Chapter 10

- Jake -

The Earl's holiday estate was little outside of town. One of the old buildings from way back when Castermere had been little more than a village overseen by a lone fortress.

And a fortress it still was. The main houses were encircled by old, thick walls made of ancient stone overgrown with moss. Look out posts stood tall on every side.

Jake shuddered when the carriage rolled through the only entrance, breathing became heavier when the single, solid wooden gate closed behind them.

It reminded him too much of the prison he would have wanted to forget. The days of darkness. The smell. The pain.

His muscles tensed with the memory.

Nathaniel smirked upon realizing Jake's distress. "Shall we postpone the dinner? You look a little sick."

Jake focused on Nathaniel's pointy teeth, the slightly too sharp nails, all the odd things in the way he held himself. He was a demon, Jake knew that he was.

Despite his hellish behaviour a more than powerful ally. And in fact, the only reason why Jake and Rutger were not resting in unmarked graves.

"You'd love the blow to my pride, wouldn't you," Jake grumbled.

"I quite enjoy myself already," Nathaniel said and offered Jake the open door of the carriage like a real servant would.

They were welcomed by the Earl himself instead of the son they had expected. Guards stood tall to the man's left and right, with full armour and weapons, far better equipped than would have been necessary for a social gathering.

The bellied man displayed a crooked smile and certainty that had Jake's stomach drop with a different kind of dread.

This was some kind of trap.

And he had been too focused on his too little time to realize. Had been too occupied to be careful. Of course, it had been too easy, he should have known better. How quickly the Earl's son had approached him, he never even had to meet the Greenwood banker.

"I greatly welcome the Count of Malinijak," the Earl said.

Jake broadened his shoulders and patted for his hidden dagger in what he hoped was an unremarkable gesture. He forced his mind to focus, let his eyes wander his surroundings quickly. There would be no use in hiding in the main building, he would never manage to open the doors by himself. If need be, he would have to jump over the castle walls and hope for the best.

"Or so I would say, but don't we all know better?" the Earl continued and waved his guards to action.

Jake jumped to defence. He noted Nathaniel still smirking, like it all was just a game to him, and cursed under his breath. He would not get any help from the demon.

The guard closest to the Earl's right moved the fastest. He drew his sword with a battle cry that promised no mercy.

Jake grabbed for his dagger.

The guard swung his sword.

And neatly cut the Earl's head off.

Blood painted the guard and the floor, drenched the fancy gilded carpet that had been put out for the welcome.

Jake swirled around in confusion.

A fight among the guards started. Jake could only hope to stay out of the way. It was quick and dirty and within the shortest time the inner court was filled with the stench of blood and corpses.

Nathaniel indulged in the brutality. His eyes sparkled dangerously. He needed no weapons to be deadly. How he knew whom he slaughtered, Jake didn't know. Most certainly, the demon didn't care.

"Forgive me, my Lord," the guard who had decapitated the Earl spoke to Jake. He sheltered his sword and removed his helmet.

It was the Earl's son.

The resemblance was uncanny. Both had the same golden curls, the same oddly straight nose, but where the Earl had been old and round and lazy, his son was young and fit and clearly accustomed to violence.

"If I had sent you a message, my father would have caught it. I had no choice. Please stand back."

Jake did. He retreated to have the wall at his back, but had his dagger ready if needed. His eyes jumped around on the battleground.

What had just happened?

He didn't like it if he didn't know what was going on. No, he hated it when things were beyond his control. What had he missed? How had he missed this?

"Find anyone who might have escaped. Guard the doors, no one leaves this place unless we are certain everyone who was still loyal to my father is dead," the Earl's son ordered when the bloodshed on the court had come to an end.

"You've been planning this far longer than I've been in town," Jake concluded quickly.

The Earl's son gave a hollow smile. "Yes," he said and many more words remained unspoken. A tension settled on the man's expression, he pinched the back of his nose and drew a noisy breath before he caught himself again.

At least he wasn't that heartless. But nevertheless heartless enough to murder his own father. The thought should have distressed Jake more, but somehow he felt an odd connection to the man instead. If he ever saw his father again, he would probably kill him too.

"I couldn't have planned for a better opportunity, though. Let's go inside, we don't have much time," the Earl's son said and gestured Jake to follow inside the main house while barking some more orders to his men to clean up.

