24 Maerryl
MAERRYL
This situation drove me mad. What a mess. I should have told Dove the truth—the whole truth, everything. Days ago, before this all got so out of hand!
But—I couldn’t now. How could I?? With Balfie’s cure so close, I almost felt like I could touch it.
And at this point, with how deep we were in, she’d probably feel so betrayed.
Even hate me for real. I’d run a hundred scenarios in my head with a hundred different Doves reacting to my confession.
They all ended the same—with her, heartbroken and furious, often crying as she threw the delicate, pretty tchotchkes around her room at my head.
Or standing stiff and cold, demanding that I leave her sight, leave the manor, at once and never return.
And me, always pleading, trying to explain things properly.
Get her to see how all of this became so tangled and complicated.
And I never could. In every scenario, no matter how hard I tried, the right words didn’t come.
She didn’t believe me. I had to leave, before the distraught, disapproving faces of Choia, Petra, Mx.
Bottlecoat, Hanc, various servants, and the stablemaster.
Everyone’s eyes tracking me as I went. Down the sweeping staircase, through that grand, high entryway and out the door, never to return.
Because that was the real, awful truth of it all—I didn’t have a way to justify what I’d done.
The level of betrayal I found myself at now.
No, I hadn’t intended to come here and seduce Dove, reveal my desperate need for coin, and convince her to sell off her lands for my benefit.
If anything, the opposite! I’d wanted nothing to do with her!
I’d hoped to take advantage of some dumb, rich nobles, pull off this heist with the Takers Guild, and get out of there as soon as possible, having secured the coin for at least a few more future payments of Balfie’s crystal medicine.
But then Dove turned out to be… Dove. Nothing like I’d expected. And nothing had gone according to plan.
Despite all the ways I tried spinning it, I looked like a completely untrustworthy, scheming asshole in all scenarios that I envisioned confessing. And I didn’t want to lose her. I couldn’t lose her. Not after I’d already lost so much.
So I acted as normal as I could and tried to push the tidal wave of worries down whenever we were together. Made her smile, gave her pleasure, helped her with anything that needed doing around the manor. I wanted to enjoy our time, even if it might not last much longer.
Because the Takers Guild was coming. Any day now, I expected that slitling to arrive back at my window, a message tucked onto its leg with a date and time for when I should unlock the door, let Zephyra’s minions in to steal what they’d like.
After it was over, I could probably convince Zephyra I’d become comfortable here, in this cushy job.
Sever my ties with the guild cordially and start a fresh chapter with Dove.
It wasn’t like we were forced to sign a blood oath to her when we join.
There were rules and expectations, and, yes, consequences if members betrayed her.
A memory rose, of her glowing golden eyes boring into mine as she intoned, “You will never lie to me again,” and I shivered.
But I’d heard of plenty of my fellow guild members who had found something better and never returned. Thieves were a fickle bunch.
As much as I hated the idea of going through with the heist now—hated the thought of Dove waking up in the morning and finding her family’s art collection downstairs gone, feeling the safety of her home violated—it still seemed like the best option of all the available futures.
Except for one. You could tell her everything… and then leave. Leave for good.
I squeezed my eyes shut and ignored that internal voice, trying to refocus on the task I worked on, repairing an old broken window latch in Dove’s studio.
How could I leave now? When the possibility of saving Balfie—for real this time—drew closer than ever?
If we got the coin, got the cure… he’d wake up.
He’d be able to live a full life, enjoy his childhood.
Maybe Orinno would take him under his wing.
Balfie would love the priory, I already knew it, and he’d have friends to make among his fellow orphans there.
Everything I’d done, everything I’d been through, would be worth it if I saved my brother.
I already hadn’t been there when he and my family had needed me.
When the sickness swept through our village, and I was off gallivanting around the realm learning about stupid plants and growing techniques and nonsense as my family fell sick one by one.
I couldn’t let Balfie down now. I just couldn’t.
After tightening the last screw into place, wiggling the window latch to make sure it locked securely, I threw myself into a chair and looked around at the canvases scattered about.
