Chapter 27 #2
“So why didn’t he, do you think?” Nic asked. “Was it just because it went against his oath?”
“Perhaps. Although Val had paid Ricard the singular attention of warning him against marrying her in the first place, so maybe he thought he was saving him in his own way.” Lord Francis threw a look Leaf’s way. “Thought she might take after her father and be a dangerous mess.”
“People say—said that to Millie all the time.”
“No doubt. But that was when Ricard started trying to ruin Val in earnest, to stop him righting the family fortune. Our father had left us deeply in debt—even more deeply in debt, I should say. I can’t throw all the blame Ricard’s way, but he’s the one who introduced me to my first gaming hell too.
Val didn’t notice, of course. Everything was always about Charles. ”
“But they didn’t marry,” Leaf said. “Why not?”
Lord Francis spread his arms in something of a shrug.
“Ah! The one part of the story I don’t know and so cannot tell you.
Ricard was sure Val would give up his debt-ridden inheritance and become a Serral—did everything he could to persuade Charles against it.
I could have told him it wouldn’t happen, but we weren’t the best of friends by then.
You see, Val promised our father to always uphold the family name, and to save us if he could, so he couldn’t leave a wastrel like me to take the reins, could he?
Instead Charles agreed to become a Monterris and Ricard might finally have forgiven Val then, but it all fell through and they never spoke of it again.
Ricard blamed Val. He’d lost his wife and the promise of the title, and still had to deal with Charles. ”
Nic stared at Lord Francis as the pieces of the story fell into the missing places in Nic’s mind. It was so… banal—four young men who had become tangled in one another’s lives, only to drag the snarl of hurts behind them thereafter, destroying all that lay in their paths.
Lord Francis had spoken with ease, yet as silence met the end of his story, he added, “I recommend not mentioning to any of them that I told you their secrets.”
“I hope that isn’t a threat, Lord Francis,” Leaf said.
“Oh, not at all,” the man laughed, relaxing back into his chair, his coffee untouched on the table. “I have no reason to take sides in this fight. I got away from all that when I left.”
“When you died,” Nic said.
Lord Francis gave an ironic half bow. “Death is the only way to escape being a Monterris.”
Nic flinched, hating the sound of those words on the lips of a man who had escaped where he could not. A man who had escaped leaving the family deeper in debt than ever, while giving no thought to Georgiana, left behind with a baby and a man less emotionally available than stone.
“So you’ve just been, what? Doing whatever you like all these years?” Leaf asked. “Pretending to be dead?”
“More or less. Val was the only one who knew at first. I had thought Georgie did, but it turns out Val lied to her too.”
“I was told an automaton killed you,” Nic said, reluctantly realising that he’d already learned more truths from Lord Francis than from his parents combined. “That’s why they were all pulled apart and shut in the style wing. So they couldn’t harm anyone else.”
The skin crinkled around Lord Francis’s eyes in a way that made him look younger. “That’s Val through and through, telling you a fib about automata so he had reason to smash them up. Bet he ripped up at you when he found out you’d taken an interest in making more of them.”
“He hates everything I do,” Nic admitted. “Although I’m starting to wonder if that’s because everything I do reminds him of you.”
“Most likely,” came the grim reply.
“How did you even get away with being dead for so long?” Nic asked, hating how petulant the words sounded to his ears. “Surely someone would have recognised you.”
“I don’t exactly hobnob with the ton these days, but yes, I have to be careful. The conditions on which Val let me escape was that no one should ever know. It hasn’t always been easy without death papers, but it’s worth it.”
“No death papers were written up?”
“No.” He gave a small, wan smile that entirely lacked any warmth. “Another of Val’s stipulations. He couldn’t accept a situation that robbed him entirely of his spare heir.”
“So really you could have come back at any time. You just didn’t.”
“I’m here, aren’t I?”
Nic set his hands on the table, leaning forward. “Yes. But only because you were paid to come and ruin this contract, not because you wanted to.”
Lord Francis held his hard gaze with his own steady stare, but it was the older man who blinked first.
“You know, Nicholas, I meant it when I said I wanted to see you, to see who you’d become, but you’re right, I could have come earlier.
I left because I couldn’t stay. I convinced myself it was best to remove a cause of friction from the house, but really it was only for me.
Because I couldn’t face having to watch the collapse I had helped cause, or the fading of Georgie’s sanity.
