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--- Whispers Beneath the Silk A romantic thriller steeped in secrets, shadows, and seduction. --- When Evelyn Roth, a gifted textile restorer with a hidden past, receives a mysterious commission to restore an estate's vintage gowns, she sees it as the opportunity of a lifetime. The request arrives with no sender's name, only a location: Silkenmoor, a manor whispered about in London's underground arts circles like a myth cloaked in velvet and blood. The job promises wealth, seclusion, and a chance to escape the echoes of her own carefully buried secrets. But Silkenmoor is no ordinary estate. Tucked away in the mist-laden cliffs of the English coast, the mansion looms like a memory lost in time. Its architecture is breathtaking-gothic arches, crimson silk drapes, and candlelit halls-but the atmosphere is suffocating. Whispers float down the corridors like perfume, and Evelyn quickly learns that the house hasn't quite moved on from its most tragic occupant: Lady Isadora Thorne, the glamorous and scandalous mistress of the estate who died in unexplained circumstances nearly a decade ago. And then there's Lord Alaric Thorne-Isadora's widower, and the enigmatic master of the house. Cold, refined, and devastatingly handsome, Alaric is every bit the haunted figure the rumors suggested. Townsfolk believe he drove his wife to madness, or worse. Alaric insists Evelyn is here merely to preserve the gowns for archival purposes, but he watches her too closely. Their tension is instant. Electric. Dangerous. The gowns-dozens of them, preserved in a sealed dressing room-are exquisite. But as Evelyn begins to work, she discovers more than frayed threads and forgotten lace. Hidden in hems are tiny slips of paper: love letters, warnings, confessions. Bloodstains have been washed but not erased. One bodice holds a lock of auburn hair that doesn't belong to Isadora at all. Someone, Evelyn realizes, tried to sew their story into the seams. Each dress whispers something new-and Evelyn, despite herself, begins to listen. Drawn deeper into the tangled history of the house, she uncovers a love triangle gone wrong, a possible pregnancy covered up, and an affair that may have led to blackmail-or murder. She finds herself caught between two men: the alluring but dangerous Alaric, and Julian Mercer, the charming solicitor who claims to be investigating the estate's secrets. Julian warns her that Alaric is not to be trusted. Alaric insists Julian is the true manipulator. As Evelyn spirals into obsession, she can't tell which of them is lying-or if they both are. The closer she gets to the truth, the more the estate begins to shift around her. Mirrors show people who aren't there. The silk feels alive against her skin. And every time she wears one of Isadora's gowns, she feels less like herself and more like the woman whose ghost she may be embodying. Is she unraveling a mystery-or being rewritten by it? When a hidden vault is discovered beneath the estate-filled with a final, unfinished gown, and a stitched confession from Isadora herself-Evelyn must make a devastating choice: expose the truth and destroy what's left of the Thorne legacy, or bury it forever to protect a man she may be falling in love with... even if he's guilty. But some secrets refuse to stay dead. And some love stories are written not in ink-but in blood, silk, and silence. --- Whispers Beneath the Silk is a gothic romance for fans of Rebecca, Verity, and Crimson Peak-a story of forbidden love, psychological suspense, and the ways we stitch ourselves into history. Evelyn's journey from forgotten seamstress to the author of her own story will leave readers breathless until the final, shattering reveal. ---
Chapter 1 The Letter
Chapter One: The Letter
The envelope was pressed with a wax seal the color of dried blood.
Evelyn Roth turned it over in her gloved hands, noting the lack of a return address, the unfamiliar script curling like ivy across the thick parchment. Her name-just her name-had been inked in a slanted, almost romantic hand. No title. No location. Not even "Miss" or "Madam." Just:
Evelyn Roth
-as if whoever had written it knew precisely who she was, and knew she would come.
She broke the seal with her letter opener, careful not to tear the paper. A single sheet folded inside, crisp and clean, smelling faintly of sandalwood and age.
