BLYTHE
BLYTHE HAD DREADED THIS MOMENT AS MUCH AS SHE’D ANTICIPATED IT.
She sat in the carriage across from Byron, suffocated by the tight quarters and lack of conversation—and from the navy traveling dress she wore, laced to her neck to look as respectable as she could manage. Byron had already given her an earful about Signa’s sudden departure the night before, and how it would only make things look worse for the Hawthornes, given how helpful Signa had been. Blythe had sat there in silence as he fumed, letting her uncle pace off his anger as she focused on a single speck on the wall behind him and refused to tell him anything more about why Signa left. She couldn’t tell him what Signa had done, or that Percy wasn’t coming back.
At least not yet. Not until she could make sense of that knowledge herself.
Signa Farrow was a traitor who did not belong at Thorn Grove. She was a liar. A murderer. And something even worse than all those things— something impossible that had the power to both take and give life with her own hands.
The weight of this knowledge hadn’t hit Blythe quite so hard as it perhaps should have, and she’d spent the full night tossing in her bed, wondering if some small part of her had known the truth all along. She’d caught glimpses of shadows and seen flickers of impossible things. Things that were sure to get her sent to an institution if ever she spoke of them.
But Signa had seen them, too. Whatever strange world Blythe had
dipped her toes into since knocking on Death’s door, Signa was fully living within it.
Maybe someone wiser would have kept Signa around for answers, but the last thing Blythe wanted was for whatever Signa was involved in to affect her father. Especially on the very day when, weeks after he’d been taken from her, she’d finally see him again thanks to her bargain with the prince.
They’d arrived before dawn, while the streets were still quiet. The carriage pulled close to a towering, ruined castle with a foundation that was cracking at the seams. When Blythe had first heard that an abandoned castle had been turned into a men’s prison, she’d imagined prisoners living in comfort, some of them getting more food and better quarters than they’d had previously. But there was not a lick of comfort to boast of at the prison where Elijah was confined, and Blythe had to turn herself to stone as they approached, not allowing even a hint of emotion to betray how she felt.
The prison lawn was surrounded by thick iron bars too sleek and tall to climb but open enough that passersby could watch the prisoners work and be reminded of the life that awaited them should they fail to be law-abiding citizens. Blythe kept her expression flat as she watched a row of men take step after step on an ever-spinning wheel. Each man had his own small compartment, with walls on either side so that no prisoner could glimpse another. Each man was chained to a bar before him, which he gripped for balance while walking upon a wheel.
“They’ll be at that all day,” Byron noted without remorse. Blythe wondered whether it was a Hawthorne trait to be able to turn into seemingly unfeeling stone when the need arose, or whether he truly felt no pity. “They’ll have the appropriate breaks, of course, but they’ll be churning grain until dusk.”
Just like that, she had her answer. “The appropriate breaks?” As much as she tried to withhold some of her bitterness, the words were sharp. There were more men toiling across the lawn, loosening and separating strands of rope. They didn’t look at one another. Didn’t speak. Even if they wanted to, masks obscured their faces, with only the tiniest slits cut for eyes.
The very thought of her father in such a place—made to walk on a never-ending wheel from dawn to dusk or to spend his days stripping rope or whatever else they had the men do—was enough to turn Blythe’s blood
cold. If she could have, she’d have burned the prison to the ground. “I fail to see which part of this is appropriate.”
The look Byron flashed her was nothing short of scathing. “Don’t be soft, girl. Every man within those walls is a criminal. The hard labor will help them better themselves enough to reenter society and, hopefully, keep them from making the same mistakes twice.”
“My father doesn’t need to better himself. He’s already better than any man I know.” Only then did Blythe meet Byron’s simmering glare as she turned and let herself out of the carriage.
Byron followed, having waited for William to clamber down from the drivers seat and open his door. “You’d best reel yourself in now,” he warned. “Should I feel that your being here is a mistake, I’ll have you taken back to Thorn Grove. Do you understand? Mind your tongue before it’s our ruin.”
