Chapter 8: Not Yet

Rhys's study at Harrow House was a dark room of leather chairs, a green-shaded desk and a wall of locked cabinets.

I walked in behind him that night and shut the door hard enough to rattle the glass.

"What happens to Dorian if we last a year?" I asked.

He had his back to me, pouring himself two fingers of whiskey.

His shoulders did not move.

"Who told you that?"

"A question gets the truth or 'not yet,'" I said. "Those were my terms."

He turned and held the glass without drinking.

"Not yet," he said.

The words landed.

"Not yet," I repeated.

"I'll tell you after the gala."

"Why not now?"

"Because if I tell you now, you'll walk out of this house," Rhys said.

"Then it's something I should walk out over."

"It's something that costs you nothing," he said. "And costs me everything if you leave."

"That's not an answer."

"It's the answer I have."

I looked at him, at the tight line of his jaw and the knuckles white around the glass.

My anger was so large it had nowhere to go.

"Your housekeeper is selling the sounds from our room to your cousin," I said.

His face did not change, but the air did.

"What?"

"She tells Dorian everything. Sybil told me. She has since Tuesday night."

He put the glass down very carefully.

"He paid her," he said.

"He's been paying her."

"And you didn't tell me."

"I didn't know how to say it," I said, "when you won't tell me what you're hiding."

Silence stretched across the study, thick as velvet.

"I'm not hiding it to hurt you," he said.

"You're hiding it to keep me."

"Yes."

He said it flatly, without a flinch.

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