Three weeks had passed since Alexander Wood's death. I had been silent. In fact, after that day, only went to the medical school, took my notes, and returned home. Even Professor William tried to console me, thinking I was mourning Alexander. Yes, Miss Jane continued attending classes, perhaps she didn't, I'm not sure; honestly, didn't pay attention. Only thing I kept thinking about was that she had found my stitching flawless.
Heavy, milk-white blanket of the morning fog had swallowed every stone and every root of the Ravencroft estate. Cold covered even the vapor rising from the dogs' noses; the air hung over us like a thick curtain. In distance, walls of Edinburgh Castle could be seen faintly through the haze.
Hunting dogs moved ahead excitedly, Jasper walked quietly behind them, and I kept lowering and lifting my rifle from my shoulder trying to concentrate and failing. Meanwhile Laurence had gone down to the city with his sister; they were looking at ribbons together.
A deer appeared. Fog swirled around the animal, trembling. I raised my rifle, narrowed my eyes, and aimed.
Missed.
Sound of the rifle echoed within the fog; the hunting dogs stopped, then continued barking.
I clenched my teeth, my breath quickened an indescribable mix of anger, curiosity, fear, and excitement coursed through me all at once. Jasper immediately understood this wasn't a normal kind of anger.
"Brother… what's wrong?" Asked carefully.
Turned to Jasper suddenly. I pressed my rifle against his chest in a controlled motion, then left it in his hands. Scrunched my face, walked to nearest tree, and struck it hard with my fist. Blood burned through my veins as it flowed.
"Fuck!" Shouted, with all the strength of my vocal cords and throat.
A few dry leaves broke free from the tree and scattered in the air. Birds took flight in panic; the sound of their wings made a muffled echo inside the fog.
One hand on my waist, other rubbing my temples, breathed faster. My face was caught in a strange blend of shame, anger, and something else I couldn't name.
"She said my stitching was flawless."
Jasper raised his brows. "Who?"
"Miss MacLeod." My voice shifted to something close to a laugh. "At Wood's funeral, she said my stitching was perfect."
Jasper's eyes widened. "Does she know our identity?"
"Perhaps," I said.
Then smiled, a cold, uncontrolled, unrestrained smile. And I immediately afterward, began to giggle.
A soft, thoughtful giggle at first; then it grew, and grew…
"Brother… why does your voice sound happy?" Jasper stepped back.
I slowly crouched down. The damp soil soaked through my trousers, but didn't care. Threw my head back and laughed that dark, thin laughter that rises from the back of the throat.
When stood up and took rifle back from Jasper, expression on my face had changed entirely. Beneath my smile was that obsessive determination, filling my pupils with an icy sharpness. Braced the rifle against my shoulder, held my breath; my finger watched the target without a single tremor.
This time, didn't miss.
Bang!
Bird dropped, collapsing to the ground as if shot straight through the neck. Without taking a single step, in the quiet where I could just hear Jasper's breathing, said,
"I'm going to destroy that woman."
Then aimed the rifle at my dead prey once more and fired again.
Bang.
"I'll annihilate her so thoroughly… she won't go to heaven or hell. I will erase her soul."
Jasper swallowed, unable to decide what to say.
Animals we hunted were cleaned meticulously in the kitchen; meat roasting in hearth filled the rooms with a heavy scent. Laurence sat in a corner drawing a portrait of Elora; he changed sheet twice to get the tone of the little girl's brown hair right.
I went through barony documents, signing, stamping seals yet my mind kept circling back to the same words on every page:
"A flawless stitch…"
Miss MacLeod's whisper was still inside my ears. I retired to my room much earlier than usual that night, though sleep treated me like a stranger.
When finally drifted off, darkness gave way to a hall smothered in ash-gray fog.
There, a woman stood with her back to me. Her hair fell like a black river down to her hips.
I took a step.
Without turning her head, the woman touched my shoulder.
The touch was so real, so cold that a shiver ran through my entire body. Moment her fingers touched me, woman suddenly began to crumble like grains of sand turning into dust.
There was no wind.
No movement.
Yet she dissolved before my eyes and bled into the darkness.
At that very instant, a sharp pain pierced my chest. Grabbed my shirt; a warm wetness leaked beneath my fingers. When I looked down, fabric was blooming into red, quickly.
Woman's laughter echoed. It wasn't soft. It wasn't a smile.
Jolted awake; my breath erratic, my forehead drenched in sweat.
With each recurring nightmare, my face grew paler, shadows under my eyes deeper. In silence of the house, with only the dying crackle of fireplace, I sat at midnight and lit my tobacco.