Nathaniel found Jake to stroll alongside him. He licked blood off a cracked lip, that healed while Jake was still staring at it.

"I suggest you do not trust the young Earl. He thirsts for war, not for change. He is expecting you to fail," the demon remarked.

"Of course you knew about this," Jake grumbled in realization.

The demon smirked.

The Earl's son, no, Earl himself now, placed his helmet on the table in the small sitting room he had led Jake and Nathaniel to. "I hope you don't mind too much I have not prepared dinner as promised," he said and displayed a nonchalance Jake found greatly disturbing. As if the last few minutes had never happened. "Please, sit." The man took a chair for himself and gestured for Jake and Nathaniel to do the same. "I usually don't start negotiations with a warning. But I heard about your great speech the other day in the quarter, and I have to tell you, that is the fastest way to get yourself beheaded."

"I guess it doesn't take a scholar to put two and two together." Jake followed quickly. He finally managed to brush all his confusions off.

The Earl pulled a face, taking offense in Jake's comment but he didn't have it in him to apologize.

"So what exactly do you think we are negotiating about?" Jake said with ice in his voice. He knew this was a critical position, but his options to trade were limited.

"I will keep my father's possessions. All of them," the Earl said. "And you will have my men."

"I think you are getting a little bit ahead of yourself."

"Even you are expecting yourself to fail?" The Earl crossed the arms over his chest with a raised eyebrow.

"I am simply not promising anything that does not belong to me," Jake said.

"Everything belongs to the King, no?"

Jake grimaced. He found more wrong with that idea than he could have explained in a lifetime. "I am not King though, and I'll never be."

"What on earth for are you putting a rebellion together then?"

***

- Elly -

Despite his age, Alfred was a remarkable butler. He was a master of the duties of servitude, but also a man of great wisdom. Elly enjoyed spending time with him and his calm way of dealing with life, more than dealing with her bizarre aunt that never talked about anything besides getting Elly married.

"Add a little bit of ginger, and there," the man said and handed Elly a spoon to taste.

She delighted in it. "You are a magician," Elly complimented.

Alfred laughed. Then he regarded the girl for a moment in silence. "Instead of wasting your time away with me," he started his scolding with a too soft voice to truly be one. "Have you finished the letter to your mother?"

Elly clenched the kitchen towel.

Guilt plagued her.

She had written many pages already apologizing for stealing her mother's savings, for stealing and losing Mr. Stingley, for quite many things, but she had never found the sentences good enough to express her emotions.

Another note from her mother had just come that day. The woman never blamed her, never accused her, only asked for her daughter's wellbeing, and told how things stood at home. How Elly's father kept struggling with work, how Len asked about her despite everything, and how the church pestered them for some items that had gotten lost during the tumult of the almost-wedding.

Odd noises took Elly's attention. She followed them to find two men carrying her beloved couch out the backdoor.

Elly's aunt oversaw them with a strict face.

"What is going on here?" Elly asked perplexed.

"Lady Newell invited us for a tea party," the woman said. "You might meet her nephew, the best friend of the Earl's younger sister's son. We need new dresses."

Again?

"And for that you need to sell the furniture?" Elly asked, making the connection quickly.

Her aunt's lips thinned to a line. "Life is hard for single women."

"How – But –" Elly stuttered. Lacking proper words to express her thoughts, she just remained standing there, staring in silence, while the men continued their work.

She had been excited to be married once, and had never thought too much about it. Her father would have taken care of it, and she wouldn't have needed to spend a single second worrying about it. Now getting a husband apparently was a fight. A competition of who could parade themselves better, Elly very much disliked.

But for her aunt's sake, who had taken her in, when she had ruined all her chances of a proper life, she didn't dare say that out loud.

Elly didn't complain, when her aunt had her stand for hours at the dressmaker's shop, neither when she tied her into the dress until she could hardly breathe anymore, and also not when she sprayed perfume on her, that had her eyes tear and sneeze uncontrollably whenever she turned too fast. The wig, as her aunt called it, itched awfully on her newly growing hair, but Elly did not say that out loud either.

And when they sat at Lady Newell's tea party and went about nonsensical chit chat Elly smiled her brightest smile, as her aunt had instructed her to do, until the, whatever his relation was, man in question showed up to take Elly for a walk through the Lady's gardens.

