Chapter 18 #2
“I wonder how much gold they might bring?” I idly twirled the quill again, not feeling the ease I was trying to project. “No doubt the high lord will take notice for once when they are splashed on the press. Their words are no credit to you. There is little that could be, when it concerns you.”
Her lips tightened. Fear and anger made her deceptively lovely face twist into petulant lines.
I tossed the quill on the desk. “I grow tired of this. Whatever your ignorance of your dead friends, you have obviously heard of the Vein Ripper, judging by your reaction. I’ve never seen you so scared, high lady.”
“I’m sure you are enjoying the moment, Gabriel.”
I tipped my head back. “It would surely behoove you to think so.”
The dark thought wouldn’t leave: I was doing exactly what Marietta had accused me of—using the hated tricks I had learned. “Now give me the list.”
She picked up a spare quill and dipped it. “I was so disappointed when we returned from Gildon and you had disappeared. The club was never quite the same.”
“Good.”
“Your father was never the same either.”
I didn’t respond.
“I always suspected he helped you and your brother leave. I punished him for it. I told you that I would.”
“He accepted the consequences.” Hard memories spurred—the conversation, Father’s anguish, my own mortification and anger, pushed onto a new target.
There was still a part of me horrified that I hadn’t stayed—one victim to take the place of more.
I had tried to make up for it by ruining them as quickly as I could when I’d gained enough power.
“Your father was the one person I couldn’t directly touch.” She smiled humorlessly at my surprise. “A bit of a bluff on my part. He was too close to my husband. Relied on far more than I,” she said bitterly. “Still, I made things…uncomfortable for him. I’m quite good at that.”
I slit the next note in her stack with a cutting spell, not answering.
“You were always so fun. Comporting yourself like royalty. Full of knowledge garnered from your mother and with all the secrets of your father. Running around the estate with all of your friends, from low to high, and every female enraptured by you. A ravishing prince. I’ve seen no one like you since. ”
I continued to read. The thing Melissande hated more than anything was being ignored. Her husband had never cared, and therefore never learned why his luck changed whenever he slighted her.
“How is dear John? I haven’t seen him in nearly a year. Still thick as thieves, you two? A miracle you were able to separate.”
I could see that she was reaching the end of her tether, and decided to throw her a crumb. It was never wise to bait a dangerous animal. They had the tendency to find a way to bite you through the cage. “John is well. Ask him yourself.”
“Away at school while you were stuck here under my thumb. Must have been hard.” She continued writing. “Steelcrest’s ward. As untouchable as your father.”
John had been the lucky one. “With so many servants and village boys to choose from, I’m sure you didn’t suffer.”
“Mmm. So which one of these hungry souls murdered our dear friends?” Her face had regained the smug ice she was best known for, now that I was responding to her again.
“Why would I know?”
“Because you know everything, Gabriel.”
Not everything. I had obviously not even known myself. “If I knew, why would I ask you for a list?”
“Morbid curiosity? A way to help my poor victims? All those pathetic souls you help—it’s wonderfully amusing to think about. Does it calm your guilt? Do you find peace? I hope not. All my hard work gone to waste.” Her eyes glittered. “My favorite creation destroyed. It would break my heart.”
“You give yourself too much credit. Octavia was far more terrifying.”
I watched the spark go through her eyes. “You are a terrible liar, Gabriel. But I will forgive you.”
“I feel indisposed to do the same.”
“Pity.” She pushed the paper across the desk. “There is your list of the aggrieved. Woefully short. Most of my victims, as you deem them, quite enjoyed themselves. Eventually.”
“Especially the ones with rope burns across their necks.” I grabbed the list. “A pleasure, as always.”
She straightened. “You are leaving? You aren’t staying here to protect me?”
I lifted a brow. “I told you I wasn’t here for you, High Lady Steelcrest. Perhaps you should inform your husband of your needs.”
Her lips squished together.
“No? Be mindful of the increased timeline in their deaths, then. I bid you adieu.”
I found my father in the kitchen, chatting with the servants. He hadn’t wanted to stay out of the confrontation, but it would have been an unacceptable show of weakness to have been accompanied.
He didn’t ask how it went, but rested a hand briefly on my back as we walked, dropping it just as quickly. Still, the gesture brought warmth and shame. That I had blamed my father at all…
“What did you find, Gabriel?”
Names, familiar and unfamiliar, engraved themselves in my mind as I passed him the list. There were many things to do and people to contact, and not much time in which to do so.
“Two of these men—both who served under me—were in Gildon last I knew,” he said. “Steelcrest will be back tomorrow. Let me talk to him.”
He still retained a relationship with the man.
I hesitated. Bringing in Steelcrest would complicate matters. Still... “Very well.”
The long trip back to Gildon was mostly silent, but comfortable for the first time in years. Long periods alternating between cordiality and strife had taken a toll I hadn’t realized.
He separated from me as we reached the drive. “I will make inquiries into those two and return in the morning.”
I strode into the Ashfield house. I wondered if Lucian and John had finished their tasks.
My steps echoed in the empty rooms, up the empty stairs.
Empty of Marietta, who was somewhere else, somewhere a murderer was not.
Repressed emotions clawed to the surface.
Anger, pain, betrayal, longing, fear. I tugged my neck tie.
I should have gone back to the Ember Square house and valet. Why had I come here?
If she hadn’t hated me before, she surely did now. Daggered comments. Cruel remarks. I’d taken my pain and rage and twisted it against her. And even though she had done the same, it still made me feel ill. Unforgivable.
Why had I come here?
I ripped the silk from my neck and tossed it on the side table, then worked on the buttons of my shirt. I opened the linen press to grab a change of clothing and froze as I looked into the mirror above the table.
“Marietta.”