Chapter 25
Every inch of Nic hurt. His side ached and his throat burned and he wanted to be sick, but the thought of moving enough to vomit was too exhausting.
Voices murmured around him. Candlelight flickered like golden ghosts through his eyelids.
Steps scuffed. Eventually, it occurred to Nic to wonder where he was and why, the softness of what felt like his bed not fitting with the sense he was surrounded by people.
When memory at last hit him, he flinched and cried out, dry, tired eyes opening upon a collection of concerned faces.
Fear coursed through him like a visceral liquid that reached his gut and sent him lunging for the side of the bed. Bile burned his already burning throat and splattered upon the floor, leaving him shaking.
“You’re all right, Nicholas,” came his father’s low, commanding tone. “You’re safe now.”
“Nic!” Leaf cried, her voice cracking on a sob. “Thank God. I was so worried.”
Her tearstained face came into focus. Her eyes were red and her hair was a messy nest formed by agitated fingers, yet she forced a tremulous smile and gripped his hand. He tried to squeeze back, but his muscles ached, managing only a weak twitch.
“What… happened?” he asked, voice a croak as he hunted the gathered group for the person he most needed to see. Dashiell, there, standing off to the side behind the Serral brothers, his face pale and his expression unreadable.
Lord Ricard snorted a harsh laugh. “You don’t remember?”
“You were set upon and strangled,” the duke said, the words catching a little, his voice thick.
To anyone else it might have sounded calm enough to be heartless, but the subtle, restrained vibrance made tears prickle Nic’s eyes.
“You have Master sa Vare to thank that you’re still with us. He heard you scream.”
“Awful business,” Lord Charborough said, his tone faint. “Damned good thing Master sa Vare was on hand.”
“There was almost a dead body. Of course he was on hand,” Lord Ricard muttered with a sour look Dashiell’s way.
The vowsmith’s jaw set, but he said nothing.
Lord Charborough passed an exhausted hand over his eyes. “Please do not stand there and pick a fight with our vowsmith in the last days of this negotiation, Ricard. Come, we ought to leave Lord Monterris to the doctor’s ministrations. Give him some privacy.”
“As though I wished to linger,” Lord Ricard said and turned for the door, but Leaf showed no sign of moving from Nic’s bedside.
“Leaf.” Lord Charborough set a hand upon her shoulder. “Come. Lord Monterris needs to rest and I need to keep you close where you are safe.”
“Just a moment, Papa. Nic, you don’t remember who it was that attacked you?” Leaf asked, still holding his hand.
Nic frowned, trying to think through the details, only to wince away. Away from the musty dark velvet, away from the weight on his chest and the fingers around his throat and the knowledge he would die without telling Dashiell the truth.
“No.”
“Well,” the duke said, bending to ruffle Nic’s hair with a tight smile, “since you are now awake, I must go reassure your mother. I understand she has been inconsolable since you were taken up for dead.”
He turned to depart, leaving Nic’s stunned gaze following him to the door.
Leaf, no doubt seeing nothing remarkable in such a display, tightened her hold on his hand.
“I hope you will remember more when you’re feeling better.
We need to know who it was if we are to stop this from happening again, because there is no way this could have been just an accident.
Even small details could help, like what their hands looked like or their smell or—”
“If you please, Lady Leaf,” Dr. Fanshaw said, stepping forward with his most concerned expression firmly on his features. “Lord Monterris needs rest.”
“Oh, yes. Of course, Doctor.”
She let Nic go and rose, giving in to the insistence of her father’s hand.
With the Serrals having departed, only Ambrose and the doctor remained.
And Dashiell. The vowsmith lingered just a moment—a moment in which their eyes met and held and Nic hardly knew if he most wanted him to stay or go, his throat too sore and his mind too muddled for the conversation Dashiell deserved.
It was for the best perhaps that he turned away, leaving Nic surrounded by flickering candlelight and silence.
With Ambrose’s assistance, the doctor checked Nic’s wound. It seemed he had already patched it while Nic was unconscious, but he clicked his tongue over it all the same.
“Someone was going for your kidney, if I had to guess,” Dr. Fanshaw said with the blandness of one discussing fashion. “You’re lucky they missed and only gouged some flesh. This will hurt for a while, but it will heal.”
After that, the doctor left too, saying he would return later and could be summoned any time if needed. Nic must have dozed after that, because when he next looked about, a tray of food sat on the side table.
