“As you wish.” Norwood straightened slowly and tugged at his tunic, settling the fit to his satisfaction. The old lord walked to the study door, paused as he noted the sword-hole in the panel, then turned to speak again. “I am not quite finished, Jack. I care little what you call yourself or who you inveigle with your lies. I might be inclined to overlook the matter, if you had no dealings with me or mine. After all, you did render me an invaluable service by rescuing Seila from the drow, regardless of your motives for doing it. But you clearly presume to trade upon my name and toy with the affections of my only daughter, and that cannot stand. Keep the reward I offered for Seila’s return; I would have given it freely to any man for bringing her back to me. But I expect you to vacate Maldridge by the end of the tenday. And-let me be very clear about this-you are not to see Seila again, or communicate with her in any way. In fact, it might be better if you removed yourself from Raven’s Bluff altogether.”
“You can’t do that!” Jack spluttered in outrage.
Marden Norwood smiled, but his eyes remained as hard as flint. “I am a very influential man in this city, my young friend. Believe me, you would be amazed at the things I can do if I decide they must be done. If you defy me, I will arrange for a whole world of troubles to descend upon you; do not try my patience any further. Good day, sir.”
Jack considered any number of retorts, rebuttals, or rejoinders, and somehow found himself doubting that anything he said would help his case. He instead drew himself up, squared his shoulders, and simply said, “You misjudge me, my lord.”
Norwood did not bother to reply. He strode out the front door, with his guard a step behind him; Jack watched the old noble climb up into his waiting coach in the street outside before Edelmon closed the door behind him.
Jack muttered a vile oath under his breath and gave the study door a good kick. “This is a catastrophe,” he snarled.
Edelmon cleared his throat by the front door. “To what address shall I forward your things, sir?” he asked.
“Nowhere!” Jack shouted, waving his arms. “I have until the end of the tenday, and I’ll be damned if I vacate the premises an hour before I must.”
“I can make inquiries with various property owners and reliable brokers, if you like,” the valet said. “Or, if you prefer, I can obtain sailing schedules and book your passage. Travel broadens the mind, or so it is said.”
Enough was enough. “Is my breakfast ready yet?” Jack demanded.
“I believe the cook has just set it out in the dining room, sir.”
“Then that is all, Edelmon.” Jack stormed off to the dining room, where he found his customary breakfast awaiting him, and threw himself into his seat. Somehow he had lost his appetite, and he glared at the plate of eggs and ham in front of him for a long moment before taking a piece of toast and buttering it angrily. His prospects were not all that poor, really; he still had several thousand crowns of Norwood’s reward to his name, and of course turning in the Sarkonagael could easily double his fortune. Giving up Maldridge would not hurt too badly, although there was no denying that he had become rather fond of the place and enjoyed the lifestyle of a gentleman of leisure. A couple of thousand crowns would buy him a fine house in a good neighborhood, along with a servant or two, although of course it would not be so grand as the manor he now inhabited. No, the most galling development was clearly Norwood’s severance of any possible continuation of his association with Seila. Setting aside his deeper designs on the Norwood fortune, he liked Seila and wasn’t ready to give her up without a fight.
He gave a cursory glance to the correspondence waiting for his attention, wondering if he should even bother to accept any more invitations. How long would it take for the well-heeled folk of Raven’s Bluff to drop him once word got around that he was no longer welcome at Norwood Manor? Or would Marden Norwood simply denounce him as a fraud outright, in which case not only would the nobility have nothing to do with him but he might actually find himself the object of the civic authorities’ attention? Was that what Norwood meant by a world of troubles, or was the old lord willing to employ sterner measures to get his point across?
“I might have to take up a life abroad whether I want to or not,” Jack sighed.
He spent the next hour pushing his breakfast around on his plate and trying to distract himself with the morning’s handbills, to no avail. So it was that he found himself slumped in his chair, staring straight ahead with his head in his hand, when Edelmon knocked and entered the room.
“Oh, what now?” Jack said.
“A young lady is here to see you, Master Jack,” the valet replied.
Jack sat up sharply. “Is she armed?” Myrkyssa Jelan was almost certainly out of Sarbreen by now, and although he was reasonably sure that she would respect the unspoken truce by which he’d left her with the means to make her escape, there was always the chance that she entertained a different view of the business in the Temple of the Soulforger. He’d beat her to the prize fair and square, but perhaps she was a sore loser. An angry Myrkyssa Jelan was about the last thing he cared to see on his doorstep at the moment.
“Ah, no. I should have been more specific. Lady Seila Norwood is at the door.”
“I was wrong,” Jack muttered. “That is the last person I wanted to see now. She is doubtless here to tell me exactly what she thinks of me before storming off, never to be seen again.”
“Shall I tell her that you are-”
“No, damn it.” the rogue answered. Seila was a more generous soul than her father; she might see things differently than he did. And even if she didn’t, at the very least Jack wanted to make sure she heard his side of the story, too. “I might as well have done with this.”
He dropped his napkin on the table and marched out to the foyer to meet his fate, steeling himself for the worst. Seila waited for him there, pacing in a small circle exactly where her father had stood an hour before. She looked splendid in a burgundy dress; when he entered the room, she simply looked up and met his gaze for a long moment before saying softly, “Oh, Jack. What a mess you’ve made of things. Why in the world would you make up a noble title? In some lands you’d be executed for that sort of chicanery.”
Jack briefly considered bluffing his way through the conversation by insisting on the veracity of his claim, but reluctantly discarded the ploy. He might be able to keep Seila in doubt for a time, but sooner or later she would have to decide whether she believed him or her own father. Worse yet, if he tried to carry on the claim and failed to win her over with his a show of earnestness, she would be through with him. No, it was better to put the best face on the matter that he could, and hope that her affection for him was strong enough for her to set aside his misbehavior.
“I am sorry,” he said at last. “I never meant for the whole thing to go so far. It seemed like a harmless enough game when we were both prisoners of the drow, and when we reached the safety of your father’s manor, I suppose I just didn’t know how to set the story straight.”
Seila folded her arms and fixed a stern gaze on him. “All you had to do was tell the truth. Was it that difficult, Jack? And is that even your name?”
“Yes, Jack is my name; Jack Ravenwild.” He hung his head in a show of shame, thinking quickly as he assembled his play. “Seila, I have never met anyone like you,” he began with a note of uncertainty. “Men of my station do not associate with ladies of yours. I was afraid that once the truth was known, I would be shown the door, and I might never see you again.”
“Do you think I am so ungrateful that I would allow my father to treat you like a servant when I owe you my life? Is that really what you think of me, Jack?”
“It isn’t your gratitude that I doubted, Seila. Tell me truly: If I had admitted my common birth, would we have been allowed to spend so much time together in the last couple of tendays?” Seila did not answer immediately; Jack pressed his point. “You told me the day of the party that your father intends for you to marry well. How long would he have tolerated the presence of a … distraction … like me?”