Page 20 of Holly & Hemlock
The first course arrives in silence. A consommé, so clear it could pass for distilled air, poured with the kind of reverence usually reserved for holy water. I wait for Larkin to make the opening move.
He obliges. “You’re braver than I thought,” he says, voice stretched thin over the length of the table.
“How so?” I take a careful sip, let the heat burn a path down my throat.
He watches the steam coil from his bowl, eyes hooded. “Most people get lost on their first week. Take to the city, or the bottle, or both.”
“Sorry to disappoint.”
He smiles, but it’s more a baring of teeth. “On the contrary, you’re exactly as advertised.” He glances up, meeting my gaze. “Direct. Efficient. Immune to intimidation.”
I set my spoon down, the clink echoing in the cavernous room. “Is this where you ask what my intentions are again?”
He shrugs. “I don’t care about your intentions, Miss Vale. Only your methods.” His fingers begin to tap, a quiet staccato on the rim of his glass.
I match his stare, matching his tone. “You mean, how I’ll dispose of the house. Or you.”
“Both.” His mouth twitches. “The house I could forgive. Me, less so.”
My lip curls upward at the corner.
Mrs. Whitby floats forward, clearing the first course with surgical precision. She replaces it with a silver dish of roasted partridge, garnished with something green and wild—sorrel, or maybe a cousin of the poison beds out in the garden. The knife at my place is absurdly heavy; I test the blade with my thumb before slicing into the bird.
“You grew up here,” I say, making it a question.
Larkin carves his own portion with unnecessary violence. “Since I was twelve. My mother was a close friend of Maeve’s. I was sent here for discipline.”
“How’d that work out?” I ask, watching his hands.
He gives a low, humorless laugh. “You tell me.”
We eat, the meal a slow, antagonistic chess match. The candlelight exaggerates every movement, every flash of metal, every flicker of eye. At intervals, Mrs. Whitby refills glasses, clears plates, never speaking but always listening. Her gaze lands on Larkin, then on me, then flickers away to some middle distance, as if watching a ghostly replay of all dinners past.
At one point, Larkin leans back, swirling his wine, and says, “You’re adapting to the house quickly. You already have the look.”
“What look is that?”
He lifts his glass, gestures vaguely. “The thousand-yard stare. All the Vales had it apparently.”
“Lane doesn’t,” I say, just to see what happens.
The name lands like a dropped plate. Larkin’s eyes go sharp, the corners of his mouth flatten. “Lane is not a Vale.”
“But he’s part of the house.”
A dangerous smile. “He’s a groundskeeper. They come and go.”
We both know that’s not true in Lane’s case, but I decidenot to mention the permanence I sense in him, the way he moves through the landscape as if rooted there. “Does it bother you, having help that predates the owners?”
He tilts his head, considering me as though I’m an insect pinned to velvet. “What’s your point?”
“Just that the house seems loyal to the staff, not the family.”
He laughs, sudden and genuine, but there’s an edge to it. “Oh, you have no idea.”
We lapse into silence again. The partridge is replaced by a cheese course: wedges of something ancient and sweating, accompanied by brown bread and honey so dark it could pass for molasses. I take a slice, watch the honey pool on the plate.
Larkin says, “Are you enjoying your stay, Miss Vale?”
