Lassit’s mouth opened, then he snapped it shut, biting off whatever he had been going to say.
“Arden is mine,” Jack said.
Beckett cleared his throat loudly.
“Arden is ours,” Jack amended, ignoring the filthy scowl Lassit aimed at Beckett. “It is done, Lassit. It’s all done. You can’t petition the Courts for an annulment, which I am sure you’ve been planning. Arden didn’t go with you when you asked him, and while I have no intention of banning him from seeing you or writing to you, or doing anything he likes?—”
“Visiting me at Dalbryn?” Lassit said. He was working hard to pack all that seething fury away, opening his clenched fists,adjusting his bristling, fighting stance into a casual pose. He wasn’t fooling anyone. Trying, though.
Jack shrugged. “I can’t see him wanting to, and if he asked I’d advise against it. But I won’t stop him, Lassit.”
Lassit’s eyes gleamed.
“Of course, he won’t go anywhere without either Beckett or me at his side.”
That gleam faded. “Well, then,” Lassit said.
“Well, then,” Jack echoed.
They regarded each other across the barrier of Jack’s desk.
Jack hadn’t stood up the whole time. Despite Lassit’s posturing and, Beckett had to concede, his own, Jack was the only one who’d projected nothing but relaxed calm throughout the whole conversation.
“I won’t forgive you for this, you know,” Lassit said in a conversational tone. “You have ruined everything.”
“I won’t forgive you for trying to ruin what I hold dear.”
“I wouldn’t have ruined him!” Lassit’s sudden shout made Beckett jump. Not Jack, though. “I wouldn’t have ruined him,” Lassit said again. Quietly. “I’d have made him happy.”
“Las,” Jack said, managing to be kind about it when Beckett wanted to stand there and scoff rudely. “Sooner or later, you’d have done something that you would regret until your death.”
A grimace flashed over Lassit’s face. It wasn’t shame. It was a grim acknowledgement.
“You gave him Greylag,” Lassit said abruptly.
“I did.”
Lassit lifted a brow. “I trust that is not all you have settled on him? He is a son of Dalbryn, and worth far more than one paltry little manor house on the coast.”
“I know. But since I received a thorough scolding for giving him even Greylag, I’ve decided not to tell him just yet quite howrich he is.” He gestured at Beckett beside him. “That’s for his man of business to handle.”
Beckett blinked down at Jack in surprise.
Oh.
He’d thought he was to manage one of Jack’s estates and then, eventually, Avendene.
Jack meant for him to manage Arden’s affairs?
Beckett was already standing straight, but the thought of handling everything for Arden, of standing between Arden and the world, made his spine straighten further.
Lassit shot Beckett a venomous glare before he wiped his face clean and nodded at Jack. He hesitated a second longer before saying, “Take care of him.”
“I will.”
“I’ll be in contact with him.”
“If I can’t stop you.”
