Chapter Sixteen
BEN
I’d managed to tear myself from my bed a little earlier this morning.
Probably because, in Dominic’s absence, I’d had an earlyish night.
Even the records hadn’t fully held my attention yesterday evening.
As I’d read, part of me had been listening for decisive, devil-may-care footsteps approaching the door.
Dominic didn’t walk quietly, not because he couldn’t but because his presence was always going to be noticed.
I’d been disappointed, and then I’d been annoyed at myself for being disappointed. I was only disappointed because I’d wanted to fly again, I’d told myself. But even I didn’t believe me.
Thinking about flying brought the unwelcome realisation I still hadn’t fulfilled Evelyn’s request to look at the markings in dragon form.
It hadn’t even crossed my mind when I’d flown with Dominic.
Flying with him had, apparently, swept all other thoughts out of my head.
I still needed to work out who I could ask to go up there with me.
Asking Dominic felt like assuming a closeness that wasn’t there, simply because I’d quite like it to be.
My reward for leaving my bed at this godforsaken hour was finding that the dining room was much fuller than previous mornings. Pausing in the doorway for an instant, I took stock of the room. Dominic wasn’t there.
Rhodri sat at the head of the table reading on his phone while occasionally responding to comments from the white-haired dragon to his left.
The rest of the family seemed to orient subtly around him, like iron filings around a magnet.
It still fascinated me, the sheer force of authority he exerted without visibly trying.
It was also noticeable that no one else had a phone out. They were all expected to have impeccable manners, but Rhodri played by different rules, it seemed. I supposed he could be conducting urgent head-of-family business. Or maybe he was hooked on TikTok.
“Morning, love,” Glenys said, appearing at my elbow with toast before I’d even fully sat down.
“Thank you.”
Teddy, already sticky with jam somehow, waved enthusiastically at me from across the table.
“I found a huge pine cone!”
“Congratulations,” I said.
“It had a spider in it!”
“That’s less congratulations.”
Teddy shook his head fiercely. It appeared I’d misjudged—a pine cone with a passenger was evidently a bonus.
A few people laughed softly, and Teddy looked around and beamed stickily, no doubt glad to share the pine cone joy.
Then Dominic walked in, and my stomach swooped embarrassingly. He looked different this morning. Not quite as careless, and quieter.
His gaze flicked first towards Rhodri. And that tiny movement told me more about Dominic than almost anything else had so far, because the expression on his face, just for an instant?
It was longing. Not obvious enough that anyone else in the room would notice it, but then no one else was watching him the way I was.
Rhodri didn’t even look up from his phone, and something behind Dominic’s eyes shuttered as he dropped into his seat and reached for the coffee.
And for the first time, I wondered what it must be like to be Rhodri Bedwyr’s son.
* * *
The records room felt welcoming when I stepped inside and switched on the little heater. The one that Dominic had brought for me.
Dominic had barely looked at anyone during breakfast. He’d drunk a cup of coffee in brooding silence and disappeared again. Something in the way he moved had suggested everyone should leave him alone.
Everything in this room reminded me of him in some way, and I hoped he’d find his way here again today. But if he did, it wouldn’t be for some hours yet, based on the pattern of the last few days.
Belatedly getting a grip on myself, I sat down with my notebook and focused on the sixth century records we’d uncovered.
They were frustratingly lacking in detail, but the fact they existed at all was miraculous.
They were copies, of course, made centuries later, but I’d been pleased to see how seriously Bedwyrs of generations past had taken their record-keeping.
They’d made a copy of each record in Welsh, along with an English translation.
Each of these had been signed as accurate by the copier or translator, and then certified by another Bedwyr who’d checked their work.
In the midst of the genealogy pages, there was a random judgement from a twelfth century court case, which took my attention for a while. Until the door opened and Dominic wandered in.
“You’re early.” The words spilled out of me in surprise, and I wished I could bite them back. Nothing like making it obvious I was aware of his comings and goings.
His eyes flicked towards me immediately, and just for an instant, something eased in his face.
