Chapter 12: Bloodstained Revelations
The silence after Cho left was a physical thing. It pooled in the office, thick and accusing. Patrick sat within it, motionless, watching the dust dance in the slanted morning light. The question wasn’t whether Cho was right. The question was why it mattered. Grange was a rotten tooth. The world was well rid of him. Patrick had merely... loosened it. Let nature, in its brutal, straightforward way, take its course.
He should have felt nothing. A tactical success. One less loose end.
Instead, he felt the ghost of Teresa’s hand covering his, the warmth of that fleeting, silent solidarity. It had been an anchor. Now, with Cho’s quiet verdict hanging in the air, he felt adrift again. He methodically gathered the papers from his desk, stacking them into a neat, meaningless pile. The grand web he’d spun in the night now seemed like the scribbling of a madman. A ghost story. He locked it all in the heavy bottom drawer of his desk and turned the key. The click was satisfyingly final.
For a few days, a brittle normalcy descended on the manor. Patrick avoided the east wing where Teresa recovered. He took his meals in his study. He rode out alone for hours, returning with his boots caked in mud and a restlessness clinging to him like a second skin. Cho spoke only when necessary, his silence a wall Patrick hadn’t realized he’d come to lean against.
A few days later, Teresa was starting to feel like she was going mad from being stuck in bed. The four walls of the gracious guest room, once a sanctuary from the pain, had become a prison. She’d read every book on the shelf twice. She’d counted the roses on the wallpaper until they bloomed behind her eyelids when she tried to sleep. The composure she’d worn for years, the calm mask of the resourceful sister and teacher, was cracking under the sheer, helpless boredom of convalescence.
“I need air,” she announced to Grace, who was fluffing pillows that needed no fluffing. “Actual air. Not from a window. Or I will start reciting terrible poetry. Loudly.”
Grace frowned, the lines around her eyes deepening. “Miss Lisbon, you’re still weak as a kitten. Doctor said—”
“The doctor isn’t lying here imagining the intricate life stories of dust,” Teresa said, her voice firm but her eyes pleading. “Please, Grace. Just to the garden. For ten minutes. You and Martha can carry me if I fall.”
It took more convincing, but Teresa had a stubborn streak born from a lifetime of weathering worse storms than a head maid’s disapproval. Finally, Grace relented.
They helped her into her clothes—a simple, high-necked dress of soft grey wool—and then, slowly and with great effort, Grace and Martha took her weight, each under one shoulder on opposite sides. It was an ungainly procession. Teresa’s legs, thin and shaky under the dress, barely supported her. Each step was a negotiation with gravity. She gritted her teeth, humiliated by her own fragility, the scent of Grace’s starch and Martha’s lavender soap sharp in her nose.
Then they slowly, step by step, headed downstairs and to the garden.
The shock of the outside world was visceral. The air was cool and damp, smelling of wet earth and the first green hint of spring, so different from the closed, faintly medicinal scent of her room. The diffuse grey light felt like a balm on her face. She blinked, her eyes watering.
She was happy to see that a chaise lounge from one of the sitting rooms had been carried out and set under a shady tree with a perfect view of the garden and the fountain in the centre. It was a thoughtful touch. A small table had been set for tea along with a bowl of soup for her lunch. The normality of it was almost heartbreaking.
Grace helped her settle in, propping her up with pillows until she was reclining, not lying down. The world from this angle was a revelation. The formal garden was a study in dormant potential. Neat, geometric beds of dark soil waited for plants. Bare, careful espaliered trees lined the brick walls. The fountain, a stone nymph pouring an eternal, silent stream from an urn, was the only movement.
Martha hurried to the house and returned with some blankets. The spring air had a bite. They both tucked Teresa in, fussing with the corners, their hands gentle and efficient.
Then Grace stepped back, brushing her apron. “Wayne and his assistant will be working in the garden. Miss. They’ll keep an eye on you.” Martha took a moment to make one final adjustment to her blanket.
“Now, don’t you try to be brave and get up,” Grace said, her tone leaving no room for argument. “You’ll fall and crack your head open, and then where will we be?”
