Page 111 of Fortress of Ambrose
“Oh, I was looking for you,” Dexler says as I exit the office. “This came.”She hands me a letter with my name on it in a handwriting I don’t recognize. Inside is a simple request to meet, but the signature makes the hair on my arms rise.
Monument Park Saturday at seven.
Come alone.
—Ellery
Forty-Five
Yagrin
Nore’s expression when she’d left the coronation reception that morning haunted Yagrin. He splashed water on his face. He took a long bath. Then he did a long run around the estate in the frigid cold and came back for a hot bath again. Nothing helped.
So instead of eating lunch, he came back to his room to read up on House of Duncan. But he was accosted with memories from Begonia Terrace, Nore’s body collapsing, the horrors that ran through his mind as he rushed to her to search for a pulse, the deadly fury in her brother’s eyes as he shoved her heart in the box hoping it would kill her.
He closed the only book he’d found in the library on Duncan. Had Yagrin gone mad? He was definitely madly in love with her. And she was madly in love with him, too. But the ire in her expression when she left him on the dance floor felt like a dagger in his chest.She doesn’t mean any of the things she’s saying.She can’t. When they danced, he could feel the way she clung to him, the way she curled toward his touch, the way she trusted him.Something deep down inside her remembers how it feels.
He held his chest, imagining he could still feel her, smell her. He wished he would have learned her secret sooner. He would have whisked her away from this horrid Order. They could have run, hid, disguised themselves. It wouldn’t matter as long as he had her by his side. But now here he was living in an ancestral House just to be near her.
Maybe their love was strong enough to break the curse of the Pact.
He had to make her remember the feeling. To free them both.
He hungered for sight of her. When the clock above the hearth struck seven, he slipped into the halls toward the dining hall, ignoring the inquisitive eyes and studious stares. Yagrin walked with his head down out of his guest quarters building and into the main building, where the dead waited. He couldn’t see them very well, but he had grown used to the oddly placed darkness, which hovered along the hallways, and the sudden chill in the air. He knew they were there.
As he rounded on the family’s private dining room, he spotted Nore’s maid.
“Evening,” she said, her arms full of fresh linens.
“Is she in there?” His thumb jabbed backward toward the room ringing with the ting of dishes behind them.
“Not yet. She may be exhausted, honestly. Coronation day and night are quite busy.”
Night?“I’m sorry, what?” He leaned in to hear her better.
“It is nothing personal, Mr.Wexton. I know the Headmistress is fond of you, despite what she says.”
That sent a rush of heat through him. But her words tangled his thoughts in a knot. What did she have going on coronation night, and why would he take it personally?
“I am Ainsley, by the way.” She stuck out a hand, and they shook. “I know the guest quarters are not quite what you’re used to. If you need anything, don’t hesitate to ask for me.”
Her hospitality caught him off guard. “Nore likes a thin pillow, by the way. If they’re too thick, she gets pain.” He touched his upper back. “Right here.”
“Comfort isn’t one of our pillars of value, Mr.Wexton. Also, Headmistress hasn’t mentioned that. I’m sure she’s managing just fine.”
He was about to ask if they had masseuses on staff, but he swallowed the question. He’d almost forgotten who he was talking to. He’d check on her when he saw her at dinner.
“Would you at least notify me if she’s ever restless at night?”
“Tonight I cannot. But I can ask about it for future.” Ainsley curtsied and left before he could thank her. He sauntered into the dining room and filled his plate, waiting for Nore to arrive. Isla was sitting at the far end of the table.
“You haven’t returned to Hartsboro.” She slipped a bite of meat into her mouth.
He wouldn’t be leaving Dlaminaugh unless Nore made him. “No, not yet.” But he wasn’t sure what Isla’s relationship with his aunt was like, so for now his business would be his own.
“How is your family doing with everything happening in the world?”
“I am not sure.”
