Right as Rain
Elias, Victor knew now, was chasing him but found himself a bit ahead instead of behind him. Presumably, he’d tried to gauge where Victor might be on his own journey and overcorrected. Which meant Elias was probably already in Italy or Greece by now.
But if he knew where Victor was headed, Elias had probably already met with Mr. Sauer, which had thrillingly terrible implications.
Or at least they would in any other circumstance.
By this point, Victor was pretty sure he wasn’t going to make it alive back to Germany to get his punishment—whatever it may be. So it almost wasn’t worth being afraid.
Victor felt surprisingly calm about the matter of his own eventual death. After a night or ten rolling in bed and feeling the emotional impact of what he’d wrought, he was in a mood to welcome even Ayan’s thrashing with full awareness.
But he did have his own affairs to sort. He landed in England and headed straight to collect his mail.
The innkeeper handed it to him with a sharp look, so Victor gave him a healthy tip above what he’d already paid for this service and headed up to his room.
It was a heavy stack of mail. There were letters from his landlady, from Mr. Sauer, from his parents, and Elizabeth, and strangely one from a family friend to whom Victor had never spoken directly.
He tore open the one from his landlady first.
She was furious about the house, which was to be expected.
But she also informed him that she would not be seeking justice due to his meticulous collection of her jewels and valuables.
The insurance had indeed covered most of the damages, and she had sought Victor’s father for the rest, which had been paid in full.
She had given Victor her new address in case he wanted to “come by to deliver the apology she was certain she deserved.”
The letter from Mr. Sauer was a grievously late warning about Elias pursuing him.
Apparently, Elias had arrived without warning in the middle of the night, given his butler an exceptional fright, and absconded with Fitz’s address book, the blue book, and a hunk of Mr. Sauer’s hair, which he’d torn out during the struggle.
Victor felt an unexpected thrill of humor and satisfaction at Elias’s brutality.
Mr. Sauer, of course, was not at all pleased and would be adding two charges against him in his punishment trial.
He also begged Victor to get the books back.
Which was unfortunate, considering how unlikely that was to happen.
The letter from his parents was . . . not pleasant, to say the least. They were cutting him off from the rest of his inheritance until he came home to explain himself.
His father wrote of the shame he felt at dealing with Victor’s landlady and suggested that he pay them back for covering his debts with the salary from his first job.
His mother just asked for him to come home.
She missed the scent at the top of his head and the sweet way he would kiss her cheek.
Elizabeth’s letter was worrying as well.
She spoke of some proposal she had received and how well suited the young man was despite the fact that she did not love him.
She had only a few short months to deliberate, and if no one came to challenge him, she may have to accept his offer.
She did not ask Victor if he would ask her himself.
She only spoke sadly of a life without his cutting humor and the thrill of his intelligence. Mentioned the things she would bake for him the instant he came home. She ended her letter with a polite request that he arrive back to the estate before spring, but she understood if he could not.
Victor pressed this letter to his chest for a long moment before putting it in his coat pocket with her others.
Last, he opened the letter from his family friend.
It was a bit bulky, which was odd. Mr. and Mrs. Ruel lived across the street, and Victor’s parents would often visit their home for cards and dinners.
They never brought Victor or his siblings, so it wasn’t as though Victor had a close relationship with these people.
Mrs. Ruel’s letter began, “It is with my deepest sympathies that I write to you to inform you of the passing of—”
Victor’s head filled with a buzzing that grew louder and louder. He separated the pages, staring at the paperwork, eyes blurring with disbelief.
He remembered the feelings he’d had, going back all the way to the beginning.
The first of Elias’s emotions that filtered through to him: anger and self-loathing.
He hadn’t questioned why. He’d just assumed the self-loathing belonged to a person like Elias.
He would . . . would feel shame if his attractions mirrored Elias’s.
So deep would that be a part of him that it hadn’t even once occurred to him that the self-loathing could be from Elias doing something out of character. He was a farm boy, a barman’s son.
With soft hands and soft eyes.
“He came to my house, still stinking of blood and foul deeds,” Brogan had said. “His clothes black . . .”
Victor remembered that simple sadness Elias fed him, the drowning woe, the loneliness, the loneliness. The hatred.
“He was the most favored child . . .” They loved him, surely. Brogan’s words echoed in his ears, and Victor dropped the letter to claw at the sides of his head.
He sank to his knees and pressed his forehead to the ground. He rocked back and forth, choking.
Mrs. Ruel wrote that it was bandits. Who forced the door to his parents’ home. Who slit the throats of all who breathed inside. Who left as quickly as they came. His mother, father, brother, Elizabeth, and the old man who tended their garden and animals. Left to rot in a cold, empty house.
Bandits. Who did not break or steal a single thing. Who arranged their bodies to lie with dignity. Who locked the door from the outside when they departed. Who left the chickens enough feed to last a week and let their sheep out into the penned pasture to graze.
Victor screamed.
He screamed and screamed until fists pounded the door of his lodgings.
He saw feet around him, hands shaking him.
The paper lifting from the ground and being read, then set down on the windowsill.
Heard whispered words, felt a palm on his back, and heard the door close.
Still, he screamed until his voice gave out.