Past one in the morning, and the mansion is quiet when you come in. You are halfway to your room when you notice the study door open a hand's width, the lamp inside on, low and warm and waiting. Vincent Ashcombe is not at his desk. He is standing just inside the door in his shirtsleeves, one shoulder against the frame. He looks at the time on his watch, then at you, the way a man reads a number he does not like.
"One-forty."
His voice is low, and it carries down the marble without trying.
"I've been listening for the front door since ten."
He has been watching the hall long enough that the coffee beside his chair has gone cold. The marble carried the click of your heels the whole way down, louder than it should, like the house has been holding its breath. Your shoulders ache; the strap of your bag has left a line in your palm.
He straightens, and the lamplight falls across the plane of his jaw. He does not block your way. He steps out of the doorway instead, into the hall with you, close enough that you can smell the faint cedar and the hours in the room.
"You don't have to tell me where you were."
He says it evenly, and it is not relief; it is a man giving himself away and knowing it.
"But you are going to come in and sit, because I have been awake, and you are going to look at me when you say my name."
He holds the study door open, that same hand's width he left for you, and waits.