Chapter 16

Ashley sat cross-legged on Jack’s bed, Jack was drying his hair. He huffed at the memory of the encounter with Ben. He was confused, and conflicted. The box had opened to reveal a copy of a manuscript but he was in too much of a state to think about its contents, his cock hard and throbbing at being so close to Ben. He needed to get over this bullshit.

“What’s wrong now?” Jack asked, throwing the towel to one side and applying a spell to stop his hair going frizzy.

“I thought whatever was affecting me and Ben would be done with by now.”

Jack sighed. “Are we going to have to tell your dad? I guess we can say the investigation is compromised.”

“Not yet. I’m a professional, and I resent the fact you’d think I’d let my emotions get in the way of my work. What I need is to stop obsessing over him but he’s messing with my head.”

“Which one?” Jack asked with a smirk.

“Ha-fucking-ha. He turned up first thing this morning with the spell box and apologised for toying with me.”

“Oh, what was in it?”

The contents of the box didn’t matter. “Another Howes book, but that’s not the point.”

Jack frowned. “Strange to keep it in a spell box. Which one was it?”

“Jack, I’m trying to tell you that I wanted to shag him again, the title of the book doesn’t matter.”

“Oh.” Jack bit his lip. “I see. Maybe there’s not any residual magic, and you just want to fuck him. He is very attractive.”

Ben was beyond attractive and Ashley had to blink away the memories of Ben’s naked arse. “No, I’m sure I just need to get over this.”

“I thought the point of banging him was to get over him but it appears to have done the opposite.”

Ashley wasn’t going to answer that, he needed a distraction, someone else to act as a palate cleanser. “I think I need to sleep with someone else.”

“Right.” Jack didn’t sound too convinced. “Thinking of pulling someone at a club?”

The idea repulsed him, but he only had limited options, one of which happened to be his ex-boyfriend standing in front of him. “We could reprise our past adventures for one night,” he said, smiling in what he hoped to be a charming way. “We were also compatible from that side.”

Jack placed his hands on his hips and scowled. “You can fuck right off if you think I’m going to let you use me to scratch an itch over Ben Redbourn.”

“Come on, it’ll be like old times.”

“No. I mean it, Ashley, you’re being a complete shit even asking.”

Ashley didn’t understand the problem. “It’ll be two friends blowing off steam. Consider it a favour, and I can owe you something.”

“We aren’t friends with benefits, we never were, and if we shag because you can’t admit you want to bang a vampire, then that’s you using me. Nothing friendly about it.”

Ashley hadn’t thought about it like that. “I don’t understand why you feel that way.”

“Ashley, we fought hard to remain friends after we stopped being boyfriends. Ours might not have been a great love affair, but it wasn’t easy to go back to being just friends, or it wasn’t for me.”

He slid off the bed. “You said yourself we weren’t love’s young dream, and it was best to end it when we did. Why is it a big deal now?”

“I don’t know, Ashley, maybe being told by your friend that you suddenly weren’t someone he thought he should fuck any longer hurt a bit, but hey, at least you stopped short of accusing me of using the siren’s song.”

“I never did anything of the sort.” He had thought it the first time they’d kissed, but he’d never been stupid enough to say it out loud. “We both agreed that we were better off as friends.”

“No, you decided that’s what you wanted. I could hardly turn around and say anything different as you were so adamant. You were already eyeing up that visiting professor from Italy, so what else was I meant to do?”

Ashley honestly had no idea Jack had been so hurt. “You told me you already had someone else lined up.”

“I wasn’t going to admit to being a sad idiot who’d fallen in love with his best friend who didn’t love him back. Especially as three days after he dumped me, he was shagging someone else.”

Ashley loved Jack as a friend but he’d never thought it was more than that on either side. He would never have been so cruel, and he couldn’t believe he’d been such an arsehole. The words of Jack’s confession stung. “You’re in love with me?”

Jack huffed. “I was, I’m not anymore. Or at least not in the sense of a boyfriend would be. But it took a long time, and it was made worse as I didn’t want to lose your friendship and couldn’t just sod off and lick my wounds and instead stuck around and gritted my teeth. So I’m not going to let you fuck me and open up old hurt because you’re horny and won’t admit it.”

“I didn’t know.”

Jack’s expression turned sour. “You didn’t care enough to look.”

“Jack…”

Jack grabbed a jumper and thrust his feet into a pair of shoes. “I need to clear my head. I’m going for a walk.”

He was out of the door before Ashley could stop him and he was left staring at the space where Jack had been standing. They’d been friends forever and Jack meant the world to him, but his feelings hadn’t been of romantic love. The sex had been good, and he’d suspected some of Jack’s siren heritage had helped it along, but he’d never said so. He needed to find him, apologise for being insensitive and, even without Jack’s confession, him suggesting they sleep together to get over Ben had been a shitty move not worthy of Jack’s time.

His first thought was to cast a tracking spell, but it failed as Jack must have his shields up, so he thought he’d head to the library as Jack liked it there and Ashley was in his bedroom, which meant Jack couldn’t hide away in here, as had been his habit after dinner since he was still a bit uncomfortable about his scales outbreak, despite them not being obvious under his clothes.

Ashley set off to look for Jack, the hallway quiet, wondering if he should call for Karl to get some help, although he didn’t think Jack would appreciate Ashley sending a demon after him, even if he was friendly. Friendly in the sense he wouldn’t banish them to Hell, but him and Jack were the enemy, even if, as far as he could tell, the worst thing Karl’s loyalty to Ben had resulted in was him serving them a poorer-grade of tea.

