Chapter 28
They went into dinner. It seemed, in the circumstances, a ridiculous thing to do, yet caught in the routine, Nic’s body made the walk from the drawing room to the parlour without any conscious input from his mind—a mind still reeling.
Unable to stop seeing that grin and those scratches, he was trapped back in that moment beneath Lord Ricard’s squeezing hands, knowing he was about to die.
Somehow, familiar etiquette took him through the motions.
He sat, moved his napkin, nodded to the footman who served his soup, and took up his spoon.
Around him no one was speaking. All the sounds were the clink of cutlery and the rustle of small movements, the clearing of a throat and the pouring of wine.
A glance down the table revealed Lord Ricard in his usual place, a faint smile curving his lips as he ate. He didn’t look up, but a frisson of panic shivered through Nic all the same.
And I was so close too.
“Nic?” He flinched as Leaf leaned close, earning him a surprised look. “What’s wrong?”
Almost he said “Your uncle just admitted he tried to kill me” loud enough for the whole table to hear, but as Nic watched Lord Ricard go on calmly eating, he realised the man was right.
What was he going to do about it? What difference did it even make?
They were still locked in, still going to sign the contract tomorrow, and Nic was still stuck in his hated life.
Nic found his gaze pulled to where Dashiell sat silently focused on his meal. Perhaps feeling the attention, the vowsmith looked up. Their eyes met, and as though Nic had been a total stranger, Dashiell smiled a faint acknowledgement and looked right through him.
“Nic?”
“Oh, sorry.” He forced a smile for Leaf. “I’m perfectly well, I assure you.”
He hoped he’d spoken loud enough for both Dashiell and Lord Ricard to hear, determined to show one that he had no regrets and the other that he could not be intimidated no matter how much nausea swirled in his stomach.
“I trust we are not expected to take tea in the drawing room this evening, Your Grace?” Lady Theresa said, breaking the silence.
“Not at all, Lady Theresa,” the duke said, something of a sigh on the edge of the words, like he had been waiting for just such an attack. “It merely seemed fitting that we should mark the end of the lock-in with dinner, after which you may of course return to your rooms if you so wish.”
“Is every dish going to be poisoned then?” Lord Ricard asked far too cheerfully, before ladling another spoonful of soup into his mouth.
Lady Lisbeth dropped her spoon with a clatter, her face pale.
“Ricard, please,” Lord Charborough said, his sigh as long-suffering as the duke’s. “That is quite unnecessary.”
“Just wait until someone else drops dead and tell me so again.” Lord Ricard gestured across the table at Leaf. “I’m only surprised my dear niece has not suggested we catch our murderer by all swapping soup bowls and watching to see who refuses to eat.”
Irritation reddened Lord Charborough’s cheeks, but before he could snap at his brother, Lady Theresa said, “Oh no, do not suggest it, my lord. Though I do agree it is frightful to eat anything here now. The only reason I feel safe tonight is because Her Grace has not joined us. How very much I look forward to telling His Majesty’s men all about this.
” Leaving no time for Nic to come to his mother’s defence, the lady turned toward Dashiell.
“I do hope there will be nothing to hold up the contract’s signing tomorrow, Master sa Vare? ”
Dashiell bestowed one of his professional smiles upon her. “It is all but done now, my lady. There are just a few things His Grace needs to check before we can proceed.”
Given the speed with which the contract had suddenly been finalised, Nic couldn’t but wonder whether Dashiell had been dragging out its completion before Nic had broken his heart.
“Oh, well, that is good news.” The lady sniffed. “Although if it is so close, I don’t see why we cannot just sign now rather than spend another night in this wretched place.”
“This wretched place will soon be my home, Aunt,” Leaf pointed out.
“Oh, Leaf, of course, I just—”
“Don’t try to dig yourself out of that one, my lady,” Lord Ricard said with a laugh. “And you can’t hurry good vowsmithing. These things have to be ever so perfect.”
A sidelong look was thrown along the table to the duke, Lord Ricard’s smile turning smug and unpleasant before flicking Nic’s way like a whip. It was gone as quickly, attention retracted to his meal as though nothing had happened.
Nic found his heart hammering and had to focus on breathing, on not returning to that moment in the hallway when Lord Ricard’s hands had closed and closed around his throat.
