But the heavy wooden door leading to the main house had already swung open.
Mistress Evelyn Harrow stood silently in the threshold, appearing like an avenging angel of destruction. She wore an expensive, flowing silk morning gown the exact color of fresh cream, and her golden blonde hair was perfectly, immaculately arranged despite the early hour. She was twenty-eight years old, and she was undeniably beautiful—but she was beautiful in the exact same terrifying way that poisonous, toxic flowers are beautiful. Her piercing, icy blue eyes swept coldly across the chaotic scene with the ruthless, calculating efficiency of a hungry hawk spotting injured prey in the grass.
“What,” Evelyn said, her voice dropping to a register as soft as raw cotton, and just as readily waiting to be violently picked, “has happened here?”
Absolutely no one answered. No one even dared to draw a loud breath.
The mistress’s icy gaze fell slowly to the broken, scattered pieces of the antique dish, then rose with agonizing slowness to lock onto Mercy’s tear-streaked, terrified face.
