Chapter 2
Thistlemarsh Hall teetered on the brink of extinction, its bones set back against its withered grounds.
Dread sank like a stone in Mouse’s stomach as they came closer.
It was unfair how this place made her feel smaller than she had at any time at the Front.
Even in disrepair, it held her in its power like a butterfly pinned under glass.
The plaster on the facade peeled back, revealing bleached stone.
The front door creaked ominously and caught on its bloated corner as it opened, sliding along an ever-deepening gouge in the floor.
Mouse held her head high as she crossed the threshold, even as the wood groaned beneath her feet.
John followed at her heels. The dilapidation was more dramatic than when she’d last stood in the doorway.
It was as though the Hall was sinking into the earth.
Mr. Dawson, the butler, met them at the entryway with his lips pulled thin. He folded around the door, as though it was a shield.
“Good morning,” John said, his voice cheerful against his vicar’s black. Dawson tilted his head slightly but made no other sign of greeting. Mouse and John silently followed him into the house.
Tapestries depicting a parade of hunters on the backs of proud horses decorated the entrance hall.
Hounds bayed ahead of the riders, intent on something unseen.
All the creatures were pale imitations of their former selves, a fog of dust and wear coating the rich fabric.
The Faeries, watching the hunting party from the corners of the material with sly expressions, were nearly invisible.
The tapestries once marked the house out as one of the few truly Faerie-blessed in England.
Now they were a faded honor to match the crumbling stone.
The only monuments left unaltered by time and poor management were the branching antlers of the great elk that crowned the mantel, and cobwebs looped between its branches.
“I see that Uncle made the upkeep a priority,” Mouse said. John’s laugh caught in his throat when he glimpsed Dawson’s scowl.
Despite her levity, an underlying anger bubbled in Mouse’s belly. Her uncle had let the house dissolve around him, despite its historical significance. Thistlemarsh Hall had once been one of the most respected houses in England, and here it was, crumbling and shamed.
Since she left, Mouse had grappled with her feelings about the Hall.
They twisted in her gut, making her squirm whenever the other nurses at Le Temple des Fées spoke of home.
Thistlemarsh was synonymous with Lord Dewhurst—cold, cruel, and unfeeling.
At the same time, the Hall contained her happiest memories with Bertie and Roger in those golden summers before the war.
Dawson led them to Lord Dewhurst’s office; his eyes kept darting to Mouse’s hands as though he expected her to pocket the silver.
He wore a black armband around the upper arm of his livery, and his eyes were bloodshot.
Mouse almost felt sorry for him until he intentionally trod on her shoe as he passed.
When he closed the door, she smiled at him, aware that she looked the most like her father when she smiled.
Mr. Beckett sat behind her uncle’s desk, one neat stack of papers stark against the English oak. The solicitor peered at them from behind round glasses, calm and calculating. His thin nose and squinting eyes reminded Mouse of a shrew.
“Welcome home, Miss Dunne,” Beckett said, sniffed, and tacked on a correction. “Forgive me. Lady Dewhurst.”
The sound of her new title pricked like a thorn in Mouse’s mind, but she did not want to untangle her feelings in front of the solicitor.
She focused instead on skirting around the obscene tiger pelt that decorated the floor before taking a seat in the chair opposite Beckett.
She glanced at the polished wood of the desk.
It was cleaner than she had ever seen it.
Beckett poured Mouse a cup of tea from the teapot waiting on a tray.
Mouse took it, grateful for the refreshment.
In life, her uncle confined his tidiness to his appearance, a trait that fit the mold left by many of his indolent ancestors. Mouse remembered him standing behind the same desk, sneering down at her when she first arrived at Thistlemarsh, age twelve.
“Personal untidiness is the truest marker of the lower classes,” Lord Dewhurst had declared. Her father had been standing behind her, garden dirt pressed under his nails.
“And poor manners mark the lowest of men,” she had replied. Her uncle’s skin flushed the color of a prune, and she was sent to bed with no supper.
“You cannot insult Lord Dewhurst for my sake, a thaisce,” her father said the following day when she was released to join him on the grounds.
“He is not a good man.”
“He is not a kind man, no. But we are both here now and must make the best of it. In this house you can learn to be a well-bred lady, like your mother. There are opportunities for a girl like that.”
