51. Fifty-One - Good Riddance
Fifty-One - Good Riddance
Edric
Loric found me in the woods, noting the location of a thistle patch to tell Ana about.
“I volunteered to come,” he says, looking sharply up into the branches as a wren flutters away.
And if Loric, of all people, elected to venture this far into nature with its potential for mud and twigs that could mar his favorite fabrics, that meant that things were dire, indeed.
Loric might not have a problem with Petalfall. He might like the people and the village, but he’s never enjoyed the wilds. Even when we lived closer to my mother, he’d stayed well within the boundaries of the estate’s yard. In the city, I know that he avoided the parks with glades, almost exclusively.
I’ve never gotten a straight answer out of him as to why he mistrusts trees.
The fact that he’s here now... something had to be wrong. And I’m fairly certain the something was related to my father.
“Should I come back immediately? Or should I make him wait?” I ask, finalizing my notes on the size and maturity of the thistles.
“I suppose that depends on how likely you think he is to find an axe?” He glances back toward the manor. “Blicks wasn’t there to tell Dorrian he had to let him in. Viggo isn’t in a mood to allow it either.”
Glancing back over his shoulder, Loric looks like he might be ill. “I’d defy the Queen’s guards to mount a better defense.”
“They would be hard pressed.” Slipping my notebook into the pocket of my greatcoat, I fall into step with Loric and we follow the path back together.
“Murdoch asked if she could poison him.”
I laugh, even though I know I shouldn’t.
“Nothing permanent,” Loric says quickly. “Just enough to make him never want to visit again.”
“Does she have a pot of something waiting on the warmer, just in case I tell her she can?”
“I didn’t ask, I have no desire to incriminate her.”
“Nor do I.” As the person who would have to preside over any inquisition, I had better not know, but... “She’s not usually so hostile to him.”
Usually, she ignores him and he eventually goes away.
Loric purses his lips and doesn’t look at me. “Circumstances have changed.”
“Ana?”
He dips his head in a curt nod. “The moment he spoke to her, he was done for.”
“Honestly, if he’d liked her, I might have started to question her universal appeal. After all, if everyone likes the potion maker... perhaps there’s a potion to blame.”
“I don’t think she’d do that.”
“Neither do I.” I clap him on the shoulder, pausing as we reach the intersection where he’ll leave me for the garden gate. “But a good potion would keep us from questioning it, too.”
He nods and heads back toward the kitchen entrance.
No matter how much my father wants inside, I know that Loric won’t find him there. Servants’ entrances are for servants . The man would rather find himself in a bog.
I find him pacing the cobbles between his carriage and Dorrian. The dryad-turned door glowers at him with his knotted and scarred face.
“There you are!” My father turns on me, all bluster. “Where have you been?”
“In the forest... doing the job you so rudely came to accuse me of neglecting.”
He tenses at that and looks at me like he might be able to tell if I’d just thrown on my coat and come around from the back.
“Nevermind that. I am leaving.”
Good . “I hope your journey is easy.”
“That’s all you have to say?”
“What would you like me to say? You arrived unannounced, insulted someone dear to me, and accused me of shirking my responsibilities. Should I be disappointed that you’ve chosen to go back where you belong?”
He flinches back as though he’s been slapped. “Clearly I should have taken a firmer hand in your upbringing. You should not speak to me that way. I am your father and I deserve your respect.”
“No.”
“No?”
“If you want that again, you’ll have to earn it. And I don’t know how you can even start.”
“This is that human girl’s fault. She’s gotten onto your cock and into your head and you’ve lost all sense of propriety.”
“Is that what you call your actions? Proper?”
He steps closer to me. “Fuck her all you like. Break her for all I care, but get her out of your system and put her in your past where all shameful deeds belong.”
“You are lucky that Viggo did not hear that. I will not tear your throat out for it because you are my father. He would have no such restraint. If you were not already leaving, I would suggest you put distance between yourself and him before nightfall.”
His jaw is tense and he glares at me.
“Fine. But I will find a way to make you see sense.” Turning to go, I stop him with his foot on the carriage step.
“And one more thing?”
He looks at me, all patience gone from his face.
“Make sure you sleep behind a metal door.”
He looks sharply at Dorrian and then at me. “You wouldn’t.”
“ I wouldn’t.” I agree.
“But I might.” Dorrian’s voice reaches across the cobbles and for the first time in my life, I think my father looks scared.
He snaps at his coachman and they trundle away down the lane, out of our lives, hopefully for the next century. If not longer.