Read Chapter 11: Threads of Silk and Spite

Cordelia waited until the servants had retired and the candles in the great hall had burned to stubs before she slipped from her chamber. The house settled around her in creaks and whispers, settling stones and the distant tick of the longcase clock. She had memorized the way to the east wing from her grandmother's description—past the portrait gallery, through the green baize door, up the narrow service stairs that servants claimed moaned at night.

The Dowager had been precise: *The door is behind the tapestry of the hunt. The key is the brooch itself. Marlowe women always kept their secrets close.*

Cordelia pressed the emerald against the carved rose at the tapestry's center. Nothing happened. She turned it, felt a hairline seam give, and then the entire panel swung inward on silent hinges, revealing a corridor that smelled of dust and dried lavender.

She held her breath. The air here was close and cold, but it was not the metallic chill that clung to her husband's presence. This was merely abandonment.

The room at the end was small—a lady's sitting room, perhaps, or a private study. A writing desk faced the window, its surface clean of dust, as though someone had been here recently. Cordelia's pulse quickened. The sealed east wing was not entirely sealed after all.

She went to the desk. A leather writing case lay open, and inside, tied with black ribbon, was a stack of letters. She did not need to examine the seals to know whose hand had written them. The bold, slanting strokes were unmistakable—she had seen her husband's signature on enough household ledgers.

Cordelia sat in the chair, her silk dressing gown pooling around her, and untied the ribbon.

*Dearest Emmeline—*

The name struck her like a slap.

She read on, her stomach turning cold.

*Dearest Emmeline, I have secured the Marlowe settlement. My father was a fool to hide you from me, but I am not him. I will come for you before the winter ends. The Ashworth fortune will suffice to buy your family's silence, and then we shall not need to hide our hearts behind iron and stone.*

The letter was dated three months before Cordelia's engagement had been announced.

She shuffled through the stack. There were perhaps twenty letters, all in his hand, all addressed to Emmeline Marlowe. Some were tender, filled with declarations of devotion that made Cordelia's throat tighten. Others were practical—negotiations, sums of money, arrangements for travel. One, newer than the rest, was dated after the wedding.

*I have done what was required. The contract is signed. Lady Cordelia is nothing like you, thank God—she is cold and calculating, and I shall not have to pretend tenderness with her. She does not see anything beyond her own schemes. You were right that an Ashworth bride would be the safest cover. When this business with the entail is concluded, I will find a way to make you mine in truth.*

Cordelia's hands trembled. She set the letter down, then picked it up again, forcing herself to read the words through a blur of anger.

*Cold and calculating.* She had been called worse. But it was the casual dismissal that burned—the way he had assessed her, catalogued her deficiencies, and married her anyway, as though she were a piece of furniture purchased for convenience.

She read the rest of the letters with growing fury. He had sent Emmeline away, that much was clear. *I have arranged a position for you in the north. It will not be forever. My father's debts will be settled within the year, and then I will come for you.* But the letters grew more desperate as time passed. *The Marlowe family fortune is gone. Your father was a gambler. I cannot marry you as I wish, not while my own name is a liability. But I swear to you, Emmeline—I will find a way.*

Then the engagement to Cordelia had been announced, and the tone changed.

*I have agreed to marry Lady Cordelia Ashworth. Her father's protection will secure my position. This is not what I wanted. You know it is not. But the Ashworth land borders the Marlowe estate—she will be too close to you, and that is a risk I cannot take. I have sent you to my aunt's house in Hampshire. Do not write to me there. Do not write to me at all until I say it is safe.*

Cordelia turned the final letter over. There was no signature, just his initial—*M.* She recognized the ruthlessness in the script, the way the pen had pressed hard enough to dent the paper.

She had married a man who was in love with another woman. A Marlowe woman, no less—the very family her grandmother had warned her about, the family whose name was tied to the curse, the family whose woman had been seen walking the halls at Ashworth Hall.

Emmeline Marlowe was alive. Or she had been, as recently as the last letter, which was dated only two months before Cordelia's arrival.

She thought of the veiled figure she had glimpsed at Lady Patmore's ball—the woman who had slipped through the crowd like a ghost, leaving a cold trail behind her. She had assumed it was a servant or a widowed cousin. Now the memory crystallized with painful clarity: she had seen that figure again, just yesterday, standing at the edge of the Ashworth estate near the boundary with Marlowe land.

Cordelia shoved the letters back into the case, retied the ribbon, and closed the desk. Her hands were shaking so badly she could barely manage the clasp. She had come seeking the truth about her husband's secrets, and she had found them—but the truth was worse than she had imagined.

He had married her for her father's protection. He had sent away the woman he loved because he needed Ashworth land and Ashworth wealth. He had looked at Cordelia across the altar and seen not a wife but a transaction. *Cold and calculating,* he had written, as though she were the one incapable of feeling.

But what cut deepest was the date on the final letter. Two months before their wedding. Two months before he had stood beside her in the chapel at Ashworth Hall and sworn to honor her.

He had written to Emmeline after signing the marriage contract. He had explained to his lover exactly how he planned to use his new wife as cover.

Cordelia pressed a hand to her chest, where the strange cold had radiated outward during the waltz. She had felt it then—the iron around his heart, the barrier that kept her out. Now she understood. He was not merely guarded. He was sealed. He had locked himself away for another woman, and Cordelia had been nothing but a key to a door he needed opened.

She stood, straightened her shoulders, and walked back through the hidden passage. The tapestry swung shut behind her, sealing the east wing once more.

When she reached her chamber, she did not light a candle. She sat in the dark, the emerald brooch cold against her palm, and made her decision.

The tincture had failed. The brooch had opened one door but had shown her only more locked rooms. She could not trust her husband. She could not trust the letters, not entirely—he might have written them to deceive, or they might be precisely what they seemed: the testament of a man who had bartered away his heart for practical gain.

But she could trust herself. She had spent her life learning to read people, to see past their masks and manipulate the emotions beneath. She had sworn never to use her gift in matters of love—but this was not love. This was survival.

She would find Emmeline Marlowe. She would discover whether the veiled woman was the mistress her husband had sent away, or something far more dangerous: a woman who believed herself betrayed, a woman who had every reason to want the Ashworth bride destroyed.

And if her husband had married her for her father's protection, then Cordelia would ensure that protection was the only thing he received from her in return.

She rose and went to her writing desk. She pulled out a fresh sheet of paper and dipped her pen in ink, her hand steady for the first time since she had read the letters.

She addressed the letter to her grandmother. The Dowager had said the Marlowe family was still present at Ashworth Hall, and she had been right. Whatever curse bound the house together, whatever secret her husband kept sealed in his chest, the threads all led back to the woman in the letters.

And Cordelia intended to pull on every one of them until something unraveled.