He anchored his gaze upon her, searching her face for a single crack in her resolve. A heavy silence stretched between them until she finally spoke, her voice as brittle as winter frost.
"I have not the slightest inkling of what you speak," she replied, her coldness a shield against his scrutiny.
A mirthless sigh escaped him.
"The answer I anticipated," he murmured, his lips curling in a cynical twist. "No matter. The truth is a patient creature; I shall unearth it soon enough."
He turned to depart, but paused at the threshold, his hand lingering on the heavy oak door.
"I shall summon my brother. You two have much to unravel, and frankly, I find myself weary of untangling this web of chaos."
"It is no longer my burden to bear."
The door clicked shut, leaving her entombed in the silence of the room.
Isabella stood motionless by Ann's bedside. Her fingers, trembling slightly, reached out to smooth a stray crease in the velvet counterpane.
The child had at last succumbed to a fitful slumber after an eternity of shuddering sobs and terrified whispers.
A long, weary breath escaped Isabella—a sigh that felt like the slow breaking of a tether—as her mind drifted back to the horrors of the previous night: the livid burns, the violent purples of the bruises, and the grotesque map of suffering etched onto Olivia's flesh.
She was still drowning in that macabre memory when the door groaned open behind her. No knock preceded it.
Terror seized her chest as she turned her head just enough to recognize the silhouette. Their eyes met for a fleeting, electric second before she instinctively cast her gaze downward, feigning a desperate devotion to the sleeping child.
He approached with ghost-like steps, his boots swallowed by the heavy pile of the carpet. Then, without warning, he leaned in.
His breath, warm and unsettling, brushed against her ear.
"To the drawing room," he commanded in a low, urgent thrum. "We must speak."
There was no ice in his tone, yet it possessed a terrifying gravity that made her throat constrict.
With a heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird, she followed him into the adjacent chamber. He threw himself onto the chaise longue, the very picture of exhausted despair.
"What business had you in Olivia's chambers last night?" he demanded.
A violent shiver raced down her spine. Her lips parted, but for a moment, only a jagged breath emerged.
"I... I merely sought to assist with Ann. I saw the state she was in—"
"She has her own retinue of servants!" he barked, his voice sharp with incredulity.
He raked a hand through his disheveled hair, his anger rising like a sudden storm.
"In heaven's name, Isabella! Why were you there? Of all the souls in this cursed house, why must you entangle yourself with her?"
Isabella stiffened, her shoulders squaring.
"And where is the sin in that? She is the Duchess, after all."
The wood of the table groaned under the force of his fist.
"The sin," he snarled, "is that I know something festers between you two. You are sliding toward the same precipice she occupies, and you will fall with her!"
He stood, his frame trembling—not with fear, but with the crushing weight of something darker. Grief.
"My mother is dead, Isabella. Murdered. The killer walked these very corridors last night, slipping past these very doors while you... you were wandering. And where? In Olivia's rooms?"
His chest heaved.
"Do you take me for a fool? The physician noted her injuries—Olivia's body—they were fresh. Not days old, but inflicted yesternight."
His eyes pierced hers, seeking the truth amidst the shadows.
"What do you mean... the Duchess is dead?"
Isabella froze, her heart racing as a thousand questions collided in her mind. None of them could extinguish the fire in his eyes.
She gasped, her eyes wide with bewilderment. "I do not understand... what physician?"
He let out a sharp, hollow laugh.
"Ah, of course. I forgot—you are ever the last to be enlightened."
He leaned back against the edge of the sofa, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
"That charlatan and my brother were in a shouting match this morning. He accused her—Olivia—of murdering our mother. And from what I gather, she attempted to take her own life shortly thereafter. Or some such melodrama."
Horror crawled across Isabella's features. Her voice was a ghostly whisper.
"What did you say? Olivia... she tried to end it again? And he... he accused her of regicide?"
He raised a skeptical eyebrow.
"Again? Usually, you treat such theatrics as beneath you. And now?"
"I was with her throughout the night," Isabella cried, her voice regaining its strength.
"You know she did not do it! You knew, and yet you stood by and let your brother tear her apart. What does that make you? A coward? Or a monster?"
"I was unaware your friendship with that woman had blossomed so deeply," he whispered, his voice cracking with a sudden, profound sadness.
