Sound of Madness A Dark Royal Romance - Maria Luis Page 0,127
question so casually, so ambivalently, that my stomach freefalls as nausea catches me in its debilitating grip.
The first time that we met, at the Palace, I sensed a barely restrained energy about Damien’s oldest brother that chilled me to the bone. Guy Priest is the hunter who finds his prey without ever lifting his gaze from the first print in the snow. And while I want Hanover to suffer, I still can’t shake the inexplicable need to run.
The fact that Damien barely reacts tells me that Guy’s interrogation tactics are common enough in Holyrood. After a quick squeeze of my hip, Damien even moves to his brother’s side. “We’ll keep it easy for you to start,” he says to Hanover while pressing one hand to the stone wall and angling his body to present me with his back. “Robert Guthram is on your birth certificate, so why the fake name?”
It’s only after Hanover’s maintained his silence, and I hear his low hiss as the blade meets skin for a second time, that it hits me what Damien’s done: with his body as a shield, he’s blocked Guy completely from view so that I’m not forced to witness the violence firsthand.
I inhale sharply.
Damien’s shoulders immediately contract and a moment later he catches my eye over his shoulder. Shadows tease across the hollows of his throat while the gas lamps bathe his handsome face in swaths of golden warmth. The villain and the hero forever tangled in a man who bleeds both death and salvation.
He doesn’t tell me to go, doesn’t demand that I stay.
The choice sits in the palm of my hand, mine to do with as I wish.
With my heart in my throat, I give him a small dip of my chin. He mirrors it, wordlessly, then returns to Hanover. “You told Rowena that you’ve been waiting ten years for Carrigan to get you out—what deal did you make with him?”
Hanover’s gritty chuckle greets my ears. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
His new M.O., apparently.
He walked the halls of Broadmoor Hospital like he owned the place. He threatened to throw me into solitary confinement for no other reason than that I wore a red poppy and showed support for King John. And he knew—even as he planned to walk free from it all—that there are people locked away within Broadmoor whose sole crime was to stand opposite the king. Every single move he makes is a lesson in contradiction.
“Was it you?” I demand, folding my arms across my chest to contain the fury demanding release. “You have friends all across London, you said. Somehow those anti-loyalists went missing and somehow, they all found their way to Broadmoor. Was it your doing? My father’s? The king’s?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Against the stone, Damien’s hand balls into a fist. “You apparently know a whole lot of nothing, Guthram.” Before Guy can move, Damien stays him with a hand to his shoulder. Then the hand that’s leveraged against the wall drops to the back of Hanover’s chair.
“The problem is,” Damien utters, his voice pitched low, “I already know where Carrigan stands with the Crown and it’s not with Holyrood. Which means that you’ve either been playing both sides for decades or, sometime in the last ten, you abandoned everything you knew, everything you ever believed in, to stand side by side with Edward Carrigan. Which is it?”
Predictably, no answer comes.
Among the floaters dotting my peripheral, I spy Hanover’s feet jerk against the floor as Guy makes his next cut.
Escalating frustration throws me before the man who helped kill my mother. “I asked you this at Broadmoor and I’ll ask you again—why do any of this?” I slash an arm at Guy, who still kneels on the ground, his fingers coated red with blood. “You know how far they’ll take this, and you still won’t cooperate.” When he remains stubbornly mute, I growl, “Is it money that you want? Because I’ll pay you, Hanover. Name your price and I’ll pay you, so long as you give us answers.”
Those dark eyes promise retribution as he rubs his lips together, flexes his fingers against the armrests, and grinds out, “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Little Rowan.”
I should have allowed Sara to let him die.
“I think you know everything and more,” the eldest Priest murmurs. “So, I’m going to ask you just one more time—what was the deal you struck with Carrigan?”