Jack wasn’t in the library. Ashley headed towards the front of the house.

“Mr Niven—Ashley!”

He turned to see Catlin arriving, heavily veiled against the rising sun. She’d not been around for a couple of days, and he’d been too preoccupied to think about her absence.

“Catlin, I haven’t seen you for a while.”

“I needed to speak with a friend, to take some advice. If you have a moment, I’d like to talk to you.”

He wanted to try to find Jack but as Catlin removed her veil he saw her face marred with deep lines, as if she’d not been sleeping and was troubled. “Of course.”

“If you wouldn’t mind joining me in my private sitting room, I’d prefer our conversation not to be overheard.”

They’d conducted background checks on each member of the household, Catlin hadn’t been too interesting. Spotted as a waitress in a speakeasy in the 1930s, Charles had turned her seemingly on a whim, as she’d not been known beforehand. Jack had found little about her life before being turned, but she had seemed to have made herself useful to her sire, the Vampire Council, and her sired siblings.

Catlin removed her wide-brimmed hat and gloves as she entered her sitting room, she appeared to be one of those vamps who had a poor tolerance to sunlight, unlike Ben, who Ashley had seen take a brisk walk back to the house from the potion sheds at sunrise without any negative effects.

“I appreciate you’re busy, Ashley, but I have some information that might be beneficial for your investigation. The reason I was away was because I needed to confide in a friend and he suggested I told you, but I want your assurance that what I have to say will not get back to my family.”

The request to keep things quiet wasn’t unsurprising in these types of investigations, and often it was through an anonymous source that he made progress. “I have the mandate to keep evidence confidential if I deem it necessary.”

“I’m pretty sure you found Charles’s research into his mortal family tree by now. As you can imagine, he was shaken a little to learn he had become a father while he was away at sea and he did not return to see him.”

He hadn’t met Charles, apart from the Vampire Council meeting, but he didn’t strike Ashley as the sort to abandon his family, even if he was officially dead. “Wasn’t he aware of the child? I would have thought he’d have checked in on his family when he returned to England with Anthony after he had been turned.”

“When I first met Charles, I asked him about his life before he became a vampire. Part of the story was, once back in England after Charles had gone through his first bloodlust, he asked Anthony to ensure his wife would come to no hardship as a widow. Sebastian was the one to check and he set up a stipend for Charles’s widow. He made no mention of Charles leaving behind a child.”

Ashley wasn’t sure where Catlin was going with this. The handwritten notes had shown a family tree including Samuel, but no indication of when it was made. “Maybe at the time Sebastian didn’t know about the kid, or perhaps the child wasn’t his—his wife may have sought out company elsewhere when he was away at sea and Sebastian was able to discover the truth so there was no need to claim him.”

“I gave no thought to it myself until last year I came across Charles’s notes on the research he’d made into his mortal family, and I admit I was intrigued.” She removed a locket from her handbag. “I also found this.”

Ashley took it and opened the clasp. It was a miniature of a young man. “What of it?”

“That is Samuel Yardly, Charles’s son. The resemblance is uncanny if he is not his biological child.” She smiled. “I talked with Harry, trying to understand if he already knew, and it turned out he already had suspicions. Harry arranged a DNA test a few months back, which confirmed his relation to Charles. I swore to make no further mention of it.”

“So when did Charles find out?” he said, handing back the locket.

“I am a naturally curious person, and wanted to know more, even if Harry wanted to hear nothing further on the topic. I found a reference to Samuel as a guest at Charles’s sort-of wedding to Timothy.”

“That was more than two hundred years ago.” He wasn’t sure why Catlin had thought he needed to know, and how it could have any bearing on his investigation. “But why is it of interest to me?”

“Charles must have turned Harry knowing he was a descendant, but Harry didn’t know as Charles distanced himself from his mortal family after Samuel, but had kept track of them.”

“I’m still failing to see why I should be concerned. Charles had already turned Ben and gifted him the Redbourn name, meaning he was potentially the next earl, before he’d met Harry.”

“Exactly. Harry and Ben don’t get on as it is, but Harry finding out… well, I think he’s behind the challenge to Ben becoming the earl. And I think there’s a possibility Charles is involved too.”

Harry he could believe, but Charles? “Charles wants to step down. Ben has been in line for five years, Charles could have changed his mind at any time before then.”

“He says he wants to step down, but now the five-year window is over, I think Ben has pushed for his title and Charles is regretting the decision of choosing Ben over Harry. Blood will out, Ashley.”

“He could have waited longer, five years is the minimum.”

“But that would have had him losing face, having to admit he was wrong.”

None of this sat right with the information they’d uncovered; however, the Redbourns were vampires and they weren’t a species known for being open and honest. “So you believe Charles is behind the request to investigate Ben? And then what?”

“I think it’s mainly Harry, but Charles has been manipulated by him, and when the truth about Ben comes out, then Harry will take Ben’s place.”

“We’ve not found anything that suggests Ben isn’t suitable.”

She glanced at the door. “But you’ve not been in his office yet.”

“Yes I have.”

“No, you’ve been in the office he uses for other people.” She looked panicked at what she’d said. “You should go and I have said too much.”

She shooed him out and he wasn’t sure what to make of it all. He wanted to talk it through with Jack but he had no idea where to find him.