Read Rooks and Romanticide Online
Authors: J.I. Radke
And Maggie stared.
Cain looked down the length of the bed, at the way Levi's limbs lay tangled with his own. He could smell Levi on his fingers still. Levi's body was hot and limp. Cain realized with a jolt of the heart that he was not wearing anything, and he cursed himself as the shock set in so deep he hardly felt it.
Cain sat and pulled a blanket around him like a cloak. His face burned. He braved Maggie's eyes, hoping to come across far calmer than he actually felt. She didn't know who Levi was. She couldn't. Everything would be fine, if he handled it properly.
“Good morning,” Cain whispered. His voice was scratchy. He blushed to know whyâthe night of arguing and groaning. He glanced from Maggie to the bed and back again, struggling to keep a mask of complacency, although he longed to push her out of the room and start the morning over.
“Good morning, sir,” Maggie returned in a tight voice.
Her eyes were dark. They moved to the man in his bed and back to Cain again.
Embarrassment crawled under Cain's skin. He'd grown up before her, and now he fell from pride before her, and perhaps there was something meaningful about that. He didn't quite know what to say.
Maggie politely began to pick up the clothes strewn about the room. When she uncovered Levi's guns, she froze. She looked to Cain in a great panic, eyes bright. Cain's heart fell again, if it had much more room to fall at all.
The rumors had circulated. They'd infected every house in New London that mattered.
The Rook
and BLACK, the Ruslaniv gang, had killed Lady Ophelia Dietrich. Talk was vicious. Gangs stalked each other on the streets like packs of territorial wolves. A brittle tension had settled in the air that threatened to give way at any moment, and now
â
Maggie was breathless. “This man is one of
them
!” she gasped, just loud enough for Cain to hear it.
Cain shooed her out of the room. “Would you let me get decent!” he hissed. He threw his doors closed and scrambled back onto the bed. Christ, was there no end to the complications?
There was a moment of struggle, a panicked voice, and sleepy grumbles as Cain ripped the blankets away from Levi. It took a round of vicious shaking before Levi fully comprehended just what had happened while he'd dozed like a lazy lion over his pride. He scrambled out of Cain's bed as fast as he could, suddenly very awake.
A kiss, quite a few worried kisses, and that was it, and over the stone and down the balcony Levi clambered while Cain watched from behind the gargoyle at the corner and tried not to gag on the emotion as it clotted in his throat. Raw, staggering emotionâhumiliation, dread, regret.
What was to happen now? Maggie wasn't stupid. She'd heard the talk. Everyone heard the talk. BLACK had killed his aunt, and now he'd been found in bed with one of them. When those who knew who Levi really was found out about
that
, wellâ¦.
There were love bites on his neck and bullets on the floor. Cain, with an ever-thickening lump in his throat, made sure Levi was safely off Dietrich grounds before scampering back in from the balcony.
The winter chill was still present even after he'd closed the french doors. He washed his face with the fresh water in the basin on the sideboard. He dressed himself carelessly in a linen shirt and plain tweed and threw on an old banyan for good measure. His hair was a mess. He opened his doors again and coldly met Maggie's stare from across the hall. She'd waited for him.
Whether she knew or not the degree to which Cain was veritably
screwed
at this point, she'd spoken. There at the corner, was his Uncle Bradley, and his Uncle Bradley did not look very happy at all.
Dear God, I'm dead.
Â
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T
HE
BRISK
winter air was purifying to Levi.
New London was awake and bustling. Market stands were alive; streets were busy; men and women hurried on errands and to work; church bells tolled. Levi finished buttoning his shirt as he walked, militia jacket draped on his shoulders, holsters clicking and clacking. He winked and smiled at those who met his eyes as he passed even if they didn't have any inkling who the hell he was and how exhausting it was to court a number of reputations.
The Ruslaniv manor greeted him with the smell of breakfast wafting through the halls. Servants hurried by through the vestibule, as insignificant as little mice, bobbing their heads at him as he entered and hopped up the stairs to find his father, who was right where Levi had expected him. In his office, looking regrettably worse than he had recently.
