Chapter 17
Nic woke with the dawn. And having woken, he refused to move, refused to do anything but lie cocooned in his covers and recall Dashiell’s words.
Dashiell’s touch. The taste of his lips, and the joining of their bodies in the candlelight.
The way he had gasped and moaned, had made his admissions and spilled his tears.
Perhaps if he didn’t greet the new day, Nic could hold on to the moment in which it had all been real, despite the guilt that it wasn’t Master Everel’s death that haunted him most.
Eventually, Ambrose’s hovering became so insistent that Nic finally levered himself up and deigned to have a breakfast tray set beside him.
There was something terrible about life going on after heartbreak, as terrible as life going on when Rowerre and Gillingham and Master Everel no longer breathed.
When a tap sounded on the outer door, Nic knew it was Leaf even before Ambrose reached it.
“Lady Leaf is here, my lord, and she—”
“And she is horrified that you are still abed!” Leaf swept in, all white muslin and laced flounces. “We have work to do before—” She halted as Ambrose set a chair for her at Nic’s bedside. “What is it? What happened?”
When he didn’t answer, she turned to the valet. “You may leave us, Ambrose. I am sure my innocence will be maintained just as well if you wait in the sitting room.”
“As you wish, my lady.” The young man absented himself with a bow, closing the bedchamber door behind him.
Nic tilted his head, achieving a wry smile. “It is quite scandalous for me to have an unmarried young lady alone in my bedchamber, you know.”
“And yet you may have any number of unmarried young men in your bedchamber without anyone batting an eye,” Leaf said. “Truly men get the best of everything. Now, out with it. It’s Master sa Vare, isn’t it?”
Nic tried to think of something humorous to say, and failed. “We… talked last night.”
“Talked? Or… talked? I feel the pause is significant.”
He hesitated, a policy of honesty with Leaf baulking at describing what had actually happened.
“And that pause was also very significant,” Leaf said. “It has painted quite the picture for me. Do go on. Although I hope you were more careful this time.”
“I locked the door.”
“See? You’re learning. Congratulations.”
She patted his hand and Nic managed a laugh through rising tears. “Do you take anything seriously?”
“Far too much, I’m told, but you’re crying.” She gripped the hand she’d patted, all humour chased from her features. “What happened?”
So Nic told her, sparing only the details of the tryst. Told her how he’d realised he was in love, how they’d argued, and how Dashiell’s admissions now haunted his every thought. By the time he was done, tears dampened Leaf’s eyes too.
“Oh, that’s all very romantic.”
“I thought I’d done something wrong, but he left because he loved me, Leaf. Because he knew we could never be together.”
“I’m sorry, Nic. I hope you know that if there was anything I could do to change things, I would.”
“Thank you.”
“Even though I have to admit that I do not personally understand having such an intense interest in another person.”
Grateful to shift the topic into less tear-inducing waters, Nic said, “No? You’ve never caught your breath because someone walked into a room? Or felt like you couldn’t live without them?”
“No, for which I’m quite grateful. It sounds distressing.” She shot him a sidelong look. “On which topic, there is something I want to discuss with you. It’s about… about the provision in our contract to ensure children.”
“Oh. Right. Nothing major or awkward.”
At any other time, she might have laughed. Instead, she said, “I have been… worried. Papa will not talk with me about it since young women are not supposed to discuss indelicate topics, as though what is to happen with my own body is not sufficiently important to set aside such considerations.”
She huffed an annoyed breath. Nic didn’t interrupt.
“I just wish I knew what they were planning for us. For me, I suppose. Ideally, I would rather not have to… you know… be intimate, with anyone ever. And to be wholly truthful, I would rather not carry children either. I find the whole idea quite repugnant. Children themselves are fine, just not in… Well, and since I assume you know as little about the contract as I do,” she went on, picking at the lace on her sleeves and staring at the floor, “I was hoping you could ask Master sa Vare. I know he shouldn’t discuss the contract outside the negotiation chamber, and maybe now isn’t the best time after—”
“It’s all right.” Nic clasped her hands and found them shaking. “I’ll ask. It’s important to you, so it’s important to me. And if we don’t like the answer, I’ll see what can be done about it. Does that satisfy you?”
She pressed out an anxious little smile. “It does. I… have no words for how grateful I am that I’ve ended up in this position with you rather than anyone else.”
