MARGARET’S POV
For a moment, I thought my mind had finally broken.
It would have made sense. There was only so much the mind could endure before it conjured ghosts.
That’s what this had to be. Because the person kneeling before me did not look like Tobias Brighton.
At least, not at first glance.
His hair was longer and darker, pinned beneath a faded scarf in a style typical of the island’s older female staff.
A loose caretaker’s uniform softened the shape of his shoulders and hid the breadth of his frame. His skin had been subtly altered with cosmetics—his jaw shaded differently, his mouth held in a smaller, quieter line.
Even his scent was wrong, buried beneath antiseptic, salt, detergent, and the faint bitter trace of herbs used in the servants’ quarters.
But no disguise could change his eyes.
Storm-gray, steady, and old with knowing.