It seemed there was little other choice. If Blythe had to play the role of a respectable young lady, so be it. She’d certainly had enough training.
A pale man with a severe face and splotchy red cheeks met them at the gate. He held out his hand as they approached. “Perhaps the young miss would prefer to wait in the carriage.” His voice was low and thick, as if he had a perpetual sinus issue.
Blythe clenched her fists, biting back bitter thoughts about how he’d be the one wanting to hide in a carriage once she gave him a piece of her mind. Before she could do so, Byron pressed two coins flat into the man’s palm. “She stays,” was all he said. The man grunted and pocketed the coins before he drew the gate open and stepped aside. His eyes lingered on Blythe for a beat too long, and it was an effort to restrain herself from flashing the man her most diabolical glare. Every inch of her skin was angry and prickling, as it had been since she’d last spoken with Signa. She wanted an excuse to be angry. But for her father’s sake she bit back that roiling emotion and clenched her shaking fists at her sides. She hoped that anyone
who saw them would think she was nervous.
“You’ll have an hour,” drolled the splotchy-faced warden, his steps brisk as he led them through the prison and down a stone staircase so cracked and steep that Blythe had to brace her palm against the wall to steady herself. The air grew more frigid with each step, and soon enough she realized exactly where this man was leading her. They had her father in an ancient,
freezing dungeon.
“It’s only for the visit,” Byron whispered, as if he were able to feel Blythe’s simmering rage. “He’ll be back upstairs with the rest of them once we leave.”
Blythe didn’t like that notion any better. She braced herself as the door opened and she prepared to see her father for the first time in a month. But there was nothing to prepare her for who waited behind the door.
Elijah Hawthorne was a husk of the man he once was. He’d lost too much weight too quickly, and he had skin that hung loosely around his neck to show for it. His face was gaunt and his frame so withered that he looked as though one solid breeze might topple him. The skin beneath his eyes was corded with lines of deep purple, and he was even more disheveled than he’d been the year prior, when he’d been grieving the death of Blythe’s mother. There was a cut on his lip, too, red and raw—and so obviously someone else’s doing that Blythe gripped the bars of the cell door to steady her rage.
She hardly recognized her father like this, made small and drab in his dingy gray uniform, his legs chained to a chair and his wrists in shackles. It was his eyes alone that kept Blythe from despair—not as bright or mischievous as they once were, but not so forlorn as those of a doomed man, either. The spark of fire within them had dimmed, certainly, though she was glad to see that it had yet to be extinguished.
The cell door groaned shut behind them, and Blythe’s breath caught when her father glanced up at her, his face softening.
“You are truly a sight for sore eyes.” He leaned back in his chair, the manacles clanking. “ How are you, my girl?”
Heat surged in Blythe’s eyes, tears she had no intention of letting him see threatening. She wished so deeply that she could hug him without getting thrown back into the carriage.
“I’m better now that I’ve seen you,” she told him. “But you’re most certainly not. What happened to your face?”
When Elijah adjusted to try to discreetly cover his cut with his hand, Blythe turned her attention to the guard outside the cell. If he was the one who did this, she’d burn him at the stake. Before she could ask, Byron took hold of her shoulder and squeezed tight.
“Enough,” he hissed under his breath. “This is not the place nor the
time.” There was no overlooking the scrutiny in Byron’s eyes as he assessed Elijah, who tilted his head back with the most vicious scoff.
“I suppose it pleases you to see me like this?” His bitterness was so unexpected that Blythe hesitated to take one of the seats across from her father, looking between the two men as Byron sat. Given the force of the guard’s scrutiny, she had no choice but to follow suit.
“There is a week left until your trial, Elijah. We have other matters to discuss.”
Panic lodged itself in Blythe’s throat. A week. She’d been so distracted with Signa that she hadn’t realized the trial was so close.
“Are you keeping up with Grey’s?” Elijah sneered. Blythe again looked between him and her uncle, wondering what she’d missed.
“Of course I am.” If there was anything for which Byron could be counted on, it was keeping up the family business. “Not that it matters. Given everything that’s happened and a year of your efforts to soil its reputation, we haven’t a single patron.”