As the flames' crimson glow fractured across my face, a thought threaded through me:
"Someone… someone knows me."
A darker corner of my mind whispered the same thing in a different tone:
"And that woman deserves to see the real me."
While one woman might know my identity, had also received an angry letter from another. Opened it in my study, it was from Mrs. Margaret Wood. Short but pointed: We need to talk.
So I walked through narrow streets where the night fog was thinning, until reached the grey stone townhouse at No. 17 Moray Place. This was the Wood residence, right in the center of Edinburgh's respectable yet rumor-drenched New Town.
Door opened to reveal Margaret Wood, wrapped in her nightgown. In her eyes lived the trembling shadow of sleepless nights.
"Adrian… come in."
I entered the house. It carried that muted scent peculiar to mourning homes: extinguished candles, a faint trace of lavender.
As I closed the door behind me, could hear the strain in Margaret's breathing.
"A baron visiting a widow's home at this hour of the night. Doesn't it sound like a delightful little scandal?"
She stepped toward me. Her hair looked as though it had been braided and undone since morning; under-eyes were dark. She wore a black robe that was barely more than a nightdress. Margaret clenched her hands, her tear-filled eyes and gritted teeth trembling with fury.
"Visiting a widow is the problem, but getting into her bed isn't, is it?" Voice was fragile, but her anger wasn't.
As I tossed my coat onto the armchair, a faint weariness tugged at my expression.
"What did we even do when I got into your bed?"
My voice was both harsh and indifferent.
We had lain in the same bed, yes but I had been impotent for as long as could remember. Had merely told her that would be able to perform after marriage. Getting into her bed had been nothing but opportunism. The Wood family produced medicine; I needed access to their formulations.
"Don't be foolish, Margaret."
Lifted my hand and stroked her cheek gently. The touch carried a tenderness made of ice non-burning, but lingering long after contact.
"It doesn't suit you."
Margaret's breath quivered. Questions she had been storing for weeks, sleepless nights, rumors, loneliness, everything struck her at once. Her eyes filled instantly; she looked torn between leaning into me and slapping me.
"It's been three weeks, three weeks since my husband died. And you didn't come. Not once."
Tilted my head slightly, studying her with that cold, detail-hungry gaze of mine. I wasn't observing her grief, was measuring the imbalance in her behavior. My eyes narrowed in disgust.
"Are you upset because he died?"
"I'm upset because you didn't come to me."
She wiped her tears and blew her nose harshly.
"Or were you with her?"
"Her? Who are you talking about?"
"I saw it at the funeral! I saw you talking to her at the doorway and sitting beside her in the church!"
"If it had been your father sitting next to me in the church, would you be reacting the same way? You're beginning to anger me, Margaret."
"Tell me nothing happened with that woman.
Or I'll tell everyone about the medicines you took from me. And I think people might guess what you use them for."
"What do you think you'll gain by threatening me?"
Margaret leaned into me, resting her head against my chest; as if clinging to the warmth beneath my skin would soften the sharpness of the words she'd just thrown.
"Your love."
My love? I let out a small chuckle before it swelled into a laugh. It echoed across candlelit walls of the room. When the laughter faded, I drew in a deep breath and caught Margaret's trembling chin between my fingers the corner of my lips curving into something both merciless and mesmerizing.
"Appreciate your desire to carry my child,"
Carcasm in my voice was as real as the cold air slipping through the cracks of the door.
Margaret's fingers tightened around the fabric of my shirt, her knuckles whitening with pain. In that moment, I knew she had realized a truth as solid as my own heart: the warmth in my voice was the warmth of deception; the depth in my gaze was nothing but an abyss calling her toward my darkest side.
And still, she could do nothing but lean closer to that abyss.
Tilted my head, my gaze dragging a shadow heavy enough to push her back.
When my fingertips wandered across her cheek, the grace of my touch carried a hollowness sharp as a blade. Mixture of her desire and pain echoed silently within that touch.
When my breath brushed the rim of her ear, a thin venom slipped into my words:
"Love… is that truly what you believe this is?"
Margaret tried to hear the beating of my heart yet the only heartbeat she heard was her own, frantic and helpless.
As her warm palms cupped my face, I held her by the kissed her lips; a kiss that tasted of all the unspoken questions, all the passion, and all the poison between us.
When my lips parted from hers, I looked directly into her eyes.
"I can't marry you now, Margaret."
Brushed her wet eyelashes with my thumb.
"I can't leave my siblings."
"We could live together," she whispered.
"And that is exactly what I mean," Replied.
"They don't like you."
She and Alexander had visited the manor once.