“Careful, Berstow,” he drawled, dropping into the other chair and stretching his legs out. His long, leanly muscled legs in jeans that clung. “People might think I’m developing a work ethic.”
“I admit, I was briefly concerned.”
“Don’t worry. I remain fundamentally useless.”
I huffed a laugh despite myself, and he glanced over at the leather-bound novels we’d talked about yesterday. “Find anything out about them?”
“Oh, they can go,” I said. “In fact, they should go, so that no one in the future has to go around the same loop we did.” We. I immediately wanted to bang my head on the table. “But would you make a list of the titles, just in case, before you remove them?”
His eyebrows rose, and belatedly I realised I was ordering him about. But that didn’t seem to be what he was concerned over. “Don’t you ever do anything without thinking three steps ahead?” he asked.
I froze, because that hit a little too close to home.
We’d split amicably, me and Will. He’d met someone else, and he’d said that he was sorry, but it was just the way it was.
And though I missed him, it hadn’t exactly been a soul-wrenching loss.
Which seemed to upset him a little. He hadn’t blown up about it, but he had turned passive aggressive.
Spontaneity, Ben. It’s a thing, you know.
Yes, I was well aware of that fact. But spontaneity and historical archives did not go well together. In fact, they ended up in the kind of mess this records room started off in.
“I’m assuming you have a possible outcome in mind rather than you just want to read them later,” Dominic said, gesturing at the books, and I realised I hadn’t answered him. Instead, I’d retreated into a little hurt place inside me that I’d hardly remembered was there.
For once, he wasn’t teasing. He’d been asking a serious question, but coming at it sideways so that he didn’t betray his ignorance.
Which was very Rhodri, now I thought about it, not showing any kind of vulnerability.
And then I remembered Dominic’s expression at breakfast. Unlike Rhodri, he was still a work in progress when it came to hiding vulnerability.
“A list will be helpful just in case it turns out Glenys was mistaken and we later need to find the books again,” I said at last, and he nodded.
“Knew there’d be a historian’s reasoning behind it,” he said.
The weight that’d descended onto my shoulders melted away, and I found myself almost smiling at Dominic.
Somehow, Will’s parting shot had stayed with me, though I didn’t think he’d intended it to—he’d simply been hurt himself.
I’d come to think being careful was a shortcoming.
But Dominic didn’t seem to think it needed defending.
“And these butt-ugly statues? Please say you need me to smash them all to check for secret letters hidden inside,” he added, picking one up and staring in disgust at the lovingly sculpted gilt-speckled ballgown.
“Don’t let me stop you, but they might be worth something.”
He turned it upside down and examined the maker’s mark on the base. “Doubt it. Maybe Teddy would like them for target practice for his pine cones.”
“I think he’s collecting them, not chucking them at things,” I pointed out.
“Kid doesn’t know what he’s missing. I once took down every single tulip in the garden with a catapult. Best day of my life.”
I couldn’t help but laugh at the glee in his voice.
God, the man was impossible and yet irresistible.
Thankfully, before my mind went too far down that path, he put the figurine to one side and knelt down to drag the books off the bottom shelf.
I’d just returned my attention to my court case when he stood up again.
“Bloody hell, this is ridiculous.” He turned around and left.
I shouldn’t have been surprised. It fitted with his habit of simply arriving and leaving without fanfare, but that had been a bit abrupt even by his standards. And disappointing.
Determined not to keep thinking about Dominic, I instead turned my attention back to the closely written twelfth century law case. In Latin, just to make it even harder work to read.
This particular quarrel was over the ownership of a peregrine falcon, and I was wondering why on earth a dragon would have a bird of prey when the door opened again. I twisted round in my seat, and Dominic brandished something triumphantly at me.
“I got Glenys to give up the good stuff,” he said. When he stopped waving it around, I saw it was a hand-held vacuum cleaner. “Get rid of some of that mountain of dust.”
“You’re brilliant,” I said, and he just shrugged, as if he already knew. Which he did. Except he shot me a sideways look full of laughter, and I knew he didn’t mean that seriously. Well, not completely seriously.