Gilded Cage (Dark Gifts #1)(78)

Gavar took another swig of the single malt, watching the bustle in Kyneston’s Great Hall from his vantage point by the massive marble hearth. He could hear the rain sheeting down outside, yet even at this late hour and in such dire weather the house was still filling up. All day long parliamentarians had been arriving. Lords, ladies and their heirs, coming through the gigantic door without a drop upon them, while drenched slaves carried in their luggage.

There was the footman who usually supervised the drinks cabinet, sulkily heading for the service corridor leading Speaker Dawson and her smarmy son, who was supposedly some sort of adviser to the OPs. That was one thing Dawson had learned from her Equals: the fine art of nepotism.

Gavar snorted and raised his glass as they passed to salute her hypocrisy. The son – who was about Gavar’s age – saw him do it. He didn’t look chastened, though. In fact, there was something dangerously close to contempt in his pretty-boy blue eyes. Gavar’s hand itched for his riding crop, though he supposed it’d be a bad start to the celebrations to thrash a guest who was barely through the front door.

Not to worry. There’d be other ways to repay the man’s insolence.

At the door, Mother was doing her best to keep a smile plastered to her face as she welcomed Crovan. Gavar stepped a little closer to the roaring fire as he watched. The man’s appearance might be immaculate – his hair swept back, his golden tiepin gleaming in the candlelight, the vicu?a overcoat tailored to his tall, austere form – but he gave Gavar the horrors from all the way over here.

Silyen presumably had the man on the guest list for his curtain-raiser tomorrow morning: the awakening of Aunt Euterpe. Crovan would find it fascinating. Maybe he’d ask for a ringside seat. Imagine waking from a twenty-five-year sleep, and the first faces you saw were Sil and Lord Weirdo. Aunty Terpy’s sanity would run gibbering back to whatever cracked little corner of her skull it had been occupying all these years.

The debate and the Proposal Ball were the day after, and Crovan always voted and attended. But surely the man wouldn’t then stick around for a third day, for the Wedding of the Century? The event was going to be unspeakable enough as it was.

Mother called a slave forward to take Crovan’s case, and Gavar saw it was the boy he’d sprung from Millmoor. Daisy had pointed him out one day as they’d been walking with Libby, an angry-looking kid with a bag of tools slung across his back. He hadn’t seemed exactly thrilled to be here. Another ingrate.

Or so Gavar had thought. But when he’d run into the boy again several weeks later, he’d had some kind of attitude transplant. The kid had looked at Gavar like he’d not only bailed him from Millmoor but had driven the van himself, then thrown a Welcome to Kyneston party complete with strippers. He’d offered some unfeigned thanks, and said that if there was ever anything he could do for Gavar, he would.

‘Anything at all,’ he’d said expansively. As if there were plenty of things the heir of Kyneston might need that a seventeen-year-old slave could supply.

Gavar tipped back the last of the malt. He should go easy on it, he knew. He didn’t want to end up like Father. But lately he’d been feeling the need for a little pick-me-up. He was still getting the headaches that had been plaguing him ever since Libby was born. That was one thing they never told you about fatherhood: the constant worry, and the toll it took.

Across the hall, the Millmoor kid was holding Crovan’s bag. Mother looked to be describing at great length where Lord Creepypants would be staying. Probably the boy had never been inside the house before.

But then Sil came ambling out from under the west arch towards the trio, and to Mother’s evident disapproval he took Crovan’s bag and led their least welcome guest away. The kid watched them go, unimpressed. He actually rolled his eyes when he thought no one was looking.

Good for him. Maybe the boy had been worth rescuing.

He banged his empty glass down on the mantelpiece, where it would doubtless sit until some harried slave spotted it in the morning. He was done with his hosting duties. Three more nights left as a free man and he intended to make the most of them. One of the border lords had recently succeeded his father and the estate’s new heir – attending her first ever debate – looked worth checking out. Gavar thought she might enjoy a rigorous induction into the big bad world of politics.

Everyone knew the Jardines were good at that sort of thing.

The girl turned out to be gratifyingly eager for his lessons. But Gavar went back to his own room to sleep, then came down early to breakfast the next morning to avoid crossing paths with her. He’d upheld the family reputation handsomely and repeatedly, but was worried she might get demonstrative. He didn’t want the hawk-eyed harpy he was marrying to notice. The girl wouldn’t be getting up early, Gavar was quite sure of that.

Breakfast, whenever Kyneston was en fête, was held in the Long Gallery. An immense table was laid down the length of it, layered with stiff linen. As Gavar entered the room, he scanned up and down. There was no sign of either his new friend (he’d have to ask Mother her name) or his wife-to-be, which was a relief.

A few heads turned as Gavar sat down. Well, let them stare. One day he’d be lord of this house, and this would be his table. Libby would be beside him in her rightful place, even if she could never be his legitimate heir.

Although was that impossible? Gavar remembered the day, late last year, when he and Daisy had sat by the lake and the boat had drifted towards them.