I was up before six.
Not because I had slept badly, though I had. Because lying in the dark waiting for morning felt worse than just getting up and meeting it.
I made myself presentable. Nothing elaborate. Just enough to feel like myself rather than someone who had spent half the night on the ceiling listening to a conversation she was not meant to hear.
The kitchen was empty at that hour.
I liked it that way. I made tea the way I always made it, strong and plain, and I stood at the large window that looked out over the back of the grounds and watched the light come up slowly over the trees. It was the first genuinely quiet moment I had experienced in this house. No staff moving through. No Mrs. Park with her folded hands and careful eyes. No Damien filling a room with his particular b
