chapter 12

Lochlan Finley

The next morning, I made sure Rynn found her way to breakfast, then I left her to explore on her own. I longed to go with her, but it was made clear my company wasn’t wanted, so I took to the drawing room. I had a stack of newspapers to catch up on, anyway, and correspondence piling up in my office.

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