> You are formally invited to Silkenmoor Manor to undertake the restoration of a private collection of vintage gowns. All travel arrangements have been made. Compensation will be generous. Discretion is required. You will find a train ticket enclosed.
Silkenmoor waits.
No signature. No date. No details on how she'd been found-or why she'd been chosen. Just that name again: Silkenmoor.
Evelyn sat back in her worn armchair, the letter trembling slightly in her grasp. Outside the rain skittered against her attic window like restless fingers. Her kettle whistled in the kitchen, forgotten. She didn't move.
The name stirred something in her. Not a memory, exactly, but a sensation-like the ache of a bruise you don't recall getting. Silkenmoor. She'd heard it spoken once, years ago, in hushed tones at a gallery party in South Kensington, passed between two antique dealers who shared smirks over crystal glasses. The place was mythic among collectors and curators. A manor by the sea. A recluse lord. Gowns so rare and storied, they were said to bleed history when touched.
She stood, then, and crossed to the small box on her worktable where her father's tailor's shears rested beside a faded photograph of her mother, laughing in the summer light. Her life had grown so small in recent years-reduced to fabric, thread, and the silence of old things. She restored for museums, collectors, sometimes even theater companies. But this? This was something else.
A challenge.
A mystery.
A way out.
Evelyn folded the letter and packed a small bag before the tea even cooled.
---
The train wound through countryside lost in fog, the windows frosted and breathless. Evelyn watched as civilization thinned into marshes and thickets, each mile carrying her further from the echoing streets of London. She wore her mother's wool coat and a scarf dyed with cochineal. Her fingers itched with anticipation-or maybe it was dread. She couldn't tell the difference anymore.
The station where she arrived had no nameplate. Just a platform with cracked stone tiles and a single man waiting beneath an iron gas lamp.
"Miss Roth?" he asked, voice sharp with the sea. He wore a driver's cap and a coat too fine for a common servant.
"Yes," she said.
"This way."
The car that awaited was long, dark, and gleaming, like something out of a noir film. Inside, the seats smelled of leather and salt. They drove for nearly an hour, winding up cliffs that rose like jagged teeth along the edge of the sea.
When Silkenmoor finally appeared through the mist, Evelyn gasped.
It was a cathedral disguised as a house. A gothic fever dream, perched at the very edge of the world. Iron turrets pierced the sky. Crimson silk banners-torn by time-fluttered from stone balconies. The windows were tall and narrow, glowing faintly behind velvet drapes. It looked not built, but summoned.
The driver said nothing as he pulled into the arched courtyard and opened her door.
A man stood at the entrance.
Evelyn knew it was Lord Alaric Thorne before he spoke. His presence was unmistakable. Immaculate in black, with silver-threaded cuffs and a face carved from something colder than marble. Handsome didn't begin to describe him-he was haunting.
"Miss Roth," he said, voice low and precise. "You've arrived."
"I wasn't given much of a choice," she said, before she could stop herself.
One of his eyebrows twitched, as if mildly amused. "Choices are overrated."
He turned and entered the manor. Evelyn followed.
Inside, the air was thick with secrets. Every surface gleamed in candlelight. The floors were blackwood, the walls hung with tapestries and portraits so lifelike they seemed to blink when she passed. But what drew her breath away was the staircase-a double helix of iron and carved mahogany, wrapped around a glass chandelier shaped like a blooming rose. It was terrifyingly beautiful.
"You'll find everything you need in the east wing," Alaric said, not looking back. "The dressing room is sealed. Only you will have access."
"And the gowns?" she asked.
"You'll see."
He stopped at the foot of a door carved with ivy and opened it to reveal a room lined with mannequins. Dozens of them. All draped in silence and dust. And in the center-beneath a glass dome-stood a single gown, untouched by time.
Evelyn stepped forward. Her throat went dry.
It was... perfection.
