Page 6 of The Lord of Whispers

“Jay, then,” I obliged, with a small smile.

“It stays pretty quiet around here,” he said, pulling out a chair to his right and gesturing for me to take a seat.

Once I was seated, he pushed my chair in and then took his own seat at the head of the table.

“There’s Jena and a couple of others who help us around the house, but most of my staff are either traveling with Lady Vitruvian right now or are back home in Breakpoint. Except Creede. You’ll see us out practicing with the sword most days. Otherwise, I spend a lot of time at Grey’s or out of town,” Jay continued. “The King’s place,” he clarified, probably realizing everyone didn’t call the King by his first name.

That was the first I’d heard about the lady of the House.

“Will Lady Vitruvian be returning soon then?” I asked, cutting into my lamb.

“No,” he answered curtly.

“She’s visiting with her sister for a spell. The lady often visits her family’s estate,” he responded disinterestedly, prematurely ending a topic of conversation I’d hoped to latch onto.

“Oh” was all I managed to say in reply.

Our conversation dropped for a minute. The noise of our knives and forks on plates filled the void.

“We’ll start in the morning with your lessons,” Jay said, picking back up our conversation. “I should be around most mornings for those, at least until you pass your liaison exam. And I’ll make arrangements for when I cannot be.”

My heart palpitated. I quickly chewed and swallowed the food in my mouth.

“Lessons?” I asked, surprised.

I’d not been expecting any lessons, especially not ones with the high lord himself.

“Lessons,” Jay replied. “Although based on your good marks, I will need to limit our lessons to only those that are not well covered at university.”

I saw no reason to fake modesty, nodding my head in agreement. As part of the liaison program, there was a written test I had to pass. I wasn’t particularly concerned about passing the test. I’d always done well with school and tests before. But I agreed with Jay that there were areas I needed to study up on that had not been sufficiently covered at university.

“I’ll need to brush up on magical theory,” I admitted.

Jay nodded in agreement, running a thumb across the stumble under his chin.

“That’s an area that is never sufficiently covered at university, if at all. You’ll need to do a deep dive into the history and lineage of all the players at the High Court as well,” he added. “Although that is more for surviving your first year here at Court than for your written exam, I suppose.”

I would serve as House Vitruvian’s liaison for one year. That gave me one year to secure a job with House Vitruvian or one of the other Houses at the High Court. If I failed either the written test or to land a permanent position at the High Court, I’d have to head back to my small hometown, Harborview. But I wasn’t going to fail. Because Iwasn’tgoing back to Harborview.

I wasn’t shy. But I wasn’t someone who talked endlessly either. We settled into a comfortable silence between bites and sips of wine, filling the gaps in conversation with small talk. Despite his forceful presence, over dinner, I found myself growing more at ease with him as I started to think of him less as High Lord Vitruvian and more as Jay.

We’d fallen into another lull of silence. I was thinking of Luke’s suspenders and how they had strained over the boulders of his muscled shoulders. I was wondering if Jay hid similarly bulging muscles under his finely tailored blue coat. Jay had unbuttoned the front of his coat but left it on during our meal. I subconsciously looked up from my plate and was startled to meet Jay’s smoldering gray eyes.

“I think we should probably head to bed,” he proclaimed.

“What?” I yelped guiltily, drawing my mind back from the path of what was hiding underneath Jay’s jacket.

Jay looked pointedly at the hand I had just used to cover yet another yawn.

“Your room is upstairs in the west wing,” he clarified, throwing his heather gray napkin onto the tabletop and standing.

We made our way from the parlor to the second floor of the manor. As we walked up the ascending staircase, the high lord wrapped his sizable hand around the knot at his neck. He shimmied it down, loosening his tie until he could reach the buttons underneath. Casually, as if he had done that very act hundreds, or perhaps thousands of times, he unbuttoned the first two buttons of his crisp white shirt, allowing the top of his tan, muscular chest to peek through.

I missed a step on the stairs, stumbling in my heels. I managed to catch myself on the handrail in time to prevent myself from falling forward, but I over-corrected and began to fall backward. I felt the high lord behind me, his hands firmly grasping my elbows as he supported my weight against the front of his body.

“I have you,” he reassured me.

I looked up and over my shoulder at his chiseled jawline and nodded, embarrassed. Normally, I felt much more confident, both of myself and on my feet. But I found myself at a loss on both counts after finding myself in the protective arms of yet another man for the second time that day.

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