‘Happy Valentine’s Day, Woman.’

Proserpina

It was Valentine’s Day, Camille had told me earlier that day, beaming from ear to ear as she walked about with the single rose her beloved husband, Antony Beston, who was also our Head of Security, had chosen to give her.

I smiled wanly. Ria was off with her beloved Capo and I had not had the heart to break up those lovers.

*

I waited for my husband to return that evening but he had sent me a terse message that something had held him up. He did not turn up the next day and I worried whether he had seen Schwartz kissing me and had misconstrued the entire matter.

Sighing, I brushed my hair out and prepared to go to bed. The kids, my triplets, that is, had gone away on a field trip. Melissa had come to tell me about it since she knew of how fiercely possessive Lucien was about the kids. She knew that he would not give the permission for them to leave Hollowford easily.

But she had been excited and eager to have the children join the trip. Something about a writer who was visit