Chapter 21 #3
“This is an inquisitor, high lady.” He motioned toward Dresden. “Who followed Master Lucian Noble up from Gildon.”
Lucian cringed and sent an apologetic look our way.
“He heard the whole thing, which leaves me in a bind.” Steelcrest tapped a finger on the chair. “What shall we do?”
“I care little what you do,” his wife said, an ugly sneer on her face.
“Oh, but I think you do. And moreover, I care. I won’t have you disgrace my name and this house any more than you already have.
” He silently tapped for a few seconds. “It would be in your best interests were you to be arrested, I will tell you that right now, for I am going to make the rest of your days quite…unpleasant.”
Her face turned white, and I squeezed Marietta’s hand.
Steelcrest’s gaze moved between the other occupants of the room. “The question is what to do now.”
“Alcroft is the Vein Ripper. He needs to be brought to justice,” Dresden said, eyes narrowed on John.
Everyone in the room stiffened at his pronouncement. I closed my eyes. Every secret would become public.
I had put safeguards into place, but this situation was entirely bigger than anything I’d planned for. All of Gildon would know. Printed in every paper, on the lips of every citizen. And John…
“Let Gabriel handle it.” Marietta stepped forward. “Please. Let him do it.”
Dresden’s eyes narrowed on her. “Noble? I trust him no more than I do any of you. He’ll release Alcroft as soon as they leave.”
“He brought Worley to your attention. Deliberately put his own secrets at risk in order to help your investigation.”
“He wasn’t helping my investigation. He was helping his own.”
“No.” She shook her head. “Don’t you see—it hindered him. You are a smart man; you put the pieces together enough to follow Lucian. Why did you do that?”
Dresden’s lips pulled tight. “That is neither here nor there. Why should I trust him to turn over the murderer?” He pointed at Alcroft. “His lifelong friend.”
“Don’t you see? Gabriel is the reason you know all of these things. He allowed you to know them. Took the chance that behind your stuffy, upright theatrics, you are a decent man.”
Dresden was taken aback. It was hard to keep my own jaw from sagging as Marietta made her passionate declarations.
“And High Lord First of Steelcrest.” She turned to him. “Gabriel has said nothing publicly about your wife, nor your own unwitting part in this. Trust him to continue that. Support whatever story plays.”
Steelcrest inclined his head an inch.
“And you think he’ll do right by you, do you?” Dresden’s eyes were narrowed upon her.
“He has done right the entire time,” she said simply.
“He hasn’t hurt anyone, when he could have.
I’ve placed my trust in him, we all have.
” She looked at Lucian and father, then back to me.
“And none of us have been betrayed.” Her brown eyes were beautiful and clear—a spring shower washing away my sins.
I nearly staggered under the impact. She looked back to Dresden. “Please.”
The entire room seemed to take a breath.
Dresden’s eyes scrunched. “I don’t like people mucking around with the law. Mucking around with justice.”
“No, not mucking. Just giving justice a chance to succeed in a different way. To prevent the innocents from being hurt.”
Dresden looked around the room. “What innocents?”
“My brother, for one.”
“It will hardly hurt him when he is exonerated by Lord Alcroft being taken into custody.” But the corners of Dresden’s eyes loosened a fraction.
“The innocents taken advantage of by the high lady and her—” Marietta’s mouth turned down. “—club.”
When Dresden’s eyes softened another fraction, Marietta stepped forward. “Please. I know you want the letter of the law followed, but those victims, those boys, will never get their justice this way.”
“And what of the women?”
“I didn’t say that justice wouldn’t be done. Just…just let Gabriel handle it.” She took another step forward, her fingers spreading. “Please.”
The faith in me, when she didn’t even know what I would do… I could just let John go. My closest friend, my brother in all but blood… I could let him walk through the door. Marietta trusted me not to, when it would all be so much simpler for me to do just that.
“Lord Alcroft needs to be tried and punished,” Dresden said.
John wasn’t looking at him, he was looking at me. I stared back, thinking through plan after plan. John tilted his head, then nodded, tired eyes never leaving me.
