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Chapter 11: A Dangerous Test

Author: Melissa Clint
last update Petsa ng paglalathala: 2026-09-16 19:44:11

Kaelen

The candle on the floor became light and dim repeatedly, the shadow of the man reflecting in the doorway across the stone floor like pooled ink.

Lord Alistair Sterling didn’t look like a ghost. He looked like a king who had stepped away from his throne and left lesser lords to tear each other apart. His cloak was made of velvet and decorated with dark fur, his silver hair swept back, and his pale gray eyes held the terrifying calm of absolute control.

Beside me, Wren went rigid.

Her fin
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  • THE HEIRESS BEHIND THE MADNESS   Chapter 75: Midnight Reconnaissance

    WrenKael told me in the dressing room with the door shut and the taps running, in case the walls had ears.I stood at the mirror and listened to him say it. Pre-filled. Uploaded at eleven last night. Today's date. The whole time I kept my eyes on my own reflection, the sapphires, the velvet at my throat, and thought about a six-year-old with honey-coloured plaits hiding under my duvet during thunderstorms."She's sitting on her bed with the laptop open," he said. "She hasn't moved in ten minutes.""Julian?""Left for Ashford Hall at four. He's walking the stage with the florists." Kael's mouth flattened. "Beatrix's men are on the front door, and only the front. The service lift is clear."I turned from the mirror. "Then we go now. All three of us.""Wren, she poisoned your tea for six months.""And somebody has written her date of death in advance." My voice came out harder than I meant it to. "I won't let Oswin do that to anyone. Not even her."He looked at me a long moment. Then he

  • THE HEIRESS BEHIND THE MADNESS   Chapter 74: Lyra's Desperation

    LyraI heard it through the wall at ten to three. A small, clean click, like somebody capping a pen.I don't know why it frightened me. It was only a sound. But I had lived in the same house as Julian for four years, and I knew every noise he made, the whisky glass set down too hard, the cough he did when he was lying. This was a new one. It was the noise a man makes when he has stopped pretending to be harmless.I stopped breathing and listened. Footsteps, slow, going away down the corridor. A door. Then nothing.My hands were shaking so badly I had to press them flat against the desk.Tonight, I thought. Whatever's going to happen, it happens tonight.I had three hours. Maybe less. Marigold held a little over three million pounds, every penny I'd been bleeding out of Julian's reserve for fourteen months, in careful pieces, in careful weeks. I'd planned to leave it alone until the spring. Let it grow. Let Wren be sent away and Julian be comforted and the Ashford name be quiet again.

  • THE HEIRESS BEHIND THE MADNESS   Chapter 73: The Phantom Affair

    WrenThe key turned with a small clean click, like a pen being capped."I'd advise against the window, Doctor," Oswin said, without looking at Kael. "It's a long drop to Mount Street." He slid the key into his waistcoat and lowered himself into the leather chair as if he'd been invited to stay. "Julian, dear boy. You were telling us about a man in a long coat."Julian had gone the colour of candle wax. "I shouldn't have...""No. You shouldn't." Oswin sighed, the sigh of a man setting down something heavy. Then he looked at me, and for the first time in my life I saw him without the kindness arranged on top. "Emerence, I'll spare you the performance. The east door was mine. Beatrix instructed it, and I told myself it would be a fright. A bruise. Enough for the doctors to sign what they needed." His eyes dropped to my throat, to the black velvet. "Not three scars. I have been paying for those since the night I carried you in."Carried me.I had always thought I'd crawled to the kitchen

  • THE HEIRESS BEHIND THE MADNESS   Chapter 72: Kael's Evaluation of Julian

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