Her denial is immediate, “No,” even as her mind fills in: disappointment, because Asher can’t train her dog, but why not? and she hasn’t even got a dog (because Hardie is a thread to pull—), and
she turns on her heel, brisk and determined, “No, that’s not true, Asher—”
Stephen doesn’t see, immediately, what she sees when she jerks open the door further into the house. He smells it, instead, the scent of rot and sickness, stale as the deathbed that Asher long since left behind, as Gwenaëlle reels back and stumbles into the wall behind her, gagging, and something in that room moves that cannot be a man so long dead her dream could not survive looking at him.
no subject
she turns on her heel, brisk and determined, “No, that’s not true, Asher—”
Stephen doesn’t see, immediately, what she sees when she jerks open the door further into the house. He smells it, instead, the scent of rot and sickness, stale as the deathbed that Asher long since left behind, as Gwenaëlle reels back and stumbles into the wall behind her, gagging, and something in that room moves that cannot be a man so long dead her dream could not survive looking at him.