Chapter 4
Within five minutes, guests blocked the stairs, craning their necks to see the body. Despite the interest, only the doctor had drawn close, running expert hands over Rowerre as though to be sure he was truly dead.
In Dashiell’s absence, Nic had returned to the step beside his valet and there he remained, knees to his chest, as conversation passed over his head.
“Explain more precisely, Master sa Vare,” the duke said. “You came in from the garden, but did you find him like this or see him fall?”
“Unfortunately, we found him so, Your Grace.” Dashiell stood facing the gathered party, tall and assured. “Although perhaps this conversation could be had without so many people gawking at the poor man.”
“Yes, indeed,” Lord Charborough said, stepping forward to claim a commanding role. “We ought to allow the man some dignity.” Employing a scowl and an imperious wave of his hands, he shepherded the crowd of negotiators away. Mutters trailed in their wake.
Paying her father no heed, Lady Leaf moved into the unspoken space left around Rowerre, bending to get a closer look.
“Leaf,” her father snapped. “Curiosity is inappropriate. Do consider what Lord Monterris will think of you.”
“That I am rightfully troubled by the death of his servant?”
“Leaf!”
Nic thought he caught a roll of her eyes as she straightened. “It’s important to consider the evidence in cases of foul play. What do you say, Doctor?”
“Oh, uh, certainly, my lady.” Dr. Fanshaw reddened under her direct stare. “I, uh—”
“Foul play indeed.” Lord Charborough frowned at his daughter. “The poor man merely fell down the stairs.”
“Just as Lord Ellis’s son merely fell down the stairs during his apprenticeship,” Lord Ricard Serral said with a nasty laugh. “Truly, you were fortunate to depart this place in one piece, Master sa Vare.”
They’d found Louis sa Ellis the same way, lying twisted and broken at the bottom of the stairs.
“Are you calling me a murderer, Ricard?” the duke asked, a hint of bite behind the cool words. “Or claiming my house is cursed?”
“I don’t yet know enough to say, but I would deny neither.”
“Ricard!” Lord Charborough hissed. “There is no need for this. An accident, no more. Very unfortunate timing, of course, since we have already locked the doors, but your servants aren’t Brilliants, are they, Val? One can leave and take a message to his family.”
“As he had no family,” Nic’s father said, “I am less concerned about funerary arrangements than the cause of his fall. Rowerre was well used to the house. If this was an accident, it’s as extraordinary as the timing.”
The duke’s words sent a chill through Nic’s skin, but Lord Ricard only laughed. “Very dramatic, Vale, but we don’t need the added entertainment of a murder mystery to keep us occupied. Or to distract us from the negotiations. I, for one, will sleep soundly tonight.”
“There was a torn page,” Nic said, hardly aware at first that the words were coming from his mouth. “He had a torn page in his hand, but now it’s gone.”
The duke looked to Dashiell. “Master sa Vare?”
“I didn’t see it, but Lord Monterris was in a much better position to observe the details.”
Nic was grateful for the vote of confidence, yet doubt coloured the watching faces.
“Shock,” Lord Charborough said with a pitying shake of his head. “Dr. Fanshaw is an excellent physician, you know. He can give the boy something to ease his nerves.”
“Indeed” was the duke’s cold reply. “Regardless, we ought to put an end to festivities for tonight.”
And that was it. His father’s imperious finality ended all conversation, and the remaining members of the house party turned their backs on a man’s death.
Rowerre had been a servant, unknown to the Serrals, but he had meant everything to Nic.
And so he didn’t move, to leave now an abandonment Rowerre would never have committed.
“Lord Monterris,” Dr. Fanshaw said, clearing his throat when only he and the duke remained. “Allow me to help you to your room. I can fetch a seda—”
“He doesn’t need help,” the duke said. “I will thank you to take care of the body and leave my son to me.”
“Of—of course, Your Grace, my apologies.”
The duke approached down the stairs, glaring at Nic. “Get up,” he said. “This is no way for a Monterris to behave.”
When Nic didn’t move, his father gripped his shoulders and hauled him to his feet, fingers biting in hard.
“Stop!” Nic cried, as he was dragged up the stairs and onto the upper landing. “You’re hurting—”
A fierce slap struck his cheek, momentarily stealing both voice and thought.
“Pull yourself together,” the duke said. “I will not have my heir snivelling on the floor in front of our guests. He was just a valet.”
Just a valet. The words stung more than the slap.
“Go, and do not humiliate me like that again.”
Nic dared no words, dared not even a glance back, just started toward his rooms under his father’s watchful eye.
