Chapter 19 Compromised Position
COMPROMISED POSITION
LILA
It’s early the next morning when I find myself back in the archives.
The house is still mostly asleep. Most everyone seems to be still snoozing away except Tillie and Giles, who both operate on schedules that don’t obey human law.
I’m convinced Tillie powers down only when her body physically collapses mid-task, and Giles…
I don’t know. He probably roams the corridors before dawn just to inspect the dust levels.
I’m pretty sure he’s never slept once in his entire employment history.
When I woke, Theo was up too, already in the shower.
The sound of water hitting tile carried beneath the closed bathroom door, steady and rhythmic.
I stood there longer than I should’ve, staring at the light spilling out beneath it, listening to the water and trying not to think about everything he said last night.
Been half in love with you since always.
I left before he could come out. Before I had to look him in the eye and pretend those words hadn’t split something open in me.
Maybe he won’t even remember any of it.
I flip on the desk lamp and start sifting through the catalog drawers, pretending it’s work.
I came down here to review renovation files, to trace estate access points again, to do literally anything that feels like it might be productive. In reality, I know it’s just because I needed space to gather myself before facing him.
I needed mental oxygen. Something that wasn’t his voice slurring confessions into my bloodstream.
I’m halfway finished pilfering through a dusty cabinet when footsteps echo down the hallway, headed in my direction.
I flinch when the door creaks open, the sudden sound breaking the calm that had settled over the room.
Theo hovers in the doorway, hands in his pockets. He looks exactly how a person with a hangover should—exhausted, unshaven, and unfairly hot for someone who made eye contact with the bottom of a bottle last night.
He’s in another black hoodie and jeans. It makes sense after a night like last night. Comfort first, or whatever. But there’s this small part of me that feels insanely lucky I get to see him this way, a version of Theo I’m not sure many other people ever see.
“Sorry for sneaking up on you,” he says. “I just—you were gone. And I assumed you were here.”
He pushes his big body off the doorframe and steps further into the room.
“I thought I’d give you space to recover from last night,” I say, because it’s better than admitting I was trying to avoid him for as long as possible.
He shrugs, the faintest wince crossing his face. “Trying to remember why I thought any of that was a good idea.”
The corner of my mouth lifts. “A tragic lapse in judgment.”
He huffs out something that might be a laugh, then nods toward the ledgers spread across the desk. “What are you doing here, anyway?”
“Just browsing,” I say, turning to the shelves before he can call me on it.
He always knows when something is off. Sometimes it feels like he’s a human lie detector.
My hand skims the spines of books I’m not really reading the titles of.
“Thought I’d go through the old estate information again.
See if anything… I don’t know, stands out. ”
“Riveting.”
“I’m just being thorough.”
“You are,” he says, seemingly amused.
“Some of us find the mundane to be soothing,” I wave a hand at the shelves—at the evidence log I spent half an hour color-coding in what can only be described as an anxious spiral of productivity. “Dust, decay, and a robust filing system. What’s not to love?”
He just looks at me, and I immediately regret speaking. I’m totally babbling. “It’s relaxing,” I add, quieter, but that somehow makes it worse.
When he doesn’t respond, I freeze halfway down the row of shelves and finally turn to look at him.
He’s closer than I realized.
Much, much closer.
“Hmmmm,” his morning-after rasp skates along my skin.
“I’m rambling, aren’t I?” I start, but he’s already moving, closing what little distance there is between us. One step. Then another. Until the edge of one of the shelves presses into my back.
“You are. Almost nervously.” His hands slide out of his pockets. One comes up to rest just above my head as he leans in closer to me, shoulders blocking the light from the stained glass window. “It doesn’t have anything to do with what I said last night, does it?”
Suddenly, I am dizzy.
And out of breath.
Heart rate: unprofessional.
I should probably move. Step aside, reestablish the distance that’s kept this whole thing barely manageable.
But I don’t.
I just stand there, heat climbing up my neck, heart hammering against my ribcage.
This is what it is now—the imaginary line we both drew but keep pretending we haven’t crossed.
It’s the way he watches me when I’m talking through evidence, like he’s cataloging the parts of me I try not to show. The way his timbre changes almost imperceptibly when it’s just the two of us, stripped of that careful, courtroom control.
