Cassia lifted her freckled nose a touch. “Indeed I am.”

Myrtle stole another glance outside.

It was yet another unnecessary reminder that she was a stranger amongst her own family, that in her time away, a new neighbor had moved in, and one whom her parents had sought to join their family to. “And these stories about His Grace, I take it, have nothing to do with the fact he rebuffed y—er . . . our family,” she swiftly amended when Cassia flung a dark look her way.

Their cousins gasped.

Cassia waved a hand, dismissing their outrage on her behalf. “Oh, no,” she murmured. “The stories existed long before he proved discourteous to our family.” She paused for effect. “Tales of the poor victims who faced his wrath.”

Despite herself, and despite the fact Myrtle knew her sister had always been a storyteller and that some of her favorites had been those that had sent Myrtle hiding under the covers as a child, she shivered. Cassia had always been deuced good at spinning a yarn.

Myrtle reminded herself that she wasn’t a girl any longer, and as such, she wasn’t prone to bone-chilling stories. She folded her arms at her chest and stared pointedly at Cassia. “You’re claiming a duke is a murderer?” she asked, not bothering to keep the incredulity out of that question.

“You find it hard to believe?” Cassia demanded.

“I find it more likely to believe that you and Mother didn’t take too well to being snubbed,” she muttered to the collective gasps of her female kin present.

Meghan took a step toward her, but Cassia held up a staying hand. “And just why do you find it so hard to believe, Myrtle? Because of his title? Because lords and ladies aren’t capable of truly evil acts?” she challenged, and had Cassia been more defiant and less calmly matter-of-fact, it would have been easier for Myrtle to dismiss her sister’s story.

Cassia looked back to Linnie and Meghan. As she resumed and her cousins went wide-eyed and silent, Myrtle knew this wasn’t a telling solely for her benefit.

“He was once the most sought-after gentleman in all of London . . . until he wasn’t. Because”—Cassia paused for effect—“he went mad.”

Linnie clutched a hand to her throat and took a step away from the curtain, distancing herself farther from the stranger down below.

“They say he collects one log for each of his victims . . .”

Myrtle didn’t want to be caught up in her sister’s story, and yet she found herself latching on to that outrageous telling.

“He waits for his servants to displease him,” Cassia continued in those eerie tones, but let the remainder of those words go unfinished.

And if they did . . . ?

“What happens when they do?” Meghan whispered in terror-filled tones, posing the very question that had formed in Myrtle’s mind. “What does he do to them th-then?”