Page 42 of Til Death Duke Us Part
“Don’t worry, dear. You’ll make up, and it will be delicious when you do. Here visiting your people or hers?”
“Hers.”
She glanced at his hand. “Where’s your ring?”
“I… ah, I’m not an alchemist.”
“But if she was…” She tilted her head to the side, mouth screwing up in a question.
Damn alchemist secrecy. He had no idea what her half statement alluded to. But he tried. “I’m not her first husband.”
“Ah. I see.” She nodded. “Still, you need something to bind you, don’t you?”
He rubbed his chest. Bind you. Yes, he felt bound. Didn’t need a ring; he had that rusty chain of his own making. He shrugged.
“Come here, then.” She waved him over. When he didn’t move, she waved harder. “Come on then. Come here.” He obeyed, and she took off a glove. Then she took off a ring that was nestled, too big, around her finger. She took his hand, opened his palm, and put the ring in it. “Have a friend split that up, add something new to it that you both choose, and make two rings out of it.”
“Your alchemist ring?” He knew what those could do. He shoved the ring back toward her. “No, thank you.”
“Yes, yes. I don’t need it anymore. You couldn’t unbind me from Charles any more than you can unbind my muscle from my bones.”
Technically… that could be done, but he wasn’t going to argue.
“We’ll be reunited soon, anyway,” she said. “And I’d like to think this hunk of metal made a difference in the land of the living after I’m gone.”
He glanced at the grave work—a tangle of copper wires and foggy glass tubes—and raised a brow. “What about that? Shouldn’t that be used for the living?” He inched toward it.
She swatted his arm. “Don’t you dare, young man. That’s not mine to give away.”
“Ah. Yes.” She had a point.
“Now take that ring and find your wife and bind her up tight, you hear?”
But Persephone wasn’t his wife, and he was a duke. And he’d never be able to bind her. Not with a ring. Not in his arms. Not with that organ cinched tight with a rusty chain.
She shook her head. “I suppose you’re terrified of being bound yourself. Men these days are such cowards. But listen here, Victor. You can’t bind someone up without binding up yourself, too. Both must give if they wish to take.”
“Give what?”
She stood on shaky legs and pressed crooked fingers into his chest, just over his heart. “That. Now help me out of here.” She took his arm, and—what other option did he have?—he escorted her out into the night.
He walked the woman home, too, to a nice little square and a neat little terrace house. Then he walked. Let himself get lost, the old woman’s ring burning a hole in his pocket. By the time the sun began to brighten the sky, he’d somehow found his way back to a street he recognized, and by the time yellow poured over all the people bustling to work, he’d found the inn yard, already busy.
He cut through the crowd, anxious to get to Persephone. He needed to tell her?—
“Oh, my dear duke!”
“My dear Morington, over here!”
Victor turned around. Persephone’s parents waved at him enthusiastically from the street. Parts of her mother’s hair waved like two stiff flags above her head, and her father’s mustachios curled like smoke streaming out of his nostrils. They ran to catch up, stopping right before him with smiles so wide, they looked rather painful.
“What do you want?” Victor winced. He should be better behaved. Persephone would swat him. But they didn’t deserve him better behaved.
Not that they noticed his rudeness. They scurried forward, wearing big bright smiles, their fine and fashionable clothing glowing in the morning light, which irritated him because Persephone’s clothes were thin and threadbare and four years, at least, out of date.
“Morington,” Mr. Smith said, “I come bearing a wondrous proposition for you.”
Mrs. Smith’s head bobbed up and down, up and down. “Oh yes, a fine thing. A very fine thing.”