It’s the half-smiles he doesn’t mean to give me. The way he’s so much different with me than he is with anyone else.
The gravity between us that’s been there since the start, pulling us closer to one another whether we wanted it to or not.
It all points here. To this exact spot, this exact moment.
I can’t keep pretending it’s just proximity or circumstance.
It’s him.
It’s always been him.
I inhale, anchor myself in logic, and make a promise to myself: if he’s offering something here, I’ll take it for all it’s worth.
Because if we’re doing this, I’m done pretending I don’t want to.
The silence stretches, taut as wire. I force myself not to look away, though my nervous habit of not making eye contact tells me to focus on anything else—the dust motes drifting through the lamplight, the hiss of the radiator, the effort it takes to stay perfectly still.
I shift my weight, my shoes scuffing against the floor—
A breeze brushes my ankle.
I look down, unintentionally breaking the moment. “Do you feel that?” I ask.
Theo frowns. “This house is drafty, but that’s definitely weird.”
He steps back and crouches down. I follow his lead. Floor meets baseboard meets wall. It’s seamless except one sliver where the wood doesn’t sit flush. A hidden panel.
Theo reaches down, fingertips testing the seam between two wooden panels. There’s a faint groan—old hinges remembering how to move—and the section of wall gives way with a soft shudder. Dust spills out in a lazy cloud, catching in the lamplight like smoke.
We look at one another. The hollow space yawns open just enough to reveal a narrow gap, edges rough and uneven, wood sagging and splintering from years of neglect. A faint current of air drifts through it—cool, stale, and unmistakably coming from somewhere deeper in the house.
I tilt my head to the side to get a better look. “Extra storage?” I whisper, half joking.
Theo bends in half beside me to do the same. “Storage for something.”
The space beyond is just big enough for one of us to fit through at a time. Barely. The wood scrapes Theo’s shoulder as he ducks down to test how he might angle his body just right to crawl through.
He squints into the dark. “If I get stuck, you’re legally obligated to drag me out by the feet.”
I bite back a smile. “That’s optimistic. Have you ever read The Cask of Amontillado?”
He snorts, an amused, exasperated look on his face. “Noted.”
Then he exhales, braces a hand against the frame, and starts to crawl through. The muscles in his back shift under his shirt as he wedges himself into the opening. It’s unbelievable how much space he takes up. I feel claustrophobic just watching him go.
Dust rains down from the low ceiling with each move he makes. He pauses halfway, glancing over his shoulder at me. “You coming, Jennings?”
I’m already turning on my phone flashlight. “The spirit is willing, but the slight fear of enclosed spaces is sweating through its shirt.”
Theo huffs out a laugh, then turns just enough to look at me over his shoulder. “Be brave for me, Jennings.” He leans in. “I promise I’ll make it worth your while.”
That hits me exactly where it shouldn’t.
He disappears into the dark, and I hover at the threshold for a beat longer. A beat where I could call him back, tell him to forget the whole thing, pretend we aren’t standing on the edge of something we can’t undo. Both in this moment and metaphorically speaking.
But the truth is simple. I’m ready. Ready to follow him to wherever this tunnel leads. Ready for him. Ready for whatever comes next now that I’ve stopped pretending I’m not already halfway gone for this man.
So I follow.
Because hesitation hasn’t done a thing for either of us besides make us both fucking miserable with want. And whatever it takes to get to where we’re going, it’s him and me together.
The tunnel isn’t big enough for a normal person, let alone Theo.
He grunts the whole way through, one shoulder scraping against the top, the other twisting at an unnatural angle as he awkwardly belly crawls toward the other end. Dust rains down, coating his hair and shoulders.
“Remind me,” he says, his hushed whisper echoing off the narrow walls, “why I’m the one going first.”
“Because while I was debating whether or not we should go at all, you, quite literally, dove in head first,” I say, shining my phone flashlight into the crawlspace from behind him. “And because your ego wouldn’t fit otherwise.”
He opens his mouth, ready with another quip, only to inhale a mouthful of dust. The sound he makes is somewhere between a cough and one a wounded animal would make.
I smother a laugh, crawling after him. My knees protest every step of the way, repeatedly catching on the uneven floor.