“Ah, you’re awake, my lord,” Ambrose said, his words lacking the confidence of even that conviction. “You… uh… have a visitor, if you would like. He wouldn’t come in without seeking your permission. Master sa Vare. He’s in the sitting room.”
“He’s allowed,” Nic croaked and cleared his throat, though it didn’t seem to help. “So long as no one knows he’s here.”
The young valet’s nod was solemn as he went back out. It seemed an age before he returned, Nic’s heart thumping like a drum the whole time only to thud all the harder when Dashiell appeared in the doorway. He leaned against the frame, sleeves rolled up, box in hand and a soft smile on his lips.
“You don’t have to let me in; I would as happily sit out here and work on this. I just… I would rather stay close and be sure you’re safe.”
Nic tried to pull himself up into a sitting position, but everything hurt too much and he gave up halfway, propped on pillows. “You can stay,” he whispered as loudly as he could. “As long as you’re safe.”
“As long as I’m safe?” Dashiell’s laugh held no humour. “You mean is my job safe? As though I care. But no one will come looking for me tonight. And Ambrose has the door locked like a sensible man.”
Dashiell brought his quill and ink and sat down at Nic’s dressing table with the box—a man intent on busily not disturbing him.
While he worked, Nic lay unmoving, not quite asleep yet not quite awake, letting the comfortable sounds lull him into rest. Occasionally Ambrose would come and go or Dashiell would glance over to see if he was still awake, but neither of them spoke, expecting nothing.
Time passed in blinks and stretches, counted only by the slow burning down of the candles.
Eventually Ambrose asked if Nic would eat, and as much to ease the worry from the young man’s face as because he knew he ought, Nic agreed.
With one strong arm, Ambrose helped him to sit upright, propping more pillows behind him, before bringing over a small tray served from the larger one on the sideboard.
Orange soufflé with a side of vanilla custard, a plate of buttered asparagus, and a poached pear drenched in sweet, sticky wine.
“All my favourites,” Nic said, his voice still a whisper, though he managed a smile.
“I’m glad I remembered rightly,” Dashiell said from the dressing table. “They brought up so much food that Ambrose was flustered. Though of course, had I been wrong, I would have blamed him.”
Dashiell didn’t seem to expect a reply and went on working, leaving Nic caught between gratitude for the silence and a growing desire to say everything that needed to be said.
That Dashiell could sit there at all, caring about him so fiercely despite how they’d parted, was astounding.
Nic was sure he wouldn’t have had the strength to hold his tongue had their positions been reversed.
“Dash…”
The vowsmith glanced up but shook his head. “Don’t trouble yourself tonight, Nic. Just eat and rest.”
“And if I want to trouble myself?”
Dashiell pressed out a flat smile. “Then at least eat first. I refuse to be the cause of your collapse.”
“I am not such a weak creature as you think.”
“Weak?” Dashiell’s brows flew up. “Nic, you had the presence of mind to use conjuring to save yourself. I don’t think you weak and never have.”
“Oh, so it worked. I wasn’t sure when my father said you heard a scream.”
“I did. It just didn’t carry like one leaving a throat.” His expression became grim. “God, Nic, I was sure I was going to lose you. I’ve never been so scared as I was sprinting down that hallway.” He wiped his eyes and looked away. “Don’t mind me, it’s been a long day.”
Nic closed his eyes, no longer sure which path was brave and which cowardly. He found he didn’t much care.
“I love you too,” he whispered. “Telling you that was all I thought of when…”
“Nic, you don’t have to—”
“But I do,” Nic said as a tear trickled down Dashiell’s cheek to be caught at his jaw by the swipe of his sleeve. “In a perfect world, it wouldn’t be Lady Leaf Serral I was marrying.”
Despite everything, Nic’s heart thudded with foolish fears that Dashiell would laugh, would say he had never thought of marriage, that he had other plans, that—
“I would love that.” Dashiell leaned back in his chair, watching Nic with deep affection. “Unless you’re not talking about me, in which case forget I said so while I sink through the floor in embarrassment.”
“Of course I meant you,” Nic said, the sound painfully croaky. “You would make an excellent duchess.”
“It’s my hair, isn’t it? It would look good with a coronet.”
Nic laughed until he coughed, hating the feeling that his neck was bruised.
“I’m sorry.” Dashiell sighed. “I shouldn’t make you laugh.”
“Better to laugh than to think.”
“That’s true. God, what I wouldn’t give for your perfect world. The life we could have.” A hint of his earlier frustration flared, but he swallowed it with a forced, brittle smile. “At least you are safe. That is more important.”