Dove’s workspace was always a mess of beautiful chaos.
She kept a small part of the studio near the entrance clear of clutter.
That was where she hung her favorite pieces, I’d found; the ones she’d worked hardest on or loved most dearly.
Giant stretched canvases bursting with color.
Everywhere else had tools, paints, brushes, and other ephemera I couldn’t identify covering each surface.
Even the sturdy wooden chair I sat on had so many splotches of paint that you could hardly see the grain—all dried, I hoped.
Soft light poured through the tall windows, filling the room with a late-afternoon golden glow, and I let myself enjoy the peaceful quiet for a while before my next chore.
I was trying to stay useful—and busy—so I’d been steadily working to secure all the manor’s potential entrances that I’d intentionally left undone when I first came here.
And resecuring some that I’d undone myself.
It felt like the least I could do, and it distracted me, at least a little bit.
The safer I could make this house, the safer Dove would be.
That was what I wanted—more and more every day.
For her to feel secure. Comfortable. Happy.
I shook my head, rubbing at my temples as I gazed across the room at my favorites of her new pieces.
A large canvas, at least as wide as my arm span and nearly as tall as me, it contained a riot of reds and pinks.
Radiating circles of varying shades stretched and slid outward from a deep ruby center.
It looked almost liquid on the canvas, like clouds of spilled ink, and I found myself falling into its depths every time I looked at it.
She’d joked about naming it after me, and I’d made her swear on Bluebell’s life that she wouldn’t.
It held too much power, too much beauty.
It should be named after a goddess, or the sun, or Dove herself.
Though the look on her face when she’d told me that, as we finished hanging it together the other night, had made my heart stop for a moment.
And the memory warmed me every time I thought of it.
As if I’d summoned her simply by the force of my thoughts, Dove herself appeared at the studio door, gently pushing it open. I blinked, reds and pinks still bursting across my vision as I focused on her.
“What’re you up to in here?” she said softly, moving across the cluttered room toward me with the practiced ease of someone who’d navigated the space a thousand times before.
Carefully stepping over a pile of drop cloths—one that I had tripped on earlier—she scooted between my legs and placed a kiss on my forehead.
I went gooey at the touch, smiling up at her.
“Just finishing up on the windows. I wanted to double-check the second-floor ones before bed. The latch on this one here had been giving me trouble, but I think we’re all good now,” I said, pulling her toward me by her soft, flared hips.
She wore one of those dresses she knew drove me insane, a silky, floor-length slip of a gown that covered her thick curves just so.
The dark, rich burgundy shone subtly as the light played over it, complementing the dark richness of her skin perfectly.
I fingered the fabric, loving how it slid along her belly, breasts, thighs as she moved.
Relishing the light intake of her breath as I touched her.
Dove leaned against me, and I took my opportunity, tugging her down so her ass planted down on my right leg.
I wrapped my arms firmly around her waist, holding her snug and secure so she wouldn’t wobble.
She rolled her eyes but laughed, slipping a steadying arm of her own around my neck. “You’re working too hard,” she said.
“You’re one to talk,” I said from somewhere in the vicinity of her left underboob.
“We’ve both been working too hard,” Dove said. “Enough for the day. Choia’s made an early dinner—she’s worried I didn’t eat enough at lunchtime.”
“Did you?” I asked. She’d been holed up in her study most of the day, and I knew she’d felt a lot of anxiety when she’d sent the owl off to her parents earlier.
She wriggled a little in my lap. “Perhaps I’m a little hungry. It was a busy day.”
I stood up, lifting Dove with me and steadying her on her feet. “Then let’s go. Posthaste! The lady needs sustenance, immediately!” I cried in my best mock-courtly manner. I gathered my tools and slipped one hand into hers, pulling her toward the door.
She giggled and said, “Petra’s asked for the night off again, and Choia was in deep conversation with Mx. Bottlecoat when I left her. So I thought you and I could eat in my rooms tonight? More restful after the long day.”
“Sounds good to me,” I said, tucking a curl behind her ear as we walked down the hall hand in hand.
“And then…” she continued, “go to bed early?”