“I see a dead end,” Theo says ahead of me. “Probably another false wall.”
Every movement he makes forward, a new cascade of dust drifts into my face, and I consider adding “death by asbestos” to my cause-of-death predictions.
“You’re doing great back there,” he calls sarcastically.
“Shut up before I punch you in the ass.”
“You’d have to reach me first. My shins are definitely longer than your arms.”
“Don’t tempt me. I’ll try it and probably cave this whole place in during the process.”
He snorts. “You’re one to talk about being fucking tempted.”
It’s ridiculous how a few simple words make me feel like I’m losing my damn mind.
Finally, the space ahead brightens with a thin seam of light. Theo pushes on the panel, and it gives with a muted creak. After shoving aside a tapestry hanging loosely over the opening, we spill out gracelessly into—
A closet.
A perfectly ordinary, linen-scented, embarrassingly small closet.
Theo blinks, crouched awkwardly beside a stack of neatly folded towels. “Well,” he says, looking entirely too composed for someone coated in the remains of a hundred years of bad ventilation, “this wasn’t in the architectural plans.”
I stare at him, then at the rows of linen, then at him again. “We risked tetanus for a closet.”
“A cozy one, though.” He bumps his shoulder up against mine. “Plenty of room for introspection.”
I shove him a little, sending another puff of dust into the air. “Congratulations, Professor. You’ve officially discovered the Mayfair’s least sinister secret passage.”
Theo grins. “On the bright side, at least we know where they keep the spare sheets.”
“And now.” I squeeze past him. “I need a shower. And possibly an exorcism.”
I’m halfway through wiping the dust off my jeans when something catches my eye.
“It looks like there hasn’t been anyone in here in a while,” I say, reaching past Theo to one of the lower shelves.
The neatly folded linens end after a single row, giving way to rows of small bottles and tins, all perfectly labeled in fading handwriting; a neat, old-fashioned script that belonged to someone who took notes with a fountain pen and had opinions about ink viscosity.
Everything is coated in a thin layer of dust. “Hang on…”
At first, it looks like cleaning supplies. Nothing exciting. Until I spot the glass jar filled with cracked paint flakes and a tin marked gilding compound. Another labeled acetone—use sparingly.
I run my thumb over a jar of varnish, the top sticky with residue. “This isn’t just storage for linens,” I murmur. “It’s—”
Theo leans in to look over my shoulder and squints at a faded tag tied around a small brush set. He’s suddenly very comfortable invading my personal space, and I’m not exactly protesting. “Restoration materials,” he finishes for me. “For woodwork, maybe. Or—”
“Antiques,” I say softly. “Or artifacts.”
My brain starts connecting dots. The crates in the tunnels, the not-so-random invoices we found in Baryn’s desk drawers, the rumors Evelyn mentioned.
What if some of them weren’t rumors at all?
If these rich fucks are hiding a sixteen-million-dollar orrery somewhere in this house just to say they have it, when that kind of money could actually help people, I’m not sure what I’ll do. They could fund the entire Bellwood legal clinic for a decade.
But instead they might be sitting on a glorified status symbol no one’s even allowed to look at.
It wouldn’t shock me if the whole thing were true.
Pieces like that are rare, almost impossible to authenticate, and usually acquired under circumstances no one keeps a record of. Half the value comes from the whisper network that surrounds them. The story tied to it is what drives the price.
A one-of-a-kind instrument linked to a man who died under mysterious circumstances, whose estate is still a forensic disaster? Collectors would eat that up. They’d pay for the drama alone.
The fact that the Mayfairs might be sitting on something like that, hoarding it in a tunnel or a basement for bragging rights, turns my stomach.
Theo follows my gaze to the far wall. A narrow wooden door hides behind a rack of brushes and a stack of crates.
“You think it’s locked?”
“Only one way to find out.”
He twists the knob. It gives with a soft, tired click, and the faintest draft winds its way around us.
We look at each other—mutual hesitation, mutual curiosity.
The door creaks open an inch. Beyond it, nothing but black.
I lift the flashlight, the beam cutting through dust and darkness.
I swallow. “Ready?”
“Never,” he says, and pushes the door the rest of the way open.