Chapter 20
Heavy footsteps, followed by raised voices, moved closer to my room.
Mrs. Ashby stepped aside as Sylum’s valet appeared, followed closely by a footman and Nelly. Their faces were pale, strained, their breaths too quick. Before they could take in the sight of me, Sylum seized my robe and wrapped it securely around my body, concealing the blood.
His voice cut through the stunned silence, low and sharp.
“What is it?” He demanded before any of them could speak.
No one answered at first. The only sound was the hiss of wind at the window, the whisper of curtains stirring. Then, the footman swallowed, his face twisting.
“There’s… there’s been an accident, Your Grace,” he said finally, his voice barely audible. “In the east wing.”
Sylum’s brow furrowed. “An accident?”
Mrs. Ashby pressed a trembling hand to her mouth, her composure slipping.
Isolde stared at me with cold suspicion.
“One of the maids, Your Grace.” Nelly added, eyes glistening as she blinked back tears that never quite materialized. “She was found this morning. At the bottom of the staircase.”
My throat tightened.
A cold weight settled in my stomach.
“It seems…” the valet continued, clearing his throat, “…it seems she fell from the third-floor landing. The bannister was broken.”
The footman beside him made the sign of the cross.
For a long, terrible moment, no one breathed.
I looked from each face, my gaze landing on Sylum.
His jaw worked, the muscle ticking. “Who?” he asked quietly, though there was already dread in his tone, as if some part of him knew the answer before it came.
The footman hesitated, then met his gaze. “It was Lydia, Your Grace.”
For a moment, I thought I hadn’t heard him correctly. The name hung in the air sending my pulse into a frenzy.
“Lydia,” Mrs. Ashby repeated, voice breaking on the second syllable.
Something in me went cold.
Lydia.
The maid’s pale face flashed behind my eyes, those downcast lashes, the quiet tension that had lived between us from the very beginning.
Sylum was already moving, his footsteps determined as he crossed to the door connecting to his room. He reached for the handle, turning back to me for one brief moment.
“Stay here,” he ordered, his tone clipped. “Do not leave this room.”
“Sylum…”
He didn’t look back, disappearing on the other side, the door closing firmly.
The silence he left behind pressed heavy and suffocating.
Mrs. Ashby, ever dutiful, ushered the others away, even Nelly. “I must tend to her ladyship. Everyone out.”
One by one, they disappeared down the corridor, the sound of Sylum’s bedchamber door following them.
I sat frozen, my pulse pounding so loudly I thought I might faint.
Lydia. The east wing…
The east wing… where I had been the night before. Or believed I had been. Dreaming, walking, drugged—God, I didn’t know.
My stomach twisted violently.
I pressed a trembling hand to my lips, the bile already rising.
Could it have been sleepwalking? Or… something worse?
No no no.
The golden-haired woman beside Sylum in the corridor. The one who had held me. The one who laughed. The one I had hit while thrashing…
Had it been Lydia?
Mrs. Ashby moved about my room, prepping my bath, but I scarcely noticed.
She said nothing as I allowed her to wash the crusted blood from my skin.
I offered nothing in return though I knew what she was thinking. That I had something to do with Lydia’s death.
She dressed me and did my hair, lips pressed into a thin line, eyes watching me warily, before leaving me, promising a tray brought up.
It was.
But I refused to touch any of it.
By the time I found the strength to leave my room, the corridors outside were alive with the hushed panic of servants. I slipped out before anyone could stop me, following the current of grief deeper into the house.
The east wing reeked of death.
A sharp, metallic tang clung to the air—fresh blood seeping into cold stone—and the moment it hit my tongue, something inside me recoiled.
Halfway up the staircase, I stopped.
Below, Sylum stood rigid, his coat streaked with dust and something darker along the cuff. Mrs. Ashby hovered nearby, her hands clasped in front of her, her eyes rimmed red.
The servants had clustered at a respectful distance, heads bowed as if afraid the dead might look back.
I saw the shape then, a pale form beneath a sheet at the foot of the stairs. A single hand protruded, limp and bloodless against the marble.
I gasped, my vision tunneling.
Sylum’s head snapped up at the sound.
“Lucy,” he breathed, taking the stairs two at a time to reach me. “I told you to stay in your room.”
I shook my head slowly, my voice shaking. “I had to see.”
His hands closed around my arms to steady me and though his touch was gentle now, I remembered how he’d held my face the night before. Firm. Controlling. Cold.
“Lucy,” he said again, softer, pleading. “Don’t.”
“I was here,” I cried.
He shook his head. “No.”
“I was,” I insisted, though my throat felt too tight to breathe. “Last night. I was here and I saw you with her…”
He shook his head, his eyes darting briefly toward the covered body.
