Chapter 11 #3
“If I had to choose, I would say Cornwall,” Dashiell said. “It’s quiet and beautiful, with moorlands that stretch for miles, although in truth I get fidgety if I stay in any one place too long. A side effect perhaps of never having thought of anywhere as home.”
Nic felt rather than saw Dashiell’s gaze shy his way, and didn’t meet it.
He had felt elated after the song, but now his hands sat as heavily on the table as his heart sat in his chest. Never had he considered—truly considered—just how different their lives had become.
All those years ago they had just been two boys learning the same craft, each the only company the other had.
While Nic’s horizon had not broadened in the intervening years, Dashiell had travelled widely, plied his craft on his own terms, and been free in a way Nic had never known.
Nine years had done nothing for Nic, but it had made a charming man of the world out of Dashiell.
Little wonder the vowsmith had been sorry for his moment of unprofessionalism in the dark hallway outside Nic’s room. He had long since left poor, provincial Nic behind.
Never had Nic felt so shrivelled up with shame, thus it seemed fitting that his evening entertainment was to be watching Lady Lisbeth flirt with Dashiell as they played.
She seemed to have decided that a promising career and a beautiful face could indeed offset the ill that was his lack of title, and Nic couldn’t blame her.
He really was beautiful, with his even features and his perfect hair and a pair of lips that curved just so.
Yet only part of Dashiell’s beauty could ever be captured in a portrait, most of it stemming rather from the movement of those expressive brows, from the way his lips pressed tight to smother an inappropriate laugh, and the quiet way he observed the world, his bronze eyes seeming to genuinely see where others merely looked.
Nic watched him between points, wondering what he thought of the lady’s interest.
“Oh no, I fear I have quite let you down, Master sa Vare,” Lady Lisbeth said, setting her final card on a losing point with a carelessly formed sigil. “We shall have to improve our game to beat these two. They’re very in tune with one another.”
“Beginner’s luck.” Dashiell flicked a laughing glance Nic’s way.
Nic’s brows shot up. “Watch who you’re calling a beginner.”
The words were out before he could think better of them, before he could consider the meaning he had both intended and not in equal measure, before he could look away from Dashiell’s intent gaze, stealing his breath with its calm, unblinking confidence.
Nic looked at the door again, wondering if he could slip away unnoticed. In the end, he settled for taking a gulp of wine and leaning back in his chair, attempting bored indifference.
Leaf called for another cake and Dashiell for more wine, while Lady Lisbeth watched the vowsmith take up the cards and shuffle again.
He did have very nice hands. Long fingers, neatly kept nails, and the strength of one who has honed his ability to form accurate sigils over and over again without error for hours on end.
He had calluses where he held his quill, but Nic hadn’t noticed the other night, his touch having been all thrill.
“I am determined we shall win this round,” Lady Lisbeth said as a celebratory crow rose at the other table, someone having dropped a final sigil onto a winning point. “Leaf and Lord Monterris cannot have all the luck.”
Dashiell finished dealing as Leaf, having licked icing off her fingers, surreptitiously wiped them on her dress.
Nic lifted his brows at her, grinning—a grin that froze as Dashiell shifted in his chair, his knee coming to rest against Nic’s.
It was just a knee, just a touch, but Dashiell did not move it away.
He picked up his cards as though nothing had happened, leaving Nic’s heart thumping.
Play resumed, but Dashiell’s knee didn’t move, and if not for Leaf’s skill at the game, they would have lost every point from then on to Nic’s abstraction.
Rounds went by, each sigil and card nothing but a beat in a song of ever-increasing torture.
He could have moved his own damn knee but didn’t, and by the fourth glass of wine was wondering if they’d both gotten caught in a strange game where they refused to be the first to move, since to move would be to admit they had touched at all.
Two hours passed—three—before Nic realised only the two tables at play remained. The duke and Lord Charborough had gone, as had the servants, leaving only the gently smouldering fire and a collection of candles fighting back the night.
At the other table, Lady Theresa yawned and declared she didn’t know when it had gotten so late.
Spits of rain were beginning to slash the windowpanes as Dashiell dealt another round.
