The scream came again as I reached the end of the corridor—a jagged, animal sound that did not belong to the Celia I knew. That Celia was composed, measured, her every word weighed like coin. This was something else. This was terror stripped of all pretense.
I did not bother with knocking. I threw the door open and found her pressed against the far wall, her dressing gown clutched to her chest, her eyes fixed on the window. The curtains were drawn back, and through the glass I could see only the blackness of the night and the falling snow.
"Edmund," she gasped, her voice trembling. "There was someone. Outside. Looking in."
I crossed to the window and pressed my face to the cold pane. The garden below was a white void, the snow falling so thickly that I could not see more than a few feet. But there—near the hedge that bordered the greenhouse—I saw them. Footprints. Fresh, dark against the white, leading from the direction of the greenhouse toward the house, and then disappearing around the corner toward the scullery.
"Did you see a face?" I asked.
"No. Just a shape. A shadow. It was there, and then it was gone." She was shaking, and for a moment, I saw past her careful piety to the frightened woman beneath. "I thought—I thought they were coming for me. After Beatrice, I thought I would be next."
I did not tell her that I had been in the greenhouse only an hour before, burying the phial I had found. I did not tell her that the footprints might be my own, or that the shadow she had seen might have been nothing more than her imagination feeding on fear. Instead, I closed the curtains and guided her to a chair.
"Stay here," I said. "Lock the door. I will check the grounds."
I descended to the scullery and stepped out into the snow. The cold bit through my coat, and the wind carried the sharp scent of frost and dead earth. I followed the footprints, my own boots sinking into the fresh powder. They led to the greenhouse—I had been right. But when I pushed open the door and lit the lantern I had left there, I saw that my careful burial had been disturbed.
The soil was churned, the hole gaping. The phial was gone.
Someone had taken it.
I stood there in the frozen silence, my breath misting in the air, and I felt something I had not felt in years—fear. Not of death, not of discovery, but of the unknown. Of the player I had not yet identified.
I searched the greenhouse thoroughly, but there was nothing else. No note, no dropped object, no clue to the identity of the thief. Whoever had taken the phial knew what it was. And whoever knew what it was knew that Celia had been the one to plant it—or at least, that Celia was connected to it. That made her vulnerable. And that made me vulnerable too.
I returned to the house and spent the rest of the night in my room, the door bolted, my journal hidden beneath a loose floorboard. I did not sleep. I listened to the groans of the old house, the whisper of the snow against the glass, and I waited for dawn.
Dawn came pale and grudging, the sky a watery grey that offered no warmth. The household assembled for breakfast in a silence that was more eloquent than any accusation. Beatrice had been moved to a sitting room on the ground floor, still too weak to walk, but she had insisted on joining us. She was propped on a chaise, her face the colour of old wax, her eyes watchful.
Father presided from his wheeled chair, his hands folded over the silver-headed cane he now used as a scepter. He looked around the table with the satisfaction of a man watching a play he had written himself.
"We have had another disturbance," he said, his voice a dry rasp. "My daughter Celia was frightened by a prowler last night. I have instructed Harkness to secure all doors and windows. No one enters, no one leaves. Until I say otherwise."
Richard snorted. "You cannot keep us prisoners, Father."
"I can keep you here," Father said calmly. "And I will. Because the alternative—allowing one of you to flee to the authorities—would be inconvenient. And I have always been inconvenienced by my children."
No one spoke. The toast was passed, the tea poured, the marmalade offered and declined. I watched each of them in turn. Richard's hands were steady, but his eyes darted to the door every few seconds. Celia's fingers trembled as she lifted her cup. Henry had not touched his food at all. And Beatrice—Beatrice stared at me with an intensity that made my skin prickle.
She knew something. Or suspected something. And in a house of suspects, suspicion was as good as evidence.
The morning dragged on. I retreated to the library and tried to read, but the words blurred on the page. My mind was elsewhere—on the missing phial, on the footprints in the snow, on the question of who had been watching me. I had thought myself the observer, the silent one, the one who saw all. But now I realised that I, too, was being seen.
At noon, I went to the greenhouse. The snow had stopped, and the sun had broken through the clouds, casting a thin, watery light over the frozen garden. I knelt where I had buried the phial and examined the disturbed earth more closely. There were two sets of prints—my own, and another, larger, with a distinctive tread. A man's boot, perhaps. Or a heavy woman's shoe.
I followed the larger prints away from the greenhouse, toward the eastern wing of the Hall, where Richard had his rooms. They ended at the door to the scullery, then disappeared on the stone floor inside. But I noticed something else—a small fleck of dark wool caught on the latch of the scullery door. I picked it off and held it to the light. Dark grey, with a tight weave. The same colour as Richard's favourite hunting jacket.
I slipped the wool into my pocket and returned to the house, my suspicions crystallising. Richard had taken the phial. He had been following me, watching me, and he had retrieved the evidence before I could use it. But why? To protect Celia? Or to use it against me?
That afternoon, Richard summoned me to his study. He poured two glasses of whisky and offered me one. I took it but did not drink.
"You look tired, Edmund," he said, settling into his leather chair. "Not sleeping well?"
"I sleep as well as anyone in this house," I said. "Which is to say, not at all."
