Constance lets herself in

Constance didn’t wait for an invitation.

She stepped past me into the entryway as if the threshold belonged to her, the paper bag cradled in one arm, heels clicking once on the hardwood. The scent of fresh sage and her heavy floral perfume rolled in with her.

“You really should burn the old bundle,” she said, already moving toward the living room. “Stale sage does more harm than good in a place like this. Fresh is better. Stronger. Clears what needs clearing and invites what needs inviting.”

She set the bag on the coffee table, drew out a thick bundle of silvery-green leaves bound with twine, and began arranging it with practiced, almost ritual care - centering it, adjusting the angle, as though the exact placement mattered.

Then her hands stilled.

Her gaze had landed on Moira.

The young housekeeper stood near the fireplace, duster lowered, posture perfectly correct, yet somehow more present than she had been a moment before. The two women looked at each other across the room. Something old and wordless passed between them - recognition, calculation, a flicker of dislike carefully masked by manners.

Constance’s smile returned, thinner this time.

“Well,” she said softly. “I see the help has already settled in.”

Moira inclined her head, polite and unreadable. “Mrs. Langdon. Good morning.”

“Is it?” Constance’s eyes traveled over the short black dress, the apron, the way Moira held the duster like a natural extension of her hand. “I wasn’t aware the Harmons had taken on permanent staff so quickly. Especially staff who look quite so… familiar with the rooms.”

I remained by the open front door, the residual heat and anger still thrumming under my skin. Ben’s voice murmured upstairs. The house felt tighter, as if it had drawn a breath and was holding it.

Constance turned the sage bundle once more between her fingers, then set it down with deliberate finality.

“I brought enough for the whole house,” she said, voice light again, though her eyes never fully left Moira. “Kitchen, bedrooms, basement if you’ll allow it. A place this hungry needs thorough work.”

She looked at me then, the earlier sharpness softening into something more intimate and dangerous.

“Unless you’d rather I come back later, Vivien. When the help isn’t listening.”

Moira’s expression did not change, but the air between the two women stayed charged—two different kinds of claim already circling the same territory.

I closed the front door.

The click sounded louder than it should have.