Chapter 13 #2
“Very well.” Arden sat gingerly. He shot a nervous look over at Lassit, expecting to be removed and shuffled down to the bottom of the table, only to find that Lassit was watching him again. He was smiling.
Lassit lifted his glass in a toast.
Unsure what else to do, Arden returned the toast with an awkward nod.
Then he saw familiar black eyes watching him steadily from across the vast, laden table, and…and he couldn’t help it.
He lit up.
Jack.
Jack’s eyes widened a fraction before his gaze slid away and he began talking to the woman at his side, who was also staring at Arden. She was another stranger.
In fact…
Apart from his family, the servants, and Jack, everyone here was a stranger.
Talbot was gone, as were the other locals. Arden thought that maybe he recognised a couple of the guests as friends or business associates of Lassit’s, although he’d never been allowed to meet them and so couldn’t be sure.
It was the longest and oddest meal of his life.
No one talked to him.
No one even tried.
Everyone stared at him.
Everyone except Jack, whose eye Arden tried in vain to catch again. The vast table between them and the noise in the room would make it impossible for them to talk, but he’d at least like to smile his hello.
If Jack would just look back at him.
He didn’t.
Arden grew more and more on edge as the courses were removed and the evening dragged on. He couldn’t really put his finger on why.
Other than all the staring, that was.
It had to be his imagination. He was letting his self-consciousness and lack of appropriate social skills get the better of him, because, really.
The food was excellent. Everyone seemed to know each other, and be having a wonderful time.
The wine flowed freely, along with bright chatter and scatters of laughter.
This was probably just what parties were like.
Arden had never attended one. Why would they spare a second of attention for him, as he sat there like a silent lump, poking at his food and praying for the horrible day to end?
It didn’t end.
It went on and on and on, and as it did, Arden forgot to be self-conscious and grew more and more indignant at the general sense of jollity.
Mourning was for the mausoleum, yes, and the gatherings after an interment were intended to be a celebration of life, true, but there was altogether far too much laughter, if you asked Arden.
Too many loud, overly excited voices jangling in his ears.
Crude jokes he pretended not to hear.
Other things that he thought perhaps were also jokes, but he didn’t quite understand.
Platter after platter of rich food, an endless stream of wine. It all blurred into one continuous, numbing buzz.
Arden was exhausted. He hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep since Papa’s valet had found the old earl peacefully dead in his bed. The night showed no sign of wrapping up.
Or...?
Perhaps it did?
Horribly uncomfortable with the relentless press of attention, whenever he looked up from his plate, he only looked at the head of the table where Jack, the highest-ranking alpha guest, sat at Lassit’s right hand. Aloys was at Lassit’s left.
Thank the gods, Arden thought when Lassit set down his wineglass with deliberation and made a move to stand up. It was almost over.
Before Lassit got any further than shifting forwards in his seat, however, Jack stopped him.
It looked at first like a friendly, casual touch.
Jack laid his hand over the back of Lassit’s wrist, pressing it flat to the table as Jack leaned in and said something in a low voice that Arden had no hope of hearing over the general cacophony of feasting, revelling guests.
Because they were revelling.
There was an excited snap to the air he couldn’t begin to account for. It had only grown more noticeable as the night progressed.
Whatever Jack said had Lassit tensing. Jack’s knuckles whitened as he held Lassit’s wrist down. Unable to pull free, Lassit twisted in his chair and snarled something in Jack’s face.
Jack didn’t snarl back.
Jack smiled.
In one smooth motion, he released Lassit’s wrist and stood. No one was paying any attention yet. The meal had been a long one. A number of guests had discreetly withdrawn for a few minutes to attend to their needs before returning.
Lassit rose halfway out of his chair. Jack laid a hand on his shoulder and pushed him down, then applied pressure to keep him there as he circled behind Lassit’s chair, rounding the head of the table. Lassit’s face darkened and he spat something furious up at Jack.
Jack, who was still smiling.
Arden watched the whole argument with wide eyes. He cut a quick, questioning look over to Aloys.
Aloys was glaring at Jack with hatred. As if he sensed Arden, he turned his head and their gazes locked. The hatred didn’t just remain. It intensified.
Arden shrank back in his chair.
“Arden.” Jack had released Lassit and now stood beside him. Reaching down, he took firm hold of Arden’s arm, and pulled him up out of his chair. “Will you trust me?” he said.
They hadn’t spoken for at least three years, but Arden didn’t hesitate. “I—yes. Of course, Jack.”
Jack flashed him a tight smile. He released his grip on Arden’s arm only to take his hand instead and lift it.
To his lips.
Arden gawked at him and sent a wild look around the room. It was, he realised belatedly, absolutely silent. So absolutely everyone heard when Jack said in a loud, carrying voice, “Anyone who wishes to do so may congratulate me and my beautiful omega on our impending marriage.”
The room erupted with noise.
Arden stumbled backwards when a few chairs were knocked over as their occupants leapt to their feet. Aloys stalked over to stand in front of him and Jack, and he started yelling something at Jack about dragging him through the Courts, and ruining him, and seeing him damned for this.
Aloys went to grab Arden.
Arden flinched back against Jack, and Jack caught Aloys’ grasping hand before he’d even made contact with Arden. Aloys gasped and dropped to a knee.
By then, other guests had come to press around them and Arden was the centre of a knot of jostling bodies. No. Not guests? Servants, going on their unfussy clothes, but not servants that Arden recognised. Except Hodge, who was no longer wearing Papa’s—that was, Lassit’s—livery.
He was wearing Jack’s.
Jack wrapped an arm around Arden’s waist. “All right?” he asked.
“No!”
“Will you come with me?”
“Yes!”
“It’s all right, Arden. You’re safe now.”
“Was I not safe before?”
Jack closed his eyes briefly. He raised Arden’s hand to his lips again, kissed it quickly, then gripped it in his and drew Arden along beside him as he strode through the room, flanked by the servants, who pushed their way clear.
Arden did his best to keep up. At the doorway, he cast a glance back at the loud, agitated crowd.
Lassit sat at the head of the table, ignoring the chaos around him as Aloys argued loudly with a heaving mob of angry guests. Lassit rested an elbow on the arm of his chair. His chin rested in his hand.
He was—always—watching Arden.
Lassit’s lips curled in a bitter smile and his eyes burned. He lifted his chin off his hand long enough to give Arden a mocking flick of his fingers in farewell.