Seducing the Sheriff of Nottingham, page 36
part #5 of A Kinda Fairytale Series
She sagged against Nicholas, trying to think. Not wanting to think, at all. Wishing she could block it all out, or make it a lie, or redo it somehow. A strange sense of shock came over her, reminding her of that day in the church.
And just like that day in the church, huge arms wrapped tight around her.
“It wasn’t your fault.” Nicholas promised, holding her against his chest. “None of it. I will find the Wraith and I will kill it. That will end this, once and for all. Alright?”
She couldn’t answer him. She would’ve started crying. Marion squeezed tight against the front of his uniform, trying to hold back the tears.
Nicholas hauled her even closer to his body. “Duchess, please don’t. No version of me has ever wanted to see you cry. Not for anything. Certainly, not over my death, when I’m not even dead.”
Yet.
But now the Wraith had the gun that had murdered him and it would be coming, again.
“Did you say a Wraith, Sheriff?” Pinocchio interjected, his boyish voice perturbed by the possibility. “Oh my… we haven’t seen one of them in Nottingham for an age.”
“For all you know, you’re seeing them all the damn time.” Nicholas shot back. “One of those bastards came in here pretending to be Marion and you sold it a gun.”
“Oh my.” Pinocchio repeated.
Marion closed her eyes, breathing in the scent of Nicholas and reassuring herself that he was alright. He pressed a kiss into her hair.
“You know something about Wraiths?” Nicholas demanded, his eyes on Marion, even as he spoke to Pinocchio.
“Even if I did, why would I tell you?”
“Because you sold Guyla Gisborn the Oak Major 1000 that shot up the palace, yesterday.”
Pinocchio gasped. “That is simply not true! How can you even suggest…?”
Nicholas cut him off. “She kept the receipt in her room, you idiot.”
Pinocchio’s outraged expression vanished and he made an exasperated face. “Oh, very well. I sold the crossbow.” He rolled his eyes. “I’m not the one who used it, though. I’m a businessman, not a criminal.”
“Selling automatic crossbows is a crime and I’m about to find you guilty.” Nicholas’ voice was cold. “You’re really real, now. So, you can die just as quick as the other criminals I hang… or you can tell me about Wraiths.”
Pinocchio took the hint. “Of course! I’m always happy to help local law-enforcement.” He smiled pleasantly.
“Can Wraiths see the future?”
“No. But they take on the memories of the people they duplicate. Enough of them anyway. The copies are never perfect, but they know plenty of secrets. Even when the victims they’re impersonating are dead, they can remember some of what they once knew. It’s very interesting, the things they can see.”
Marion shivered.
“Some of their victim’s personality seeps through the mask, as well, so they can be very convincing mimics. Except around the eyes.” Pinocchio tsked. “Eyes are always hard to get right.”
Nicholas wasn’t interested in their problems with copy resolution. “What do Wraiths want?”
“Who knows if they want anything?” Pinocchio scoffed.
“Everyone wants something. Even monsters.”
“Well, I’m not sure what a Wraith’s desires could be, really. They can be any gender, species, color, social-rank…. so it seems like their problems would always be easy to solve. Just assume someone else’s life, suck it dry and move on. Wraiths are…” He paused, as if looking for a proper description, “parasites. Large, crafty, dangerous bugs.”
“Scorpions?” Nicholas guessed. Maybe anyone who’d fought in the Lyonesse desert instinctively thought of scorpions when someone said “dangerous bugs.”
“More like oversized crickets. They can hop from place-to-place very fast. Teleporting perhaps?” He shrugged. “It’s hard to tell.”
“Teleporting crickets.” Nicholas summed up. “Wonderful.”
“They rarely look like the insects they are, if that helps any. They can take on the appearance of any living being they wish.” Pinocchio paused again, this time with condescension. “Really real beings, anyway. They can’t become gargoyles. But then, why would they want to?”
Nicholas ignored that taunt. “How do I kill it?”
“A hammer.” Pinocchio said, as if it was obvious. “Just a small rap will do.”
