Sentiment #4
Wren bit back a startled bark of laughter.
Yes, he’d come face-to-face with the man who kicked him out of his home twelve years hence—but now he stood side-by-side with the man who’d made him a king.
If his father only knew what Shrike was to him.
Or, Wren wondered, would his father’s tone change at all if he realized he spoke to the kings of a realm beyond his wildest imaginings.
If Wren were only a rake like Felix had been—if he’d only drawn lewd women instead of a man he’d loved—then his father would’ve understood him. Would’ve celebrated him. Congratulated him, even.
Instead they’d not spoken in more than a decade.
Wren had imagined this moment more oft than he cared to admit. A confrontation. Reclaiming his inheritance.
Then again, he never could’ve imagined he might have the quiet strength of Shrike at his side.
Wren swallowed down the unaccountable lump in his throat. “I hope to God you understand someday. For your own sake.”
“Bold words for a boy who steals from his dead mother.”
Whatever grace Wren possessed fled him. Indignant rage surged in its wake. He heard himself snarl back, “No more a theft than the Audubons.”
His father inhaled sharply through his nose. His grip on the fireplace poker tightened.
Wren’s fist clenched at his side without his permission.
If ever there was a time to flee, it was now.
If it came down to a fight, he doubted his own strength would best anyone, but Shrike might well murder his father.
And as much as Wren despised the man, he knew his conscience couldn’t withstand that.
A songbird whistled behind him.
“We’ll be going, then,” said Wren.
A sneer plucked at his father’s lip. “Will you, now.”
Wren doubted his father would seriously attempt to detain them by force. At least not alone. But he did stand within a few strides of the bell-pull. Wren braced to tackle him should he reach for it. He only hoped he wouldn’t shatter any bones in the struggle.
The songbird whistled again.
Wren whirled towards the sound. In the instant it took him to do so, his mind likewise raced to make sense of what he’d heard.
The window must be open for a bird’s voice to travel so clearly into the room.
But night had fallen, and while the hour might be morning on the purest technicality, it could by no means be called anywhere near dawn. And therefore…
Shrike perched astride the open window, one leg out-of-doors and the other still swinging within.
Wren blinked. He hadn’t noticed Shrike leaving his side.
No doubt his father hadn’t either, so intent they’d been on trading barbs.
Though he supposed there was something yet to be said for Shrike’s natural fae stealth.
Shrike, who could stride through thickest woodland in total silence, could of course slip into the shadows of a manor library without detection.
Shrike caught Wren’s eye and jerked his head towards the night sky beyond.
Wren took the hint and bolted to join him.
His father shouted. The hound bayed. The bell rang deep within the house. Footsteps resounded overhead and through the halls.
But Shrike and Wren were already gone.
Shrike and Wren returned to Blackthorn Briar with their plunder far too early in the morning after too long of a night for Wren to do anything but collapse into bed.
Were it not for Shrike’s help he wouldn’t have even bothered to undress himself first. As matters stood, no sooner had he curled ‘round Shrike beneath the furs than he plunged into the relief of dreamless sleep.
He opened his eyes again to find the cottage bathed in the wisteria cast of dusk.
Shrike no longer lay beside him. Instead he sat before the hearth tending a simmering cauldron. One of his clever hands held the stirring stick. The other held a book before his dark gaze. The savoury scent of simmering morels filled the cottage.
Wren supposed he oughtn’t be surprised. A year of living with Shrike had showed him first-hand how fae required far less sleep than mortals.
What did surprise him was the book. He didn’t recognize that particular volume. At least, not from the modest collection of tomes they’d gathered in Blackthorn Briar. Yet something about its binding appeared eerily familiar in a way Wren couldn’t quite place.
“What’re you reading?” he enquired.
Shrike glanced up. A smile lit his eyes the moment his gaze met Wren’s. “The Castle of Otranto.”
A title not unknown to Wren. But certainly not one he’d brought to the fae realms. Trying very hard not to sound accusatory, he asked, “Where did you find it?”
Shrike hesitated. “Your ancestral library.”
Wren stared.
“I didn’t wish to disturb anything that had belonged to your mother,” Shrike added, abashed. “But I did take this, as you said your father deserved none of it.”
Wren hadn’t asked Shrike not to touch his mother’s books. Hadn’t even thought of it. For Shrike to treat her belongings with such respect, so long after her passing, and when he’d never even known her… Wren’s eyes burned as his heart brimmed over.
Alarm flashed through Shrike’s dark gaze. He set the book aside in a trice—gently—and arose. “Forgive me, I—”
“Nothing to forgive,” Wren hastened to reassure him.
The croak of Wren’s voice around the lump in his throat did nothing to ease the concerned furrow between Shrike’s brows.
Wren smiled. A sincere smile, at that; a habit he’d only picked up in the fae realms. It’d certainly never happened under his father’s roof. “I’m just glad it’s not The Vicar of Wakefield.”
Shrike blinked. “A precious tome?”
“A tedious one.”
A huff of laughter escaped Shrike.
Wren arose from the nest and gave Shrike a kiss on his way to retrieve his satchel.
His mother’s books lay within, tucked up snug against the puzzle-purse of his own teeth and hair.
His eyes stung unaccountably at the sight of them.
Likewise his fingertips trembled without cause as he reached for the books.
He withdrew them with as much tender consideration as if they might crumble to dust at his touch—and in that same moment, suddenly understood the pressing if unfounded concern which had seemed to guide all of Mr Grigsby’s movements throughout his acquaintance with the gentleman.
This disquieting thought he set aside for later rumination.
At present he took his satchel back to the nest. There at least the books would enjoy a soft landing if his grip failed him.
Drawing the first volume of Sense to pore over its pages with ponderous thought and consider carefully the prose which his mother had held so dear.
But his gaze could not focus upon the printed lines.
Instead, his eyes roved ravenously over the text in search of his mother’s handwriting.
At first he merely turned the pages with rapidity.
Then, not finding her, he flipped through with frantic abandon like the greedy child he was.
Surely his father alone had not scribbled therein.
Surely the same mother who had encouraged his art had likewise passed down a habit of marginalia. Surely—
There. Halfway through the book. A hand-drawn pencil illustration in the margin.
A strikingly beautiful rendition… of his father’s duelling pistol.
Wren had never read any of Austen’s works. He did not have the impression that they involved pistols. Yet as he cocked his head at the illustration, he also noted the underlined passage beside it.
I could meet him in no other way.
That settled the matter. A duel in Sense & Sensibility. Very well. An interesting parallel to his own life. That it had drawn his mother’s notice interested him far more.
The proof of her annotations in the book granted him a sense of calm.
Now he could work his way backward in a more measured fashion, one which allowed him to catch smaller marginal notes that he had missed in his frantic haste just a few moments ago.
Towards the beginning of the book, just after the point where he had given up and started skimming, there came another illustration.
Honeysuckles filled the margin beside an underlined passage that declared a house in question had no honeysuckles.
The opposing page held a still more intriguing note, where a paragraph describing the habits of a Sir John Middleton had been captured in a curling bracket and summarized in the margin as: The very picture of Cousin Ephraim.
The familiar name in a familiar hand twisted something beneath his breast-bone. There was a part of her yet alive in these pages.