“Kenneth and I attended Kingmakers together when my father was headmaster. His wife Margaret was younger. I knew her family too. I used to visit her father in Oxfordshire. He’d always bring out the best brandy, offer me his favorite gun when we went shooting. The Vanbrughs are social climbers. He hoped I might take an interest in one of his daughters. Margaret would only have been too willing to offer herself.
“No chance of that—she had the face of overbred horse, as you know. She was no prettier at twenty than at forty. I wanted nothing to do with her, though I kept visiting whenever I needed anything from Connor Vanbrugh, stringing them all along, enjoying the ass-kissing.
“I had no intention of marrying anyone. Eventually Margaret gave up and Connor offered her to Kenneth Gray.
“I barely kept tabs on them. I heard once from Kenneth that Margaret was infertile. After seven or eight years he considered divorcing her, but he didn’t want the headache from her father.”
I’m watching Luther closely, making sure he isn’t trying to twist out of the curtain ties or reach some hidden button with his toe that might call the grounds crew. Hedeon shifts impatiently, caring less about the Grays than about his own, direct history. He’s still brandishing the knife, more than ready to cut another chunk out of Hugo.
“Then you met Evalina,” Hedeon prods.
Luther hesitates, not wanting to confirm what he’s kept hidden so long, even if Hedeon obviously already knows it.
Hedeon slashes him again, this time across his chest, opening a gash in the pajamas and Luther’s flesh.
Luther turns not to Hedeon but to me, narrowing his eyes and hissing, “We had a deal.”
Hedeon looks at me sharply.
“What does that mean?” he says.
Now the tip of the knife is pointed in my direction, not Luther’s.
“I made a deal with Hugo to come to Kingmakers,” I say, trying not to give too much away. “It has nothing to do with you. But that’s why I can’t sit back and watch you murder him!”
“You’re not going to stop me,” Hedeon informs me.
We’ll see about that.
For now, I only say, “Ask him for the whole story. He won’t be any use to you once he’s dead.”
Meanwhile, out of the corner of my eye, I’m searching for my own weapon. I don’t want to hurt Hedeon, but if it’s a choice between him and my father . . . I know who I have to pick.
A gold letter opener lays atop a neat stack of correspondence.
Hedeon doesn’t notice it. Through he’s vibrating with rage, he can’t keep his eyes off his father’s craggy face, deeply-lined and vulpine in the glow of the firelight.
Hedeon asks, “Did you love her?”
Hugo pauses, this time I think for a different reason—he’s not sure how to answer.
“She captivated me,” he says at last, his rough voice scraping against my skin like sandpaper. “I had seen the girls come and go in their short skirts . . . but Evalina was something else. I wanted her. I wanted to touch her, hold her, possess her.”
Hugo’s eyes glitter like a dragon crouched over a hoard of gold.
“You seduced her,” Hedeon says.
“She wanted it just as I wanted it,” Hugo says, with no hint of shame. No, he’s smiling beneath the dark beard, reveling in the memory. “Men desire beauty, women desire power. My name, my presence, was just as powerful an aphrodisiac to her as those long, shapely legs and those full breasts were to me.”
Hedeon’s fingers twitch on the handle of the knife. He wants to cut Hugo again, though technically Hugo is doing exactly what Hedeon asked.
“She was barely eighteen,” Hedeon says.
“What a convenient number eighteen is,” Hugo sneers. “Transforming a girl into a woman in a day.”
“You took advantage of her,” Hedeon snarls.
“I wasn’t the first. Remember that she was already engaged to a man barely any younger than myself,” Hugo scoffs. “She was no virgin when we met. Dryagin bored her—at least she enjoyed fucking me.”
“Was the pregnancy accidental?”
“Accidental and unwanted for both of us,” Hugo frowns. “But Evalina showed her usual stubbornness. She waited to tell me until she thought it was too late to do anything about it. I would have cut you out of her body until the last day of the ninth month, but Evalina wouldn’t consent, and she certainly wouldn’t have kept quiet if I’d forced it. I’d have had to kill her, too.”
“Why didn’t you?” Hedeon demands.
“I should have,” Hugo says.
I don’t believe him. Hugo can pretend indifference all he wants, but the picture hanging behind his desk all these years tells another story.
“So you took her to Dubrovnik,” Hedeon prods.
Hugo nods. “I waited as long as I could. Some of her closest friends were beginning to whisper. We induced labor early. Evalina was in hysterics—she thought you might die. It would have been better for everyone if you did.”
Hedeon’s face is impassive, Luther’s coldness having no effect on him. Hedeon has never felt wanted, never felt loved.
“Once you were born, I had her sedated and I took you out of the hospital. I should have thrown you off the sea cliff. Instead, I brought you to the Grays.”
“Why?” Hedeon barks. “Why them?”
“They wanted a child. I knew Margaret would be particularly partial to a baby with Hugo blood, even if it was tainted by illegitimacy. Kenneth was amenable. Until . . .”
“Until what?” Hedeon says.
I already know the answer.
“Until Kenneth realized he had a son of his own,” Luther says. “His own flesh and blood, born from some waitress in Westminster. Margaret Gray was furious—she didn’t want to take his bastard into the house. But he wouldn’t relent, particularly since she had just pressured him into accepting the other child.”
“Silas is Kenneth’s biological son,” Hedeon says, a look of understanding coming into his face.
“Indeed. And, to all accounts, a more impressive son than mine,” Luther snorts.
“Silas is a fucking automaton,” I snap.
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” Hugo raises one black and silver eyebrow. “A blunt instrument, yes. But I’ve heard he enjoys what he does.”
“He certainly enjoyed torturing me,” Hedeon says, quietly.
Hugo shrugs. “Would you prefer to grow up weak and ignorant? A civilian . . . a software engineer?” he sneers. “You’re mafia in blood, from both sides. I placed you with a wealthy and well-connected family. I did my duty by you.”
“You put me in hell!” Hedeon cries, the firelight reflecting in his eyes.
I can see Hedeon tensing, like he plans to run at the Chancellor. Quickly, I say, “Did Evalina Markov know where you took Hedeon? Did you ever tell her?”
Luther’s eyes are drawn, irresistibly, toward the photograph of Evalina, abandoned by Hedeon on the desk. Evalina smiles up from the frame—young, triumphant, ignorant of the fate in store for her.
“No,” Hugo says at last. “I never told her.”
There’s no roar of rage, no warning—Hedeon runs at the Chancellor, and I have no chance to grab the letter opener. I barely catch Hedeon’s wrist as he stabs at Hugo’s throat. Hedeon and I wrestle over the knife, the blade swinging wildly back and forth between us, once almost plunging into the Chancellor’s shoulder, and once sweeping in front of my face an inch from my eye.