Etta.
Ironwood never liked to see his servants and slaves unless they were performing a specific task in a particular room. Each floor had a narrow servants’ hallway built into it, connecting to the hidden staircase, and each bedroom of this floor had a door disguised as part of the wall.
Nicholas was careful, achingly careful, and waited at the top of the stairs for any sign of a servant. But the entire house was occupied with seeing to the needs of the men and women below; he would need to enter the old man’s bedchambers and wait. If time had been an ally and not an enemy, he might have waited until the man was asleep and do it then, but the wasted hours would only provide more opportunity for his own body to fail him. Even now, he felt as if his head were stuffed with feathers; his vision was blurring at the corners. It had to be now. Once the task was completed, Sophia would drop a rope down from the roof for him to escape by.
It was simple, but even simple plans were prone to unexpected disasters.
Nicholas navigated forward, ignoring the squeaks and rough brushes of the mice scampering past his ankles. From the other side of the wall, he heard two men—guards—muttering to each other about the amount of food they’d eaten, and knew the next door would be the one he was looking for.
After a moment to ensure he couldn’t hear anyone inside, he put his hand on the latch. Lifted it. The door swung open, surprisingly silent, given its weight. Nicholas took a steadying breath. His eyes were drawn to the crackling fire at the far end of the room, hidden by a large red velvet chair.
This room, too, had been resurrected to its previous life, when Ironwood had first owned it. Nicholas remembered the patterned rug, smugly imported from across the world. The forbidden leather-bound volumes that lined a small bookshelf had tormented him with their unknowable words. Even the bed seemed to have been carved out of his memory, with its plain white linens and tall posts strung with toile curtains.
He shut the door softly, still gripping the dagger in his hand as he moved across the room. The rhythmic pounding of feet and clapping from the dancers below broke up the silence, their voices dulled to a low rumble as they passed up through the cracks in the floors.
It seemed to him that the best, and possibly only, place to hide was behind the screen in the corner. Even the bed was too low to the ground to slip beneath and wait. Nicholas crossed the room, softening his steps, but was caught by the sudden, sweet smell of tobacco.
He stilled.
Nicholas had initially dismissed the smoke as escaping from the fireplace; as he stepped past the chair, he saw how deeply mistaken he was.
Ironwood’s fine dress coat lay over his lap like a blanket, despite the old man’s position directly in front of the fire. Under Nicholas’s gaze, his grandfather relinquished the powdered wig he’d been toying with to the carpet, where it kicked up a small white cloud.
The man kept his attention on the small book in his lap, his hooded eyelids masking his expression. The way the firelight brightened his round face gave him unmerited warmth, and almost masked the way his cheeks seemed to hang like jowls. One of his fingers rubbed at the notched tip of his chin.
“‘—But there’s a tree, of many, one, / A single field which I have look’d upon, / Both of them speak of something that is gone,’” the old man read. “‘The pansy at my feet / Doth the same tale repeat: / Whither is fled the visionary gleam? / Where is it now, the glory and the dream?’”
Nicholas remained as still as stonework, as if he’d been run through the heart with a blade. His every last thought fled.
“Wordsworth,” he explained, setting the small volume aside. “I find I don’t have the patience for merrymaking these days, but there is comfort in reading.”
He rose to his feet and laid his coat over the chair. Nicholas took an instinctive step back, both at the suddenness of the movement and the weary tone of Ironwood’s voice. The old man brushed past Nicholas as if he weren’t holding a dagger in his hand, and moved toward the corner of the room where he kept his whiskey.
Move, Nicholas ordered himself as the man poured two glasses. Move, damn you!
Without a word, Ironwood offered one glass to Nicholas, and, when he didn’t take it, drank it down himself in one swift gulp.
“How does this house speak to you, I wonder?”
That jostled Nicholas out of his stunned silence. It was impossible for the old man to know his thoughts—he recognized this—but the other implication seemed worse; their minds followed similar tracks. Their hearts spoke the same language.
“It speaks to me of regret,” Ironwood said, pressing the rim of his glass to his temple. And this was the precise moment Nicholas began to feel the hair prickle on the back of his neck; for Cyrus Ironwood was a great many things, but none of them were maudlin or sentimental.
Drunk? Nicholas wondered, fingers tightening around the hilt of the dagger. He’d seen the man drink three bottles of wine himself and remain sober enough to take business meetings. In fact, Nicholas had always assumed it was a carefully cultivated skill, this tolerance for alcohol, meant to disarm rivals and potential business partners who hadn’t a prayer of keeping up.
Every aim, every word, every action from this man was meant to disarm his opponent. This false sentimentality was surely the weapon he’d picked to rattle Nicholas, and, all at once, he was furious with himself for falling for it.
“I wasn’t aware,” he heard himself say, “that you were acquainted with a feeling like regret.”