Chapter 25 #4
Across the desk, the duke sighed and drew his dark glasses from his nose, bearing his scarred eyes. “Everything that can be done will be done to ensure your safety, Nicholas. I understand you are upset at what happened, but—”
“Upset? Someone in this house tried to kill me. Someone who is still here. Someone who might look at every protection you put around me and kill Leaf instead. The only thing I am upset by is your determination to ignore the fact that someone wants this contract broken and will go to any ends to see it happen.”
“I assure you that no one wants this contract broken except you.”
“Me?”
For a moment the duke just met his gaze, his eyes, so rarely uncovered, now bright and fierce and furious. “You gave me your word you would do whatever it took to uphold the Monterris name.”
“Dying for it seems counterproductive at this point!”
The duke clicked his tongue. “Such dramatics are beneath you, Nicholas.”
“Dramatics?” Nic pushed to his feet, pain twinging in his side. “If you do not have the courage to put life before money, then I will.”
Anger coursing through him, Nic turned for the door.
“Don’t you dare.” The duke had risen from his desk but remained leaning upon it, scowling. “If you do anything that so much as risks this contract, I will make sure you never see your mother again.”
“What?”
His father’s dismissive gesture was almost a shrug. “She has shown herself completely incapable of existing in society these last few days. No one would think it strange if she were sent to an asylum. Truly it is only forbearing of me not to have done it sooner.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“Wouldn’t I? You are a Monterris, Nicholas. I own you and I own her and I will damn well do whatever I must to keep this family going!”
The duke’s fist slammed onto the desk, and for the first time Nic truly realised that when his father said the word family, it was only ever the name he meant, never the people who carried it.
Numerous times throughout his life he had wished not to be a Monterris, but never had he felt such complete disgust at the very sound of the name.
“Of course,” the duke went on, smoothing his tone, “if the king’s men find her guilty of killing Lady Radlay and Master Everel, I may have no choice.”
“She didn’t do it.”
“Didn’t she? You will certainly find it difficult to convince them otherwise without my support.”
Those uncovered eyes bored right into Nic’s, the nests of scars around them etched deep and dark like slowly opening fissures.
“I hope I have made myself quite clear, Nicholas. You are a Monterris. And while you continue to disappoint me with your lack of duty, I am quite sure your love for your mother is genuine. The contract must be signed, do you understand?”
Nic wasn’t sure what he had expected, only what he had hoped, yet the outcome was so far beyond anything he had thought possible that anger roared in his ears.
His father might have been chiselled from stone for all the sign of life he gave—stone against which Nic knew he could lash himself like waves against a cliff to no avail.
There was no argument that could change the truth that his father owned him as he owned Nic’s mother, that death was the only way to escape being a Monterris.
“Yes, sir,” he bit out. “I understand.”
“Good.”
With care, the duke slid his dark glasses back into place, becoming once again the impassive statue Nic knew so well.
“Now, if you are done. I have things to be getting on with.”
Nic spun for the door, tore it open, and was halfway to the stairs before Ambrose could react.
“My lord!”
Fury powered Nic partway up the first flight before pain and fatigue took over, and it was as well that Ambrose was there to save him from falling.
The young man’s arm closed around his waist and Nic had to steady himself with a hand upon the wall, waiting for faintness to subside.
Once it did, they continued the rest of the way at a far more sedate pace, with Ambrose thankfully holding his tongue.
By the time they reached the third floor again, some of Nic’s fury had burned itself out upon a familiar resignation. Foolish to have hoped for better. Foolish to have hoped for anything at all.
When Ambrose pushed open Nic’s door he stepped in, only to kick a piece of paper left sitting on the floor. As he bent to pick it up, a bolt of shock crackled up Nic’s spine.
“Give it to me,” he demanded, holding out his hand.
Ambrose did so, dropping into Nic’s palm the cut and folded paper flower he had made that night in the library.
The flower Dashiell had taken with him as a poor memento.
It hadn’t been on the floor when they’d left—no, someone must have slid it beneath the door in his absence.
But not Dashiell, who was still down in the chamber.
Unsure what to make of it, Nic turned the flower over and almost bit through his own tongue. On the other side, someone had penned a message along its folded stem.
You have been seen. End it, or he will be next.