CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
Archie
Archie had always suspected the end of the world would involve paperwork. He had imagined fire, perhaps. A speech from someone ghastly. Rain against old stone. Duncan looking as if joy had personally offended him. All of that, naturally, had arrived.
What he had failed to anticipate was Grace Carlton, in a dressing gown, writing legal instructions at three in the morning with the calm fury of a woman prepared to out-administer time itself.
“No,” she said, crossing out a line so hard the nib tore the paper. “That will not do. If both of you disappear tonight, the estate cannot appear to pass by accident.”
Duncan stood at the far side of the library table with his arms folded, looking as if every word cost him a year of life.
“Grace.”
She did not look up. “I am busy.”
“You are drafting legal absurdities.”
“I am drafting contingencies.”
“Those contingencies involve my presumed death.”
“They involve your possible absence.”
Archie leaned back in his chair; one hand pressed to his ribs. “How elegant. And how awful.”
Grace pointed her pen at him. “You are next.”
“I shall endeavor to look useful.”
“You can begin by listing every document you possess in this house, at the university, and in London.”
“My dear Grace, I possess several debts, three decent suits, a shameful number of books, and a reputation that fluctuates according to who has been speaking most recently.”
“Birth registry?” she said.
“Yes.”
“University appointment?”
“Yes.”
“Bank records?”
“Less enthusiastically, but yes.”
“Passport?”
He paused. “There is one somewhere.”
Grace looked at him over the pen. “Somewhere?”
“I dislike being reduced by an administrative tone this early in the morning.”
“You may recover your romance after you produce evidence of legal identity.”
Ceci, standing beside the table with Ginger pressed against her skirt, made a sound that trembled on the edge of laughter. Archie turned toward it at once.
That sound. Even damaged by fear, it went through him with absurd force.
A few hours ago, she had laughed against his mouth in the heat of Duncan’s bedroom, her hair loose beneath his hand, her skin warm and real and impossible.
Now she looked pale under the lamplight, her phone lying face down on the table like a curse.
OLD HAWARDEN. DAWN. CHOOSE.
The words had vanished from the screen after a few minutes, leaving only the wrong date flickering between years. Ceci had turned the phone facedown after that and had not touched it again. Duncan watched it as if it might begin speaking.
Archie watched Duncan.
That, too, was becoming a habit; he had no remaining wish to break.
Sabrina sat beside Grace, hair pinned badly and silk robe belted tight, while she wrote a separate list in a hand far prettier and far more lethal than Grace’s.
Names. Houses. Scandals. Those who had seen Voss.
Those who could be made to regret having seen him.
Lady Judith Rowe sat at the center of it like a spider in pearls.
“We must make Voss socially radioactive by breakfast,” Sabrina said. Margaret, from the hearth, gave an approving grunt.
Sabrina looked pleased. “I have always aspired to earn that sound from you.”
“Do not grow sentimental over it,” Margaret said. “It was small.”
“Still cherished.”
Margaret turned back to the fire and poked it as if punishing coal for its existence.
The clock on the mantel remained stopped at six minutes past three.
No one had attempted to wind it, adjust it, or admit how often they looked at it.
Time had become a thing in the room with them, crouched among the furniture, listening.
Archie shifted in the chair. Pain moved through his ribs in a bright, punishing line.
Ceci saw the flinch. Duncan did too. Duncan moved first, which was either touching or insufferable. Possibly both. He crossed the room, picked up Margaret’s tin of salve and a clean strip of linen from the tray, and came to stand in front of him.
“Shirt,” Duncan said.
Archie looked up. “Again? In front of everyone? I shall begin to think you’re showing off.”
“You’re bleeding through the bandage.”
Ceci turned sharp. “What?”
Archie looked down. A small red line had seeped through the linen wrapped beneath his shirt.
“Ah,” he said. “So, I am.”
Ceci was already beside Duncan. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
“I was enjoying Grace’s attack on my missing passport.”
“Archie.”
He loved how she said his name when frightened. He hated that he loved it. It pulled all the brightness out of him and left him wanting to be good, which was an appalling thing to feel under any circumstances, let alone at three in the morning. Duncan’s face had gone very controlled.
That was worse.
Archie unfastened his shirt with as much dignity as could be managed by a man being stared at by two lovers, one lover’s cousin, one furious household saint, one glittering social assassin, and one spaniel.
