Chapter 24
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“Going so soon?” The Madam stepped into view, a pipe wedged between her red-stained lips. “You normally stay in your room until at least the following morning.”
Besides the deeper indentation of her wrinkles and the starker white strands of her hair, the Madam was largely unchanged, even all these years later. She still swaddled herself in lavish clothes. Still always maintained a face full of makeup. Was still always smoking her sweet-scented pipe.
He grunted at her. “It seems the extra coin I gave you to make sure no one bothered me was a worthless expense.”
She puffed out a cloud of smoke. “I haven’t the slightest idea what you mean.”
“Of course you don’t.” He strutted forward, determined to find some isolated hole to crawl into. But the Madam’s voice carried with little interest into the air, stopping him.
“Will you be joining your sister today?” Her focus was on a small bench located against the back wall, tiny red and black pillows spread across it. She tucked her pipe away and fluffed a pillow, swiping dust from the fabric.
Draven stiffened, slowly turning his chin over his shoulder. “You let her through.”
“Accusations are yours to make,” she replied with ease. “That doesn’t mean they’re true. Now, answer my question, boy.”
Once upon a time, Draven liked it when she called him boy. Liked that there was someone else bold enough to refer to him in that way. Now it just grated his nerves. “No,” he answered gruffly. “What I will be doing is finding another bottle of wine and a better brothel to hole up in.”
She barked a laugh, moving fluidly down the line of pillows, fluffing up each one and patting dust from it. “You and I both know there is no better brothel than mine. But good luck to you.”
Though he wanted to walk away, Draven waited out of respect for the Madam, sensing there was something else she wanted to say. He was right.
“You know, I’ve always held you in high regard.
” She still wasn’t looking at him, putting the full weight of her attention onto those gods-damn pillows.
“The first day you ever stumbled into my brothel, sheepishly asking to visit with Delilah, I remember thinking there was no way you were who you claimed to be. You didn’t have an ounce of your father in you.
” A heavy pause. “Now when I look at you, he’s all I see. ”
Draven thought he was far beyond the realm of capability when it came to hurting him.
He didn’t think he had anything left to hurt.
At that, he was wrong. Because hearing the Madam say that to him?
For reasons he couldn’t quite explain—perhaps because of the conversation he had just had with Rhea—hearing those words hurt him like a flesh wound, carving at some piece of himself buried deep, deep within him.
“For the first few years, I thought you could still come back from the darkness. Then, when you anonymously bought out Delilah’s contract, I thought finally—finally—you were straying back to the better path.
” She finished with her last pillow and met Draven’s gaze with a level look.
At the flash of shock widening his eyes, she merely huffed a laugh and pulled out her pipe, lighting it with a tiny flame flickering just above her withering fingertip.
“What? You think I didn’t know it was you who bought out her contract? ”
“Considering the word ‘anonymous’ was involved, no—no I did not.”
“I made it my business to know.” She sucked on the wooden lip, a sweet scent again curling into the air.
“Delilah was my most sought out courtesan. She made this brothel a lot of money.” A sharp look.
“Still,” she continued, tucking one hand behind her back and tugging her chin up, “I was happy to see her freed. The girl deserved a life of her own after all that was taken from her.”
“Indeed,” Draven agreed, surprised to feel yet another pang in his chest today.
What the fuck was happening to him right now?
“If I asked you to give me your reasons for doing that, would you tell me?”
“No.”
She hummed, not seeming at all surprised by his answer.
With one hand still folded behind her back and the other pressing the pipe to her lips, she strolled over to the fine drapery covering the door.
She pulled one silken side back, revealing the exit to him.
“I didn’t know your mother well, I’m afraid. ”
The words sent ice lancing down Draven’s spine. He froze, every ounce of his attention suddenly snapping to the old woman.
“She was always spoken of so highly, though. Gracious. Intelligent. Beautiful. She was loved deeply by the people here, and I’ll never forget the way the news of her death from her sudden illness shook the community.”
A hollow ache gnawed at him while bile crawled up his throat. He saw flashes of burn marks and blood. Impaled bodies and lifeless eyes.
The only sickness that had befallen his mother was the attention of the eyes from a sickly perverted man.
“This is not my place to say, yet I’ll say it anyway: I suspect your mother would be disappointed if she saw you now.
She left behind one boy, and if she returned today, she would find another entirely.
One who mirrors the roughness of his father.
Who holds the same spiteful detachment for the world in his inscrutable gaze.
You are Lealla Dalmar’s son no longer, but instead the embodiment of Tynan Dalmar’s heir. ”
She delivered the words with such casual ease. Such disinterest—like what she said bore zero repercussions to herself. She was merely the messenger, delivering Draven his due missive.
When he didn’t respond, she added, “That’s all I wanted to say. Take it and do with it what you will.” He watched her puff on her pipe, not a single cracked edge appearing in her exterior. Business as always.
A remembered sentence played in his mind.
You are my greatest accomplishment.
Draven left the brothel without so much as another word to her.