CHAPTER 27
ARDEN
Arden was up before dawn to pack his belongings. He ate a piece of toast and a coddled egg with tea for breakfast, and took himself down to the beach for one last walk as the sun was rising.
It wasn’tthelast walk, he comforted himself. Jack had, after all, given Greylag to him. He could come here whenever he wanted.
He smiled out at the sunrise-tinted waves as he stood on the very edge of the water, letting it curl around his bare ankles before retreating, leaving lacy bubbles to pop on the saturated sand.
It was a chilly morning, caught between late summer and the earliest days of autumn, and far too cold for this sort of behaviour, but Arden welcomed the bite of it, still revelling in the sort of freedom to roam that he hadn’t known since childhood.
Part of him wished that he’d gone with Jack and Beckett yesterday, rather than standing on the steps and waving until they had long passed out of sight.
Jack hadn’t asked him to, though, and he wasn’t about to invite himself.
He could wait.
Jack had those interminable Council duties to attend to in town, and Beckett most likely wanted to spend some time with Jack alone. Besides, Arden would be setting out for Avendene in a matter of hours.
It was a long trip; by the time Jack and Beckett had made it to Sevennis, Jack had seen to his business, and they headed for Avendene themselves, Arden would have only been there for a day or three, depending on the state of the roads.
He turned and splashed along the stretch of golden sand, towards the cluster of brightly painted fishing boats that were moored in the lee of the headland. As he went, he occupied himself with idle dreams of long future walks here, holding hands with one or both of them. He thought of bright picnic rugs spread out below the dunes, and big, muscled bodies spread out before his admiring eyes.
He thought of stripping boldly and running down to the sea to plunge in and swim for the horizon.
Wondered if Beckett would chase him, or Jack. Or both.
Wondered if, with the extra incentive of nudity, they would be able to catch him without cheating.
He shivered, and smiled to himself.
Not unless he allowed it.
Which he definitely would.
He spent as long as he could on the beach he’d come to love, and when the sun was lifting towards noon and his stomach had something to say about how early his breakfast had been, he turned his steps back to the house.
There, the butler informed him that the horses would be harnessed and ready to leave in half an hour or so, and that his trunks were already strapped at the back of the carriage. Arden thanked him, rushed upstairs to attend to his toilet, and rusheddownstairs to the kitchen, to see if he could steal a sandwich or perhaps a pasty to take on the road with him.
Cook turned him away with a scowl and insisted on serving him a pan-fried fillet of cod from the morning’s catch, fresh peas from the garden, and a bowl of new potatoes shimmering with golden butter.
He also gave Arden a small basket of his best jam tarts. Those, he said, Arden could eat in the carriage.
Arden dutifully consumed everything that was set in front of him, and had stopped in at the library to choose a couple of books to entertain him on the journey ahead, when he heard something of a kerfuffle in the hall.
A deep, impatient alpha voice. The calm but stern tone of the butler, Stanton. Brisk footsteps coming towards the library.
Arden, his arms full of books, turned to the door.
He heard a familiar alpha voice and he thought: Jack. Beckett.
It didn’t even register that Stanton wouldn’t talk—he was shouting now—to Beckett or Jack like that.
He simply heard a deep, commanding voice, and assumed it would be one of them.
It wasn’t.
The alpha stalked into the library and slammed the door shut in Stanton’s face with a careless flick of his hand. Setting his back to it, he stared across the room to where Arden stood at the bookcase. He narrowed familiar blue eyes.