Sabrina politely turned her gaze to the papers, although the effort was theatrical enough to have its own curtain.
Grace kept writing. “If I look up, I shall become useless.”
“You wound me,” Archie said.
“I am trying very hard not to care.”
“Admirable.”
Ceci knelt in front of him. The sight of her there, hair falling loose from its pins, mouth tight with worry, hand already reaching for the ruined bandage, nearly undid him more effectively than Voss had managed all night. Duncan stood behind her with the clean linen.
For one moment, Archie was back in the room upstairs. Her hands on him. Duncan’s mouth on his. The sweet, impossible violence of being wanted by both of them and finding no part of himself outside the wanting. Then Ceci touched the bruise at his side, and pain dragged him back by the throat.
He hissed.
“Sorry,” she whispered.
“No,” he said. “Don’t be.”
Her eyes lifted to his. He meant more than the bruise. She knew it. Duncan knew it too because his hand went still around the linen.
Archie reached for Ceci’s wrist. The right one. The feather lay hidden under her sleeve, but he could feel the place of it beneath his thumb as surely as if he had drawn it there himself.
“I don’t regret it,” he said.
Her face changed.
Duncan looked away.
Archie caught that and smiled faintly through the pain. “Nor that.”
Duncan’s eyes returned.
There they all were, then. No more pretending.
Ceci unwound the stained bandage carefully.
The wound beneath was shallow, more scrape than gash, opened again by too much movement.
Voss’s man had done most of his work with bruising force.
It seemed petty, now, how deeply the body insisted on being mortal.
Margaret crossed the room and looked down at the injury.
“You have had worse.”
“Thank you. I feel restored.”
“You will feel restored when you keep still long enough for the flesh to close.”
“I am beginning to sense a theme.”
She took the cloth from Ceci, cleaned the wound with quick, brutal competence, then handed the salve to Duncan.
“You may do the gentle part. It will make you feel useful.”
Duncan stared at her.
Margaret stared back.
Archie, despite everything, laughed.
It hurt badly enough to make him swear.
Ceci pressed one hand to his thigh. “Stop laughing.”
“With Margaret in the room? Impossible.”
Duncan knelt beside Ceci and took over with the salve.
His fingers were careful, his expression severe.
Archie watched him too openly and did not care.
Let the house see. Let history avert its eyes if it felt delicate.
When Duncan wrapped the fresh linen around his ribs, his hand passed along Archie’s back with restrained care. Archie leaned into it by a fraction.
Duncan paused.
Ceci’s hand remained on Archie’s thigh, warm through the fabric. Archie looked from one to the other. “You know, for a night of political terror, there is an alarming amount of tenderness in this room.”
Sabrina, without looking up, said, “We are under pressure. People reveal their vulgarities.”
“I prefer mine revealed.”
“I know, darling.”
Duncan tied off the bandage. “You should remain here.”
Archie’s smile vanished. “No.”
“You can barely stand without pain.”
“I can do a great many things in pain. I have attended faculty dinners.”
“This is not a joke.”
“Then stop handing me lines.”
Duncan rose, anger coming with him. “Archie.”
Archie stood too, because he was a fool and because pain had never once prevented foolishness from volunteering. The room lurched. Ceci stood with him, hand at his elbow.
He hated needing it.
“I am coming,” Archie said. Duncan’s eyes flashed. “You will slow us down.”
“Yes.”
Ceci flinched.
Archie saw it and softened at once. “Yes, I will. And you will hate every second of it. You may even say something icy and practical while helping me over a wall. It will be very moving.”
“Do not make this charming.”
“I am not making it charming. I am making it survivable.”
Duncan’s mouth tightened. “You may not survive it.”
That was the thing under everything. Archie looked at him, and for once, he had no wish to dress his answer prettily.
“I know.”
The room quieted.
Ceci took a breath like the words had struck her body. Archie turned toward her first. He could not help it. Her fear had become the axis on which the whole night turned. Voss knew exactly where to place the knife.
“I know,” he said again, softer now. “I also know I would rather walk into danger with you than remain safe in this room while Duncan and you go to it without me.”
Duncan’s voice came low. “You call that love?”
Archie looked back at him.
“No. I call it the least cowardly version of myself currently available.”
Duncan’s face changed.