Chapter 28
ARDEN
Arden did the most ridiculous thing.
He smiled.
Of course he smiled. He’d spent his whole life loving his big brother, and for a second, Arden saw Lassit’s familiar face, and he was happy.
For a second.
Then he remembered that Lassit had intended for Arden to go through what he’d gone through with Beckett, only with someone who was paying for the privilege. Someone who Arden didn’t know.
Who he hadn’t chosen.
Lifting his chin, Arden set the books he was holding on the shelf beside him, and turned to face Lassit fully. “Hello,” he said. “What are you doing here?”
Lassit shrugged and stepped away from the door. “I was in the area. I—”
The door popped open and the butler and two footmen fell through.
Lassit raised a haughty brow as Stanton shoved past him, rushing over to Arden.
To Arden’s astonishment, the footmen followed, and he was surrounded.
“Arden,” Lassit said in an exasperated drawl. “Do tell your lackeys that I am your brother, and you are perfectly safe with me.”
Arden hesitated.
“Arden,” Lassit said with a hint of warning in his voice.
“It’s all right, Stanton,” Arden said. “This is my brother. I am perfectly safe.”
Because he wasn’t Lassit’s to dispose of anymore. He was Jack’s husband.
He was Beckett’s omega.
“Good boy,” Lassit said.
One of the big beta footmen, Grillon, bristled, his burly shoulders bunching as he shifted his weight. Other than that, none of the servants moved.
“Well?” Lassit said, his brows still high and haughty. “Aren’t you going to offer me some refreshment after coming all this way to see you?”
“Of course,” Arden said, refraining from pointing out that Lassit had said he was in the area. He turned to Stanton. “Would you be so kind as to bring us some tea?”
Stanton held his gaze.
“He really is my brother,” Arden said.
“In that case, I apologise, Your Grace. As far as I knew, he was a mannerless overdressed lout needing to be put in his place.”
Arden bit his lip to keep from smiling. “Well. Um. Tea? If you would?”
Stanton continued to hold his gaze. “I don’t believe His Grace would be all too keen on that, Your Grace.”
“I’m sure he wouldn’t. Still. I’d like some tea, please.”
Stanton hesitated a moment longer, then inclined his head and stepped back, gesturing at the footmen to join him.
They seemed as happy to leave as Stanton was, but other than glaring at Lassit as they went, they didn’t fuss.
Lassit strolled over to the hearth and seated himself in one of the wingback chairs. He relaxed, stretching out his long legs as if this was his own library he was lounging in, rather than Jack’s.
No. Arden’s.
It was Arden’s library.
“You’ve caught me at something of a bad time, I’m afraid,” Arden said.
“What’s that? I can’t hear you from all the way over there. Why don’t you come and sit down?” When he didn’t move, Lassit added some bite. “Come here, Arden.”
Hoping that his nervousness didn’t show, Arden went over to join him. He moved to take the seat opposite, but Lassit stretched out an arm once he was in range, caught his wrist, and hauled him closer, between Lassit’s parted knees.
Arden sucked in a sharp breath as Lassit’s cool fingers tightened around his wrist, and then tightened some more. He didn’t struggle. Lassit watched his face.
“Lassit,” Arden said. “You’re hurting me.”
Lassit tightened his fingers a fraction more, then tossed Arden’s wrist from him and said, “Go and sit down, for godssake.”
Arden did.
Lassit turned his head to stare into the cold hearth. Arden fidgeted, plucking nervously at the fabric of his breeches. “Stop that,” Lassit said absently.
Arden shuffled about on the seat, and froze when Lassit threw him an irritated look.
He’d always hated it when Arden fidgeted.
“Sorry,” Arden said. “You’re…? You said you were in the area?”
“Yes.” Lassit went back to staring at the hearth.
The grate was empty, cleaned out this morning by one of the maids. She hadn’t bothered to lay it once she’d swept the ashes away, since Arden wouldn’t be here this evening.
“Well...well, then,” was the best Arden could come up with in response.
After leaving another uncomfortable silence, Lassit sighed. “Jack didn’t marry you for your social graces, that’s for sure.”
Arden laughed.
Lassit’s answering smile was there and gone in a flash. His gaze settled on Arden, and didn’t waver.
Arden had looked up to Lassit once, and craved his good opinion. While he didn’t think that Lassit had it in him to respect someone he saw as inferior, he had been carelessly affectionate when it suited him, or he was bored.
On the odd occasion, Lassit had even been protective of him. Even after he’d become an alpha. Perhaps more so.
He was a cruel man, but there was something between them that simply didn’t exist between Arden and his other siblings. Some bond or form of love, at least, however weak.
