LOGINShare
Chapter 17: Shadows of the Vane Name
publish date:
2026-09-18 05:44:39
Latest chapter
THE HEIRESS BEHIND THE MADNESS Chapter 50: Lyra's Countermove
LyraI don't sleep in this house. I just lie still and wait for it to be morning.At twenty to four, I gave up and went to the window. My room is at the back of the east wing, the smallest one, with the sloping ceiling. The Duchess gave it to me at fourteen and said, "It has a lovely view, dear." It has a view of the bins and the east gate.Tonight, the gate had company.A man was standing out there under the dead lamp, in a long coat, next to a grey car with its lights off. I knew the other shape coming across the lawn without a torch. Nobody else in this house walks like he's carrying a coffin on his back. Dr. Vane.I put my forehead to the cold glass.Everyone talks about how Wren looks at him, but nobody talks about how he looks at her. I've watched it for weeks. He looks at her the way you look at the last lit window on a dark road. I once saw him fix her cardigan collar when she wasn't looking. Nobody has ever fixed my collar in my life.At the gate, the man put his hand on Kael
THE HEIRESS BEHIND THE MADNESS Chapter 49: The First Kiss
Wren"What receipt?"The torch hit the bottom step and went out. Now there was only the dark and the sound of him breathing.I could have lied. For one whole second, with his hand wrapped around mine, I thought about it. It would have been so easy to say nothing, never mind, and let him go to bed with his father's name still sitting on his chest."Not here," I said. "Come back down with me.""She just let us out, Wren.""That's why. She thinks we're running upstairs to cry into our pillows. The east wing walls are paper, and Mrs. Pell sleeps light. The vault is the only room in this house where my grandmother can't hear through a keyhole."He didn't argue. We crept back down, and the door was just as we'd left it, the lamp still burning, the teacup cold on its saucer with a faint pink mark on the rim. I took his phone out of my pocket and pressed it into his palm."I read your whole life on that thing, and I'm still giving it back. Remember that."He didn't smile. He only waited."I f
THE HEIRESS BEHIND THE MADNESS Chapter 48: The Crucible of Trust
WrenOne hour. She's with me. She doesn't suspect anything.I read it once. Then I read it again, because the first time the words just slid off my head like rain off a window.Every kind thing he'd done came back at me at once, and every one of them looked different now. The tea he made me. The night he stayed until sunrise and said it was for my blood pressure. The way he looked at me over his coffee, like I was the only quiet thing in a loud house.Was any of it his own? Or was it all just a job, written up in a text and sent off to my grandmother?"Take your time," Beatrix said kindly. She leaned back in her chair. "This is the part I've always enjoyed, Emerence. When a person finds out what they're really standing next to."I didn't look at her. I turned to Kael.He hadn't moved. He hadn't tried to explain, either, and I think that was what held me still. A guilty man talks. He rushes. This one just stood there with his hands open at his sides, white to the lips, like he was wait
THE HEIRESS BEHIND THE MADNESS Chapter 47: The Truth of the Thorne Group
WrenMy grandmother stepped into the lamplight like she was arriving at a dinner party.Silver hair in its tight chignon. A navy silk dressing gown buttoned to her throat at two in the morning. She lowered herself into the chair at the reading desk, picked up the teacup, and took a slow sip."Close your mouth, Emerence. It doesn't suit you."I couldn't. I stood there with the photograph crushed in my fist, a hundred dead Ashfords staring down at me, and one thought went round and round. She was here the whole time. She heard him kiss me. She heard me kiss him back."Open the door, Grandmother.""In a while." She set the cup down without a sound. "You asked Kaelen a question twice and he hasn't answered. I'd like to hear it. I've waited a long time."Kael was looking at her. I stepped in front of him, so close I could see the pulse in his throat."Don't look at her," I said. "Look at me. How did you know my father's handwriting?"For a second he just breathed. Then something in his sho
THE HEIRESS BEHIND THE MADNESS Chapter 46: Kael's Secret Exposed
WrenFor when he comes.Three words and two dots, like she had started to say more and changed her mind. I held the card so tightly the edge cut into my thumb.Behind it, tucked into the fold of the deed, was a thin cream envelope. One word on the front, in my grandmother's perfect hand. Kaelen.Kael didn't take it. He looked at it the way you look at a dog that might bite."Open it," I whispered."Not here." His voice cracked in the middle. "Not with all of them watching. If it says what I think it says, I don't want to be standing in a dead woman's perfume when I read it.""She isn't dead.""She is to me right now."He slid the envelope inside his jumper, against his chest, and pressed his palm flat over it. I wanted to put my hand on top of his. I didn't, because I was already too close to something I couldn't take back."Give me a minute," he said. "Please."So I turned back to the drawer and gave him his minute. I could hear him breathing behind me, slow and careful, the way you
THE HEIRESS BEHIND THE MADNESS Chapter 45: Into the Vault
Wren At two in the morning, Ashford Manor sounds like an animal asleep.The pipes tick. The old timbers settle. Somewhere down the east corridor a clock keeps its own opinion about the hour. I stood in the dark of my room with my shoes in my hand and listened to all of it, waiting for the tap on my door, and I told myself I was only afraid of Julian.Two knocks, soft, then one. Kael stood on the other side in a black jumper, with the steel fob in his palm and a torch in his pocket. He looked like a man who hadn't been to bed. His hair was wrecked from his own hands."Julian's out cold," he whispered. "Mrs. Pell's wing is locked. We have one hour.""You're sure he's asleep?""I put something in his brandy." When I stared at him, the corner of his mouth twitched. "Valerian. A great deal of it. He'll wake up cranky and think he drank too much."I should have laughed. I took his hand instead, because the corridor was dark and because I wanted to, and he closed his fingers around mine
You May Also Like
My Forbidden Lover
S.Oyogho dancing pen20.7K viewsThe Hidden Mystery
Ghassan12.5K viewsA Sad Murder
Maryel18.1K viewsNightmares
Kareem soliat Omolara8.8K viewsKarma : I Married My Abusive Husband's Twin
Reeya1.0K viewsBad boy's obsession
Prem's pen 🖋️🖋️932 viewsWhat Nobody Sees
Amy Rodrick 1.2K viewsCRESCENT OF DESTINY
Herladymj755 views