Pain ripped through me. I stepped forward, at Marietta’s shoulder. “He will. I will take him,” I said, barely above a whisper. I cleared my throat. “Someone fetch a rope and a male servant’s outfit.”
“Why do you need—”
I held up a hand. “It will be easier this way.”
Lord Steelcrest disappeared to retrieve the items.
“John, the letter opener.” I held out my hand. He looked at the weapon for a long moment before giving it to me. I slipped it into my inside pocket, the cold steel pressed against my ribs.
“If you betray me, I will destroy you,” Dresden whispered, his voice low and even behind me.
“I know,” I said.
Steelcrest returned and handed me the coat, simple shirt, trousers, and shoes.
“Put these on,” I said to John.
“Something for prison, Gabriel? How thoughtful.” He put on the borrowed garments and removed his pocket watch to slip inside his new trousers.
“No. Your watch.” I held out my hand. “And your signet.”
He raised a brow, but removed the objects and handed them to me. “Robbing me?”
“No. Keeping them for you,” I said simply.
John’s eyes narrowed, searching mine, then he nodded. “Very well.”
“Come.”
We exited the house in a knotted formation, Dresden and father in front, John and I in the middle with Lucian and Marietta at our sides.
Melissande was clasped uncomfortably against her husband, bringing up the rear.
Dresden and father spread to the sides as I entered the carriage, then motioned John inside.
I could see Marietta’s wide eyes and bitten lip.
I moved my gaze from her and nodded to Dresden, whose face was dark, shoulders tight. I understood the need for people in the law to view the world in terms more black and white. But a softening of Dresden’s edges would be more than welcome.
“You came by horse? Stop by the White Stag for a drink on your way back,” I said. Dresden’s eyes narrowed and darted between us. Would he go to the tavern or follow behind us, just in case?
Father handed me a strong rope surreptitiously, so that any curious servants would be unable to see.
We had somehow kept the entire debacle within the two rooms and behind the thick walls of the manor, the servants none the wiser.
I motioned for John to hold out his hands.
He did so with another raised brow, though his eyes were haunted and resigned. I tied the knot.
My eyes connected with Lucian’s, which were as haunted as John’s—but strength lurked behind the uncertainty.
I nodded to him, held his gaze, tried to communicate everything I could in that one glance.
Sorrow, apology, love, trust. Lucian’s expression broke for a minute, then he nodded back, shoulders firm, head up.
Marietta’s hands curled around the carriage door’s frame. “Gabriel,” she hissed, trying to get me to lean out. “What if he does something to you in the carriage?”
“He won’t.” Marietta understood honor. She’d understand later. I needed her to.
“But—”
“He won’t.” Sand slipped through the hourglass. “I’ll see you back at the house.” I touched her chin. “Everything will be fine.”
Everything wouldn’t be fine. But we all had to believe it to be.
They stepped away, as one, from the carriage. I closed the door and rapped the trap. The wheels rolled down the drive. Away from the beautiful estate with its ugly memories and unhappy inhabitants.
~*~
John was silent, staring at the rope binding his wrists. I didn’t know where to look. Out the window, toward the setting sun, bloody and fierce. At my friend, a murderer, a victim. At the pristine bundle sitting innocuously at my side, waiting.
“How did you let it go, Gabriel?” John’s voice was reflective and even. “How did you become you, and not me?”
I stared through the window, watching the sun dip. “I don’t know, John. I never wanted them to win.” I looked at my friend. “Their goal was to break us. I wasn’t going to let that happen.”
“You think me weak?” John’s chin jutted forward; he looked more like his old self in that moment.
“No. I think you wronged. I wish…” I looked away. “I wish you had come to me. Or that—”
“It wouldn’t have mattered if you’d stayed, Gabriel.” John’s voice was matter of fact and even more reflective. “Did you read Octavia’s journal? The parts where we overlap?”
“Some.”
“Then you will know that it didn’t matter.
It would have been worse had you still been there, though I said differently earlier.
