Chapter Twenty-Two #2
When we reach the castle, it feels as if it should be well past midnight, but it is barely ten.
Bishop requests a basin of hot water and soap, and after it arrives and I ward our door, he sets about cleaning every last smudge of dirt from me and checking for scratches.
Another time, that would have led to other things, probably interspersed throughout the bathing, but we’re both too exhausted.
He makes sure I’m clean and he brushes out my hair as gently as my mother used to.
I think of how I’d come in from running with the village boys, and my grandmother—my great-aunt Flora, as I now know—would exclaim about the state of my hair and my dress.
Her protests were always good-natured, but my mother never even did that.
She washed my dress and brushed brambles from my hair and wanted to hear all about my adventures.
She would have adored Bishop. So would Flora.
My aunt Lenora had hated and feared him, but that was by reputation only.
While she’d have been wary around him and unhappy with our union, eventually, I could see her grudgingly admitting that, for a werewolf, he was a decent enough fellow, and then coming to enjoy his quick wit, verbally sparring with him as she did with me.
There is grief in those thoughts. Grief and the rage of knowing that two of the people I loved most in the world died at my father’s hands.
I feel as if I’ve been orphaned twice in my life.
And no, I don’t count my father in that.
When my mother died, years after my aunt Flora, I thought I could never feel so alone.
Then Lenora brought me home to London, and we made our own family.
Now that’s gone, too. I’m rebuilding again, with Bishop, but I won’t deny the prickles of fear when I realize how easily that could end.
I can’t tumble into that pit of fear, or I’ll never climb out.
I’m here to help make sure Bishop stays safe and so, rather than grieve for what could have been—a full family with mother and aunt and husband—I’m comforted by the thought of how much they’d have liked one another.
It’s reassurance that I’m where I should be.
After Bishop makes sure every ill effect of our chase has been erased, we crawl into bed with a plate of food and a bottle of whisky, and if we drink more of that whisky than normal, we deserve it, and I can reason that a half-empty bottle found in the morning will only bolster the fiction that Bishop spent a very long night struggling to make a very difficult decision.
We wake to an invitation. Hamish wishes us to join him for breakfast. That means he wants his answer, and whatever it is, I suspect he wants us gone after giving it. No dawdling and enjoying his hospitality for a moment longer than necessary. Which suits us fine.
The three sons are not at breakfast. Instead, both enforcers and the advisor and controller are there. The presence of the last has Julius eyeing the fellow, and I bite back a laugh, because I know exactly what he’s thinking.
Over breakfast, Bishop agrees to kill Franklin Doyle. His demeanor is stiff and even prickly, the proud young Alpha struggling to pretend he’s maintaining his dignity, as if this is a normal negotiation and not a slap in the face.
He does, of course, negotiate. Agree too easily, and Hamish will realize Bishop has no intention of killing Franklin Doyle.
Bishop stipulates that he wants the full eighteen wolves, and he wants them immediately upon his return, however soon that might be.
That contingent will be headed by Angus.
Bishop also wants Dennis. Moreover, once he reclaims Trevelyan, he wants Dennis to remain for a year, to help with the rebuilding and to cement the bond between the Packs.
It’s worded like the fostering arrangements of old, where a lord’s younger son might spend a few years with neighboring nobility.
But Hamish knows it’s also a hostage situation, which those feudal arrangements often were as well.
Still, he only eats his ham and then says, “It would be good for the lad to get experience. Both in the battlefield and in matters of Pack management. I haven’t chosen my heir yet.
I’m waiting for Dennis to get a few years on him. ”
And, also, if we’re correct about Hamish’s plans, it’ll help him to have Dennis spend a year at Trevelyan.
Hamish wouldn’t unseat Bishop right away.
He’d use Bishop to get Trevelyan rebuilt and then steady the Pack before installing Angus, who doesn’t seem particularly cut out for the job of rebuilding.
Having Dennis already an accepted part of the Albions would ease the transition.
“One more thing,” Julius says when they’re about to finalize the agreement, and he’s so studiously not looking at the controller that I need to bite my cheek to keep from smiling.
“The timeline here has changed,” Julius says.
“We hoped to secure immediate assistance to reclaim Trevelyan, and we have a Pack in need of provisions. While we have money in the Albion accounts, we don’t dare venture into London to access them.
As you are asking us to delay ending the threat—and getting to our funds—I believe the Caledonian Pack should pay for our men to live in modest comfort.
We need them rested and fit for battle at a moment’s notice. ”
“You’re asking for a loan?”
“No, I’m asking for compensation for the delay. Bishop and I had a bit of money put aside, but we need more for the Pack.”
“How much more?”
They negotiate a price. Hamish grumbles, but it’s his own fault, really. The controller’s presence signaled that Hamish was prepared for a financial angle to any negotiations. He ends up paying a tidy sum, and we get to take some small vindictive pleasure in that.
We return to our rooms to pack. I haven’t seen Kenric since yesterday. I’m concerned, but Bishop obviously is not, and so I let it go, though I do breathe a sigh of relief when Kenric joins us in the front hall.
“Where’s your bag?” Bishop asks.
“I’m not going with you,” Kenric says.
Bishop goes very still. “I beg your pardon?”
“I appreciate what you’re doing for the Pack, Bishop, but I can’t be part of this.”
“What the hell?” Rufus rumbles, lurching forward.
Bishop puts up a hand to stop Rufus and turns to Kenric. “Can’t be part of what?”
“I…” Kenric straightens. “I’ve decided to stay with my cousin. I’ve spoken to Hamish’s controller, and he’s said I’m welcome to join the Caledonians.”
“You little—” Rufus begins, but Julius pulls him back.
“I see,” Bishop says, his voice frosty. “I have always said that I will not keep any wolf who doesn’t wish to be part of my Pack. Good day then.”
With that, he turns and leads us out, and we all try very hard not to see the smirks of the two wolves who help with our bags.