“At least in Manchester, we were free to be ourselves.”
He took Mouse in, her hands on her hips and her face screwed up in a furious scowl. He smiled, his teeth glinting white behind his mustache, but the smile did not meet his eyes. They walked in silence for a long time through the gardens, with their towering topiaries and grand statues.
“We cannot be free anywhere, a thaisce, not when we have no money and no home. Even a wild rose cannot grow from a stone. Your uncle will take care of you and Roger, even if he does so out of duty. Once you are older, you will taste freedom you would never have in the city.”
Here was the freedom her father spoke of, written out for her on paper, although it came at a towering cost. A war and two dead bodies had paved the way between her and this freedom.
Beckett cleared his throat. She shifted, focusing on the task at hand. John gripped the chair behind her. The upholstery coughed out dust between his fingers and down around her head.
“Forgive me. You were saying?” Mouse asked.
“I am impressed by your change in accent, Lady Dewhurst. It is certainly more refined, more befitting a lady.”
Less like her father’s. Mouse felt the outline of the insult in the air like chalk dust. Even after years, the posh accent she’d adopted still sat like a horse’s bit on her tongue: restrained, uncomfortable.
The vowels always rebelled against her, muddying in her mouth into something unnatural.
Every word felt like a small betrayal of her father.
“Yes, well, elocution is an important aspect of nursing,” Mouse said. “At least, that’s what the doctors believe.”
Beckett sniffed, opening his crisp leather briefcase with the precision of someone who had practiced in front of a mirror. Bertie would have laughed at that, and Roger’s eyes would have flashed with something bright, even as his lips stayed level. Mouse kept her expression still and grave.
Beckett drew a set of papers from the briefcase and laid them on the desk. “He left the house and all assets to you, of course, as his last close living relative.”
The “close” almost made her laugh. She might have if John hadn’t tightened his hold on the chairback in warning.
Beckett knew as well as she did that the likelihood was slim that her uncle would leave her anything out of affection.
She had fully expected him to burn the Hall to the ground before he left a penny to her, purely out of spite.
And besides, Roger was not dead, only languishing in a hospital bed.
Beckett sorted through the new stack of papers before descending on a crisp sheet toward the bottom. “Ah, yes, here we are. Lord Dewhurst left everything to you, but there are…conditions.”
“Conditions?” Her uncle would have the last laugh, after all, a final dig.
“Well then, I can waive my rights to the house. I’m unlikely to agree with any conditions he’s left for me.
I will be frank with you, Mr. Beckett. I planned to sell Thistlemarsh.
Barring that, perhaps to set it up as a convalescent home. ”
That surprised the man, Mouse was glad to see.
He swallowed before looking down at his papers.
“You may choose to waive your rights. However, Lord Dewhurst wanted you to know that, if you reject the house and the title or attempt to give them away, everything will go to the Honorable Anthony Carlyle. That includes the money supporting your brother in the French hospital.”
Mouse’s teacup clattered in its saucer.
“Carlyle?” Mouse croaked, her throat abruptly raw. She continued, trying to regain control of her emotions. “You must be mistaken. That is impossible. My uncle would not leave anything to him.”
“I am afraid that Lord Dewhurst did indeed name Carlyle as his third heir. Your brother is the first, of course, but given his condition…” Beckett trailed off at Mouse’s glare. “Anyway, if you refuse Thistlemarsh, it will go to Mr. Carlyle.”
“Why?”
“As you are aware, this is a Faerie-blessed house, so there are certain untraditional rules that apply. In hundreds of years, this is the first time that the Hall has not passed to a direct Dewhurst heir. The Faerie rules specify that the nearest heir must win the house in a trial or forfeit it to the next in line.”
“And this rule was meant to weaken the power of the human owners, I assume. But the Faeries are gone. Why should their laws still apply here? And again, why Carlyle? He’s a distant cousin, at best. There must be a closer relative. Carlyle has an older brother, for goodness’ sake!”
Beckett grimaced. “The covenants protecting Faerie-blessed houses are codified into English law, and we take them very seriously. As to why Lord Dewhurst chose Carlyle specifically, I have no idea. But it was within his rights to choose one alternate heir if you cannot fulfill the stipulations, regardless of rank.”