“A hammer?” Nicholas repeated scathingly. “The human soldiers finished off the one in Lyonesse with flaming arrows.”
“No. You can stun a Wraith with other weapons, but only a hammer will kill it.”
“It seemed pretty dead to me.”
Pinocchio shook his head. “That’s what it wanted you to think. It regenerated, the minute your backs were turned. Bugs are very hardy beings, you know.”
“Or you’re lying about this, the way you lie about most everything else. Anything you say, I believed the opposite.”
“I might fib a bit, here or there, but I have no interest in hanging, Sheriff. And why would I want a Wraith to invade Nottingham? I live here, too. An infestation can cause all sorts of problems.”
“So can a dogfish and you dealt with that okay.”
Another --longer-- pause. “You don’t like me very much do you?”
“No. I really don’t.”
“Because you don’t approve of what I did to become real? Or because you’re jealous I had the little wooden balls to do it?”
“I’m not jealous of you. You made the deal. I didn’t. But, which of us is holding more?” Nicholas’ arms tightened around Marion.
“For now, you’re holding her.” Pinocchio agreed. “But how long will it last, when she’s a human and you’re… not.” His voice was almost pitying. “She’ll want her True Love, sooner or later. They always do, in the end.”
Nicholas’ muscles went taut.
Marion roused herself from her agonized stupor, instinctively wanting to soothe him. “Nick?”
His attention was back on her in an instant. “Yes?”
She lifted a hand to touch his perfect face. She didn’t want to hear any more of this. She wanted to go back to the castle and lock all the doors, so nothing could get to Nicholas. All that mattered was keeping him safe. “Take me home.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Ancient vampire sect using hidden tunnels to travel around Nottingham!
Garlic sales skyrocket!
Are you safe from the blood-sucking monsters?
Alan A. Dale- “Nottingham’s Naughtiest News”
Marion had locked herself in her room.
It was driving Nicholas crazy.
He stood across from her closed door, leaning against the wall, arms folded over his chest. His eyes stayed fixed on the wooden surface, willing it to swing open and for Marion to appear.
Half his life was spent waiting for Marion to appear. Watching out windows for her to walk by. Scanning rooms for the glint of her shiny hair. Listening for the sound of her approaching, because no one else’s footsteps sounded like hers. Waiting for Marion was his main hobby. Or it had been until she’d moved into the castle.
For the last few days, he’d had so much more than fleeting glimpses of her. He’d had her time and attention and smiles. He didn’t have to wait for them. She just gave them to him. He wouldn’t return to cold isolation, stuck on the outside of her life.
Nicholas went forward, not back.
Jaw firming, he pushed away from the wall. “Marion?” He knocked on her door. “It’s Nick. Open up.”
Nothing.
She’d barely spoken after they’d left The Terrible Dogfish. She’d pulled into herself and away from him. Nicholas wasn’t going to allow that to go on. The idiotic former-him had told Marion that she could only count on herself. Now, Nicholas needed to say something to convince her otherwise.
Somehow.
Conversations were a struggle for him. The words always came out wrong. But, talking to Marion was worth the near certainty of making an ass of himself. He thought for a beat, trying to come up with a topic that might interest her and make her engage with him, again. She’d been asking about the damn tax exemption earlier. It wasn’t something he particularly wanted to discuss, but he decided to give it a shot. Maybe he could gloss over the incriminating parts.
“The gardens at your estate are very beautiful. And very taxable. The real estate value on your property went up, because of them. A while back, I began to notice the bill was getting high.”
And he’d noticed her clothes were no longer changing with the newest styles. She’d been wearing the same outfits, again and again. Nicholas knew every piece of clothing Marion owned. He obsessed over every detail of the woman, like a miser hording gold. It had been easy for him to spot that she wasn’t buying new dresses. Some digging had revealed the old duke was broke and the estate was failing.
Since Nicholas had seen no way of getting Marion to take money from him directly, he’d had to think of more oblique ways of helping her. It was before he’d learned about creative villainy from his diabolical little partner-in-crime, so it had taken a lot of energy for him to come up with a workable plan. He’d never expected that Marion would ever start questioning it, though. Why was the woman so damn clever?
