The Marshal Is My Mate novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Terms

In the Wexcombe house Garrick sets three rules and Lucan admits he married for revenge; then the front windows shatter and Perrin is at the gate.

Lucan had not answered Perrin.

He had switched the phone off in the Wexcombe hall, and the threat had cost him nothing yet.

He woke in a strange bed with his shoes off and his ball coat folded over a chair.

Pale daylight came through a window with three layers of glass.

Somebody knocked, and Corin Lothian put his head around the door with a tray.

"Good morning, Your Grace. You slept eleven hours. The Marshal slept thirteen."

"He's still asleep?"

"He's in the bath. The household stood in the hall for two hours in case he woke up dead." Corin set the tray down. "Nobody here has ever seen him smile, so they're a little overexcited."

Lucan took a roll off the tray and found he was starving.

"Does he always sleep that long after a settling?"

"Your Grace, he's never slept. This is new." Corin straightened his sleeves. "He also gave me an order this morning, and I'm passing it on. Breakfast with him at nine, and don't be late."

The dining room was long and bare, with one window and one table.

The Wexcombe household lined both walls.

There were twenty servants in gray, and every single one looked at Lucan.

An older woman with keys at her belt stepped forward and bowed.

"Consort," she said. "Your wing is ready. We changed the glass in it twice this morning."

"Thank you," Lucan said. "Why twice?"

"The Marshal said you might like the morning light." Her face did not move at all. "He has never said that about a room."

A door opened at the far end.

Garrick Wexcombe came in dressed in a plain black coat, with fresh gloves and wet hair.

There were no red rims around his eyes.

Lucan noticed that the scar along his jaw ran all the way to his ear.

He also noticed, with annoyance, that he was looking.

"Leave us," Garrick said, and twenty people vanished.

He sat at the head of the table and pointed to the chair on his right.

Lucan sat.

"I'll say three things," Garrick said. "Then you can tell me what you want."

"Go on."

"One. You have your own wing. I have mine. Neither of us enters the other's rooms without being asked."

"That's reasonable."

"Two. We touch only when a storm needs settling. Not for show, not for company, not for anything else."

Lucan's mouth went dry for no reason he cared to name.

"And three," Garrick said. "No questions about the past. Yours or mine."

"Why?"

"That's a question about the past."

Lucan almost laughed. "You haven't asked me why I did it."

"I don't need to. I watched your face last night." Garrick folded his hands. "You did it for him."

"Yes."

He had expected to feel ashamed. He felt only tired.

"I married you to make Perrin watch," Lucan said. "I wanted him to see the one man he can't reach put his hand on mine. I'm sorry. You should know."

Garrick looked at him for a long moment.

"Good," he said.

"Good?"

"I've been propositioned by every Drone in the Empire for nine years. All of them wanted my name or my medals." Garrick's voice was dry. "You wanted to spite a boy. I can use that. It will last."

"And what do you want?"

"To sleep." He said it plainly. "Last night I slept in a car with my head on a stranger's shoulder, and I woke up able to feel my own feet. I'll marry anyone who can do that again."

Lucan took that in.

It was not a love scene, and it was not meant to be.

He found, strangely, that he preferred it.

"Then we're even," he said. "My revenge for your sleep."

"Even," Garrick agreed, and held out his gloved hand across the table.

Lucan shook it.

Their palms met through the leather and nothing hummed, nothing cracked.

The warmth went up Lucan's arm anyway.

Garrick took his hand back a half second too late.

"May I ask one thing?" Lucan said.

"You may."

"You never spoke to me before last night. Four years of court dinners. Why not?"

Garrick poured himself tea.

"Rule three," he said.

"That's not an answer."

"It's the only one you're getting this week."

The cups on the table began to ring.

It was faint at first, a thin high note, and then it sharpened.

The water in the teapot shivered.

Garrick looked up toward the front of the house, and his face went hard.

"That isn't mine," he said.

A moment later every window in the front hall blew in at once.

Corin Lothian burst through the door with glass in his hair.

"Marshal. Consort." He was breathing hard. "Lord Wexcombe is at the front gate, and he's brought the press."

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