"Are you quite alright?" he asked.

Elly hadn't even heard his name. "Of course," she said. "I am delighted."

"You look very beautiful."

"Thank you," she said and curtsied. She regarded the man to come up with a compliment in return. He was handsome, she supposed. But there was nothing in particular about him that caught her eye. He had his hair the same way as all the other noble sons she had met in Castermere so far and he wore the same kind of fancy clothes as they all did.

She had been scared of them at first, then swooned, then gotten used to the sights. It was really just a variation of colours of clothes, people and conversations. She had imagined it all so much more exciting way back.

"I like your tie. It compliments your eyes," Elly eventually said.

"Glad to hear. I chose it to please you."

"I am very pleased just to make your acquaintance," Elly lied. The most heart-racing moment Elly had experienced in the noble societyof Castermere had been meeting the Count. No party, no ball, no other socialgathering had enchanted her like he had. No encounter had remained in herthoughts like he did.

The man laughed. "You are indeed a delight, just like your aunt said."

"Thank you."

They stopped at a small pavilion placed in the middle of a carefully cultivated field of late-blooming flowers. The air was warm and sweet with the scent of too ripe fruit.

Summer was almost over.

The man took Elly's arm. She let him have it, to press his lips on her hand, as it was supposedly polite, but she very much disliked the gesture.

"You are not used to a man's attention, are you?" he said.

"Not quite, it seems." Elly tried to keep smiling.

"Well," he said and pulled Elly closer. She startled, pressed her hands on his chest to keep a distance between them, but he wouldn't have it. His grip was harsh and impatient.

Before Elly knew it, she had slapped the man and shied away from him. Unrest and fear had her heart race.

"And quite the fire too," the man said, rubbing his cheek. "I see what the Count found in you."

Elly froze.

Ice ran down her spine.

"What?"

The man smirked. "Don't pretend. I know who you are. Castermere is big, but Burgate is not that far away."

Elly's heart startled. Dread settled upon it. It sunk and sunk like a stone to the bottom of a well. Breathing became difficult. Invisible hands of cold and danger pressedher throat. Her body tensed in shivers, every too fast heartbeat shook it.

Like in trance Elly turned on the heel and marched back the way they had come from, the man's laughter following. The twisted sound echoed in her ears with malice.

When she reached her aunt, she hardly managed to press the words out between her tightened lips. "I need to leave."

Her aunt wasn't pleased, but led her to the carriage then with the excuse that Elly had caught a stomach ache. The guest's curious glances and raised eyebrows passed by in a blur.

"I need to leave," Elly repeated, gripping the cushions of the seat in the carriage rattling about Castermere's streets back to her aunt's hollow estate.

"Did he do something to you?" Elly's aunt asked carefully.

"No, you don't understand," Elly said, her mind working better than her body or her heart. "I can't stay. I thank you for the money and patience you wasted on me, but I can't stay with you any further." She spoke with a weak voice. Every word was a needle to her trembling heart.

"Don't worry Dear, we'll find you a man," the aunt said.

"No."

"Maybe I was wrong about wanting a noble man for you. Any son of a decent family will do, I suppose."

Elly eagerly shook her head. "I'd appreciate it, if you could send me on my way to the capital city to meet David, but you don't have to. I know how bad your financial situation is."

"Come again?"

Elly finally managed to look her aunt in the eyes. "He knew about me and the Count."

And if one person did, soon enough everyone else would know too. After all, if Elly had learned one thing in the weeks she had spent with her aunt in Castermere, rumours about people's tragedies was the noble society's most discussed topics.

Soon enough the gossip of Burgate would be whispered at every tee party. Elly's supposed misstep with the Count would have all noses of a ballroom wrinkled at her.

She wouldn't be able to take it.

The older woman's jaw dropped. She sunk back in her seat, suddenly robbed of all her spirits. A variety of unpleasant emotions raced over her pale face. "David can't take care of you," she said after a long moment of dark thoughts. "He is a soldier. He doesn't even have his own quarters. That is no place for a woman."

"But – "

"No," her aunt said and shook her head. "I am sorry, my Dear."

The tone of desolation in her aunt's voice broke apart all the barely fixed pieces of Elly's heart all over again. Tears clouded her sight. She struggled to breathe through the sobs that shook her body.

"I am so sorry," her aunt said.

***