Nicholas cleared his throat. “Logically, tearing out the gardens would have been a smart financial move, for your family. I’m sure you were considering that, so your bill would be lower.”
Actually, he was sure it had never occurred to her. Marion didn’t see things as predictably as he did. Nicholas thought in straight lines. “Need money” plus “expensive gardens” equaled “get rid of gardens.” Marion’s mind was so much more interesting. He loved that about her. But she also needed to buy food, so he’d ensured she’d had gold to get it.
“But, the --um-- cultural impact of losing the gardens would have been… just… devastating.” He tried to infuse his voice with a suitable amount of concern over a bunch of useless flowers. “Nottingham needed the gardens, for so many reasons. So, so many.”
Please don’t ask me to list any.
He rushed onward, wanting to escape this explanation, before he really had to explain anything. “So, the kingdom needed to intervene, a bit. For the greater Good of the --uh-- culture of the… you know… kingdom.” That sounded pretty plausible. “I was the one who had the idea, initially. For the kingdom. But I think everyone agreed it was the best course.”
Not that he’d bothered to ask anybody else for their opinion. Fuck ‘em all.
“So, I put through a tax exemption, for your home. As a way of culturally preserving Nottingham’s,” he squinted up at the ceiling, thinking hard, “strategic wildflower supplies?” It came out sounding too much like a question. Shit. “Um… It was the best choice for the kingdom and…”
Marion opened the door. Her eyes were reddened and damp, like she’d been crying and crying.
Nicholas stared down at her, his heart breaking. “Oh, duchess…”
She walked into his arms, burying her face against his chest and giving a choked sob.
“No, don’t do that. Please.” He picked her up and carried her back into the bedroom, shutting the door with his foot. “You don’t need to cry. Really.” Like all the castle’s fireplaces, the one in her room was the size of a walk-in closet. He sat down on a chair next to it, holding her in his lap. “I will never let anything happen to those plants. The gardens are…”
“I don’t care about the damn gardens.” She interrupted. “I’m upset over you. And how you died.” Her voice broke on the last word.
This was his fault. He should never have taken her to see that lying prick Pinocchio. “I’m not dead. I’m right here.”
“You were dead and you must’ve believed the person who killed you was me.” She held him tighter. “You thought I’d hurt you, Nick. At the very end. You must have felt so betrayed. I can’t bear it.” She started sobbing, again.
Nicholas ran a hand over her dark curls. He wasn’t a fanciful man. He wasn’t particularly well-versed in magic or alternate timelines. It was hard for him to conceptualize another reality, where he’d lived and died. But, he believed it had happened, because Marion said so. And he believed that she was suffering because of it. He stretched himself to try and find words that might soothe her anguish.
“I would have known the truth.” He assured her, attempting to put himself in the other-him’s place. “I opened the door and I let the Wraith in. So, I’m sure I thought it was you, at first.” There was no one else in creation he would’ve allowed into his bedroom. Just her. “But, I guarantee I knew something was off very quickly, after that.”
She sniffed, listening to him.
“As soon as I saw its eyes, I’m positive I’d know it was a trick.” He was being totally honest about that. He loved her too much to be fooled for more than a few seconds, at close range. The other-him was no doubt the same. “Probably, even before I saw its eyes. I am obsessed with you, Marion. I know your dress size, your shoe size, your glove size… And you don’t even wear gloves. See? I know that, too.”
There was a muffled snort of amusement against his shoulder.
Nicholas was encouraged by her response. “I know you.” He went on. “Inside and out. If the smell of it wasn’t your smell, I would’ve noticed. If the words it used weren’t the ones you would have chosen, or if the way it moved was off, or if one of its freckles was out of place… I would’ve seen it was wrong. I swear it.”
She snuggled closer to him, no longer crying.