“Reading less poetry,” Teresa promised, earning a faint, relieved smile from Martha before the two women retreated to the house, leaving her blessedly, terrifyingly alone.
The silence was different out here. It was full of small sounds: the distant snick-snick of shears, the chirp of a sparrow, the faint rustle of the tree above her. She let out a breath she felt she’d been holding for days. The soup cooled on the table. She wasn’t hungry. She was ravenous for the view.
This was his world, she thought. Not the bedroom of a sick stranger, but this ordered, controlled, elegant space. It spoke of immense wealth, yes, but also of a mind that demanded lines and boundaries. It was the opposite of the chaotic, passion-fueled ruin her father had made of their estate. This was grief curated, she realized. Pain held neatly within box hedges.
The workmen, Wayne and a younger lad, were clearing a bed of winter debris a polite distance away. They nodded to her but didn’t approach. She watched their easy strength, the simple purpose of their labor, with a pang of envy.
Time slipped by, measured in clouds drifting across the grey sky. She must have dozed, because the next thing she knew, the light had shifted, and the sound of the shears was closer.
She opened her eyes to see Patrick.
He was standing at the edge of the rose garden, about twenty feet away, not looking at her. He held a pair of pruning shears, and he was methodically deadheading the old, woody growth from a climbing rose that scrambled over a wrought-iron arch. He wore no coat, just a white linen shirt, the sleeves rolled to his elbows, and dark breeches tucked into muddy boots. He looked like a laborer, save for the precise, almost severe focus of his movements.
Each snip of the shears was crisp, definitive. He didn’t hack. He selected. A withered branch here. A misplaced sucker there. He worked with an unnerving silence, his back to her, utterly absorbed.
Teresa lay still, observing him. This was a different man from the one in the firelit library who’d spoken of a blood-soaked doll. That man had been raw, exposed nerve. This man was all containment. Each cut of the blade was an act of control.
He must have sensed her gaze. He didn’t startle. He simply finished the cut he was making, then slowly turned his head, just enough to look at her over his shoulder.
His blue eyes were unreadable in the flat light. “They let you out,” he said. His voice was neutral, barely carrying across the distance.
“I negotiated a temporary release,” she replied, her own voice weaker than she’d like.
He gave a short nod and turned back to the roses. Snip. Another brown branch fell to the damp earth. “The air will do you good.”
A pause. The fountain burbled.
“Cho told me,” she said carefully. “About the mill. And the miller.”
His hands stilled for a fraction of a second. Then another snip. “Did he.”
“He said you… let him walk away.”
Patrick turned fully now, leaning against the iron arch, the shears hanging loosely from one hand. He studied her, his face expressionless. “And what do you think about that?”
She met his gaze. She thought of Grange’s fat, ringed fingers. She thought of the carriage, the smell of him, the crushing weight of her own father’s betrayal that had delivered her into that smell.
“I think,” she said, choosing each word with care, “that the world has one less monster in it. I’m not sorry he’s gone.” She held his stare. “But I don’t think you let him walk away. I think you pointed him toward the cliff and counted his steps.”
A faint, almost imperceptible tension left his shoulders. He didn’t confirm or deny it. He looked at her, really looked at her, for the first time since she’d come outside. He saw the pallor still clinging to her skin, the dark smudges under her intelligent green eyes, the way the blanket was drawn up to her chin as if for armor.
“You should eat your soup,” he said, pushing off from the arch. “It’ll be cold.”
“I prefer it that way.”
A ghost of something—not a smile, but the memory of one—touched his mouth. He walked toward her, not to the chaise, but to the fountain. He ran his fingers through the water in the stone basin, washing the soil from his hands. “Your brother came by this morning. Stanley. He looked like he hadn’t slept. Wanted to see you. I told him not today.”
Her heart tightened. “Was he angry?”
“He was scared.” Patrick shook water from his fingertips. “Of me. Of what he’s learned. Of what he allowed to happen to you by being oblivious. It’s a heavy load for a man who only wanted to balance the books.”
