Chapter 4 - The Broken Seal
Raven Hill by night was an entirely different beast than it was by day. The amber floodlights illuminated the stone facade, casting sharp, jagged shadows across the courtyards.
Upon returning, Sadie was directed not to the servants' quarters, but to the small adjoining suite connected to Eleanor Cain’s bedchamber. Ronan had decreed that his mother’s new private attendant needed to be within arm’s reach at all hours.
The suite was furnished in antique rosewood, but Sadie had no interest in the silk-covered bed.
At midnight, when the heavy grandfather clock in the main hall struck twelve deep chimes, Sadie heard a faint tapping on the adjoining wall. Three raps, a pause, then two more.
Julian’s old signal.
Sadie stood immediately, barefoot, her movements silent as water. She slipped through the connecting door into Eleanor’s dimly lit bedroom. A single lamp with a dark shade illuminated the old woman, who was sitting upright in bed, wrapped in a black cashmere shawl.
Eleanor pointed toward the massive oak armoire across the room.
Sadie approached quietly, her fingers running along the carved moldings.
*Behind the lower drawer,* Eleanor signed rapidly. *The false baseboard. Pull the brass pin.*
Sadie knelt on the Persian rug. She slid the heavy drawer out, felt along the cold mahogany interior, and located a thin metal pin. She pulled. A narrow compartment clicked open with a muted pop.
Inside lay a small, velvet-lined mahogany box sealed with cracking red wax, bearing the Cain signet ring—the two-headed falcon.
Sadie brought the box to the bed.
Eleanor didn't open it. She pressed her withered palm flat against the top of the wood, her eyes glistening with unshed tears.
*Julian gave this to me three nights before he burned in the harbor warehouse,* Eleanor signed, her fingers trembling slightly with long-suppressed rage. *He told me that if anything happened to him, I was not to give it to Ronan until Ronan was ready to see the rot inside his own house. Ronan is too impulsive. He burns everything down when he is wounded.*
*What is inside?* Sadie asked.
*The ledger of betrayal,* Eleanor signed. *The bank routing numbers of someone who took thirty million dollars from Julian’s offshore accounts while Julian was pinned down in the crossfire. But the seal is unbroken. Julian set a combination lock into the core of the timber. Only three people knew the cypher: Julian, myself, and the woman he promised to marry.*
Sadie stared down at the box. Julian had taught her that sequence on the night he had given her a thin gold band she still wore on a chain beneath her blouse.
*Four-nine-one-eight,* Sadie thought to herself. The day Poppy had been conceived.
Suddenly, Eleanor’s hand shot out and clamped onto Sadie’s arm.
Outside in the corridor, heavy boots clicked against the floorboards. The brass door handle turned with a slow, agonizing groan.
Sadie didn't hesitate. She shoved the box beneath Eleanor’s down pillows, slid smoothly to the edge of the mattress, and took Eleanor’s hands in hers, adopting the posture of a soothing nurse attending a distressed patient in the dead of night.
The door swung wide.
Ronan Cain stood on the threshold. He had removed his suit jacket, his white linen shirt unbuttoned at the throat, revealing the edge of dark ink crawling across his collarbone. In his right hand, he held a tumbler of bourbon. His dark eyes, sharp and predatory, surveyed the scene.
"She woke up?" Ronan asked, his voice low, cutting through the silence like a scalpel.
Sadie rose slowly, her head bowed in practiced deference. "She had a tremor, sir. Night terrors. Her breathing was shallow. I was rubbing her temples to lower her heart rate."
Ronan stepped into the room. He didn't look at his mother; his gaze pinned Sadie where she stood. He closed the distance until he was standing less than two feet away. He was tall, broad-shouldered, radiating an aura of disciplined violence.
"You have very soft hands for an agency temp, Sadie," he remarked softly, taking a sip from his glass. "Most women who spend five years scrubbing floors have calluses that catch on silk. Yours are smooth. Like someone who played the cello. Or typed legal briefs."
"I took care of an invalid grandmother for six years before I joined Beacon, Mr. Cain," Sadie answered steadily, never breaking eye contact. "You learn to keep your hands gentle when you’re handling people who break easily."
Ronan tilted his head, watching her with that unnerving, calculating stillness. "My mother doesn't break easily. She survived thirty years with my father. Don't mistake silence for fragility, Miss Cole."
He reached out, his fingers brushing the fabric of Sadie’s sleeve, right above the pulse point on her wrist. Sadie didn't flinch, though her heart was hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird.
"Go back to your room," Ronan ordered quietly. "I’ll sit with her for a while."
May you like
Sadie bowed her head. "Yes, sir."
As she slipped past him toward the connecting door, she could feel Ronan’s eyes boring into the back of her neck. He wasn't convinced. He was waiting for her to stumble.
