Chương 3
The guards stared too.
Brutus crossed into the house.
Agnes slowly removed her glasses.
For the first time since Clara had arrived that morning, the older woman looked frightened by something other than the dog.
“Clara,” she said quietly, “Brutus has not entered this wing voluntarily in three years.”
A door opened somewhere beyond the corridor.
Footsteps approached without hurry.
Every employee within sight straightened.
Brutus pressed against Clara’s leg.
The man who appeared at the far end of the corridor wore a dark shirt with the sleeves rolled once at the forearms, and there was nothing theatrical about him until Clara noticed that nobody else seemed willing to look directly at his face.
He stopped twenty feet away.
Brutus stiffened.
Clara instinctively rested her hand near the dog’s shoulder without touching him.
The stranger’s gaze dropped to that hand.
Then it rose to Clara.
“Miss Doyle.”
She had never seen him before.
Still, she knew.
Her mouth went dry.
“Mr. Vale.”
Adrian Vale looked at the soaked uniform, the bare feet, the bruising already darkening along her wrist, and finally the giant dog leaning against her as if she were the only fixed object in the room.
“You’re not fired,” he said.
Relief hit Clara so quickly that her knees nearly weakened.
Then he added, “But your duties have changed.”
Clara looked at Adrian as if she had misheard him.
“My duties have changed?”
“Yes.”
Agnes made a small sound that suggested this was not an answer she liked.
Adrian’s attention stayed on Brutus.
The dog had shifted half a step behind Clara’s leg without taking his eyes off the man.
Clara noticed that too.
“What duties?”
“You’ll remain on household payroll.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
One of the guards suddenly became fascinated with a brass hinge.
Agnes closed her eyes for half a second.
Adrian’s mouth changed at one corner, not quite a smile and perhaps not meant to become one.
“You’ll work with Brutus.”
Clara stared at him.
“No.”
The corridor went so quiet that the refrigerator motor in the pantry could be heard cycling on.
Adrian looked at her.
Clara looked back, though every survival instinct she possessed was advising her to study the floor.
“I’m sorry,” she added.
“That sounded rude.”
“It was clear.”
“I’m not qualified.”
“You were.”
The words landed differently than she expected.
Clara’s fingers curled against her damp skirt.
“You checked.”
“I check everyone who enters this house.”
“That doesn’t make me qualified now.”
“What changed?”
“I left school.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
Her face warmed.
Brutus nudged the back of her hand.
She pulled in a breath.
“Tuition changed.”
Adrian said nothing.
“Life changed.”
Still nothing.
“I cleaned kennels and assisted technicians.”
She glanced down at Brutus.
“I wasn’t a behaviorist.”
“No one said you were.”
“Then you need someone who is.”
“I’ve had three.”
“That doesn’t mean you stop trying.”
Agnes turned her head toward Clara with the expression of a woman witnessing someone voluntarily lean over a roof edge.
Adrian folded his arms.
“You think I stopped trying?”
“I don’t know you.”
“No.”
His gaze sharpened.
“You don’t.”
Brutus pressed harder against Clara’s thigh.
She could feel his trembling through the wet fabric.
Something about Adrian’s presence was bothering him, though not in the way the metal handle had.
This was vigilance, not panic.
The distinction mattered.
Clara lowered her voice.
“Can we not do this standing over him?”
Adrian looked at the dog.
Then, without argument, he stepped backward.
Brutus’s shoulders loosened by a fraction.
Clara saw it.
So did Adrian.
His face became unreadable.
“Agnes,” he said.
“Get Miss Doyle dry clothes.”
“I have a spare uniform.”
“Not a uniform.”
Agnes’s eyebrows lifted.
Adrian ignored them.
“And have lunch sent to the small sitting room.”
Clara blinked.
“I can eat with the staff.”
“Not today.”
“That sounds ominous.”
“It’s soup.”
The first guard coughed into his fist.
Clara looked at Adrian again.
There was dry humor in his eyes now, or something close enough to make her less certain of the man she had constructed from whispers.
Agnes gestured toward the service stairs.
“Come with me.”
Clara took one step.
Brutus followed immediately.
She stopped.
He stopped.
Agnes looked at the ceiling.
“No.”
Clara tried another step.
Brutus moved with her.
“Apparently yes.”
“Brutus stays downstairs.”
The mastiff looked at Agnes.
Agnes looked back.
“I have worked in this house for nineteen years.”
Brutus yawned.
Clara covered her mouth.
Agnes pointed at her.
“Do not laugh.”
“I didn’t.”
“You nearly did.”
“I’m wet and frightened.”
“That has never stopped anyone from laughing at me.”
Brutus followed Clara up the first stair.
His rear paws remained on the stone floor.
He froze there, body caught between levels.
Clara crouched.
The staircase had a polished iron railing.
Brutus’s gaze was fixed on it.
She examined the metal uprights, then looked toward Adrian.
“Has he ever been beaten with something metal?”
Nobody answered.
That answer was enough.
Clara’s throat tightened.
Adrian’s expression hardened.
Not at her.
At something far away and apparently still capable of making him furious.
“We don’t know exactly what happened,” he said.
“Where did he come from?”
“An illegal dogfighting operation.”
Clara closed her eyes briefly.
Of course.
The scars, the avoidance, the terror of long metal objects.
“Was he fought?”
“No.”
“How do you know?”
“He was bait.”
The word hollowed out the corridor.
Clara looked down at Brutus.
The mastiff was sniffing the edge of the stair as though nothing important had just been said.
Something hot and ugly moved through her chest.
She had seen animals ruined by neglect, breeding, careless owners, untreated pain.
Bait dogs were different.
They were kept alive for suffering.
“Who did it?”
Adrian’s stare became very still.
“He isn’t doing it anymore.”
Nolan appeared at the end of the corridor.
He had arrived silently enough that Clara had not heard him.
“Adrian.”
One word.
A warning.
May you like
Adrian glanced at him.
Clara understood that there were questions she should not follow.
