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Angelo moved to a different section of shelving, running his fingers along the spines of books he did not see. His eyes were not on the volumes before him. They were on the iron grates set into the walls at regular intervals, those decorative screens that had first alerted him to the presence of hidden passages within Grimsfell Hall.

Is she there? he wondered, pausing before one such grate and peering into the darkness beyond. Is she watching me even now, hidden in the shadows, hating me for what I said?

He saw nothing. Felt nothing. The grate revealed only blackness, and no whisper of movement stirred the stale air on the other side.

She was not there. She was not following him through the house as she had done before, her presence a warm prickle at the back of his neck, her eyes upon him as he went about his day. That connection had been severed, cut clean by his clumsy words in the garden.

To smooth the appearance of⁠—

He flinched at the memory, pressing his forehead against the cool wood of the bookshelf. Idiota. Stupido. How could you have been so careless?

“Angelo?” Lorenzo’s voice cut through his self-recrimination. “Are you quite all right? You have been staring at that same shelf for several minutes.”

“I am fine.” Angelo straightened, forcing his features into something resembling normalcy. “I was merely … thinking.”

“A dangerous pastime.” Nicholas’s voice drifted up from somewhere near the floor. “Particularly for those unaccustomed to the practice.”

Angelo ignored the jibe. He moved to the next section of shelving, pulling out volumes at random, checking spines and flyleaves without truly seeing them. His body was present, but his mind was elsewhere. In moonlit gardens and candlelit halls. In the sweetness of Isolde’s kiss, the sound of her laughter, and the devastating betrayal in her eyes.

I have to find her. I have to explain.

But how? How did one reach a woman who could vanish into walls, who knew every clandestine passage in a house full of secrets? He could wander these corridors for years and never find the hidden doors that would lead him to her.

Unless …

His gaze drifted to the shelf that concealed the entrance to the Hall of Reflections. The sigil of sword and circle, barely visible among the decorative carvings. He knew where that led. He knew she went there, sometimes, to play the organ and send her melancholy music drifting through the grates of the house.

If he waited there, if he went at midnight, as he had done before, and simply sat in the darkness and waited … might she come? Might the pull of the instrument, or the memory of what they had shared in that narrow hall of mirrors, draw her back to him?

It was a slim hope. But it was all he had.

The hours crept by with agonizing slowness.

Luncheon came and went, Angelo forcing himself to eat though the food turned to ash in his mouth. The afternoon brought more searching, more dust, more of Lorenzo’s enthusiastic theorizing about Matteo di Bianchi’s engineering genius, and Nicholas’s sardonic rejoinders. Angelo contributed little, his responses monosyllabic, his attention perpetually elsewhere.

By the time the dinner gong sounded, he was wound so tight he could barely sit still through the meal. Henri and Gabriel joined them in the dining room. The newlywed couple exchanged the sort of intimate glances that normally would have made Angelo smile with vicarious happiness, but tonight only deepened his sense of isolation.

They have found what I am losing. What I may have already lost.

After dinner, he excused himself early, claiming fatigue. Nicholas’s suspicious gaze followed him from the room, but no one attempted to stop him.

He did not go to his bedchamber.

Instead, he made his way to the kitchens, hoping to find Mrs. Roskelly before she retired for the evening. The housekeeper was the only person in the household who might have a connection to Isolde, the only one who might be persuaded to carry a message, to intercede on his behalf.

He found her in the pantry, sorting through the storage of preserves by candlelight. She looked up as he entered, her weathered face settling into a careful neutrality that told him immediately she knew more than she was willing to say.

“Mr. Scott.” Her voice was polite, but guarded. “Is there something ye require? The kitchen staff have retired for the evening, but I can arrange for tea to be sent to the drawing room if ye wish.”

“No, thank you. I …” Angelo hesitated, unsure how to proceed. He was not accustomed to asking for help, to admitting that he had made a mistake he could not fix on his own. But pride was a luxury he could not afford. “I was hoping you might assist me with a matter of some … delicacy.”

Her expression did not change. “Indeed, sir?”

“I need to get a message to someone. Someone who lives in this house, though not in the … conventional manner.” He met her eyes, willing her to understand. “I believe you know of whom I speak.”

A long silence stretched between them. The candle flame flickered, casting dancing shadows across the housekeeper’s face.

“I’m afraid I don’t know what ye mean, Mr. Scott.” Her voice was perfectly even. “Grimsfell Hall is occupied only by its current tenants, Lord and Lady Trenwith, and their guests. There is no one else in residence.”