Read Online Crimson Peak: The Official Movie Novelization by Nancy Holder - Free Book Online

come out at last, and all those years in darkness—
    —those secrets—
    were over.
    Such a weight rose from his shoulders, it was almost as if he himself had wings.
    Before he grew too nervous, he approached Edith.
    “May I have a word?”
    She looked from him to the throng of guests and back again. “Right now, Thomas?”
    She has stopped using my title
, he thought, very pleased. He had asked her to do so, and at first she had demurred. To hear his name on her lips…
    “Yes, now. I am afraid I can’t wait,” he replied. He sighed, genuinely twitchy, and fumbled in his pocket for the ring. She was waiting, attentive. He had to do this well.
    “Miss Cushing… Edith,” he amended, “I really have no right to ask this, but…”
    Then, of all times, Edith’s father suddenly appeared. Thomas put the ring back in his pocket.
    “Sir Thomas, may I see you in my study? You and your sister? If you would be so kind as to fetch her?” Cushing asked. He turned to his daughter. “Child, please see that the guests are seated. We will join you shortly.”
    The skin of Thomas’s face prickled. He watched Edith recede into the distance like the sun sinking beneath the horizon. And then he went to find Lucille, as Mr. Cushing had asked—no, more correctly,
ordered
—him to do.
    * * *
    I take no satisfaction in this
, Carter Cushing thought, as Sir Thomas and Lady Sharpe joined him in his study. But truth was, he did. He had pulled himself up by his bootstraps, and each time he won out over any challenge, he felt a thrill of victory. Perhaps it was petty of him, but it was the truth.
    “Now, Lady Sharpe, Sir Thomas.” He regarded them both. So pale and dark, the two of them, practically twins. “The first time we met, at my office—”
    “I recall it, sir. Perfectly,” Sir Thomas assured him.
    Cushing raised a brow. “I imagine it wasn’t hard for you to realize I didn’t like you.”
    Sir Thomas took his frank statement manfully. “You made that plain enough, sir. But I had hoped that now, with time…”
    “Your time, Sir Thomas, is up.”
And thank God for that.
    “Could you speak plainly, Mr. Cushing?” Lady Sharpe cut in. “I’m afraid I don’t follow you.”
    He was astonished at her brass.
    “Plain I will be, missy. Plainer than you might like to hear. I have no idea what your implication is in the matters at hand, but in the past few days, your brother has deemed it fine enough to mix business with pleasure by repeatedly engaging socially with my daughter. My
only
daughter,” he added for emphasis.
    “Sir, I am aware that I have no position to offer,” the young man said. “But the fact is…”
    He fumbled, and Cushing regained the upper hand.
    “You love my daughter, is that it?” He restrained his anger. There was no point to it. He had an end game in mind, and the sooner there, the better.
    Sir Thomas matched his gaze. “Yes, sir, it is.”
    “You play the part well.” An honest statement. “A few days ago, my daughter asked me why I didn’t like you. Honestly, at the time, I had no good answer. But now I do. I obtained some interesting records on you. English peerage, property records…”
    He pulled out the envelope from Mr. Holly containing the documents he had paid an extra sum to acquire, and slid the contents across the table, toward the Sharpes. As he had anticipated, the corner of one piece in particular attracted Sir Thomas’s attention.
    “But that document there, the Civil Registry, that’s the real find,” Cushing declared, nailing the coffin lid shut. A single glimpse of the seal was sufficient; the young man turned stark white.
    “I believe that’s the first honest reaction I’ve seen from you.”
    There was silence. Lady Sharpe was impossible to read, but Sir Thomas was a study in misery as he ground out, “Does she know?”
    “No,” Cushing answered. “But I will tell her if that’s what it takes to send you on your way.”
    Sharpe’s expression broke as