Chapter 25 #2
No wild sentiment, yet the knowledge that he almost hadn’t been safe sent Nic back into the darkness, back to his desperate gasps and those merciless hands closing tighter and tighter.
Not mechanical hands. Not the grip of a ghost. Strong hands of flesh and blood.
Someone had tried to kill him—someone with whom he was still locked in—and there was nothing to stop them from trying again.
“I’m scared, Dash,” he whispered. “What if they come back?”
Dashiell was out of his chair in an instant, half a dozen strides bringing him to Nic’s side. “I’ve been trying not to think about it. Finding you like that once was already—”
His voice broke on the last words and Nic could only imagine what it must have been like, sprinting along the hallway in panic.
Dashiell must have found him with whatever had been covering his head and a bloody gash in his side.
Had blood spilled onto the carpet? How many seconds from death had he really been?
He didn’t want to think about it, yet thought about it all the same.
For a long while they didn’t speak, just stared at one another while trapped in their own troubled thoughts, until abruptly Dashiell kicked off his shoes.
That done, he climbed over Nic to settle on the other half of the bed.
“Well, I’m not going anywhere,” he said.
“That way you don’t have to worry about me and I don’t have to worry about you.
No, no complaints, no worries someone will find me. This is where I’m meant to be.”
“And you keep saying you’re not brave,” Nic murmured, too tired to fight.
“This feels like more of the same cowardice to me. I’m too scared to leave you in case something else happens and I’m too late.”
Nic traced a finger along Dashiell’s jawline. “What else is bravery but to risk everything for another’s safety? To risk everything to spend time with me though we will still have to part? Telling me that you love me even though it changes nothing? I call that bravery.”
For a time, Dashiell just met his gaze, a slight notch cut between his brows.
“I suppose you’re right,” he said eventually, yet the words sounded almost dismissive—a truth he didn’t want to examine.
He gestured to the tray of food. “You should eat, and if you can’t, you should sleep.
Dr. Fanshaw will be very angry with me if I keep you awake. ”
Part of Nic wanted to argue, but exhaustion had long been tugging at his thoughts, and at least with Dashiell beside him, he wasn’t afraid of what might be waiting outside his door.
As though determined not to talk anymore, Dashiell grabbed the box off the dressing table and settled back against the headboard, leaving Nic nothing to do but curl up beside him and fall asleep, his every breath full of Dashiell’s scent.
Nic woke to the first hints of predawn light etching shapes from the darkness.
The grey light had crawled a little way across the bedcovers and come to rest upon Dashiell’s face, there on the pillow beside him.
Asleep, his features were relaxed, perfectly at ease in a way Nic had rarely seen.
No smile, no frown, just the smooth curve of his lips, the line of his brow, and dark eyelashes like slashes of ink upon his skin.
Nic wanted to run his fingers over it all, committing the contours and curves to memory, but instead he drank it all in with his eyes so as not to wake him.
As he lay staring, a final certainty slowly sank into Nic’s soul.
He wanted this. He wanted to wake up beside Dashiell every day.
Wanted to fall asleep beside him every night.
Wanted to be part of his life, not just now but always.
The wild idea that they could just run flittered into his mind, but the only way to put himself out of his father’s reach would be out of England.
Dashiell would have to disappear too, and stop working for the guild, or else the duke would always know exactly how to find them.
And that was without even considering the mother Nic could never leave behind.
The impossibility mounted the more Nic thought about it, yet he must have dozed off, for he next woke to the bed moving and the murmur of low voices.
The pale caress of winter sun had crept further across the bed and Dashiell had just climbed over him.
Ambrose stood waiting alongside a man Nic guessed was Dashiell’s valet.
There was still so much of Dashiell’s life he knew nothing about—a painful reminder upon which to wake.
“I have everything laid out ready, sir,” the man was saying. “But you may have to take your breakfast in the chamber.”
“Slipping away?” Nic murmured.
Dashiell spun back. “Oh, I’m sorry, love, I didn’t mean to wake you.” Despite his valet’s worried look, the vowsmith sat on the edge of the bed. “How are you feeling?”
“Fine,” Nic lied, his voice still croaky. “But you have to go.”