“There is no possible way that I died thinking you shot me.” His lips were next to her ear, his voice sure. “I promise you, when that Wraith killed me, your name was the last word in my head, but it wasn’t in anger. It was for comfort. In the end, you were what I reached for.” He pressed a kiss into her hair. “I know that, because I know me, too.”
She raised her head to look at his face.
He stared back, grave and certain. “You are all I see, Marion.”
“I will never give you up.” She said softly. “Human, gargoyle, gryphon, wizard… No matter who or what you were, I would always choose you, Nick. Don’t listen to Pinocchio about that. You said yourself he’s a liar. You’re perfect, exactly as you are.” Her lips found his, parting for him.
Nicholas kissed her back, savoring the taste of her. He had dreamed of this woman most of his life and the reality of having her in his arms was better than he’d even imagined. The kiss seemed to reassure her. Sighing with pleasure, Marion nestled back into his arms. Safe on his lap. Welcoming his touch. And Nicholas’ life was exactly how it was always supposed to be.
He was not going to fucking die, again. Not when he had Marion.
So, obviously, he was going to have to kill the Wraith.
Pinocchio said only a hammer would slay the monster, which, Nicholas supposed, wasn’t that farfetched. Smashing something’s head in with a hammer was usually a good first step to killing it, regardless of the species. Still… He wasn’t about to bet his life on Pinocchio’s honesty. Whatever that wooden dickhead said, Nicholas believed the opposite.
“Did you really say ‘strategic wildflower supplies’ earlier?” Marion eventually asked, pulling Nicholas from his thoughts.
“It’s for the Good of the kingdom.”
“That should be our secret code, in case the Wraith tries to impersonate me or some other terrible thing happens. ‘Strategic wildflower supplies.’ Even reading memories, I don’t think it will be able to guess that.”
“Because it’s ridiculous. Half of what I say is ridiculous, when I don’t have time to think the words through.”
“I love talking to you.” Her gaze had cleared. “You always make me feel better.”
“It’s not every day I hear that.”
“I’ll have to start telling you every day, then.”
His mouth curved at that promise. Resting his chin on her head, his eyes fell on a crumple of familiar fabric on the pillow of her bed. He blinked. “Is that my shirt?”
“No, it’s my new nightgown.”
Which used to be his shirt. “You stole it?” Stealing from the laundry seemed to be how she acquired most of her clothes these days.
“‘Stole’ is such a harsh word. I’m just borrowing it forever.”
“Did my men not pack you enough nightwear?”
“I have plenty. I just like your stuff better. Because it’s yours.”
Nicholas slowly processed that.
“I’m ‘unhealthily fixated’ on you.” Marion went on. “I think I’ve mentioned it. That bitch, Dr. Ramona, was very concerned about me teetering on the brink of madness over my inability to move on.” She tilted her face to look at him. “You worried about it?”
“Worried that you’re wearing my shirts, while you sleep? No. I’m all for it.”
She shrugged. “I also stalk you a lot. You may have noticed that part. And I’ll probably steal other stuff. And there may be some video surveillance.”
“Just me, right? No other men?”
“Of course, no one else. You’re my fixation, cupcake.”
He smirked, completely satisfied with that arrangement. “Then fixate away.”
“I had a feeling you’d get it.” She played with the buttons on his uniform, probably plotting to steal that, too. “Hey, by the way, did you tell Robin we were sleeping together?”
Nicholas winced. “No…? He might’ve heard it that way, though.”
Marion looked amused.
“Everything I say comes out wrong.” Nicholas reiterated. “I didn’t tell him that we were having sex, but it sounded like I did.”
She bit her lower lip, trying to contain her snickering.
“I’m sorry.” He shook his head in self-disgust. “If it makes you feel any better, I’m sure he’s talked himself out of believing me, by now.”
“I really don’t care what Robin thinks, feels, or does.” Brown eyes danced. “I just think you’re cute, when you try to talk and it all goes so very wrong.”
He sighed. “Honestly, that shit with Hood isn’t my absolute dumbest conversation screw up. ‘Strategic wildflower supplies’ still beats it, I think.”