“Hey,
chto novogo
?” Levi doffed his jacket as he strode into the office, passing granite busts and upholstered chairs to stoop and press a reverent kiss to his father's temple. “How are you feeling?”
His father reached up to pat Levi's hand. He laid down the papers he'd been sifting through, reclining for a deep breath. “Older than usual. Do you know how much it cost me this time to keep everyone's noses out of this recent mess with Lady Ophelia? We're lucky the Queen hasn't involved herself, what with the second ambush on the Dietrich household in less than six months.”
Ice spread through Levi's veins and he closed his eyes for a moment, searching for the proper composure. He looked down at the papers before his father, newsprint and bills and bundles of labeled banknotes. “Yes,” he mumbled. “Sometimes I believe she's finally given up on New London. The authorities certainly have. They hardly intervene anymore, unless nonpartisans are in danger. Perhaps we could declare ourselves our own republic, Father, for as little as the Queen involves herself in our politics anyway.”
“It's possibleâ¦.” His father heaved a sigh that seemed far too difficult for him. “And it's a sad, sad world that it is so.”
Levi was quiet, knowing that his father was well aware of the guilt this layered upon him. He was lucky his father was still talking to him, he supposed, after the distaste he'd expressed the other night in the drawing room, throwing the tea set and pacing about in a rage. His mother, on the other hand, had taken to talking about nothing but Quinton again, and the entire household was tiring of her.
“Lawrence.” His father motioned him closer, frowning sternly. Levi leaned down respectfully, lashes lowered. His father murmured, “I do believe those are the same clothes you were in yesterday. I see you are not so overcome by the recent turn of events to neglect your favorite pastimes. Who was she now? Oh, never mind that, I don't want to know. I'm just happy you're back to your old self again. Please, go wash up before your mother notices.”
Levi smiled faintly, feigning embarrassment for his father but really feeling rather glum. He didn't want his father to think him heartless, going out so carelessly after his blunder with BLACK. His smile faded quickly, however, as his father went back to his work and Levi caught sight of the newspaper at the corner of the desk. Below a rather bold and shameless headline, an article read:
LADY OPHELIA DIETRICH of the DIETRICH HOUSE was slain in an attack reminiscent of that three years ago in which the former EARL and LADY were murdered. The gang has been identified as a popular one, bearing masks and marked skill and monopolizing much good favor in certain crowds of New Londoners, but as of yet this gang is otherwise elusive and remains at large. The DIETRICH HOUSE promises to be getting to the bottom of it, and this present murder of the current EARL's aunt and former EARL's sister is only “FUELING THE FIRE,” a DIETRICH source declares.
Levi smiled bitterly. He pointed at the paper. “They're catching on,” he whispered. “Maybe BLACK should just
disband
.”
Lord Ruslaniv sighed. There was no spark of frivolity in his eye.
Levi's smile lingered, awkwardly, before it faded altogether and he left his father to his paperwork. He had his own paperwork to attend to, anyway. He was bound and determined to draw up a rough draft of some agreement to sign with Cain. He'd worry about the rest of the confessions later.
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I
T
WAS
two days later that Lord Ruslaniv found Levi in his secret room in the library, the door opened by a very frightened Eliott. His father's face was redder than the appliqué on his collar.
Levi set his book down, eyes wide, feeling very much like a child again, wondering what he'd done wrong. But he didn't have time to greet anyone or seek out Eliott's eyes for explanation as his father's voice rattled the little room of books and privacy.
“
Could you tell me, son, why the Honourable Bradley Dietrich has sent word that you, âthe Rook,' were found in bed with his nephew, the earl? Could you explain to me why you were in the Dietrich manor? Could you explain to me why you were in âquestionable positions' with their earl? Could you please repudiate these wretched allegations, or would you like to join Quinton to never step foot in New London again
!”
A book fell off the table, not from his father's voice, but from the force with which he'd flung open the door. Levi was speechless, gawking up at his father. He could think of nothing to say. His father seethed. He fumed. He stormed out of the room and through the library, roaring something colorful and threatening. His voice faded away into echo as he raged away.