“I do, or your father will be searching the house for me. Promise me you’ll take care while I’m gone. Ambrose, you are not to let Lord Monterris out of your sight, you understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good.” Dashiell cupped Nic’s face in his hands and pressed a gentle kiss to his forehead. “I cannot bear a world in which you are not mine, but even less can I bear one which does not have you in it at all.”
Behind him, his valet cleared his throat. “The time, sir.”
“I know, Martin. I’m coming.”
The vowsmith pulled to his feet, yet he did not immediately move toward the door. A hint of that frustration was back in his face, as though he was just barely keeping himself from shouting at the world.
The two valets shared a worried glance, but with a final nod, Dashiell headed for the door. Martin hurried after him. “Let me step out first, sir, to be sure the hallway is empty.”
In Dashiell’s absence the room was colder, yet without the vowsmith’s grief pressing upon his own, Nic breathed a sigh all the same.
He had thought choosing to spend these days together would hurt, not that the desire to have them never end would tear them to pieces.
Such impotence in their rage, with every possible solution no solution at all as the clock ticked away their final days.
Despite the trouble filling his mind, his body seemed determined to sleep, drifting off upon fears. Partway through the morning the doctor checked in, yet the draught he gave Nic only made him drowsier and he was hardly aware at all when Leaf arrived, her maid in tow.
She was still sitting with him when Dr. Fanshaw returned.
“Is he all right, Doctor?” she asked. “He doesn’t seem to know I am here.”
“I gave him a light opiate elixir earlier,” the doctor said. “It seems to have a stronger effect on him than most. I should think he can hear you, though; he’s just caught somewhere between sleeping and waking.”
“He is a very sensitive Brilliant, so perhaps that’s why.” She sat for a moment looking down at Nic, a deep exhaustion drawing her features. “Have you learned anything that could help us find out who did this to him?”
Dr. Fanshaw sighed. “Unfortunately not, my lady. I am a very poor detective’s aide, I’m afraid. Given the wound is on his right side, either his attacker is right-handed and came from behind, or was left-handed and came from in front.”
“I don’t think we have anyone left-handed in the lock-in party, do we?”
“Not that I have noticed, my lady.”
“You know, you don’t need to ‘my lady’ me, Doctor. At least when we’re alone. I feel like examining a dead body together is an acceptable threshold for a closer acquaintance.”
His smile was wry. “Perhaps if I was a Brilliant I would agree, but unfortunately I was born without that gift and so you must always be ‘my lady.’?”
“And if I told you I think it’s stupid that we put Brilliance on such a pedestal? You are far more useful and knowledgeable than I am, you know.”
“That is not for me to decide, my lady.”
Leaf sighed. “I should go, although I admit I’m terrified of stepping out that door, even with my maid. Having failed to kill Lord Monterris, anyone wanting to break this contract for good would surely look at me next, no?”
“My lady…”
Leaf rose. “Take good care of him, Doctor.”
As the afternoon progressed, Nic slowly found himself again, like his body was coming back into focus around his thoughts. Leaf did not return, but the doctor visited twice more, noting Nic’s progress with a satisfied nod and a soft grunt.
“While I recommend you don’t leave your bed this evening, my lord,” he said, “I would not object to you getting up tomorrow so long as you are careful dressing.”
Nic’s body agreed, yet his mind rebelled at the thought of remaining another moment in bed while he and Dashiell were running out of time.
While outside his door someone wanted Nic dead.
The realisation that this couldn’t go on had been slowly sinking through Nic’s fear all day until it had at last hit his iron core.
“I’m sorry to disappoint you, Doctor,” he said, sitting up to test his aches with a few careful prods, “but as soon as Ambrose returns, I’m going to see my father.”
He had sent Ambrose to check whether the duke was sitting in the chamber that afternoon. With not being allowed to negotiate, his movements were far more varied than Dashiell’s, his presence at the table dependent on whether he was needed for smithing work.
Dr. Fanshaw heaved the sigh of one used to not having his strictures followed. “You are of course your own master, my lord, but I strongly recommend you at least lean upon Ambrose’s arm for the journey. Tearing the wound back open would be unwise at this point.”
“Oh, don’t worry, I’m not planning on going anywhere alone ever again.”