Page 10 of Skullduggery
I didn’t bother to ask what my nickname was but started forward, planning to push past Duchess whether she covered me in troll snot or not.
‘Oi! Password first!’ she yelled.
I gritted my teeth. ‘I don’t know the cumbubbling password, Duchess.’
I moved to my left; she matched me. I moved to my right; she did the same.
‘If you don’t have the password, you’ll have to cross my palm with silver.’
‘I don’t have any money on me.’
She pursed her thin lips. ‘Give me the sword, then. That’s a fair exchange.’
I most definitely was not going to do that.
The massive door on the other side of the bridge opened and Hugo appeared. He was wearing black trousers and a white shirt, with the top two buttons undone. There was barely a scrap of his chest on display, but it was still incredibly hard not to gawk at it lasciviously. ‘Daisy,’ he greeted me. ‘Where have you been? I’ve been looking all over for you.’
There was no easy way to answer that. ‘It’s a long story.’
He frowned and looked at me more closely. Clearly, my expression betrayed me. ‘What’s happened?’
‘Hey!’ Duchess stamped her foot. ‘Password first. Chit-chat later!’
Hugo ran a frustrated hand through his tawny hair and raised his eyes heavenward. ‘Duchess is the best troll an elf could wish for,’ he said. She didn’t move. Hugo’s mouth tightened. ‘She is truly wonderful and she deserves the best.’
‘Theverybest,’ Duchess said. ‘Say it.’
‘The very best,’ Hugo repeated dutifully.
‘You could sound as if you meant it,’ she muttered. She pointed at me. ‘Now you.’
‘Don’t do it, Daisy,’ Hester whispered.
I didn’t have much choice. ‘Duchess is the best troll an elf could wish for. She is truly wonderful and she deserves theverybest.’
She beamed. ‘See? You did know the password after all.’ She stepped aside, sweeping out one of her long, heavy arms to indicate that I could cross. ‘On you go, Fated Flea.’
Fated Flea?
Duchess giggled girlishly at my expression. ‘Caught in the spider’s web, aren’t you, girlie? And doomed as a result.’
Hugo scowled and prepared to snap at her but I shook my head at him in warning. Duchess wanted a reaction, and thiswasn’t the time to indulge her. Besides, she wasn’t wrong: Fated Flea was as good a nickname for me as any.
I scooted past her. ‘We need to have a conversation,’ I said to Hugo, doing my best not to sound too ominous.
He nodded, his mouth still in a tight, flat line. ‘Yes, Daisy,’ he said. ‘We do.’ He pointed towards the garden room. ‘Sir Nigel is here to see you.’
I dropped my hand into my pocket where Athair’s letter was burning the proverbial hole. I knew whyIwas feeling tense, but I didn’t know why Hugo appeared to be on a cliff edge of his own.
‘Okay,’ I said, massaging the back of my neck and trying not to look nervous. Or nauseous. ‘Lead the way.’
Regardless of howHugo and I were feeling, Sir Nigel was having a whale of a time. He’d settled into a comfortable old wicker chair and was sipping a cup of strong tea while Becky foisted a plate of small cakes upon him. ‘They’re very good,’ the youngest member of Hugo’s Primes insisted. ‘Especially the lemon ones.’
Hester zipped through the air towards him. ‘Don’t eat the chocolate brownies!’ she yelled. ‘They’re awful!’
Sir Nigel lifted his head and blinked.
‘Ignore her. They’re delicious,’ I told him. ‘Hester wants to keep them all for herself.’ It was true: she’d been stockpiling the damned things under my bed. I smiled at Sir Nigel. ‘It’s good to see you again. Thank you for coming.’