Eliott met Levi's eyes, his own bulging and his face white. His hair was up in one of those ridiculous ponytails again, his stare both doubtful and hoping for an explanation, should Levi find one necessary.
“I've really messed up,” Levi whispered.
Eliott's brow knotted. “It's just like Finn and Rosalie all over again,” he said as if afraid of the connotations. Levi nodded.
“You've added insult to injury,” Levi's father said later, with his wife beside him and Levi sitting across the room. “I can't take any more, son. This game you're playing with the Dietrichsâit's over. It's over, because I'm sending you to Yekaterinburg. I am treating you like a child because you are acting like a child. You will not come back to New London until I've forgiven you and can tolerate trusting you again, and I can't promise you that will be soon.”
Levi understood that his father thought that his being
in a questionable position with the earl
was just another tactic at ruining the Dietrichs, and that pained him, that pained him so greatly. But he thought of the day his father had thrown the tea set and his gentle threats then. He didn't say anything to argue or agree. Nothing he could have said would have changed his father's mind.
Levi packed more books than clothes.
The Blond One gave him a tight hug. The One with Glasses smirked. William's frown tightened. The Witch hit him a good few times for being “such a damn good lay,” then promptly left the room as emotion worked across her face. Eliott gave Levi a case of good Persian cigarettes and a tiny smile as if to say it was not the last time he'd be around.
His father watched him leave as soon as it was possible, and the driver of the coach could not be bribed enough to stop by the Dietrich manor on the way out of New London.
Straight to the barren Yekaterinburg it was.
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“T
HE
E
ARL
,
with a Ruslaniv gunslinger?”
“BLACK is a gang of nobility?”
“That's just unfair!”
Oh, Maggie knew who she'd found in the Earl's bed. She'd seen him in the hallway, after all, when Aunt Ophelia had been gunned down and Cain had assailed the man in question in a fit of cold panic. And if she hadn't known then, she had perfect access to information about the Ruslaniv family by listening to gossip in the marketplace, and if she knew now, that meant she'd told Uncle Bradley all she knew too.
“I never expected them to be part of the actual family!” Uncle Bradley exclaimed, laughing only because it was easier at the moment to laugh than to yell. The laughter itself was venomous and made Cain flinch. “Imagine that, an entire city fooled by pathetic
masks
. How about this? Fuck the authorities! This will be the justice they deserve: I'll send to Lord Ruslaniv and tell him exactly what's happened. He should know about his son's debauchery. Why, if that's how they want to play, perhaps Lord Ruslaniv can
join me for a drink
and we'll see how our desires fall? And if we can't settle this like
gentlemen
, well,
then
we'll whip out the guns!”
“Please stop,” Cain hissed, in pure miserable remorse and stinging humiliation as he sat next to his uncle, who threw back scotch after scotch in the library. He already felt pathetic enough after admitting to his uncle that BLACK consisted of members of the Ruslaniv house. “Please, this is my mess, Uncle. Let me clean it up. I know exactly how to end it, and if you stick your nose in it, there will be no justice for anyoneânot for Aunt Ophelia, not for my parents, not for our pride. Not for any of itâ”
“You know”âUncle Bradley looked at his nephew through the thick glass of his tumblerâ“it's very hard to believe you after everything that's happened. Are you really man enough to lead this family, or have we been placing our trust in the wrong hands for so long, after all?”
Cain closed his eyes. His pride took the blow. He swallowed with a raw throat, fury churning within him.
“Again I say I'm sorry,” he maintained, though it was torture to speak it. “But believe me when I tell you that
I know exactly how to end this
. I know how to take BLACK out, and I promise I will do so.” A hard scowl came over his face as he sought out his uncle's eyes and fixed his stare. A log in the fire shifted and popped. Cain's voice cut through the silence, sharp and cold. “Why do you think I was seducing him, anyway? Lord Ruslaniv's son, I mean. I know exactly who killed my parents and exactly who killed Aunt Ophelia, and I'm going to take them all out. I was only doing these things with all the cunning of a
man
, dear Uncle Bradley, and you of all people should understand that sometimes in war you must sacrifice a pawn or two.”