“He’s a good boy,” Teresa said, a fierce protectiveness surging through her weariness.
“He’s not a boy,” Patrick corrected softly, still looking at the water. “Not anymore. None of us are.” He turned, his gaze sweeping over the ordered garden, then back to her. “This is a good spot. Safe. High ground. You can see anyone approaching from the house or the tree line.”
It was an odd thing to say. Then she understood. He wasn’t just describing the view. He was telling her he’d chosen it. He’d had the lounge brought here specifically. It was a defensible position.
“Thank you,” she said, the words inadequate.
He nodded, once. His eyes lingered on her for a moment longer, and in that look she saw the complicated whole of him: the murderer, the avenger, the gardener, the man who remembered a doll. Then it was gone, shuttered away.
“Don’t let Grace bully you back inside too soon,” he said, picking up the shears he’d left on the fountain’s edge. “But don’t catch a chill.”
He walked away, not back to the roses, but toward the stable block, his stride long and purposeful, leaving her alone again with the sound of the water and the quiet, unsettling certainty that she was, for now, being guarded by the most dangerous thing in the county.
The days began to knit themselves into a fragile new pattern. Teresa’s strength returned not in a rush, but in small, incremental thefts from her weakness. First, she could sit in the garden for an hour without the world tilting. Then she could walk from the chaise to the fountain with only Grace’s arm for balance, the cold stone of the nymph’s base solid under her palm. The progress was slow, but Teresa was determined that she would be walking on her own by the summer.
The thefts from her weakness became a disciplined campaign. She bartered minutes of rest for steps, bargaining with her own trembling legs. Grace and Martha, initially hovering like anxious moons, learned to trust her grit. They placed sturdy chairs along the corridors—a regimented path of retreat. To the garden door. To the library.
By summer, the rhythm was set. She could walk the short distance from her room to the library on her own, pausing twice at the appointed chairs. Her lungs no longer burned. Her legs held.
Returning to the library felt like waking up from a long sleep. The colossal, chaotic collection of books had begun to show some order from all her efforts prior her injury. There were still piles of books to catalogue, but several shelves retained the ridged perfect order she had left them in the night she and Wayne had rescued Samuel from his abductors. The shelves were sparks of order in the chaos.
She knew she was not yet strong enough to return to carrying the heavy stakes of books she would need to carry on from where she had left off. Instead she started with a single shelf by the window, the one with the best light. She would sit for an hour or two, moving one book at a time to a temporary table that held the ledger she had moved from the large library desk. Each volume was a small weight lifted, catalogued, understood. Her hands, pale but steady, relearned their work. She hoped Patrick would not add another three months to her time at the manor due to her illness, but if he did, she realized the thought didn’t bother her as much as it should have.
Outside, the yellow rose bushes Patrick had pruned erupted into full, arrogant bloom. Crimson roses climbed their arches. Bees worked the lavender. The scent drifted through the open windows, mixing with the smell of old paper and dust.
On her breaks, she walked. She had measured a circuit between the main library table, the globe, and the French doors. Twenty steps. Then thirty. Her goal was fifty uninterrupted steps by the end of the week. It was a silent, solitary race against her own lingering frailty.
She saw him only in glimpses, like catching sight of a fox at the edge of a wood. The back of his coat disappearing around a corner. The sound of his boots on gravel outside the window. He was a rumour in his own house. She knew this was his existence before she had been dragged to his manor to settle her brother’s debt. He was a ghost moving through these grand, empty rooms. She knew that before her illness he had spent time with her because she was a puzzle for him to solve. Now it seemed he had lost interest.
This day, she was determined to conquer forty-five steps. Her ledger was updated. Her mind was clear. She stood, using the table for support, and began her slow, deliberate march. One, two. Her slippers whispered on the rug. Past the globe, its seas a faded blue.Twenty. Twenty-five. She focused on the middle window, the one with the best view of the oak tree.Thirty-five.
A familiar tightness began in her calves, a warning tremble. She ignored it.Thirty-seven. Thirty-eight. Her breath hitched. She was almost to the window seat, her designated finish line.