You couldn’t have saved me. I stopped blaming you during the day long ago.
” He gave a self-deprecating smile. “I sometimes still blame you at night, but we can’t all be perfect. ”
“None of us are,” I said quietly. “None of us are.”
We sat in silence, the carriage rolling across Blackened Bridge, swaying over the stones as dusk fell.
I rapped the trap. “Is the inquisitor still following?”
“No, Master Noble. He stopped doing so ten minutes back and rode ahead. Haven’t seen him since.”
I nodded and stretched suddenly tight fingers.
“Where are we going?” John asked, his head tipped back, eyes closed. “Montranc? Viogate? Straight to my estate in order to sever it?”
I shook my head slowly, watching him. “Greville Street. Steelcrest and Dresden will take care of the rest. I’ll make sure of it.”
John’s gaze snapped to mine and held for a long moment.
He nodded. “Yes.” His voice softened. “Thank you, Gabriel.”
His shoulders straightened and he dusted off the knee of his right leg. “Where shall I be going?”
“On a visit to the Continent. You shall take a liking to Italy during your tour and stay there a few months. You will correspond with Steelcrest and with me every few weeks—and we will keep the gilded abreast of your adventures, should they require news. If anyone inquires after you in Italy, you will move to France, and so forth.”
John nodded. “My assets?”
“In a year you will have a tragic accident—”
“A racing accident, I hope. Fitting for me to go out on a tricorn, don’t you think?”
I nodded, looking at my hands, seeing them as if from a distance, clenched in my lap. “Fitting indeed.”
“My documents are in order. There should be no trouble in a year. I’ve left everything to you anyway.
” John was calm, eerily serene. “Take care of my stables, will you? The tricorns. The trainers. I have a fine foal. Huntswitch winner for sure. I would like it if you would race her, or sell her to a worthy buyer, should you have a care for me.”
“I have a care for you, John.”
He looked away, his throat working. “I know. I’m sorry, Gabriel.”
“I know, John. I’m sorry too.”
The carriage slowed. Hooves clomping to a stop. The turning of the wheels paused, suspended.
John turned to me. “Marietta is good for you, Gabriel. I quite like her. Don’t be a fool and let her go.”
“I can do nothing but let her go, John. Sometimes love can only be given by setting someone free.”
John watched me for a long moment, then held up his bound hands. “You speak truly.”
I hesitated. One cut through his bindings and it would be done.
“Gabriel.”
I pulled the knife. I cut the rope.
The coil fell onto John’s lap, then slithered to the ground. Our gazes held.
I handed him a bag of shaping dust, the two bulky objects that remained in the cloth bundle bumping against my palm.
John dipped his hands in the dust, wiping streaks along his cheeks, his forehead, down his nose. Over his ears and around his neck. Over the shirt. Any identifiable place.
“I will have to do something to my hands,” he said in a conversational tone as his features began changing.
“Yes.”
“The street, maybe. A quick swipe to open the skin, to roughen idle fingers.” His smile was self-deprecating.
I didn’t respond.
John finished his ministrations and straightened his shirt, an unconscious gesture. “How do I look?”
I nodded, my lips unable to form words.
John looked at me for a moment. A lifetime. “Goodbye, Gabriel.”
“Goodbye, John,” I whispered, somehow dredging up the sounds. “May you find peace.”
John smiled. A smile of old, like when we were younger, before Gildonvale had separated us; playing on the estate, no cares in the world. “Yes,” he said simply.
He held out his hands, and I placed the bundle on top, the two objects clacking together, one heavy and one dagger thin.
John’s hand shot out before I could blink and pulled me to him. A fierce hug, a promise. Then he pushed me away and gripped the carriage handle. “Goodbye.”
And he was gone.
I sat in the carriage, staring at the opposite seat. Unable to tap the trap to tell the driver to move.
The carriage started moving without my signal. John had obviously not had such trouble. I allowed the motion to sway me back and forth. We rounded the corner. A distant shot rang out.
I didn’t need to look back. To see. I trusted my friend. I smiled grimly. And wasn’t that the crux?