He laughed, a short, hollow sound. "We are all on edge. That is the point, isn't it? Father wants us to tear each other apart. And we are obliging him beautifully."
"Are we?"
He leaned forward, his eyes glinting. "You know who poisoned Beatrice, don't you? I think you do. And I think you are protecting them."
"Protecting whom?"
"Celia," he said, and the name hung in the air like smoke. "She has always been the pious one, the quiet one. But I know her better than you do. She is ambitious, Edmund. And she has a knowledge of herbs that she acquired at that convent school. She knows how to make tinctures, extracts, poisons. She could have done it."
"Why are you telling me this?"
"Because I want you on my side," he said, and his voice dropped to a conspiratorial murmur. "When this is over, there will be only one heir. I intend for it to be me. But I can be generous to those who help me. A house in London. A generous allowance. You would never have to work again."
He was offering me a bribe. A clumsy, transparent bribe. But it told me something important—he was afraid. He did not know who the poisoner was, and he was trying to secure allies. That meant he was not the one who had taken the phial. If he had been, he would not need to bargain with me.
I smiled and raised the glass. "I will think about it, Richard. That is all I can promise."
He nodded, satisfied, and I left his study without tasting the whisky. I poured it into a potted fern when I was safely out of sight.
That evening, I put my plan into motion.
I had been collecting the leaves of the foxglove I had planted in the greenhouse, drying them in the boiler room, crushing them into a fine powder. Digitalis was a potent heart stimulant—in small doses, it could strengthen a weak pulse; in larger doses, it could stop a heart altogether. And Richard had a weak heart. He had mentioned it once, years ago, when we were both young and he had been breathless after a hunt. The family physician had warned him then. Richard had forgotten, or chosen to forget.
I would remind him.
I prepared a small amount of the powder and mixed it into the salt cellar on the dinner table. Not enough to kill immediately—that would be too obvious. A gradual accumulation over several meals, a slow tightening of the chest, a shortness of breath that would be mistaken for his own failing health. By the time anyone suspected, it would be too late.
Dinner that evening was a tense affair. Father presided at the head, his eyes scanning the table like a hawk. Beatrice had been carried in on a chair, her face pale but her gaze sharp. Celia sat opposite me, her hands clasped in her lap, her lips moving in silent prayer. Henry was pale and silent. And Richard—Richard was in high spirits, perhaps emboldened by his conversation with me earlier.
He reached for the salt cellar and sprinkled it liberally over his mutton. I watched him eat, my pulse steady, my breathing even. I felt nothing—no guilt, no triumph, no satisfaction. Only a calm, cold clarity.
The meal continued. Richard talked of hunting, of the tenant farms, of the improvements he would make to the estate when he inherited. He spoke as if it were already his. Beatrice listened with barely concealed contempt. Celia stared at her plate. Henry pushed his food around.
And then Richard paused. His hand went to his chest, and a flicker of confusion crossed his face.
"Are you all right?" Beatrice asked, a note of false concern in her voice.
"Fine," he said, but his voice was strained. "Just a little indigestion."
He drank more wine. The colour returned to his cheeks. I thought perhaps I had miscalculated the dose. But then he coughed—a wet, rattling cough that made Celia flinch. He coughed again, and this time his face went red, then white, then a terrible shade of grey.
"Richard?" Father's voice cut through the room. "What is wrong?"
Richard tried to speak, but his breath was coming in short, ragged gasps. He clutched the table, knocking over his wine glass. The red liquid spread across the white cloth like blood. His eyes were wide, panicked, his lips forming words that would not come.
Henry screamed. Beatrice called for Harkness. Celia stood frozen, her rosary forgotten in her hand.
And I—I watched.
I watched as Richard fell from his chair, his body convulsing once, twice, then going still. I watched as Harkness rushed in, followed by Mrs. Gower, followed by the nurse who had been attending Beatrice. I watched as they tried to revive him, as they pumped his chest and forced air into his lungs. I watched as Dr. Pritchard arrived an hour later, too late, and pronounced him dead of cardiac arrest.
And when they all turned to me—when they asked me if I had seen anything, if I had noticed anyone tampering with the food—I shook my head and said, "I saw nothing. I knew nothing. He was talking, and then he was gone. It must have been his heart."
They believed me. Or at least, they pretended to. For the rest of the night, the house was in chaos—servants weeping, Father shouting orders, Beatrice demanding answers. I retreated to my room and sat in the darkness, my hands steady, my mind clear.
I had done it. I had killed my brother. And I felt—
Nothing. No remorse. No joy. Only the quiet hum of a mechanism that had finally begun to move.
But then, as I sat there, I noticed something on my pillow. A small square of paper, folded neatly. I unfolded it and read the words written there, in a hand I did not recognise:
"One down. Two to go."
I turned the paper over. The other side was blank. I searched the room, but the door was locked, the window unopened, and there was no sign of any intruder.
Someone had been here. Someone had known what I would do—or what I would try to do. And that someone was not Richard, not Beatrice, not Henry, not Celia.
That someone was watching from the shadows, playing a deeper game than I had imagined.
For the first time, I felt the cold hand of fear grip my heart.
Not because I might be caught.
But because I might not be the most dangerous person in this house.
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