Chapter 11: The East Room

Rafe's POV

I got to the Brookline house at half past three, with Cecelia's smell still on my shirt.

I had changed it twice, and it didn't help.

The house stood where it had always stood, red brick behind a black iron fence.

The carriage house was at the back of the garden, where my mother raised me.

I let myself in through the kitchen.

Nothing in that house had ever surprised me.

I knew which stair creaked, which window stuck in August and which drawer in the study Martin Cranmer kept locked.

For seven years I had kept all of it running for a man who didn't deserve the work.

I did it because the house was the last place that still held her.

Her mother's roses were out along the south wall.

I'd pruned them myself every spring and never told her.

At four, Martin called me into the study.

He sat behind the desk with a folder open in front of him, tall and silver and exactly as straight as ever.

"She's coming," he said.

"I know."

"The car left Charlestown at four."

"Then she'll be here by half past."

He looked at me over his glasses.

"You've seen her this week."

It wasn't a question.

I said nothing.

"I am told you've been staying at her apartment."

"Who told you?"

"I have people who tell me things."

"Cecelia has a right to be protected."

"I agree," said Martin. "So stay in the carriage house tonight."

"And don't come to the dinner."

"I wasn't invited."

"You were not."

He closed the folder.

"Rafe. I've been fair to you. I gave your mother a pension and I gave you a trade."

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