He showed no sign of fatigue. Nic couldn’t decide if the time had sped or dragged, couldn’t even recall how many rounds he and Leaf had won.
There had just been the touch of Dashiell’s knee and the steady intake of his breath, his ever-present scent and a curl of hair that kept falling onto his brow that Nic longed to brush back.
Feeling more drunk than the amount of wine he’d imbibed ought to allow, Nic stared at that curl as he took up his cards.
As he splayed them out, he wondered if Dashiell could feel it there, tickling his brow.
And didn’t realise until too late that Dashiell was watching him.
Nic should have looked away, yet something in the vowsmith’s expression held him there like a gripped hand.
“Ah, another loss,” Lady Theresa sighed at the other table. “We played well, Doctor, but I fear we are undone and I am for my bed.”
With scrapes of chairs, the other table was breaking up. Lady Theresa strode over, stifling a yawn, and set her hand on Leaf’s shoulder. “How are you faring, my dear?”
“We are up by one, Aunt, but as I fear this will be our last, it may yet end in a draw,” Leaf said. “But in case we decide to play a tiebreaker, don’t wait up for me. I have Lizzy to bear me company.”
“Well, don’t stay up too late, or you’ll be abed until noon.”
After a murmur of good nights, only Millie remained from the other table, having leaned on the back of Lady Lisbeth’s chair to observe the play. She was soon stifling yawns, her eyelids drooping.
“Oh, poor Millie,” Leaf said. “Perhaps we should call it a night after all.”
“One more hand will not take long,” Lady Lisbeth said. “You must watch Master sa Vare shuffle, Millie; his hands are so quick you can hardly see the cards.”
“She will see nothing at all with her eyes half-closed. Here.” Leaf slid her remaining cards across the table to Nic. “You can play for us both. Lizzy, give your cards to Master sa Vare. We can safely leave this round and the decider to them.”
A little reluctantly, Lisbeth handed her cards to Dashiell, holding them so he would have to touch her fingers. He did so without any awkwardness, and both he and Nic rose to wish the ladies a polite good night.
“Are you sure you don’t wish to stay and watch them wage battle, Leaf?” Lady Lisbeth said. “It’s sure to be entertaining.”
“Oh no, maybe tomorrow night. I daresay Lord Monterris and Master sa Vare will not be far behind us.”
The look she threw Nic was so arch that he almost announced his intention of retiring as well, his cheeks heating as she steered her two companions out of the room and firmly closed the door. In their wake, distant thunder rumbled.
Dashiell settled back into his chair. “Shall we?”
Nic’s heart thumped against his breastbone.
Dashiell had only indicated the cards, yet when Nic tried to speak a nonchalant “Why not?” it came out a strangled cough.
It was Nic’s turn, so he played a card, and by some miracle it must have been the right sort of card, because Dashiell followed it with one of his own.
Card after card they emptied their hands with hasty sigils, not speaking even when Dashiell won a particularly surprising point, his hand sweeping in to take the cards without a smile.
He looked bored. Ready to be finished. He played at random, discarded at random, a little notch between his brows growing deeper and deeper.
Eventually the last point was played and Dashiell sat back, leaving the messy pile of cards strewn in the centre of the table. Nic had won in the end—at least he thought he had. It hardly seemed to matter.
Bit by bit the room had grown dark around them as the fire died, their pool of candlelight all that remained. Outside, light drops of rain struck the windowpanes, and thinking of another time they had sat in this very room on a gloomy day, Nic murmured, “Can you hear the music?”
Dashiell didn’t smile.
Assailed by the sudden need to escape before he broke, Nic rose. “I’m for my bed.”
“Yes.” Dashiell pushed back his chair. Abandoning the cards and the wineglasses, he walked around the table putting out the candles. A lick to his fingers and each one hissed into darkness, leaving a curl of smoke rising to the ceiling.
Soon only a single candle remained. Gesturing to it, Nic said, “You can take that one. I know my way.” And feeling like a ghost, he made for the door, shadows slowly swallowing him.
“Nic.”
Nic halted yet did not immediately turn, something in the tenor of his name part question, part plea. He ought to say good night and leave rather than risk more beautiful regrets Dashiell would have to apologise for, but knew he wouldn’t.