Forty-two.
Her right knee buckled, a simple, mechanical betrayal. The strength vanished, melting from the muscle. She pitched forward, a gasp ripped from her, hands flailing for the wall that was suddenly too far away.
She didn’t hit the floor.
An arm hooked around her waist, stopping her fall with a jarring solidity. Another hand grasped her upper arm, steadying her. She was caught, suspended, the hard line of a body against her back.
"Your ambition," a familiar voice said quietly by her ear, "is currently outpacing your infrastructure."
Patrick.
Heat flooded her face, a mix of humiliation and sheer relief. She tried to straighten, to push herself upright and out of his grip, but her legs were watery, useless noodles. "Let me go, I can—"
"You can what?" He didn't sound angry. He sounded almost amused. "Negotiate with the floor? I assure you, it’s a stubborn negotiator."
"Please." The word was tight, strained.
He shifted his hold, his grip firm but not painful, and turned her gently. She was facing him, but her legs refused to bear weight. He was holding her up entirely, his hands under her elbows now. She was forced to look up at him. He was dressed for riding, boots dusty, his hair a bit wind-tossed. He’d come from outside.
"Easy," he said, his blue eyes scanning her face. There was no pity there, just a sharp assessment. "The chairs are strategically placed for a reason, Teresa. They are not suggestions."
"I’m fine," she muttered, staring at the crisp line of his collar.
"I’m sure you are." He began walking her backward, supporting almost all of her weight, until the back of her knees hit the plush seat of the nearest reading chair. He lowered her into it, a controlled descent."There. Sovereign territory."
She sank into the cushion, the shaky weakness replaced by a thrumming awareness of his hands, now withdrawn. He stood over her for a moment, then moved to the window, looking out. He gave her the grace of not staring.
She took a few steadying breaths, the embarrassment receding. "I haven't seen you. In weeks."
"I've been around." He traced the edge of the window pane with a finger, and then he turned from the window. He leaned against the sill, crossing his arms. The casual pose contrasted with the focused intensity in his gaze. "I have to go into the village tomorrow. I thought you might... like to join me."
The invitation, so casually offered, hung between them like a spider's single thread. The silence in the library became charged, the air thickening with the memory of dust and panic.
Teresa stared at Patrick, her mind catapulted back to the desperate, jolting cart ride she had forced upon Cho weeks ago. She saw the rutted lane again, lined not with cottages but with sagging, tarpaper shacks. The dangerous-looking men, their gazes flat and predatory as they’d emerged from the gloom, the palpable shift in the air from neglect to active threat. Cho’s hands tightening on the reins, his body going rigid as a drawn bow. Her own voice, sharp with a fear she rarely admitted, telling him to turn around, now. That village wasn't a place; it was a trap.
She realized her mouth had dropped open. She closed it with a soft click of her teeth.
"That's a ridiculous idea," she said, her voice firm despite the tremor in her legs. "The village? That shanty town? It's dangerous. You saw it, or Cho told you. I am in no shape to run if we're..." She trailed off, the unspoken words—attacked, cornered, killed—echoing in the quiet room. She studied his face, that infuriating, amused half-smile still playing on his lips. This wasn't a social call. Patrick Jane didn't make social calls. "Why?" she asked, the single word sharp as a blade. "Why do you want me to go?"
Patrick's smile widened slightly, and if she didn’t know better she would have sworn his eyes twinkled. “The cart will be ready after breakfast tomorrow." He pushed off from the windowsill, his movements fluid and final.
"Patrick, wait—"
He was already at the library door. He paused, one hand on the frame, but didn't turn back.
"Tell me what this is!" Her demand bounced off the high ceiling. "What is going on?"
The only answer was the soft thud of the door closing behind him.
Teresa sat, frozen in the reading chair, her heart hammering against her ribs. The weakness in her legs was gone, burned away by a spike of pure adrenaline. This wasn't an invitation. It was a summons. And the place he was summoning her to was a pit of wretchedness she’d narrowly escaped once before. He’d known about it. Of course he had. Cho reported everything.