“You’re an idiot, Arden,” Lassit said suddenly. “Why the fuck would you do something as stupid as marry Jack?”
Arden blinked. “Why wouldn’t I, when he asked me to?”
“Asked? Told, more like.”
No. Jack had asked him.
Trust me?
Yes.
Will you come with me?
Yes.
Will you marry me?
Yes.
Lassit’s jaw clenched and he ran his gaze over Arden in a way that made Arden’s skin prickle. “We can annul it,” he said abruptly.
“What? No! Why would I want to…? No. I don’t want to annul my marriage! I like being married to Jack.”
Lassit ignored him. “I will petition the Council. There will be a scandal, but it’s nothing we can’t weather. It won’t even affect you, anyway. You’ll be safely tucked away at Dalbryn.”
“I don’t…I don’t want to be tucked anywhere. Lassit, I want to be married to Jack.”
“You’ll come home where you belong, and that’s an end to it.”
“No.”
“Yes, Arden.”
“No.”
“I’ll drag you there if I have to.” Lassit’s lips curled in a nasty smile. “You can’t stop me from doing whatever I want.”
“I can stop you,” Arden said gently. “You have no authority over me.”
He didn’t like that at all. “You belong—”
“—to Jack.” And Beckett.
He belonged to Jack and Beckett.
“I didn’t approve the marriage. You were under my guardianship. I will seek reparation through the Council, and you will be returned to Dalbryn, so watch your tongue.”
“Lassit.” Arden shuffled to the very edge of his seat and leaned forwards. “I didn’t need your approval to marry.”
Lassit’s cheeks darkened and his eyes glittered. “You are part of Dalbryn. I own you as much as as I own every last stone the house is built of, and every last blade of grass that grows on our lands.”
“You are my brother,” Arden said as firmly as he could, which wasn’t particularly firm. “That is all. Not my guardian. I was never under your authority. Papa was the one who betrothed me to Jack.”
He waved this away. “Jack took advantage of his illness and decline.”
“They arranged it three years ago. Well before Papa even knew he was ill.” Jack had told him, and Arden had gaped at him indignantly. He hoped that none of that indignation came through now.
Lassit stilled. “That fucking bastard.”
Arden didn’t know whether he was talking about their father or about Jack. “Why does it even matter, Lassit? What possible use would I be back home? I would serve no purpose there. I would have no purpose.”
Lassit’s gaze was burning now.
“That is no life,” Arden went on. “I want…I want more. I want to matter.”
He thought of Beckett on his knees in the kitchen garden. Chasing him over the beach. Juggling him about.
He thought of Jack, sitting where Lassit was right now, scooping him onto his lap, holding him and stroking him by the firelight.
“I want my own alpha.” He choked a little on the word alpha, snapping off that telltale -s. “I want to choose.” Glancing down, he added in a small voice, “You were going to sell me.”
“Is that what this nonsensical defiance is about? Arden. I wasn’t going to sell you.
Who told you that? Jack?” Lassit drummed his fingers on the arm of the chair.
“I invited suitors for you, yes. You’ve been too isolated.
Father kept you away from town and from society.
I offered to take you to Sevennis myself, many times.
To show you how it’s all done, let you get a bit of life experience. He always refused.”
“Oh,” Arden said. “I don’t think I’d have liked that. Thank you for thinking of me, though.”
“Those people at dinner were options.”
“It wasn’t an auction?”
“An auction?” Lassit pulled an incredulous face. “Wherever do you get your ideas? I invited alphas for you to meet. If you’d liked any, I’d have let you get to know them. I was never going to let you go for good, Arden.”
Arden believed that last part, at least.
“I’d have brought you home, and you’d never have needed to leave, ever again.”
“You’d have brought me home?”
“Yes.”
Arden sighed. “Then you’d have made me go. You’d have given me away.”
“It was necessary,” Lassit snapped.
“Because you needed the money.”
“Yes. If you insist on hearing it, then I’ll say it. Yes. Father left his affairs in an absolute shambles. You are part of the estate, and an asset I had to use to get things back to a stable footing.”
Arden caught a flash of movement from the doorway. It was Grillon, about to come in with the tray. He shook his head slightly. Grillon paused before backing out into the hall. “You have that money now,” Arden said.
As well as telling the indignant Arden that he’d been unknowingly engaged for years, and the sole lot in a disgraceful auction, Jack had told him that he’d thrown an enormous amount of money into the marriage contract.
It was quite the conversation.
“I’m not an asset anymore. You’ve been paid like you wanted. Besides, you have no need for an omega brother. No use for one.”
“I know what I need.”
“You have what you want!”
Lassit continued to stare at Arden with that heavy, brooding look in his eyes that Arden had always found so unsettling. “Do I?” he murmured.