Chapter 2 The Godson #2
He laughs, genuinely this time, and for a second the tension breaks. But only for a second.
The main course arrives—pheasant, glazed with something sticky and red. The scent is feral, faintly metallic, and it stirs a strange hunger.
Larkin leans in, elbows on the table. “What brings you to Hemlock, really? I was under the impression your branch of the family tree had been pruned decades ago.”
I set down my fork. Aunt Maeve had indeed cut my father and me off from all contact when I was a teen. But I refuse to discuss it with Larkin, especially when he seems to have taken over as Maeve’s kin of sorts. So why did she leave the place to me then?
I shrug. “I didn’t come here for a family reunion. Or an inquisition. I came to claim my inheritance.”
His eyes are bright, avid, and when he smiles the lines at the corners deepen. He cocks his head and tips his glass at me. “Still, it’s surprising. She never cared for outsiders.”
Outsiders?! I want to point out that he, too, is an outsider, but Mrs. Whitby chooses that moment to refresh my wine. Her hand is steady, but her eyes are watching, always watching.
Conversation, like the food, continues in meticulously orchestrated courses.
We spar over everything—the wallpaper, the merits of radiators over forced air, the chemical composition of shellac.
Every remark is a feint, every compliment loaded.
I’m not sure who is winning, but the room itself seems to be keeping score.
The flames in the fireplace gutter and flare with each sharp word.
By the time dessert arrives—a sugar-crusted tartlet that looks too fragile to touch—the air between us has thickened, but the nature of the tension has shifted.
Maybe it’s the wine, and my head swimming in it.
Our words are no less sharp, but now they hover at the line between competition and something else.
Larkin pushes the decanter toward me. His sleeve grazes my hand, deliberate and slow.
“Careful,” he says, voice low. “Hemlock House has a way of getting under your skin.”
I meet his gaze and hold it. “I’m learning that.”
He gives a little nod, as if conceding the round. But as I lift my glass, I realize his hand is still resting near mine, closer than politeness requires. The touch, when it comes, is brief—just a brush of skin—but it lands with the weight of a promise and a threat.
Mrs. Whitby returns, clearing plates with the discretion of a magician. “Will there be coffee, sir?” she asks.
Larkin leans back, never taking his eyes off me. “Not tonight, Whitby. I want to bask in this buzz a bit longer.”
She looks to me for my answer and I shake my head because I want to bask too.
It is only when Mrs. Whitby departs—her footsteps silent as snowfall—that I exhale. The dining room, so vast at first, now feels intimate, a box of secrets.
“I suppose you think you’ve won,” Larkin says, sipping his wine.
“I didn’t think this was a competition.”
He smiles, but it’s the smile of someone who knows the house always wins in the end.
We sit in silence, the shadows lengthening, the candles guttering lower. Every so often, the house itself seems to creak in approval.
When I stand to leave, Larkin moves to block my way, not with force but with intention. He bows his head, just enough to make me feel the heat of his breath.
“Welcome home, Nora,” he says, voice soft. “Come find me if you need anything. You’ll find the nights here can sometimes be . . . restless.”
His eyes linger on my mouth, and for one deranged second I think he’ll kiss me, or bite me, or both. Instead, he steps back, and I slip past him, heart a snare drum in my chest.
Mrs. Whitby waits just outside the door, hands folded and expression serene.
“Will there be anything else, Miss Vale?” she asks.
I shake my head, unable to trust my voice.
The air is thick enough to drink, and I drift behind Mrs. Whitby, who has taken it upon herself to guide me “back to the comforts of my quarters.” At the foot of the staircase, Larkin intercepts us with a glass of something colorless in hand and a look that could cut linen.
I wonder how he beat us here, but it’s not lost on me that there are endless corridors and I have no sense of direction here yet.
“Miss Vale,” he says, inclining his head in a parody of courtly manners, “I thought I’d walk you to your room.”
Mrs. Whitby gives me a glance: half warning, half permission. “Don’t get lost,” she says. “These halls play tricks at night.”
She vanishes. Larkin gestures for me to precede him, but as we ascend the stairs, he slips in beside me. We walk shoulder to shoulder, our footsteps perfectly synchronized. The house is silent, the usual ambient groans and pops muted, as if the building itself is eavesdropping.
He says nothing at first, and I am perversely grateful. I can feel the heat of him—subtle, steady, as if he’s running a fever just below the skin. The sensation makes the hairs on my arms stand up, and I regret not wearing a thicker sweater.
We make a left at the top of the stairs, continue down the long hall in silence. When we reach the blue door, he stops short and pivots to face me. The glass in his hand is otherwise untouched.
“Did you enjoy dinner tonight?” he asks, voice low enough to be mistaken for sincerity. “Normally we’d retire to the salon afterward, but it’s later than usual. Whitby can be a real show off with all her courses when she wants to impress.”
“It was wonderful.” And it was, at least the food. The company was . . . confusing.
“Good.”
I could slip through the door and close it in his face, but I don’t. Instead, I watch the way his lips quirk at one corner, as if he knows he’s won something just by keeping me here.
He presses the glass into my palm. The rim is cold, but his fingers are not. They linger just a second too long, thumb grazing the side of my wrist.
“If you’re going to stay at Hemlock House,” he says, “you’ll need to learn how to drink.”
“I’ll start with a crash course,” I reply, hating how breathless it comes out.
He smiles and steps closer, until I can smell the heat of gin and the faint, metallic undertone of aftershave. I am suddenly, violently aware of my heartbeat.
He leans in—only slightly, but enough to invade the boundary of politeness once again. “Careful, Miss Vale,” he whispers. “Your inheritance isn’t merely a house.”
He steps away, and the spell breaks. I close myself in the room, locking the door for good measure, then gulp the gin—bitter, clean, obliterating. I didn’t see where he went, but I still can hear the echo of his shoes on the wood, deliberate and measured.
I stare at my hand, the one he touched. The skin burns, as if his thumb left a print.
I tell myself that I don’t know him, I’m not here for him. That I’m here for the house, the history, the job of preservation. But I already know that by morning I’ll be looking for him in every room.
In bed, I stare at the ceiling and listen to the pulse in my own ears, the wind rattling the window, the walls sighing.
If Hemlock House is a living thing, then tonight, it is very much awake.