THE HEIRESS BEHIND THE MADNESS のすべてのチャプター: チャプター 1 - チャプター 6

Wren “Drink it, Wren.”Julian’s voice was barely louder than the scrape of Thomas’s heels as he dragged the limp body into the dark hall. The smear of red on the glass was still wet, running down in thin legs toward the floor.My hands shook for real this time. Cold terror settled deep in the bone. I looked from the tip of the cane to the half-empty pitcher. I swallowed it. I had believed the pills were the only danger.Julian shut the oak door. The bolt slid home with a final thud.Pitch black.I collapsed onto the cot, knuckles pressed to my teeth to keep the sob inside. My stomach twisted hard. Poison? Slow sedative? Every pulse behind my eyes said the walls were closing, the air thickening, the fog finally coming for me.I lay there for hours listening to water drip from the vaulted ceiling, waiting for my heart to stop.Grey morning light leaked down the stairwell and I was still breathing. The horror had not killed me, but it had stripped every scrap of false confidence. Exhaus

Wren I shoved the muddy scrap into my mouth, chewed, swallowed it whole just as the oak door swung wide.Harsh oil-lamp light. Not Julian. Martha, the senior housekeeper, jaws set like flint. She traded the untouched poisoned pitcher for a fresh cup of steaming Earl Grey, set it on the stool outside the glass, and left without a glance. Boots thudded up the stairs.I stared at the rising steam.Father’s grave. The words burned hotter than the paper I had just swallowed.The pale brown liquid in the cup. Bergamot and bitter orange. Six months ago that exact scent had been my morning ritual in the sunlit conservatory upstairs.Back then I was still the grieving daughter wandering Ashford in a velvet robe, mourning Father’s sudden death. I thought the heavy fog in my head was only sorrow. I remembered the leaden fatigue that hit every morning at nine the way my limbs turned to stone, eyelids dragging shut by the bay window, memory of Father’s final night blurring at the edges like water

Wren The wet rasping sound beneath the well cover still clawed at my ears, a dying man’s last breath trapped in stone. I pressed my spine hard against the damp brick of the basement corridor, fingers locked around the cold, slick bone handle of the guard’s knife.Don’t go upstairs. He is not in the study. He is waiting at the grave.My heart battered my ribs like a frantic bird in a cage too small to breathe. I could not run. Not yet. A sudden mechanical shriek cut the silence of a brass telephone’s private line ringing from the dark heart of the house above.I climbed the narrow servants’ stairs on bare, filth-caked feet that made no sound on the worn oak. Darkness hung thick with pine oil and old dust. At the heavy velvet curtain that hid the study’s side door, I parted the fabric a finger’s width and looked through.Julian stood rigid beside the mahogany desk in his crisp white shirt, top button undone. His hands trembled as he held the black bakelite receiver to his ear.“I assur