“I have been thinking the same,” he admitted. “It may not be what either of us wanted out of life, but there are many worse fates than to marry one’s best friend.”
Leaf gave him a tight little hug and wiped tears from the corners of her eyes.
“What a pair we are this morning. One would think people had died!” She laughed a damp chortle, sniffed, and stole a piece of bread off his breakfast tray.
“Gosh, it’s already ten. I had better go,” she added, rising with her prize in hand.
“Papa is insisting on spending the morning with me to brighten my spirits. I’ll escape as soon as I can, though, because we need to figure all this out before someone else dies for this ridiculous contract.
If we all end up dead, will they still say it was worth going on with, I wonder? ”
On those cheering words, she departed. No doubt she hadn’t expected an answer, yet as Nic picked at his breakfast, he found himself mulling it over all the same. That the lock-in had not been ended despite three dead bodies begged a fresh question: Would any price ever be deemed too high?
As negotiations never sat on Sundays, Nic found the duke making his weekly round of the Court’s echoes.
He stood on the upper landing above the great hall, where the largest aviary in the house was set into the central stairs.
Behind their finely wrought golden bars, some two dozen echoes sat on carved branches, pecked at linen leaves, and preened their shimmering feathers.
“If there is any more trouble, move Guinevere back to the conservatory,” the duke was saying to the head keeper as Nic joined them. “She may do better in the warmth.”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
“If you do, move Valour as well. They do well together.”
“That they do, Your Grace.”
The duke turned. “Something I can do for you, Nicholas?”
“I want to know how many more people need to die before you’ll call this contract off.”
This earned a long stare, until the duke gestured to his head keeper with a sigh. “Go check the duchess’s birds, Hedgeley. I shall be along soon.”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
Hedgeley hurried off, footsteps fading away down the stairs.
Once they were alone, the duke fixed his intent gaze on Nic. “Your question, Nicholas, suggests you think this contract is the reason people have died.”
“Is the possibility so far-fetched? Rowerre died within hours of the doors being locked.”
“Indeed, but have you considered that if we didn’t want the contract, it needn’t have been entered into in the first place? Lord Ricard aside, everyone involved is in favour.”
“He hates you.”
The duke’s brows rose. “We have certainly had our disagreements.”
“Is that why you didn’t change his contract? When he asked you to save his marriage to Caroline Wivenwood.”
The duke stilled. Swallowed. Something wary in the glance he threw around the landing. “How do you know about that?”
“Millie.”
“I see.”
He let out another sigh and rolled his shoulders, straightening from his ill ease. “I am not so petty as you think, Nicholas. My refusal to assist was purely because vowsmith law is sacrosanct. The net must hold.”
“So it had nothing to do with preliminary negotiations between you and Lord Charborough falling through?”
Another long pause. “I cannot but feel you are interrogating me, Nicholas.”
Perhaps he was. Nic hadn’t sought his father out to demand so many answers, yet having begun to tug on the threads, he couldn’t stop.
“No interrogation,” he said. “But you talk a lot about our great name and my responsibility to uphold it without telling me anything I ought to know. How will your silence help me when you are gone?”
A smile twitched the corner of his father’s lips. “A fine speech. Where has this son of mine been hiding all this time?”
“Right in front of you.”
“Is that so? Well, since you have asked—no. My contract with Charles had nothing to do with Ricard’s predicament.”
“Then why didn’t you marry?”
“Because life is complicated, Nicholas,” the duke snapped. “Because minds change and hearts change even faster and we cannot alter our futures any more than we can alter our pasts. And I do not see how this particular history’s details will help guide you once my honours are yours.”
Perhaps they wouldn’t, but Nic still wanted to know, wanted to understand, wanted a guiding light to follow in his own darkness. Words he couldn’t say. Instead, he recalled why he had come and said, “Is this contract worth the risk that your honours might never be mine?”
His father tilted his head. Silent. Beside them the echoes went on fluttering about, chirping and squawking at one another in their artificial forest. “You fear for your life?” he said eventually, the words quiet.
“My life. Leaf’s. Master sa Vare’s. If someone would kill Master Everel, why not one of us? Why not even you or Lord Charborough? I know we need this contract, but is it worth risking further life for?”
The duke stepped close, taking Nic’s arm. “These deaths have been unfortunate accidents—yes, even Master Everel’s, however it may look. I tell you no one wants to endanger this contract. Do you understand?”