Chapter 29 #3
“No, don’t say of course.” The words were a snap and he let out a shaky breath as though to steady himself. “I woke up this morning knowing after today I would never see you again. That you didn’t want me anymore. There is no of course.”
“God, Dash, I’m so sorry.” Nic wrapped his arms around him and pressed kisses along his brow. “I wish I could take it all back. I want to be a sa Vare. I want to be yours.”
“And I want to be yours.” The vowsmith pressed close.
“But the look on your face when you said you didn’t want this…
” He grasped Nic’s hips. “I can hardly believe you’re really here, that this is really happening.
” His fingers dug in hard, his voice rough with the lingering hurt.
“I’m afraid you are a dream, here to torture me.
Please, Nic, tell me this is what you really want. ”
“Dash…”
“Tell me! This whole plan could be thwarted come morning. I need to know. I need to know.”
Nic gripped his face between his hands. “Dash, you are my everything. I want you. I need you. I want to be your husband—to be a sa Vare and never leave your side.”
For all the fine words, the vowsmith didn’t yet meet his gaze, but some of the tension dropped from his shoulders. “You mean it?”
“I mean it.”
A small laugh huffed between Dashiell’s lips. “I guess we’re even now, huh?” He looked up then, as much apology as relief in his eyes. “Having a conversation with your retreating back wasn’t much fun.”
“I’m sorry.”
“So am I.”
With a shuddering breath, Dashiell let the last of the tension out of his body, his shoulders slumping.
“You know, I was so angry I almost threw your father’s damn trick box in the fire.
Until I realised it would be far meaner to open it and make you feel bad.
Gloriously petty, I know. What was in it? ”
“Oh, it—” Nic froze. “Wait, my father’s trick box?”
Dashiell’s brows rose. “No one else could have made it. I almost missed some of the sigils, they were so tiny, and some of the clauses—I could never have made anything like it. It really is a shame for the profession that His Grace had to leave it so young.”
Nic stared at him. Lord Ricard had chased Rowerre to get the page back.
A page with which he could blackmail Lord Francis into helping sink the Monterris family even further.
It had made sense that Lord Ricard, thinking it very amusing, would hide the page right there in the man’s room where he could walk past it daily and never see it. But if it hadn’t been him…
“That means it was my father who took the page from Rowerre’s hand,” Nic said, gaze sliding out of focus.
“That’s what was in the box. The crumpled page Rowerre had the night he died, torn from one of Lord Ricard’s ledgers.
Showing he’d paid Lord Francis Monterris ten thousand pounds for services rendered. ”
“What? Why did Rowerre need an old ledger page?”
Nic heard the question, yet his thoughts had spun away.
If his father had taken the page from Rowerre, then he knew Lord Ricard had paid the prodigal Monterris to ply his mischief.
Unless the duke hadn’t known what Lord Francis had been paid for at first—perhaps until that night he’d scared them with the darkness coming through the ceiling.
“Nic?”
More questions spilled on the heels of such thoughts. He’d thought it likely his father knew Lord Francis was in the house, but for how long? And why allow him to stay unless it had just been too late to kick him out? Had he arrived with the Serrals? Surely Leaf would have noticed.
“Nic? Are you…? Is he still alive? Is that what’s going on?”
Dashiell’s question got through Nic’s whirl of thoughts. “Yes. He’s down in the grotto, when he’s not playing ghost. He made the darkness. And that automaton. He is our Faceless Man. He—”
Nic’s gaze fixed on the notes covering Dashiell’s writing desk—all their attempts at translating the sigil tape he’d found in the service passage. Just after Lord Francis had sent his heavy darkness pouring down Nic’s throat.
“The tape. The answer is something to do with the tape. Lord Francis must have put it there.”
He glanced at the mantelpiece clock. It was not yet ten, but with all the guests staying in their rooms, the servants would likely have finished their work already, leaving the house empty.
“Where is there exactly?” Dashiell said, confusion knotting his brow as he tried to follow. “The service passages go everywhere.”
“It was…” Nic paused. He’d walked in from the negotiation chamber, along to a corner, and it had been on the right-hand wall. “It was near the main drawing room.”
“The one that was locked up?”
Nic stared at him, thoughts slowly coalescing around an answer he couldn’t quite grasp. “Yes. That one.” He made for the door.
“Wait.” Dashiell grabbed his arm. “Are you sure this is wise? We need to be preparing to get out of here.”
“I won’t be long. If I can prove Mama innocent, I must.”
Dashiell hunted Nic’s face a moment. Then nodded. “All right, but I’m coming with you.”