Chapter 47
Chapter
Forty-Seven
Stillwater Hall is as sprawling and stately as ever, her red-brick chimneys cresting the alders as Lizzie guides us up the path. If the Fitzroys do not notice I remained unchanged after two years away, perhaps it is because their ancestral home is similarly ageless.
And though I may look the same on the outside, inside I feel eons away from the woman I was when I last walked the manor’s hallowed halls. Then, I was heartbroken, mourning the death of a relationship that had never even existed.
Now, the heartbreak is still there, but it’s reformed around different primary materials. A grief I haven’t even experienced yet.
I slide my gaze toward Lachlan, who’s assessing the doors, the windows, the roofline with the eye of a knight who’s always thinking three steps ahead. He’s holding my hand, idly stroking his thumb along my palm.
God, we’re going to destroy each other. What the hell were we thinking?
Lizzie leads us up the entry stairs, and inside, the reunions go smoother than I would have anticipated.
Aunt Teddy—gobsmacked to see me but perhaps not quite as relieved as her daughter—gives Lachlan an approving look.
Uncle Edward barely removes his pipe as we pause at his study, but does manage a quick, “You’re well, then, Charlotte?” before turning back to his ledgers.
Lastly, and to my delighted shock, is Esmeralda, for whom Lizzie has been caring in my absence.
“Charles is something of a naturalist,” she says, pursing her lips at the boomslang. “He adores the vile thing.”
Lizzie returns to her quarters to put Mary down for a nap—it is lovely to see my cousin as a mother, if unusual that she cares for something more than herself—and Lachlan and I make our way to the south gallery.
Breaking through beams of sunlight, we walk to the back wall where The Knight Departs holds a place of prominence.
Now that I understand the inspiration, the piece is even more devastating. I study the familiar paint strokes, overcome.
My sob has barely burst forth before Lachlan is pressing me to his chest, stroking my hair. “What’s wrong?”
“There was this whole part of her life I knew nothing about. And now she’s gone, and I can’t ask her about it.” I pull back and wipe my eyes. “Not that she would remember. I’m being silly.”
He swipes my cheek with his thumb. “It’s never silly to long for those we’ve lost.”
I turn to study the painting, leaning back against Lachlan’s solid warmth. I thought something would jump out at me the moment I saw it again. A hidden clue that my time in the Otherworld would reveal. But upon first pass, and other than the ring heating on my finger, there’s … nothing.
“Why do you think she did it?” Lachlan murmurs.
I blow out a watery sigh. “I wish I knew. The woman I knew was fearless. Fiercely independent. She did everything she could to protect me from the nastier gossip about my mother. I’m not sure I would go so far as to say that she hated the peerage or the monarchy, but she was damn close.
Perhaps that attitude was sown during her time in the Otherworld with Sabre?
Maybe she thought she was being revolutionary, stealing the Bannrhorn and ensuring the death of a system she loathed, in one world if not the other? ”
Lachlan’s lips kick up. “She sounds like a formidable woman.”
I smile. “She was.”
“She’d have to be to raise such a formidable granddaughter.”
I scoff. I may not be as meek as I was four months ago, but formidable seems a bit of a stretch. “Hardly.”
“Charlotte.” He bites out my name like he’s angry that I’m being so hard on myself.
“You are days away from achieving what no woman has been able to achieve in years in the Otherworld.” He turns me around, then presses my palm against his heart, that low, steady thump that always calms me.
“If that’s not formidable, then I fear I don’t know the meaning of the word.
” He kisses me, soft and gentle. My blood heats anyway.
I turn back to the familiar painting, and I do see a few things I hadn’t noticed before. It’s obvious the red-haired woman is an avatar for Granny Maggie herself. And there’s the barest hint of horns atop the knight’s head—a few strokes of curling shadow that now seem so deliberate.
I step back, frustrated and mildly panicked that I have just over twenty-four hours left to find the fragment and my most promising lead is about to shrivel into dust. “Do you see anything of interest?”
“I do, actually.”
I toss a glance over my shoulder. “What?”
“Those moths,” he says, stepping closer to examine the insects with the large sage-green wings swirling around the knight and his lady. “Have you seen them before?”
“Yes,” I say, wary. “But only here around Stillwater. Out in the woods, mostly. I used to draw them.”
Lachlan nods, an odd emotion that almost looks like resignation shadowing his features. “That’s because they are not of the human world. Well, not only. They’re called vanguard moths. And they live on a very particular species of tree.”
My hand comes up to my throat. “Do you think there’s one here?”
Lachlan sighs, his face inscrutable. “I know there is.
“And I know where it is, too.”