I Sold the Cursed Duke One Hundred Nights, and He Never Counted Them novel · Chapter 23 of 24

Chapter 23: Marenne House

Odalys's father came to Heron Lane on a Sunday in the middle of February, at ten in the morning, sober.

She knew it before she opened the door.

He stood on the step with his hat in both hands and his coat brushed, and his hands, for the first time in her life, were not shaking.

He had shaved.

There was a small cut on his chin where the razor had slipped.

"Odalys."

"Father."

"May I come in?"

She let him in.

He sat at the deal table, where Calanthe had sat.

Jorrin brought him tea and then withdrew with elaborate tact to the stairs, where she could see his boots.

The Count did not drink his tea.

"The Registrar's clerk came to the house on the sixth," he said. "With a gentleman from the Crown Bank. They gave me the keys. They said you'd cleared everything. Halcourt's notes, the mortgage, the arrears." His voice dropped. "I had thought... I had thought I'd lost it all."

"You had."

"I did." He looked at his hands. "I stopped on the second of January. I've been at the church hall on Mill Street every evening. A man there says that the first month's the worst."

"Is it?"

"It's very bad." He gave a short, painful laugh. "I want to tell you I'm sorry, Odalys, and I find there's no way of saying it that isn't a drink. I called you a whore in the opera house. I said it in front of two thousand people. You were selling yourself to pay a debt that was mine."

"It was."

"I put it on you. I put it on you and then I hid in a bottle and let you carry it." His eyes were wet. "Your mother would have thrown me down the stairs."

"She'd have used the poker."

He laughed again, and it broke in the middle.

Odalys did not cross the table and she did not touch him.

She looked at her father for a long time.

She thought about the harp, and the pearls, and the cold hall, and the voice at the opera.

"I'll take the keys," she said.

"They're yours. Everything's yours. I've written to the lawyer to sign over the house and what is left."

"No."

"Odalys..."

"You keep your name," she said. "You keep the deed. It's your house, and Jorrin's after you. I'll take the keys to let myself in, and I'll let you in if you stay sober. If you're drunk at the door I'll send you away, and I'll do it in front of the neighbors."

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