“It was a dream.” His tone sharpened, low and quick, meant for my ears alone. “Only a dream.”
The look on his face told me he didn’t believe that. Not entirely.
“It wasn’t!” I snapped, jerking my arm from his grasp.
Sylum froze, as if afraid a single wrong movement might shatter what fragile sanity he thought remained in me.
“She fell,” he said finally, each word precise, sculpted from resolve and anger. “The railing gave way. It was an accident.”
But there was something in his tone, some shadow between the words, that made my blood run cold.
I looked toward the splintered railing above. I could still hear the crack of wood as my elbow struck.
My elbow striking her.
“I killed her,” I whispered, horror widening inside me like a wound. “I killed her because of you. She held my wrists while you poisoned me. I hit her! I knocked her over the railing—”
My breath collapsed into a sob.
“I didn’t mean to,” I choked. “I didn’t mean to.”
He didn’t answer.
He simply stared back at me, his dark gaze searching mine. For the first time since our marriage, I saw true fear in his eyes.
Of what, I wasn’t certain.
Perhaps of me.
Perhaps that I remembered too much…
I looked away from him, unable to bear the weight of his stare, and instead focused on the still form beneath the shroud—the pale, unmistakable curve of Lydia’s body, stretched out stiffly beneath the sheet on the floor, like a ghost preparing to haunt the manor.
That's when I noticed… that’s when I heard it.
The sheet rose and fell in rapid, fluttering movements at her chest so imperceptibly that I had to squint to be sure. I focused, staring until I was certain it had to be a trick of the light.
Or perhaps only my mind.
A dull ache spread through my head and I suddenly heard ringing in my ears. The ringing became more distinct, until at length, I found that the noise was not within my ears. It was coming from her body.
It was inside of her.
Again, I watched the sheet rise and fall in hurried repetition.
Th-thump. Th-thump. Th-thump.
No doubt, I grew very pale, and the sound increased. It was a low, dull, quick sound—much like the sound a watch makes when enveloped in cotton.
I descended the stairs slowly, ignoring when Sylum reached out to stop me. I drew closer to her as I reached the main floor, unable to stop myself.
I paced back and forth with heavy strides, staring at Lydia’s body. Still, the noise steadily increased and the movements came more frequent. Even above the commotion of the hall—the servants, the inspectors—the noise arose over all and continually increased.
It grew louder—louder—louder!
I glanced at the constable, his eyes meeting mine as he smiled.
Was it possible he heard not?
No, no! He heard! He suspected! He knew! He was watching… waiting for me to unravel. Waiting for me to confess.
And now again, the sound continued to beat painfully in my skull, taunting and torturing.
Louder! Louder! Louder!
The shroud moved again, barely a breath, as if some foul creature moved briskly beneath it… but I knew it. Knew it deep in my marrow. Lydia’s heart was still beating.
That wretched thing was going to tell them what I did to her! I could bear it no longer! I felt that I must scream or die!
“I admit the deed!” I shrieked, clapping my hands over my ears as if that could silence my guilt. My voice echoed off the marble as I squeezed my eyes shut. “It is I who stopped the beating of her hideous heart!”
The room stilled.
All noise fled except that awful drumming, echoing louder and louder inside my head. I dug my fingers roughly into my skull, desperate to silence it.
Sylum was on me in an instant, his hand clamping hard over my mouth. “Be quiet!” he hissed into my ear, low and sharp. “Do you hear me? Quiet.”
The constable turned toward us. His brows pulled into a subtle furrow.
Sylum forced a smile. “She’s overwrought,” he called out evenly. “The shock… It’s a dreadful scene, you understand.”
He backed us slowly away from the corpse. I was panting beneath his hand, my fingernails digging into the sleeve of his shirt. I wanted to scream again. I still heard it. That sound. Louder still.
The constable nodded absently, turning to speak with one of his men.
Sylum took that moment to seize me. His fingers clamped around my arm as he dragged me from the hall, past the corpse, past the pounding that still drummed through my bones.
Th-thump. Th-thump. Th-thump.
He wrenched open a side door and shoved me inside an unused drawing room. The latch clicked shut. Dust drifted in the stale air. My back hit the door, breath knocked from my lungs.
Sylum stepped close, so close the air between us vanished. His hands braced on either side of my head. His body caged mine. The pounding ceased abruptly, leaving a vast and unnatural silence, like the calm before a storm breaks.
The silence was total now, deafening and taut. There was only him and me, and the sensation of his warm body pressed to mine. I inhaled greedily, allowing his familiar scent to ground me, to chase away the madness clawing its way through me.
“Sylum…” I agonized softly, my voice breaking as tears spilled from my eyes. “Is there any part of you that ever truly loved me?”