Chapter 4: Blood on the Page

Keir's study was at the back of the house, with a safe, a desk and a window onto a frozen garden.

He wheeled behind the desk and put a leather folder on it.

"Sit."

I sat.

"My father wrote this," he said. "He wrote everything on paper, and he thought a signature in blood was a joke people took seriously."

"Do people take it seriously?"

"In this house, yes."

He opened the folder and turned it to face me.

My signature was on the last page, in my eighteen-year-old handwriting, with a brown thumbprint beside it.

The first clause said the Ashgrove daughter would marry the Kincaid heir within seven years.

The second said the bride would live in the Kincaid house for one year after the wedding.

"The Ashgrove daughter," I said. "I'm not one anymore."

"The papers say the girl who signed. My lawyers say the same." He folded his hands. "You're the only bride I've got."

"And if I walk out?"

"The Donnellys' note comes due, and they lose their kitchen."

"You'd do that to two strangers."

"They're my debtors. They aren't strangers."

I looked at him for a long moment.

He didn't blink.

"Then I'm writing my own terms," I said.

"You have no leverage."

"I have your spine."

That landed. His mouth moved, almost a smile, and then it was gone.

"Go on."

I took a sheet of his own paper and a pen from the desk.

"One. The Donnellys' note is cancelled tonight, not when I perform."

"Agreed."

"Two. For one year, this is a signature and nothing else. I'm not your bed."

His eyes went over my face.

"I don't take what isn't offered, Miss Donnelly."

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