Page 178 of Because I Killed Him
Dickie scrambles ashore and lets out a breath of relief as his feet hit the sand, either because he’s finally in the shade or because he hates large bodies of water. He never learned to swim.
“’Cause I forgot my plane.”
I know he’s talking about the carbon-fiber drone he’s constantly crashing and asking Jack to fix. “Why do you need it?”
“Um, hello? To film the fireworks.” He downs the last of his soda and tosses the bottle into the lake. “Gotta head back to my suite. And I’m gonna take my sweet time doing it, too. The party’s a bust.”
Charlotte and I trade a bewildered glance, then call after Dickie to ask what he means, but he’s already trudging down the shore.
We brush it off and turn back to our hoverboat. As we push off into the lake, the water shimmers beneath us, its bioluminescent glow softened by the daylight but still visible in the gentle ripples. Piranhas dart in quick, predatory splashes of color beneath the surface. Charlotte and I lean over the side of the hoverboat to watch the deadly fish as we weave between the rows of anchored vessels bobbing in the water. Edmund’s yacht sits near the center of the lake, only a stone’s throw from the Sailing Strip, where the Mensur will be fought in two weeks.
We guide the hoverboat upward, rising effortlessly into the air. Edmund’s yacht is three stories tall and even features a private helipad. On the first level, a Pinkie in a striped uniform stabilizes our hoverboat for landing.
I step out, frowning when I notice two other hoverboats docked here. There should be only one, if it’s just Edmund and Jack. I get a sinking feeling as I realize Rosamund must’ve invited herself to be near Jack. I feel her presence before I see her, like a tremor before an earthquake. The urge to retreat to my suite flares, sudden and visceral, but I force my feet to move as the Pinkie leads us down the deck.
The planks stretch long beneath our feet, still damp from the hot tubs that circle the stern. It takes minutes to reach the far end, and when we finally round the last canopy, Charlotte hunches up like a hissing cat.
Rosamund lounges in a striped dock chair, one long, bronzed leg crossed over the other. Her wavy hair tumbles artfully around her face, and her sheer cover-up hugs her curves like spun sugar. Her monkey perches on her shoulder, clothed in a rhinestone shirt, and she strokes it absentmindedly as she gazes through a pair of gold binoculars, monitoring the action across the water.
A few feet away, Edmund and Jack are shirtless, their swim trunks dark with water as they launch golf balls off the yacht’s edge. Rosamund cheers each time the boys swing, loud and sweet, praising their form and strength. Across the water, two Blues on a nearby yacht fire balls back as if it’s a sport turned war.
Edmund lines up a shot, pivots his shoulders, and hits the ball with such force that it blurs out of sight. A sharp crack echoes as it shatters a window on the opposing yacht. One of the Blues pops his head up and flips Edmund off. Edmund laughs loudly, pulling his cigar from his mouth in a trail of smoke.
“Your windows surrender almost as fast as you do,” he shouts.
He steps aside to let Jack take the next swing, and that’s when he notices me. A smile lifts his face, bright as the lake’s shine, yet it darkens my heart. He moves closer, his head lowering as if to kiss my hand, then stops at the sight of something behind me. His body straightens instantly, and he yanks off his sunglasses, the temples snapping shut in his fist.
I turn as the fourth guest emerges from below deck, a golf club slung over her shoulder and five Coppers behind her. She wears a steel blue swimsuit that highlights her sculpted curves, and a wide-brimmed straw hat tilts low over her face, obscuring most of her blunt black bob and casting a shadow over the ankle monitor strapped to her skin.
The metal band glints in the sunlight like a smile meant only for me.
Shit.
A long moment passes before Irene lifts her head and squints at me from beneath the brim of her hat. She looks… different. No longer the cold, relentless force she was when she nearly killed me in the Speakeasy. Her skin is pale and watery from too much indoor air and too little sunlight. There’s a slight, fluttering twitch in one of her eyes, as if something is trapped inside and trying to get out. Seven months of house arrest have taken their toll. I see it in the way her fingers curl and uncurl around the golf club, as if she’s struggling to remember how to behave around others. She looks like someone who’s been pacing the same room for too long, her thoughts growing steadily louder until she started talking back to them.
A ball whizzes back from the Blues’ deck, sending the Coppers scrambling. It brushes past Irene’s ear so closely it ruffles the edge of her hat, but she doesn’t flinch. She turns to Edmund with a reddened, uneasy stare.
“What is Miss Waldsten doing here?”
“Miss Waldsten wasinvited,” Edmund says pointedly, as if to remind Irene she wasn’t. The way he looks at her—with a dark, grating gaze—drags me back to the Regal Express, to his savage outburst when he first saw Charlotte. It makes me wonder if his dislike of Irene goes beyond bitterness over an arranged marriage and whether she wronged him in some deeper, more personal way.
Another golf ball shrieks past, and Edmund sidesteps it just in time. The ball crashes into the table beside the dock chairs, sending his brandy glass to the floor. Edmund’s eyes narrow as he surveys the dripping mess, and he grunts. He puts his sunglasses back on and strides down the deck, waving for me to join him.
Irene folds her arms as I follow, irritation and jealousy warring on her face. I feel her stare burning between my shoulder blades all the way down the deck, but I don’t dare look back.
Edmund flicks his cigar into the lake and sits on the edge of one of the hot tubs. His movements are restless, frustration coursing through him as he pulls a linen shirt over his sunscreen-slicked skin. But when I sit beside him, the tension in his body slackens, just as it does when I touch him, when I stand on my tiptoes and press a kiss to his chin, the highest I can reach even with the extra lift.
“I’m sorry,” he says reluctantly. “I didn’t know Miss Hussey was coming.”
“How was she allowed to? I thought she was on house arrest.”
“She is. But my moth—” Edmund’s words cut off as his knuckles graze a half-healed scratch on his neck. “Headmistress Prew thought it would look bad for a Hussey to spend Founder’s Day locked up.”
I nod slowly. Of course. Irene isn’t just another Blue; she’s a descendant of one of the Nine Gentlemen. Today, appearances matter more than the law. Suddenly, I regret not turning back when I first saw the extra hoverboats. Even if all the best hotspots are booked, I’d take a crowded public beach over spending the day with a woman who tried to kill me—and who I’m soon supposed to testify against.
I draw my feet from the bubbling water, ready to stand, when Edmund catches my hand.
“I know it’s a mess,” he says. “But I want you to stay.”
