Chapter 24
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Luther's smile widened, though it held no warmth.
Instead, there was something calculated in the expression, something that made Godric's skin crawl with recognition.
He had seen that look before, countless times throughout his childhood – always when his uncle was about to deliver a lesson, he deemed necessary.
“I am doing what I must,” Luther said simply, spreading his hands in a gesture of false helplessness. “Otherwise, all that we have planned would fall apart. Surely you can understand that, my boy.”
Godric's jaw clenched so tightly he could feel his teeth grinding together. “Is that truly what you believe? Or did you simply grab an innocent woman to force my hand and bend me to your will, as you have always done?”
The words hung in the air between them, sharp and accusatory. For a moment, Luther said nothing. His gaze swept over Godric's face, searching for something, and then his expression shifted into something closer to resignation.
“So,” he said quietly, “You really did learn the truth.”
It was not a question, but Godric answered anyway.
“Did you truly think you could hide it forever? That I would never discover what you had done?” He took a step forward, his entire body thrumming with barely controlled rage.
“Did you believe you would never face the consequences of your actions – especially when you took it as far as raising me to seek revenge from an innocent man?”
Luther's face remained impassive, but something flickered in his eyes. Something that might have been regret, if Godric did not know better.
“I did not think I had any other choice,” Luther said, his voice taking on a defensive edge.
“No other choice?” Godric repeated, incredulous.
“You had countless choices. You could have walked away. You could have found your own path, made your own fortune. But instead, you chose murder. You chose to destroy everything my parents built, everything they were, simply because you could not have what you wanted.”
“You know nothing of what I endured,” Luther snapped, his composure finally cracking. “Nothing of the years I spent watching him – watching your father – take everything that should have been mine!”
“Then tell me,” Godric said, forcing his voice to remain level even as fury threatened to consume him.
“Tell me why. Make me understand how you could justify murdering your own brother. How you could go on living after you also killed my mother in your desperate desire for things that weren’t yours. ”
For a long moment, Luther simply stared at him. Then, slowly, the tension seemed to drain from his shoulders. When he spoke again, his voice carried the weight of old bitterness, of wounds that had festered for decades.
“I was in love with her,” he said, and there was something almost tender in the way he spoke the words.
“Your mother. Amelia. I loved her with everything within me, from the moment I first laid eyes upon her. She was... perfection. Grace and kindness incarnate. And I showered her with gifts and affection, did everything I could to win her favor.”
He paused, his gaze distant, lost in memories that Godric had no desire to witness.
“But the ungrateful woman went and married my brother,” Luther continued, and now the bitterness returned, sharp and cutting.
“Of all the men in England, she chose him. My own brother. Do you have any idea what that felt like? To have the woman you love look at you with nothing but sisterly affection while she saved all her warmth, all her passion, for someone else?”
“So, you killed them,” Godric said flatly. “Because she did not return your feelings, you murdered them both.”
“It was not just about her,” Luther insisted, his voice rising.
“It was everything. It was always everything with him. Our father doted on him because he was the eldest. The title went to him, the estate, the wealth – all of it, simply because he had the fortune of being born first. And then the woman of my dreams fell into his lap as well, as though the universe itself was conspiring to give him everything while I was left with nothing.”
He laughed, but there was no humour in the sound. Only a hollow, aching emptiness that made Godric's stomach turn.
“It was unfair,” Luther said simply. “So, I decided to make it fair.”
“By killing a child?” Godric demanded; his voice sharp enough to cut. “I was nine years old, Uncle. Nine. What threat could I possibly have posed to you?”
“You were the heir,” Luther said, as though that explained everything.
“The plan was perfect – remove your father and you, and the title would pass to me. And in her grief, Amelia would have no one else to turn to. I would be there to comfort her, to support her through her darkest hours. Eventually, she would come to depend on me. To love me, as she should have from the beginning.”
Godric felt bile rise in his throat. The casual way Luther spoke of it, as though orchestrating the murder of his own family was no different than planning a business transaction, filled him with disgust.
“But the foolish woman had to go and sacrifice herself to save you,” Luther continued, his voice hardening. “She threw herself in front of that blade, died protecting a child who should never have survived the night. And suddenly, instead of having everything I wanted, I was stuck with you.”
Behind Luther, Godric could see Nora struggling against her bonds, her eyes wide with horror as she listened to the confession. He wanted desperately to go to her, to untie her and carry her far away from this nightmare. But he forced himself to remain still, to keep his attention on Luther.
“If you despised me so much, why did you not simply send me away?” Godric asked, genuinely bewildered.
“You did not need to raise me. You could have placed me with a distant relative, washed your hands of the entire affair. Instead, you kept me close, forced us both to live such miserable lives. Why?”
Luther's smile returned, and this time it was cruel. “Because I did not want to suffer alone.”
The simple honesty of it struck Godric like a physical blow.
“At first,” Luther continued, “I was simply going to use you as an outlet for my hate. A reminder of everything I had lost, everything that had been stolen from me. But then I realized something far more valuable.” He leaned forward slightly, his eyes gleaming.
“A boy focused on revenge is remarkably easy to manipulate.
If I shaped you correctly, moulded you into exactly what I needed, I could at least get some satisfaction from my brother's death.”
“You turned me into a weapon,” Godric said, his voice hollow.
“I turned you into justice,” Luther corrected.
