Pen ink dripped off the cuff off my sleeve and I cursed as I tried to wipe it off on the desk. But the dark blue ink penetrated the white fabric, wet agaisnt the thin skin on my wrist. Gently putting down the heavy fountain pen, I inspected the cuffs, Padma wasn't going to be pleased.

Dark smell of woodsmoke hung in the air, the red coals of the fire almost burnt down to an ashy pulp. I turned to watch the old clock which glowered from the corner but I did not fall to its demands and instead rose from desk with a match box.

The familiar burn off white phosphorus cleared my heavy lungs and the room flicked back to life. Lifting a simple silver candelabra I light the candles which I had replaced that evening, it was a small regularity, the burning and replacing of everyday life.

Stopping I turned towards the door, it seemed the Good Doctor had arrived to chastise me. Her poor attempt to lessen the sound of her footsteps which reverberated through the floor.

"Good Evening Doctor, please come in" I barked, the ghost of a knock on the door. Swinging the basement door open, the Doctor emerged and I turned, my face cool as thick ice.

"Good evening, Mr Sharpe" Doctor Reshma replied, her face uncommonly serious. Her nightdress hung off her large frame and her hair was still held back in a silk yellow bonnet. "I have a matter of business to discuss."

"Please sit, Doctor" I said seriously,I could feel my eyebrows pinch and I settled into the leather chair behind the desk as the Doctor sat opposite me.

I was partly relieved that she hadn't come to attempt to drag me from the work which could have easily been given to some plush solicitor or over paid banker. I laced my fingers on the table and watched as Doctor Carter pursed her lips and I raised an eyebrow. An unfamiliar silence weighed on the room and I leaned over my desk.

"What is it Reshma?" I asked, forcing it to be softer, grating thick scars agaisnt my vocal chords.

"Your brother seems to be causing problems in London." The Doctor rushed, pulling out two thick letters from a hidden pocket in her night dress and pushing them across the desk.

I snatched them up and glowered at the ceiling. Pushing myself from the chair I clutched the letters in my fist as I paced the room trying to sooth the dark fire boiling the inside of my stomach and crushing my ribs.

"When did you receive these?" I questioned, deep cold wrath burned through my stomach and the deep scars under the mask seemed to pulsate. Sweat dripped down my back as I paced in the cold silence.

"They came to the house an hour ago, Edward" Reshma said cooly and I stopped. It was like she had thrust my head into a bucket of ice cold water. I needed to think critically, this wasn't Crimea and the Doctor was not my enemy.

Swiftly, I slipped a knife between heavy red wax seal of the Jaskier Family and the thick white paper and common carpenter's twine. Jaskier's writing was scrawled across the page, my heart sunk and my temper flared as I scanned the pages.

Jaksier was precise and reliable and that was exactly why I had hired him to keep on my darling brother. The young man's attention to detail was uncannly but that only made the truth dig deeper.

"It appears that for once the gossip columnists of London have got something right" I sneered, my lip curling around the corners of my white mask.

Reshma's face had turned the shade of putrified mangos, "Edward, I thought you didn't listen to gossip?" she asked.

"I don't" I said, running stained hand down the thick paper, "But Jaskier does, gossip is sometimes the most honourable way to chase out the filthy underbelly of the truth. Especially when it comes to certain people."

Reshma nodded as I stood from behind the desk and turned to face the dying fireplace. I chucked log after log into the flames. Feet slightly apart, arms held behind my back my ran over a thousand possible options. The battle field of polite society more poisonous than the battlefield. Men at least pretended to act honourably and those who are monsters had the courtsy to be candid about it.

"What does the letter say?" she asked, leaning back into her chair slapping on a nonchalant smile and flashing her pearly white teeth. Her light offhandedness was cooling, bedside manners never normally worked on me but Reshma was different from most physicians. She had a calm collectedness about her even when using a rag as a tourniquet behind a burnt out wagon.

"My dear brother" I stated, the words dripping like black venom. "Is causing trouble in London. He has been speaking to several judges about reinstating his position as the Earl of Northumberland and retaking Malakoff House".

"But why" the Doctor asked, shaking her head in confusion. "Hasn't he got everything he wants in London? Women? Wealth? Power?"

"That" I replied, "Is what I find concerning."

Boris Augustus Claudias Sharpe, a crude name for a crude man. I had carved the stench of him and my dear dead father from this house through my renovations. I would sooner butcher my staff and hang myself in this very office with my own stained shirt if it rather than hand it over too his grubby hands.

"But he can't? Can he?" she whispered and I nodded slowly, playing with the hem of my glove.

I sighed and leaned into the thick leather, it was one of the few mercies that my dearly dested father had bequeathed on me. "He can't, not without marrying a woman on high status which won't happen considering his reputation or going through the courts" I said coldly.

I sympathised with Reshma and Padama, my only staff. If I lost the house then they would no longer have any occupation, they could not return home.

"I won't let them take this house", I said, looking Reshma straight in the eye. Her shoulders seemed to sink, we had been through enough together and it warmed the cold crevices of my heart to know that my staff trusted me to keep them safe.

"You should really tell her about your brother" the Good Doctor said and I grimmaced.

"What good would it?" I shot back

Reshma folded her dark amber arms over the white cotton of her dress and smirked. "She is part of this house Edward, she deserves to know why"

Vomit settled in the base of my throat and I rubbed the bottom of the white mask. An unsure heat warmed its underside, "She hates me" I said quickly, angry that my carefully curated control way slowly slipping.

"She is frightened of you Edward" she said softly, her brown eyes focusing my mask.

I winced, my hand shooting to touch the edge of the mask.

"I'll try" I said, the Good Doctor only nodded.