“What of your parents, Miss Dahl-Saida?” asked the Baron. “I was told to expect your mother as well as you. Did she not choose to join you?”
The air in the room seemed to close in around her. “My father has been gone nearly six years, now. My mother—my mother died on the sea crossing.”
The Baron’s face grew very pale, lines pressing deep into his forehead. “I didn’t know—I didn’t—realize. Your poor mother. You poor child.” Moisture gleamed in the corners of his eyes. “How did she die?”
Talia hated the Baron for asking that question. She hated his affectation that her misery meant anything to him at all.
“Father,” said Caiden sharply. “That’s hardly an appropriate—”
“She drowned. She threw herself overboard in the middle of a storm and she drowned.”
All three of them stared at her, shocked into silence.
Talia jerked up from her seat and accidentally knocked her wine glass over. The crystal hit the table with a delicate tink, and deep red liquid leaked across the polished wood. She stood staring at the spilled wine, her fingers digging hard into the back of her chair.
“I’m so sorry,” came Wen’s quiet voice.
She met his eyes, and saw a pain there that mirrored her own.
Caiden gave her a tight smile. “How awful for you.”
“Forgive me for my presumptuous questions,” said the Baron. His voice shook.
The rain beat against the window and the fire burned too hot, and Talia felt like she was going to fracture into a thousand pieces. She couldn’t stand it any longer.
She left the room without another word.
She sat in the window seat in her room, knees drawn up to her chin, staring down at the distant sea. The rain had stopped and the night was dark, but light from some downstairs window glinted on the water. The waves grasped fruitlessly for the rocky shore, and fell away again.
There was a knock at the door and Talia turned from the window. “What is it?” she called.
The door creaked open and Lyna and Ro came in, hefting a trunk between them. Dairon followed just behind.
“Good evening, Miss,” said Dairon crisply. “I’ve brought your clothes. We would have had them ready earlier, but didn’t know you would arrive without a stitch to your name.” She frowned. “Lyna, Ro, set it down by the bed, please.”
The maids did as she asked, plopping the trunk on the carpet in a cloud of dust and the sudden scent of cedar. Ro creaked the lid open, and Talia reluctantly left the window seat to come and see what all the fuss was about.
Lyna drew a gown out of the trunk that shimmered with blue and silver beading. She eyed Talia, then nodded and laid the dress on the bed. “The late Baroness seems to have been about your size, Miss. That’s fortunate.”
“Both late Baronesses, you mean,” quipped Ro, pulling out a second gown. This one was dusty pink with long sleeves and a split skirt, for riding.
“Hold your tongue, girl,” Dairon snapped at her.
Ro shrugged, and unearthed another dress. “My apologies, Miss.”
Slowly, Lyna and Ro emptied the contents of the trunk, and Talia’s bed was soon piled high with silk and velvet and satin. Dairon instructed the two maids to hang the dresses in the wardrobe while she took the empty trunk away and went to fetch something else. She stepped from the room and the mood lightened considerably.
The maids waved off Talia’s offers to help, so she perched back in the window seat and watched them. “What did you mean ‘both late Baronesses?’”
Ro quirked a grin at her, and slid a yellow gown onto a hanger. “The Baron was married twice.” She leaned toward her conspiratorially. “Both of his wives died under mysterious circumstances.”
“Utter nonsense,” said Lyna, hanging a blue patterned dress in the wardrobe. “The Baron has just been very unlucky.”
“Maybe,” said Ro, putting the yellow gown by the blue one, “or maybe what they say about the house is true.”
“What do they say?”
“That it’s cursed.” Ro fitted another gown onto a hanger and deposited it in the wardrobe. “That it was touched by the gods. They say the house is built on the same patch of land where the Tree lay for nine hundred years. That gods and men dwelled here together in the old days. Communed with heaven. That sort of thing.”
Why did the old stories seem to be haunting her every step? “I have no interest in superstition.”
“Oh, but it’s not superstition. At least, the stuff about the house is not.”
Talia snorted ungraciously. “You can prove the Tree used to lay under our feet?”
“Not that.” Ro forgot all about the gowns and took a step over to the window seat. “I mean about the Baron’s wives. They were both happy, pretty things, and then they married the Baron, and came here, and went mad. One after the other.”
Her heart jolted. “What did you say?”
“It’s the house that changed them,” said Ro, enjoying the effect her story was having. Her dark eyes sparkled. “It made them laugh and sing when nothing was there, made them talk nonsense all the time. Some rumors say they killed themselves.” She whispered this last bit, eyes wide. “Some say the Baron killed them because he couldn’t stand their insane laughing.”
Talia felt herself go numb, her thoughts flashing back to her mother on the ship. Singing to the sea. Laughing into the storm. How could that have happened here, too?
“By the gods, Ro! There’s no call for that kind of talk!”
Ro giggled and went back to hanging gowns. “In any case, it’s what took a small part of the Baron’s fortune, at least what hadn’t already been claimed by the Empire. He spent nearly everything he had on doctors for the first Baroness, and he’s not gone out in company once since the death of the second. He doesn’t care about anything anymore and mismanages the province his family once ruled. All the real work falls to Caiden, of course. It’s a wonder he hasn’t gone mad yet.”
“Don’t listen to her, Miss,” said Lyna. “It’s all nonsense. Illness and a tragic accident took the Baron’s wives away. Nothing more. He grieves for them still, stands all-night vigil at their graves every year on the anniversaries of their deaths. Their passing broke him.”
“I don’t care what you say,” Ro grumbled. “This house is strange. Off.” She sobered, fingering the material of a lilac dress. “I’ve heard whispers, sometimes, voices high in the tower. Laughter and crying, too. I think the Baron’s wives are haunting this place, seeking revenge for their untimely deaths.”
“Be quiet, girl,” said Lyna. “If Dairon hears you talking like that she’ll have you dismissed.”
Ro gave a little shrug. “No, she won’t. Not many people are willing to work in the Ruen-Dahr, and she’s short-staffed as it is.”
“Do you hear music?” Talia asked Ro carefully.
Ro gave her a strange look. “Music? No, Miss. Only Master Wendarien—”
“Ro!” said Lyna.
Ro tore her gaze away, suddenly uneasy. “I’m sorry, Miss. Lyna’s right. I really shouldn’t be talking about it. Just superstition.”