The Almighty Dominance novel Chapter 799

The knock came after dark. Three hard knocks, quick and careless.

Not his. Her husband knocked twice, soft, then a third time, a little late, as if he was sorry to bother the door.

Serena sat on the bed by the wall with the black envelope in her lap.

The kennels breathed through the bricks behind her, warm straw and wet fur. A hound snored. The card had gone warm from her hands.

"Who is it?" she called warily.

"Your future, cousin," a lazy voice drawled through the wood. "Open up. It's cold out here, and I'm wearing my good coat."

Julian Pryce.

She slid the envelope under the pillow and opened the door four inches.

He leaned on the frame, handsome in a smooth, polished way. Brandy on his breath. Night frost on the shoulders of his camel coat.

"You're lost," Serena said flatly. "The guest wing is on the other side of the house."

"I know where the guest wing is," Julian said, amused. "I've come to rescue you from this one." He looked past her at the bare bulb and the two narrow beds, and laughed softly. "Good heavens. They really did it. Is that a tap or a weapon?"

"It's a tap," she said coolly. "It works now."

"Then it's the only thing down here that does." He shook his head, almost fond, and the cold night air came in around him and stung her bare ankles. "I heard about breakfast, Serena. Out of the line. Patricia going to Halcyon on Friday with your name nowhere on the paper. That's a hard morning, even for you."

"Get to it, Julian."

"Fine." He straightened, and his voice went smooth and reasonable, the voice of a man selling a horse.

"You know what the Pryces are worth now. My mother's dowry is sitting in your grandmother's bank. And by Monday, Halcyon takes the Pryce Lake Hotel into its new chain. My mother has it from the chairman's own people. Once Halcyon owns a piece of our lake, Halcyon owes the Pryces."

He smiled. "So one word from me, and on Friday you stand at a bench beside Patricia. A title. A salary."

"A title," Serena said dryly. "Doing what? Holding her bottles?"

"Holding whatever she hands you, at first. Everyone starts somewhere."

She breathed in. Brandy. Wool. Something sour underneath, like milk left in the sun.

"And the price?" she asked quietly.

Julian smiled. He had been waiting for that.

"When I call," he said lightly, "you come up to the guest wing. Now and then. Quietly. You'd be surprised how many great houses on this coast work exactly that way."

The cold came through the bricks and into her shoulders.

Years ago, before the dark, boys like Julian had used to bring her flowers at the spring fairs and stammer. She had been Rosalind's daughter then, the best young nose in Westmere. Now one of them stood at a kennel door and named a price.

"Lord Julian!"

A lamp came bobbing across the black yard. Yellow hair. A glass of sherry in her other hand, somehow, even now. In two years Cordelia had never once come down to the garage wing. She had always said the smell got into her hair.

"I thought I heard your voice!" Cordelia cried breathlessly. "My son-in-law! A Pryce! Standing in the cold like a tradesman! Serena, for shame, let him in."

"He's not coming in, Aunt," Serena said evenly.

"Don't be silly, darling." Cordelia beamed up at Julian. "He's family."

"I was making Serena an offer," Julian said smoothly.

"Oh, you generous boy!" Then Cordelia's bright eyes went past Serena, into the room, and stopped on the pillow. A corner of black paper showed under it. Silver ink.

"What's that?" she asked sharply. "Who's writing to you? Nobody writes to you. Nobody's written to you in two years."

"Nothing that's yours," Serena said.

"Did somebody call me?"

The voice came out of the dark behind them, mild and a little out of breath.

Alex came in from the kennels with a tin bowl of scraps, in his old Harland coat, salt-stiff and torn along one sleeve, wearing his mild, empty smile.

The old grey hound with the torn ear trotted at his heel and sat when he stopped.

Julian didn't look at him. He looked through him, the way a man looks through a puddle on his way to a carriage.

"Did I hear Halcyon?" Alex asked, wide-eyed. "The big company with the ship? Even I've heard of Halcyon. They're really taking your lake?"

Julian finally turned his head, slowly, as if a chair had spoken. The hound's breath went hot and low in its throat.

"Halcyon begs for the lake," he said, bored. "Every great house on this coast wants into Halcyon, and Halcyon wants the lake. By Monday it's signed. Not that a man like you would understand a contract if it bit him."

"Goodness," Alex said, impressed. "Monday."

"Monday." Julian looked him up and down, and wrinkled his nose at the smell of the kennels. "Tell me, cousin. Does it bark?"

"Only at strangers, my lord," Alex said politely. "You're not a stranger. You're family now. Dulcie's husband."

The word landed. Julian's smile stayed where it was, but it went thin at the edges.

"I'm an idiot," Alex added apologetically. "Everybody says so." He held out the bowl, helpful. "Would you like some, my lord? They're very good scraps. Lady Cordelia's roast."

Cordelia stared at the bowl in horror.

"That was my dinner!" she squeaked.

"You left the fat," Alex said kindly. "The dogs were very grateful. They asked me to tell you."

The hound thumped its tail on the stones, as if to agree.

"Did your nanny teach you to talk like that," Julian asked coldly, "or the dogs?"

"The dogs," Alex said seriously. "They're very patient teachers. They only bite once."

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