I remember it clearly: she told Elora that a woman's interest in medical studies was improper, told Laurence that his paintings lacked talent, and told Jasper to stop wasting his time with childish pursuits.
After that day, I never invited them again; my siblings had already sharpened their resentment toward her.
Her lips trembled, caught somewhere between hurt and anger.
"Then… how long will you keep me waiting?"
"Will try to shorten it," I said.
"But time is not mine to command. Don't fall into despair… I don't like the ruins settling on your face."
Margaret's broken smile carried the faintest line of hope.
Her hands settled inside mine; she kissed first my knuckles, then my palms.
As her fingertips gently traced the lines of my hands, a whisper fell from her lips:
"Your eyes look sunken… were you also devastated because you couldn't see me?"
Women always desired the same things to be needed, to be longed for, to be loved, to be consumed with passion. But could give her none of that.
I merely found her body suitable enough to carry my child, yet how could a straight-haired heir be born from a father with wavy hair and a mother with curls like hers?
Perfection had already fractured before it even began, and still, the best option available to me stood right in front of me.
"Yes, your absence gives me nightmares."
Margaret's breath faltered.
My words were the most dangerous confirmation she could ever hope for.
Her fingers clung tighter to mine, as if releasing them would send her plunging into darkness.
Breath grazed beneath my ear, warm with the kiss she left there.
"If you ever touch another woman, I will kill her and you Adrian."
My lips curled slightly.
My smile held both danger and seduction; calm, careless, yet utterly assured.
My fingers brushed lightly against her chin.
"I would very much like to see that, Margaret. Truly… I wonder how far you're capable of going."
Fact that man she threatened neither recoiled nor feared her that instead he provoked her sent fire rushing through her veins.
Her hands slid up my neck, her nails pressing gently into my skin; the touch of a woman who knew the line between love and hatred, and walked it willingly.
I removed her hands from my body and pushed her away.
"But I can't stay with you. I haven't been sleeping well, and my work is piling up."
As I retrieved my coat from the armchair and slipped it on, Margaret spoke in a panic.
"Are you going to ignore me? Again?"
"No. I want you to know that amidst all my obligations, still valued you enough to come here just because of your letter. Good night."
My hand reached for the door handle.
"I love you."
Paused.
Her words felt less foreign than insincere.
Love. Being loved.
It was nothing but a sexual impulse.
I didn't answer.
She was far too emotional today, and hated emotionality.
Even having comforted her felt like wearing a garment that didn't belong on my body.
My hands trembled; Wanted her gone, wanted to rid myself of her as she had of her husband to feel the faintness of her life under my fingers. But after her husband's death, hers would draw too much attention.
At last, I closed the door behind me and left. Moment left Margaret's door behind me, the cold night air struck my chest.
Miss Jane MacLeod stood there. Edge of her coal-dark hair brushed against the midnight-blue folds of her cloak, its draping trimmed with a faint, silver-like gleam.
"What brings you here at this hour, Miss MacLeod?"
Jane stepped closer. There was no smile on her face, her lips curved in a small, clever line, and yet her expression remained entirely unreadable.
"I came to offer condolences," she said calmly.
"Margaret and I were childhood friends. To see you here at such an hour is… surprising. Here. Alone."
"Miss Margaret is unavailable at the moment, you should return home."
Her gaze slid past me, toward Margaret's house.
"If that is so," she said, drawing her feet closer together with the polite poise of an Edinburgh lady,
"you could at least offer to escort me back. It would be the gentlemanly thing to do."
"Of course. I only hope it won't result in the death of us both."
She didn't understand what I meant, but I did and that was enough.
"A man like you doesn't strike me as someone afraid of death."
We walked side by side. After a few steps, Miss Jane spoke again.
"You're unusually quiet tonight, Mr. Ravencroft. Leaving the home of a woman widowed only three weeks ago… one cannot help but wonder."
Without turning my head, I answered:
"Curiosity doesn't always bring kindness."
"I know, but you look tired. The circles beneath your eyes… you're not sleeping, are you, Mr. Ravencroft? Haven't been sleeping either. I keep having nightmares."
I didn't care, yet asked simply to keep the conversation moving.
"What kind of nightmares?"
"About you."
When I turned my head toward her, she continued walking with composed hands folded before her.
"You were chasing me through the forest. When I reached the edge of a cliff, you pushed me into the water below.
And then..." Her voice softened, as if recalling a memory rather than a dream,
"...then you jumped after me."
I stood where I was, the echo of my footsteps fading between the stone walls.
"To make sure I drowned?"
I asked with the only honesty I possessed, cold, truthful, ruthless.
She turned her head toward me.
"No," she said.
"You jumped to drown with me."