Instinctively he touched his neck, only to pull his hand sharply away.
Dashiell looked over, a hint of something that could have been concern vanishing on a hope as he turned away with a dismissive sniff.
This the man who filled Nic’s entire heart, all the more now for the extra space pain seemed to have carved.
The pain of knowing how soon he would leave, of knowing that once he stepped out that door they might never see each other again.
Dashiell would go back to his life angry.
Determined to forget Nic’s very existence, he would marry and move on, and all Nic would have left were these memories.
At least his father and Lord Charborough could have kept meeting, because unlike Nic they answered to no one else.
Why, then, they hadn’t married still made no sense.
Lord Francis had said the duke hadn’t been able to give up his title because he’d made a promise to their father, but surely nothing had stood in the way of Lord Charborough becoming a Monterris.
Nic pulled his gaze from the examination of Dashiell’s beloved features to glance at his father.
He’d made a promise too, a hasty, careless thing he no more wanted to keep than he wanted to lose the man he loved.
The Monterris name ought to be consigned to the gutter where it belonged.
Perhaps it had meant something once, to the Monterrises who had built the Court and their fortunes, who had fought battles alongside kings, but all it had now was debt and misery, torturing those unlucky enough to bear the name.
Death was the only way to escape being a Monterris.
A death he’d come so close to. Lord Francis had needed to pretend for his half freedom, but seconds were all that had kept Dr. Fanshaw from having to write Nic’s death certificate.
Nic sucked in a breath.
“Something amiss?” Leaf whispered, leaning close again.
Nic thought to nod but wasn’t sure he did, everything seeming to freeze around him.
The idea forming around that long-hated phrase was big and important yet slippery, the sort of idea that made normal breathing insufficient.
He stared at Dashiell. It had never been Nic himself who was dangerous to him, only ever his name. But if he was no longer a Monterris…
Across the table, Dashiell flicked a quick scowl at Nic’s ongoing stare, as though he knew the line of Nic’s thoughts, as though to tell him it was already too late.
Even if it was, the idea went on growing inside Nic’s mind, unravelling a path to freedom not only for himself but for his mother too, if he was careful. He just needed to die.
Dinner could not end fast enough after that. Lord Ricard all but forgotten, Nic’s whole body thrummed with sudden purpose, with plans where he’d never been able to plan before. Not yet for a future—he dared not think so far when so much could go wrong—but for the possibility of a future.
At the end of the meal, the guests parted in pairs or waited for servants to walk them safely back to their rooms. With only relief at parting for the final time before the next day’s signing, it ought to have been oppressive, but it was all Nic could do to suppress a grin as he offered his arm to Leaf.
“Allow me to walk you to your room, Lady Leaf.”
No sooner had she set her hand on his than he whisked her away, leaving her good night to her aunt trailing behind them.
“Nic? What is going on?” Leaf said, having to lengthen her stride to keep from being dragged. “I could barely get a word out of you at dinner and now you’re trying to pull my arm out.”
He turned a grin upon her as they made their way to the stairs. “Death is the only way to escape being a Monterris.”
“So you’ve said.”
“No, you don’t understand.” He glanced back at the last members of the party lingering in the drawing room door and lowered his voice.
“My father owns me because I am a Monterris. The only thing about me that is dangerous to Dashiell is my name. The only reason I have no freedom is my name. The only reason you’re being made to marry me is my name.
But if I died, I would no longer have that name. ”
Leaf blinked. “Yes, but you would also be dead.”
“No!” They’d reached the stairs, and Nic let go of her arm to grip the banister and spin back, barely suppressing a grin.
“Because it’s all just paper, Leaf. It’s all just smithed contracts connected around us like chains, controlling the way we live.
No one cares about what’s real; it’s what’s on the piece of paper that counts. The net must hold.”
“I think I understand what you’re saying,” she said, following him up the stairs two at a time. “But… does that mean our contract would be broken?”
“Yes, because Nicholas Monterris would be dead. Just imagine how much pressure you could bring against your father to sasine you if it were true.”
As they reached the second landing, Leaf parted her lips as though to argue, only to snap her mouth shut. Her eyes widened.
“Oh.”