Chapter 1 #2
“I…” His father’s brows rose higher and Nic decided honesty was, for once, the best course. “Frankly, I thought you hated the Serrals. Lord Charborough took your seat on the Council.”
From behind those inscrutable glasses his father stared at him and Nic stared back, until the duke shifted in his chair, making its antique joints groan.
“He did. And their being on the Royal Council of Magical Guilds makes them impeccable candidates. Lady Leaf also has an acceptable position on the Brilliance Register, and comes with a substantial dowry.”
“Ah, that explains it.”
“Sneer all you like, Nicholas, but as a ducal family, we must maintain our fortune above the king’s financial threshold or risk losing everything.
” He gestured toward the letters patent hanging in pride of place beside the duke’s favourite pair of pistols—pistols that shone like nothing else in the house.
“It may be an old-fashioned practice from a time when dukes protected the empire’s borders, but what is vowed into law cannot be unvowed.
As a Monterris, this is your highest responsibility. ”
With a small grunt of effort, the duke rose to stare out the window, the paint on its thick ironwork crazed with age.
“They want your high magical aptitude and we need their money,” he admitted to the panes.
“They have been informed of your preference for men, of course, and so an agreement on how best to ensure children shall form part of the negotiations.”
“How lovely.”
The duke turned from the window, the weak sunlight shimmering on his waistcoat’s golden threads. “You think this is amusing?”
“No, sir.”
“Good. It’s time you grew up and took your responsibilities seriously.”
Grew up. The duke always spoke like Nic was a child who had chosen to remain cooped up in a decaying mansion on the Northumberland moors. Pointing out the truth never helped, yet Nic said, “You could have presented me in town years ago.”
“You know very well your mother could not have spared you, and the estate could not have borne the expense. Now, had you made more of your remarkable magical talents and become a vowsmith, things might have been different. As it is, your choice to waste your time on less worthy pursuits has left us where we are.”
An old complaint, often rehashed. Long before his birth, the Dukes of Vale had spent generations gambling away their grand fortune, and somehow it was Nic’s fault for not becoming a vowsmith.
“Fortunately, being my heir counts for a lot even though you have achieved nothing that would allow me to leverage a greater price for you.”
Price, like he was an animal to be sold at market.
“I did not send for you to argue, however,” the duke went on, returning to his desk.
“Rather to let you know that since the announcement has already been made, we now have three weeks to prepare for the lock-in. The old wings will be shut up and the central halls closed off for cleaning and repair. New furnishings will be brought in, and a tailor will be here next week to fit you for a new wardrobe. Master Everel will lead our side of the negotiations, though it is in our favour that they’re to bring Master Vowsmith Dashiell sa Vare. I think—”
His father went on speaking, but Nic’s heart stopped.
He hadn’t heard that name for years—a name that conjured a young man long faded from his thoughts, though some memories remained bright and unbreakable.
Dashiell’s dark, bronze eyes beneath finely arched brows.
His ink-stained hands. The way his lips curved when Nic’s humour drew from him an unwilling smile. He’d been good at making him smile.
“—can negotiate to our best advantage, you must embody your ancient and proud lineage. You must be my son, not your mother’s, for the duration. Do you understand?”
His father looked over the rims of his reflective glasses, the scars around his eyes briefly visible and always disconcerting.
“Yes, sir,” Nic said, glad he could manage as much. Because even had it been worth arguing with the man who owned his entire existence, he could not speak another word while his heart beat so fast. That name. So unexpected at this of all moments.
“Good.” His father took up his quill—a man well satisfied. “Rowerre will prepare your wardrobe, and the servants will clear your rooms. We wouldn’t want any of your… oddities being stumbled upon.”
Oddities like his books on conjuring and far-off places, or the table crammed with mechanical trinkets and salvaged mechanisms, or the company currently awaiting Nic’s return.
He couldn’t even manage a docile “Yes, sir” this time, not when his memory had betrayed him with a recollection of the all-too-brief occasion Dashiell had lain in that bed.
The duke dismissed him with nothing but a look, and having no desire to stay and no voice with which to object, Nic rose, chair scraping across the floor.
His father winced—a small joy in an otherwise painful meeting.
Even so, Nic hurried out with more haste than dignity, needing air, needing to think, to remember the young man who had so bewitched his youth without the feeling his father could see inside his head.
Out in the hallway, Nic leaned against the wall and just breathed. It was, for now, all he was capable of.
Dashiell sa Vare. Dashiell Bane-of-His-Existence sa Vare.
Dashiell Perfect-in-Every-Way sa Vare. Youngest master vowsmith in three generations.
And unless the intervening years had been very unkind to him, owner of the greatest hair ever.
What had Nic done to warrant such punishment?
Locked in with the Serrals while Dashiell sa Vare inscribed his bloody marriage contract.
Blissful oblivion waited upstairs in the arms of his latest pretty thing, yet no amount of oblivion would let Nic escape just how completely the last ten minutes had changed his world.