“Or at least, that is what I convinced you that you were. In truth, you were nothing more than a tool for my own amusement. Watching you grow up consumed by rage and grief, knowing that I was the architect of all your suffering... there was a certain poetry to it, do you not think?”
Godric's hands trembled with the effort of restraining himself. Every instinct he possessed screamed at him to cross the distance between them and wrap his hands around Luther's throat. To make him feel even a fraction of the pain he had caused.
But he could not. Not yet. Not while Nora was still in danger.
“And now?” Godric asked, his voice carefully controlled.
“What is your plan now? You cannot possibly believe you will escape the consequences of this. I know the truth. I have the letters you exchanged with Anthony Brown. The ones you sent to my mother and her eventual rejection – which would highlight your motive. Even if you kill me here, the evidence will come to light.”
“Which is precisely why I cannot simply kill you,” Luther agreed, nodding as though Godric had made an excellent point.
“No, I realized that death would be too kind. Too quick. After all these years of shaping you, of watching you become everything I wanted you to be, it would be wasteful to simply end your life.”
He turned then, his gaze settling on Nora with an intensity that made Godric's blood run cold.
“But I can make you suffer,” Luther continued softly. “I can take from you what my brother took from me. I can show you exactly what it feels like to lose the woman you love.”
Before Godric could react, Luther pulled a pistol from inside his coat and aimed it directly at Nora's head.
The world seemed to slow down. Godric could hear his own heartbeat thundering in his ears, could feel every muscle in his body coiling with desperate energy. Nora's eyes met his across the distance, and aside from fear – there something else. Something that looked almost like understanding.
And then, inexplicably, Godric laughed.
The sound startled everyone in the room. Luther's hand wavered slightly, his eyes snapping to Godric with confusion and suspicion. Even Anthony shifted nervously, clearly uncertain about what was happening.
“You find this amusing?” Luther demanded; his voice sharp.
“I find you pathetic,” Godric said, forcing the laughter to continue even as his heart threatened to shatter in his chest. “Did you truly think this would work? That threatening some woman would make me bend to your will once more?”
He took a step forward, channelling every ounce of arrogance and disdain he possessed into his expression. It was a performance, the most important one of his life, and he could not afford to falter.
“I am not like you, Uncle,” he said, his voice dripping with contempt. “I am not stupid enough to fall in love or engage in any other such nonsense. If you believe you can hurt me with this pathetic display, you will be sorely disappointed.”
Luther's eyes narrowed, studying Godric's face with the intensity of someone who had spent years learning to read his expressions. For a moment, Godric feared he had not been convincing enough, that Luther would see through the lies and pull the trigger anyway.
But then doubt flickered across his uncle's features. The hand holding the pistol lowered slightly, no longer aimed directly at Nora's head but rather at her shoulder.
“You expect me to believe you feel nothing for her?” Luther asked slowly.
“Believe whatever you wish,” Godric said with a shrug that felt like it might tear him apart from the inside. “But I assure you, Miss Nora means nothing to me beyond her usefulness as a means to access her father. Now that I know Gregory Wightman is innocent, she serves no purpose whatsoever.”
The words tasted like ash on his tongue. Each one was a betrayal, a knife twisted into his own heart as much as into Nora's. But he forced himself to continue, to maintain the facade of cold indifference.
“So, by all means,” he added, his voice like ice, “Shoot her if it pleases you. It will make no difference to me, but it will add to the tally of lives you have wasted pointlessly.”
Luther was wavering now; Godric could see it. The doubt in his eyes had grown, transforming into uncertainty. His entire plan had hinged on using Nora as leverage, on the assumption that Godric cared enough about her to sacrifice himself.
But if that assumption was wrong...
However, at the most crucial moment, Godric made his mistake.
He let his gaze drift to Nora, just for a moment. Just long enough to see the expression on her face, and the sight of it nearly destroyed him.
She looked devastated. Completely and utterly shattered, her eyes glistening with unshed tears as she stared at him with such profound hurt that it felt like a physical wound.
Her entire body had gone rigid, trembling with the effort of staying upright, and Godric could see her retreating into herself, pulling away from him in every way that mattered.
The devastation was too much for him and his heart broke.
He wanted to run to her, to drop to his knees and beg her forgiveness. Wanted to tell her that every word was a lie, that she meant everything to him, that he would burn the entire world to ash if it meant keeping her safe.
But he could not. All he could do was stand there and watch as something precious and fragile shattered between them, knowing that he was the one who had wielded the hammer.
And his face must have betrayed him. Despite his best efforts, despite the years he had spent learning to school his features into masks of indifference, something of his true feelings must have shown through.
Because Nora's expression suddenly shifted. The dismay did not disappear entirely, but it was joined by something else – a flash of understanding, of realization. Her eyes widened slightly, searching his face with an intensity that made him want to look away.
And then, almost imperceptibly, she nodded.
She understood. God help him, she understood what he was trying to do, and she was forgiving him for it even as the words still hung in the air between them.
The relief that flooded through him was so intense it left him dizzy. But it lasted only a heartbeat, because Luther had seen it too.
“Liar,” his uncle hissed, his face contorting with rage. “You do care for her. I can see it written all over your face, just as it was written all over hers just now. You think empty words can trick me?”
The pistol swung back up, aimed once more at Nora's head, and Luther's finger tightened on the trigger.
“Let us see how well you maintain that indifference when her blood is on your hands,” he snarled.