"I lost my mother today, Isabella. And instead of being permitted to mourn, I stand here accused—as if I have not already lost enough."
Isabella's gaze fell, a heavy mantle of regret settling over her.
She had hardly known the woman, but looking at the broken man before her, she felt the jagged edge of his pain.
"I am sorry," Isabella whispered, her voice barely audible over the crackle of the hearth. "I did not mean those cruel words. It is only that..."
She trailed off, finding the vast chasm of his grief too wide to bridge with mere sentences.
"It matters not," Leon replied after a heavy silence. He looked away, his profile etched in the dim light.
"I cannot fathom what bond ties you to Olivia that you would champion her so fiercely. To me, she was... never kind. Not truly. Yet, she never sought to wound me directly."
He let out a hollow, splintered laugh.
"And yet, I cannot deny her this: she granted my mother something no one else could—a final moment with her daughter."
Moved by a sudden swell of tenderness, Isabella moved closer and sank onto the sofa beside him. She reached out, her hand finding his in a gentle, grounding pressure.
"Leon..." she murmured, "I only wished to ask... are you alright?"
In answer, he pulled her into a desperate embrace, as if she were the only fixed point in a world suddenly set adrift.
He buried his head against her shoulder, resting there for a long, breath-making eternity. Isabella wound her arms around him, holding him with a fierce, protective strength.
"She was not the finest of mothers," his voice broke against her skin, muffled and raw.
"I always felt a guest in her affections—the son of a wife, never quite like Matthew. As if I did not truly belong to her world."
He took a jagged, shuddering breath.
"But she was my mother still. And now she is gone. Lost to me. It is a bitter, strange sensation... this emptiness."
The words came in fractured pieces, each one tightening the knot of sorrow in his chest.
He clung to Isabella—as if, should he let go, he might vanish into the shadows altogether.
On the far side of the estate, in a chamber where the silence felt thick enough to suffocate, Matthias sat opposite Olivia.
His shoulders were slumped; his suit was disheveled, and the faint, reddened rims of his eyes glowed like dying embers.
The man before her was a man crumbling from within.
Olivia studied him in the gloom, her eyes tracing the new lines of exhaustion carved into his visage.
"Will you continue to stare at me without uttering a single word?" she asked quietly.
"You promised me you would never harm yourself," he said, his voice a low rasp. "Are your vows so easily broken?"
"What?" she breathed, taken aback.
"I would never have sent you to the gallows, Olivia... whether you were guilty or not."
She blinked in stunned silence.
"I do not comprehend. You were a tempest of rage, hurling accusations, demanding answers. If that was not your intent, then why?"
He did not flinch. His gaze remained pinned to hers with an unsettling intensity.
"Because I was afraid," he said, his voice unnervingly calm.
"Afraid?"
"Yes. Afried because every shred of evidence pointed to you, and it terrified me to realize the depth of my own corruption."
"It sickened me to know that even if you were the murderess, I could not find it in my heart to hate you. I could not touch a single hair on your head."
"The thought that I could forgive you for my own mother's blood... that is what haunted me."
Olivia stared at him, her heart hammering.
"I did not do it. Do you not understand? I swear upon my soul, I did not do it."
"And I am telling you," he countered, his breath hitching, "that it no longer matters to me if you did."
"Even if every soul in this house pointed an accusing finger at you—I could never have sent you away. I could not."
"I shall not do it," Matthias breathed, his voice a jagged ruin.
"Do not ask me for a reason, for I am a stranger to my own motives this day. But why, Olivia?"
For a fleeting second, the fortress of his pride crumbled. "Why did you seek to destroy yourself? Why this desperate harm?"
His eyes glistened with the sheen of unshed tears.
Olivia averted her gaze, pressing her lips together to stifle the rising tide in her chest. When she spoke, she donned a mask of biting cynicism.
"What is this? Do you truly intend to let your mother's murderess walk unfettered through your halls?"
"Yes," he replied, the word striking the air with more conviction than she had anticipated.
"Even if the blood were on your hands... I find I no longer care."
He faltered, grappling with the ghosts of his thoughts.
"I only craved a cursed answer. But you... you swallowed that poison as if your life were a trifle."
"Perhaps we were never destined for love, Olivia. We never were."
"Yet you have shackled me to you regardless. Were you the Devil himself, you would remain my family. Mine."