Chapter 14 #3
"I will," she said.
Charles said nothing about the hand, though his eyes had certainly registered it. Instead, he addressed the practical matter at hand, as he so often did when there was a feeling in the room he did not yet know what to do with.
"A guard will accompany you from this point forward," he said. "Wherever you go. I will not have you moving through London alone while men we cannot yet name are watching from corners we cannot yet see."
Elizabeth opened her mouth to object, then closed it again, because she understood, better than most, when an argument was not worth the effort of making.
"Very well," she said instead, and gathered the last of her papers, and went.
◆◆◆
The door had not long closed behind Elizabeth when Charles turned from the window.
"I saw," he said. Simply. No preamble.
Damon did not pretend not to understand him. "I imagined you had."
Charles was quiet for a moment, turning his hat slowly in his hands.
"I will not ask what has passed between you.
I raised her to have better judgment than to require my permission for her own choices, and I do not intend to insult that now by demanding an account of them.
" He set the hat down. "But I will say this.
What was uncertain before is no longer uncertain.
And that changes what I require of you."
"Tell me."
"When this began," Charles said, "you were a case.
A complicated one, and a dangerous one, but a case nonetheless — something I could set down at the conclusion of a trial and walk away from with my conscience clear.
" He looked at Damon steadily. "That is no longer possible.
Whatever happens now, in the courtroom or beyond it, it happens to my family. Do you understand the difference?"
"I do."
"Then understand this as well." Charles's voice did not rise, but something in it settled, final. "I have buried people I loved to men who believed themselves untouchable. I will not bury her to the same kind of men, Damon. Not while I still draw breath to prevent it."
Damon met his gaze without flinching. "Nor will I."
Something passed between them — not quite trust, not yet, but the beginning shape of it.
"For what it is worth," Damon said, after a moment, "I want this finished.
Not merely the trial — all of it. Whoever stands behind Henry, whoever gave the order that put him at that gate.
I want it ended, and I want her nowhere near the ending of it.
" He exhaled, and for a moment the fatigue of the last day showed plainly on his face.
"I have had enough of watching people I care for placed in the path of what should only ever have been mine to carry. "
Charles studied him for a long moment.
"I do not want to pursue them," Damon said. "I want this ended as quickly as it can be ended. Not for triumph. Not even for Sarah, though God knows she deserves it." He paused. "To protect her. That is the whole of my reasoning."
"I know," Charles said.
Damon looked at him.
"You were not able to say as much in front of Henry and the constable," Charles went on. "When you would not let them sacrifice the boy to those men. I have known for some time now — longer than you might expect. I have simply been waiting to see when it would surface."
"I suspected you had seen it too," Damon said quietly.
"I raised a girl who reads people for a living," Charles said.
"I could hardly have failed to learn something of the skill myself, living alongside her all these years.
" He studied Damon a moment longer. "Until this is finished, I would advise you to be sensible.
Both of you. I will not pretend the word carries the weight of a demand, because I know precisely how well demands work on either of you.
But it is, at the very least, a want." A faint, dry note entered his voice.
"When this is behind us, we will have this conversation again, properly. For now, we need it ended."
"Agreed." Damon straightened. "Tell me how to be useful to you. Whatever you require of me, I will do it."
"I need you ready," Charles said. "A courtroom is a theatre, whatever anyone tells you to the contrary.
You will need the mask again, at least for the hours it takes to win.
I have always known that once we reached that room, the golden heir would shine as he was built to shine.
" He reached for his coat. "But before we arrive there, I need hands to sort through a mountain of paper.
Every date, every statement, every discrepancy, arranged in order, so that when the moment comes, nothing is out of place. "
Damon almost smiled. "Then give me the papers, Charles. I have, as it happens, a great deal of idle talent going to waste."
"That," he said, "is the most sensible thing you have said to me since we met."
He picked up his hat, turned it once more in his hands, and, at the door, paused.
"See that you mean it," Charles said. "For her sake, if not your own."
Then he was gone.