As he walked, he tried to think, to work through what needed to be done next, but a thick wool suffocated every thought beyond the need to change his sodden clothes.
Falling into the pond seemed a whole lifetime ago.
“Nic.” Dashiell’s gentle voice met him in the shadows of the long hallway. “Are you all right?”
“Of course I’m all right,” Nic said, distantly impressed by how steady his voice sounded.
He didn’t slow, leaving Dashiell to fall in beside him.
“I can—”
“I said I’m fine. And if you’re hoping to gain favour with my father, you’re better off leaving me alone.”
“I’m not hoping to gain favour with His Grace. That’s not why I’m here.”
Nic spun on his heel. “Then why are you here? You could have refused this job when the Serrals came to you—probably should have, given how long you were with us. Yet here you are.”
“Do you wish I had?”
The question owned a breathless quality, seeking to steal truths as though they were much needed air. Nothing existed beyond their shadows, but though a dozen answers knotted like tangled wire in Nic’s throat, he uttered none of them, leaving the silence to stretch and grow cold.
“What does it matter to me?” he said eventually. Dismissive. Cold. “I don’t care what you do so long as you don’t talk to me like we’re still good friends. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I can get to my door without your help.”
Dashiell hesitated, a man holding himself still while he weathered a different urge. Finally he nodded, the movement almost perfunctory. “I understand. Just… tell me you’re all right. I know how much Rowerre meant to you.”
“No, you don’t. But I assure you that I am excellent, Master sa Vare. Good night.”
Nic continued in the direction of his rooms, needing to be alone, yet when Dashiell didn’t follow, his relief was not unmixed with a twisted, foolish sorrow.
Nic took forever to get to sleep that night and even longer to wake, his body unwilling to move. And when the sun rose, Rowerre didn’t wake him—couldn’t—his ongoing absence destroying all hope it had been just a terrible dream.
When at last Nic’s body accepted wakefulness, it was nearing noon. For as many years as he could remember, Rowerre had greeted him with a soft good morning and a piece of interesting news. Today there was only silence. Someone had left a small breakfast tray on the side table.
Dragging his heaviness with him, Nic pulled himself out of bed.
Between bites of bread that tasted of nothing, he dug his own clothes out of the perfectly ordered dressing room and slowly drew them on, life returning to his limbs bit by bit—only to leave him standing in the middle of his bedchamber unsure what he was supposed to do.
Down in the negotiation chamber the delegations would be hard at work deciding his future, while elsewhere guests would be being entertained as though nothing had changed.
Not ready to force smiles, Nic instead made his way back toward the stairs down which Rowerre had fallen in the hope that being there again might help and the sure knowledge that it wouldn’t.
Perhaps if he could make sense of what had happened, of the missing paper and the footsteps and the suspicious timing, it might ease the gnawing fear it had been no accident, might give meaning and closure to Rowerre’s death and somehow make it easier to bear.
Despite being full of guests, Monterris Court was blissfully quiet as Nic returned along the hallway, but as he reached the top of the stairs, rustling sounded on the landing below.
“Who’s there this time?” he said.
“Who what time?”
Nic descended to the second landing. There Lady Leaf Serral crouched, examining the topmost step of the next flight, the figured muslin of her morning dress gathered at her feet.
“What are you doing here?”
“The same thing as you, I imagine,” she said, still staring at the floor.
“You don’t think it was an accident.”
Lady Leaf gave him a look that ought, by law, to have been reserved only for irritating small children, not one’s intended.
“An accident that just happened to take place the first night of our lockin? After which Master sa Vare heard running footsteps? And these are long stairs, so if your valet just slipped, he probably wouldn’t have tumbled so far or hit the landing so hard. So yes, he may have been pushed.”
The same thought had occurred to Nic, yet he voiced the objection he kept butting up against. “But why?”
“Perhaps someone is trying to scare us because they don’t want this contract to go ahead. I can’t say I’m that keen on it myself, though I wouldn’t kill someone to stop it.” She looked up from her examination of the steps. “You don’t seem that bad.”
“Thank you?”
“Look, you can’t say you want to marry me. Bad blood between our families aside, we’ve only just met. And besides, I snuck a look at the preliminary documents and know for a fact you’re as gay as a spoon.”
Nic stared at her. “A spoon? Are spoons particularly gay then?”
Lady Leaf rolled her eyes. “It was just the first thing that came to mind.”
“You can’t know much about men then. Or spoons.”
“Can you just let me get on with this?”
“Sure.”