” He ran a hand through his golden hair and Nic fought the urge to touch his own.
“I don’t think staying would have helped her, or made a difference to Val, but it might have made a difference to you.
It must have been difficult growing up caught between madness and ice. ”
Angry tears pricked Nic’s eyes. “You don’t get to come back here now and pretend to understand what my life has been like.”
“Nic,” Leaf said, his name a gentle warning.
Lord Francis lifted his hand. “No, my lady, there’s no need to defend my honour; I assure you I deserve his wrath. Nicholas, you aren’t wrong, I have earned nothing in life, but I want you to know, if I could do anything to make up for it, I would.”
“There is nothing I want from you.” Nic rose from the table, fuelled by a sudden desire to be somewhere else, where he needn’t see himself reflected back. “I used to think there was nothing worse than having an absent father, but it turns out there is. Having two.”
“Nic!” Leaf cried, the sound muffled by a hand pressed to her lips. But Nic had spun away, having no plan but to put space between himself and the man he couldn’t bear to look at. Not, he realised, because he wished him gone, but because Nic wished bitterly he’d been there all along.
As Nic made for the door, he heard Leaf say, “My apologies, Lord Francis,” as though they were already husband and wife—his behaviour somehow her responsibility. “I’m sure he will come around. It’s been quite a stressful lock-in, what with… everything.”
“I understand, Lady Leaf,” Lord Francis said, all proud solemnity. “And may I just say I’m very sorry for the loss of your cousin. While I am quite sure Georgiana had no intention of poisoning her, it is little comfort when you have suffered the loss all the same.”
Nic halted in the entry arch and spun back. “You think Mama did it?”
Still sitting at his ease with his coffee cooling before him, Lord Francis raised his brows.
“Surely two people who are as well-informed about what is going on as you ought to have worked that out by now.” With a small grunt of effort, the man levered himself onto his feet, once again running his hands through golden hair.
“Perhaps you didn’t want to see it, but I did, with my own eyes.
I’ve been your ghost, remember? Lord Charborough saw me in the pavilion that day, and I saw Georgie loose that arrow at Everel. ”
The flat, emotionless words stunned Nic. “You saw but didn’t do anything to save him? Or warn anyone?”
“No.” That sardonic look was back. “Ten thousand pounds is a lot of money I’m being paid not to be seen.
Money I can’t afford to pay back. Besides, there was little I could have done.
The man went into shock and I can’t say I was all that sorry to see him go.
Nor would I have been particularly sorry if she had succeeded in poisoning Val—there’s no love lost between us.
Oh, don’t give me that look, Nicholas. I’ve seen enough of you these last few days to know you’d have shed no tears.
That she got the wrong person I am sorry for, and I have no doubt that will be the end of it. ”
His words were cold but they weren’t wrong, lashing at Nic’s guilt for the lack of grief he had felt since Master Everel’s death.
“That is quite an awful thing to say about anyone, Lord Francis,” Leaf said, something stiff and furious held beneath her polite tone. “What about Nic? Would you have been sorry to see him die the other night? No doubt since you see everything, you’ll be able to tell us who did that too.”
“What?” Lord Francis sat forward, the word almost a growl.
“Oh, you didn’t know?” Leaf’s brows shot up. “Someone tried to stab him, and when that failed, strangle him.”
To have it stated in her matter-of-fact tone shed the memory of some of its power, but the smothering darkness and the struggle for breath was still too close, and Nic looked away from Lord Francis’s patent horror.
“When?”
“The night before last,” Leaf said.
“And you have no idea who did it?”
This he directed at Nic, who shook his head. “Not Mama.”
“No. I’m sorry. Are you all right?”
That Lord Francis’s concern was genuine was the worst part. Nic wanted nothing from the man, not even his sympathy. “Oh, I’m excellent, Uncle. Come on, Leaf. I think we should leave Lord Francis to his coffee.”
Nic spun away, furious steps taking him out along the passage.
“Nicholas, wait!”
But he didn’t wait, didn’t turn or even slow. He’d heard all he wanted of Lord Francis’s explanations and excuses, and seen enough of his mocking smiles—that Nic could see so much of himself in the man’s face making it a thousand times worse.
“Well!” Leaf said as she caught up partway across the old entry hall. “That didn’t go very well.”
“It went as well as it had any right to. Did you hear how he talked about Master Everel?”
“And your father, yes. I wonder how Uncle Ricard found out he was still alive.”