I Sold the Cursed Duke One Hundred Nights, and He Never Counted Them novel · Chapter 22 of 24

Chapter 22: Heron Lane

The Council chamber was silent.

Four hundred people and twelve peers looked at the Grand Duke of Drevoss kneeling on the marble.

Torn paper lay around his knees.

Then they looked at Odalys.

"Get up," she said.

He didn't.

"Caelan. Get up."

"Not until you answer."

"I will answer," she said, "at my own kitchen table, where I can think. Not in a room full of men who owe Halcourt money."

Somebody in the gallery laughed, and the Dowager's cane gave a single approving rap.

He got to his feet.

His eyes were very bright.

"Your kitchen table."

"It's deal. It has a burn on one side from the kettle. You'll like it."

She took his arm, in front of the whole Council, and walked him out.

She could feel the stares on her back.

At the doors the Dowager had risen, leaning on Jorrin's shoulder, and she stopped them with the end of her cane.

"Lady Day is in ten weeks," she said.

"I know the date, Your Grace."

"I thought I'd say it. I like to be early." She looked Odalys up and down, and for the first time since the day Odalys had walked into her drawing room, she smiled with her whole face. "The wedding will be in the Drevoss chapel. My nephew's wife will be married in nothing less."

"Mine will be married in the chapel on Heron Lane, with my brother giving me away."

Jorrin made a small, strangled noise.

"The chapel on Heron Lane," said the Dowager, "has a leaking roof."

"Then your nephew can pay for the roof."

"Ha," said Isaura Drevoss.

She tapped Odalys once on the shoulder with her cane.

"Take him home, girl," she said. "And feed him. He hasn't eaten since Monday."

Jorrin stayed behind at the palace.

He had been promised the parrot.

Odalys could see he'd go through fire to hear it speak Latin.

He waved them off at the foot of the steps with a face so innocent that she wanted to cuff him.

The cab was silent all the way across the bridge.

They sat opposite each other with their knees almost touching, and neither of them said a thing.

At Heron Lane Odalys paid the driver herself.

She let them in with her own key.

It was past two in the afternoon, and the kitchen was full of thin winter sun.

It lay on the scrubbed deal table and the worn flags and the single black stove.

He stood in the middle of the room with his hat in his hands, a tall man in a black coat in a very small kitchen.

She sat on the edge of the table.

"Ask me," she said.

He put down his hat.

"Odalys Marenne."

"Yes."

"I love you. I lied to you for fifty-five nights because I was afraid of losing you, and I will spend the rest of my life being a man who does not need to." He took a breath. "There is no curse and no contract. There is a house on Heron Lane, which is yours, and a palace on the river, which is a damp barn and also yours if you want it. I don't have a price. I only have a question. Will you marry me?"

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