Why take her back there?
Dawn arrived, damp and chilly. Teresa dressed in her normal grey day dress and pinned her hair into a severe knot. She looked, she thought, like a widow or a poor relation. It felt like armor. She ate a small breakfast she didn’t taste, aware of Grace’s anxious glances.
Grace followed her to the front hall, a cup of untouched tea forgotten on the kitchen table. "You're sure about this, Miss? He's... well, he's him. And that place..." She couldn't finish, just wrung her hands on her apron.
"I'm not sure about anything," Teresa admitted, pulling on her gloves. "But I need to know why. Staying here and wondering is its own kind of illness."
The clatter of wheels on the drive saved her from further debate. Cho guided a simple, sturdy farm cart pulled by a single broad-backed horse to the front steps. Patrick sat on the driver's bench, holding the reins loosely. He looked more like a tenant farmer today than a lord, in worn but clean trousers and a simple coat, his hat pulled low. He didn't look at her, his gaze fixed on some middle distance down the lane.
Cho came up the steps. He gave Teresa a curt nod. "Ready?"
"No," she said honestly, but she took his offered arm. Her legs, still unreliable from her attempt in the library the day before, protested the descent. Each step was a careful negotiation. The gravel of the drive seemed impossibly far away.
Cho’s arm was solid as an oak branch. He led her to the cart, where Patrick finally glanced down. He extended a hand to her, palm up. It was a practical gesture, devoid of gentlemanly flourish.
Teresa looked from his hand to the high wooden seat. The gap yawned like a chasm. She knew her legs wouldn’t manage the climb.
Cho didn’t wait for her to try. He moved behind her, his hands firm on her waist. "Up," he said, his voice a low rumble.
The impropriety of it, a near-stranger’s hands spanning her corset, flared hot in her mind. She opened her mouth to protest, but the protest died unspoken. He was right. There was no other way. He lifted, his strength effortless, and deposited her onto the worn wooden planks of the seat as if she weighed nothing.
She landed with a small jolt, immediately clutching the edge of the seat for balance. Patrick’s hand, still extended, closed around her forearm for a final, steadying second before withdrawing. Cho vaulted up onto the back of the cart, settling himself on the flatbed with his back against the side rail, his eyes already scanning the tree line.
Patrick gave the reins a crisp snap. The horse snorted, shook its mane, and pulled forward.
The cart lurched into motion, the iron-rimmed wheels crunching on the gravel, then finding a smoother rhythm on the packed dirt of the lane. Teresa clutched her hands tightly in her lap, her knuckles white. The manor house shrank behind them, its ordered gardens giving way to untended fields and thick, shadowy woods. The air was warmer now, a true summer sun beating down, baking the scent of dust and dry grass into the air.
She stared straight ahead, at the swath of the horse’s back, the twitch of its ears. The silence between them was a physical presence, broken only by the creak of the cart and the steady clop of hooves.
"If you get me killed," she said, her voice sounding too loud in the quiet, "or even bruised, after all the work Grace went through to patch me up, she will murder you when we get back. Slowly. With a soup ladle."
Patrick didn’t look at her. "You’ll be fine."
She shot him a glare he didn’t see. "You say that. But you obviously haven’t seen the effect your… negligence has had on the village. The real village, not whatever fantasy you have in your head. It’s not a place anymore. It’s a wound."
Patrick said nothing.
Frustration burned in her throat, but the warmth of the sun was seeping into her bones, and the rhythmic sway of the cart was hypnotic. The adrenaline that had propelled her from breakfast was ebbing, leaving behind the deep, cellular fatigue of recent illness. The shadows of the overhanging trees dappled the road, a blinking, soothing pattern.
Her eyelids grew heavy. She fought it, blinking rapidly, focusing on a distant hawk circling in the hazy blue. The fight was brief and futile. The sway of the wagon became a lullaby. Her head nodded forward once, twice.
Her eyes drifted shut. She was asleep before she registered the slow, inevitable tilt of her body, before she felt the solid weight of her head coming to rest against the unyielding warmth of Patrick’s shoulder.