Ivory silk, hand-embroidered with metallic thread that shimmered like moonlight. The waist was narrow, the bodice structured with antique boning, and at the hem, tiny rubies had been stitched like drops of blood. A scent rose from it-jasmine, maybe, or something older. Familiar.
"Lady Isadora's favorite," Alaric said from behind her. "She wore it the night she died."
Evelyn turned. "You're giving me her death gown?"
"I'm giving you the truth," he said, eyes unreadable. "What you do with it is your choice."
He left her there, alone with the silence.
---
Chapter Three: Threads of the Dead
Days passed in a strange rhythm. The manor did not follow time as Evelyn knew it. Meals arrived without being ordered. Candles never seemed to melt. She worked in near silence, pulling dresses from their protective glass, laying them on velvet tables, and coaxing life from the silk.
It was on the third day that she found the first note.
Hidden in the lining of a velvet coat.
A scrap of parchment, folded tightly, stained with something brown and flaked.
> He said if I spoke, he'd bury me in the walls. I think he already has.
Evelyn's blood chilled. She read it again. And again.
Who had written it? Isadora? A maid? A lover? Was it a joke-or a warning?
She checked the rest of the coat. In the sleeve lining: another scrap.
> The gowns remember. They always do.
---
From that point, Evelyn couldn't stop.
She examined every hem, every stitch. In one corset she found a tiny locket, sealed shut with wax. In a capelet, a needle rusted dark with age. The clues were minute, but they built a picture-obsession, secrecy, betrayal. And all of it orbiting Isadora Thorne.
The lady of the house had been more than a socialite. She had been watching. Waiting. Writing her truth into silk and satin, into thread no one else had noticed-until now.
And Evelyn couldn't shake the feeling that the house was beginning to notice her back.
---
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Chapter 1 The Letter
31/05/2025
Chapter 2 The East Wing
31/05/2025
Chapter 3 Lilian
31/05/2025
Chapter 4 The Seam Between Worlds
31/05/2025
Chapter 5 Unseaming
31/05/2025
Chapter 6 A Mirror Of Her Making
31/05/2025
Chapter 7 The Thread That Remains
31/05/2025
Chapter 8 The Last Binding
31/05/2025
Chapter 9 The Quiet Undoing
31/05/2025
Chapter 10 The Sound of Thread Unraveling
31/05/2025
Chapter 11 The Weight of Ink and Ash
31/05/2025
Chapter 12 The Shape of Shadows
06/06/2025
Chapter 13 Beneath the Boneglass Sky
07/06/2025
Chapter 14 The House That Remembers
07/06/2025
Chapter 15 The House That Remembered
07/06/2025
Chapter 16 The Bride of Mirrors
10/06/2025
Chapter 17 The Hollow Alter
10/06/2025
Chapter 18 What the House Remembers
11/06/2025
Chapter 19 Echoes of the Living
11/06/2025
Chapter 20 The Naming Wind
11/06/2025
Chapter 21 The Door Without a Lock
11/06/2025
Chapter 22 The Garden That Remembers
11/06/2025
Chapter 23 The Voice Among Many
11/06/2025
Chapter 24 The Heart Remembers
11/06/2025
Chapter 25 Whispers
11/06/2025
Chapter 26 The Garden Remembers
11/06/2025
Chapter 27 The Silence Between Petals
11/06/2025
Chapter 28 Where the Thread Leads
11/06/2025
Chapter 29 The Naming of Light
11/06/2025
Chapter 30 The Thread
11/06/2025
Chapter 31 The Last Thread
11/06/2025
Chapter 32 The Echo of Something New
11/06/2025
Chapter 33 Beneath the Silk
11/06/2025
Chapter 34 The Mirror's Daughter
11/06/2025
Chapter 35 Annora
11/06/2025
Chapter 36 The Silent Echo
11/06/2025
Chapter 37 The Name the House Whispers
11/06/2025
Chapter 38 The Child of the House
11/06/2025
Chapter 39 The Unseen Cord
11/06/2025
Chapter 40 Where the Thread leads
12/06/2025
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