Elijah scratched his fingernails along his pants, his leg jittery. “There’s a waiting list in the drawer in my study. Extend an invitation to those on it— they’ll want to stake their claim while they have the opportunity. This will blow over soon enough.”
This was the last sentiment Blythe wanted to hear from her father. He wasn’t asking because he was concerned about Grey’s but because he was concerned about them. Elijah wanted his family to be taken care of if he was found guilty, and the very thought of it had bile rising to Blythe’s throat. “Invite them yourself once you’re out of here in a week,” she said.
Elijah reached out as if to squeeze her hand before the manacles stopped him. Blythe’s face fell; she wished nothing more than to tear them free.
“Why hasn’t Signa come?” he asked as the silence dragged, his jaw tensing. Though it was Blythe he turned to for an explanation, Byron answered. “Miss Farrow returned to Foxglove manor this morning.”
Elijah’s shackles clanked against the chair. “Does she intend to come back to Thorn Grove?”
“Considering she took her lady’s maid with her, I have my doubts.”
Elijah wilted before their eyes, skin sallow and sickly. His shoulders caved inward. “If she’s decided to abandon us, then I fear we may have a harder time than we thought.”
Blythe hated the resentment in his voice. She hated how the fire in his eyes had dimmed so much that she pounded a fist on the table to get his attention. Behind her, a warden shouted a warning until she settled back in her seat, still seething.
“You have no right to say that.” Her words were tight, each as enraged as the next. “We’re all trying to clear your name. Signa’s odds of that were no better than mine.”
So what if Signa could do the impossible? So could Blythe, even if she wasn’t sure how. She’d make a deal with the devil himself if that’s what it took to free her father.
“Are you certain that finding the late Lord Wakefield’s murderer is what we should be focused on?”
A chill ran down Blythe’s spine at her uncle’s question. Yet it was her father who asked pointedly, “Is there a reason you think we shouldn’t?”
Byron stared his brother dead in the eyes. “I’m saying that perhaps we will not find a culprit, Elijah, and that it might be time to look at alternative strategies for getting you out of prison or at the very least lessening your sentence.”
Oh, how she wanted to strangle her uncle. So did Elijah if the rage on his face was any indicator. Perhaps it was fortunate that his hands were shackled.
“Are you suggesting that I killed Lord Wakefield?” For all his anger, Elijah’s voice was remarkably measured. “What reason would I have to do something so foolish?”
Byron gave no indication of backing down. It was as though he couldn’t even hear the ridiculousness of his own words. “I’m not suggesting anything. I’m only trying to get you out of here, Elijah, and we’re running out of options.”
Elijah leaned in as close as he could and hissed under his breath, “I didn’t kill him. I will always be the first to admit my past failures, of which there are many. But do you truly think my mind so weak that if I were to have killed the duke, I would do it under my own roof, with a drink fed to him by my own hand? My manner would be much less conspicuous, I assure you.”
Growing up in Thorn Grove, Blythe was entirely too used to her father and uncle’s bickering. It didn’t seem there was a single gathering where the
two did not butt heads, for her father was far too lewd for Byron’s taste, and Byron too rigid for Elijah’s. Nevertheless, Blythe fixed her father with a glare.
“Do you think it’s wise to admit that aloud while you’re shackled in a cell and awaiting trial?” Elijah’s grin slipped, and when Blythe was satisfied with his embarrassment, she turned to her uncle. “And you. If you kept your opinions to yourself long enough to think rationally and not let some silly competition color your thoughts, perhaps you would not be wasting time with baseless accusations.”
Redness flooded Byron’s skin from the neck up, but she ignored his sputtering.
“I haven’t a doubt in my mind that you’re innocent.” Blythe kept her voice low enough for the warden not to pry. “We’re not going to think of alternatives—we’re going to find the killer. I promise you both that I will not rest until my father walks free and the culprit is hanging from a noose. Now, everyone stop bickering, and let’s make a list of suspects.”
They had a week left, and God help her, Blythe needed to make it count.
