Why did it feel like he was pulling at her? It was worse since she’d come here, actually. First New York City, where everyone had stared at her, reminding her that she was the infamous Mrs. Webster. Then at Liefdehuis, where for a handful of seconds she’d actually thought he was lurking in the shadows, waiting for her.

The hat was sitting in the back of her armoire currently, where it was going to stay. How had she come to buy a hat the exact color of her dead husband’s hair? Gold wasn’t even her color.

And now Alfred, who looked like him in every way. Who acted like him, too—money first, but if you could combine money and pain, or money and humiliation, that was best, the juiciest.

Yesterday she hadn’t wanted to go in the house. It was her house, her hope, and she’d balked at the door. Of course there hadn’t been anything inside—no trace of the sinister feeling of earlier. Only dust, and Sam, and the strange lightness that seemed to follow in his wake. No Alain, waiting to pull her down with him.

He wasn’t going to take this from her. It didn’t matter if Alfred siphoned the last of her fortune; it didn’t matter if she was afraid of the darkness; it didn’t matter if her imagination conjured up horrifying fantasies. It didn’t matter if she screamed and fainted every time she walked through the damn front door. Liefdehuis needed her, and she needed it.

It was hers, damn it, and dead or alive, no golden-haired snake was going to take it from her.

CHAPTER TEN

Sam’s parents had been famous scientists since before he was born. While his mother had been pregnant with him, she’d filed no fewer than five patents, four of which were still in popular use today. His father was one of the foremost scientific names of the last century. Sam knew even his own name was recognizable in most of the nation’s households, attached to brilliant discovery after brilliant discovery.

But what didn’t make it into the newspapers’ breathless reporting was the work that went into each achievement, the days and weeks and months spent simply monitoring experiments, tinkering with them, failing, and starting over. Or the backbreaking work that went into simply setting up a project, like he was doing now.

It was his favorite part. The moments of lightning discovery, he cherished those. But scientific life was one of small adjustments and constant work, and he loved it.