Page 32 of The Unseen Hour

I still had my small bag slung over my shoulder, and I took it off, nesting it in the blanket in front of me.

Shock rolled through me, and I swallowed down the other emotion that threatened to push through: disappointment. For over a year, I’d been falling for the words of R. Holmes. Against all odds, one of the brothers was alive, but he was O.

I longed to ask about the other two, but if they weren’t here, that didn’t bode well.

Orion blinked.

“People know about us?”

I dropped my hands, nodding.

“Everyone knows of the three Holmes brothers. You all … well, you … during the first Unseen Hour, you …”

His face was impassive.

“We died. You can say it.”

If he was giving me leave to discuss it openly, I might as well ask after his siblings.

“Yes, that is the assumption, but only two bodies were ever found. And the last place people had seen you was in your home. At first, people thought you were murdered, but then, when the hour continued, people realized you’d been victims of it. Since it was the first year of the Unseen Hour, you had no way of knowing the danger you were in, being out at midnight.”

Orion scoffed.

“It was foolish for us to leave at that time of night, even if we didn't know the hour was coming. My brothers and I only left our home because of extenuating circumstances. Even then, only one of us made it far enough to go past the boundaries of the Holmes family estate. Me.”

“And your brothers?”

I held my breath.

Orion frowned, staring into the fire as he answered.

“Reginald and Remington are deceased. I’m the only one who made it here”—he gestured to himself—“like this.”

That settled it, then. The mysterious gentleman I’d found myself drawn to, more than any of the men I’d met at balls or while promenading or attending any number of mind-numbingly dull affairs in Emrys, was dead.

I hadn’t known R. Not really. I’d just been drawn to his words. But to Orion, he had been a brother, and judging by the way he scowled into the fire, the memory was still painful.

“I’m sorry. I’ve got a few brothers myself, and I can’t imagine being without them. I’m sure you all had your reasons for going out that night. After all, there were mysterious happenings going on at your estate—and had been for weeks before you disappeared.”

His eyes widened.

“People know about that as well?”

“Not everyone.” Truthfully, I wasn’t certain how much attention had been paid once it was decided the brothers were victims of the hour, or how much investigation had been done before that determination was made. The only reason I knew more was because of R. and his writing. Otherwise, I’d have heard of the three brothers who died during the first hour, when the Holmes family lost an entire generation of its house, and nothing more.

I wasn’t about to admit that I’d been snooping around his brother’s journal. It was highly possible that learning their personal possessions had ended up on a dusty library shelf would be just salt in the wound. A bolt of longing tore through me as I thought of the journal’s author, but this wasn’t the time to linger on fantasy.

“Most people just know you all died during the hour, and that your estate passed to a cousin whose side of the family still holds the estate to this day. There were some questions initially, about whether the missing brother—you—was involved in the demise of the other two. But that theory was quickly abandoned,” I assured him. “Everyone assumes you were all three victims of the hour.”

“They’re not wrong to say that.”

“Our estate abuts yours,” I said, as a way of explaining my additional knowledge.

Here without his family for so long. My heart went out to him, but so did my curiosity.

I stood, leaving the satchel on the cot but keeping the blanket draped over my shoulders as I took a few steps across the small cottage to observe him closer. I walked in a circle around Orion, tilting my head as I took him in.

“Yes?”