The Almighty Dominance novel Chapter 804

At seven o'clock, an hour before the hall, Alex's phone buzzed in the kennel yard.

"Good evening, sir," Natasha said. "I'm sorry to call you at home."

"Can it wait? My cousin is kneeling at eight. I've been practicing my clapping."

"Of course, sir. Only, you told me once: if a noble house ever needs help, I am to tell you first." A small pause. "Count Morgan is dying. The doctors say he won't see the morning—not even the next few hours. His daughter heard about the man who treated the second queen; she has asked for the Ferryman."

Alex went still. He needed to secure the noble support.

"The Morgans," he said. "They've never taken a side."

"No, sir. Tonight they might take yours." A pause. "I'm at the kennel gate. I didn't come in, sir. The dogs and I have an understanding."

He looked across the wet yard at the great house. Every window was lit.

He had heard Patricia's whisper on the step that afternoon. Tonight. In the hall. I'm not finished. But Patricia was never finished.

"She'll kneel," he said, half to himself. "The old lady never says anything twice."

"Who will?"

"Patricia." He smiled. "Serena doesn't need the idiot there to clap. She'll enjoy it more without me."

"I'll wait at the gate, sir," Natasha said.

He wrote a note on the back of a seed packet and left it on her pillow. Gone walking. Back soon. A.

Then he went out through the kennel gate into the rain.

---

The hall smelled of wet coats and cold wax.

For two hundred years Tiffany brides had stood in this hall to speak their choice. The Baroness had always kept her hardest words for it.

Serena stood alone by the cold fireplace. She had looked for her husband at the door. He wasn't there.

Patricia stood in the middle of the floor in her ruined garden dress. Wet grass on the hem. She was not kneeling.

"It's rigged, Grandmother," she said. High and sure. "A blind girl, a week out of a tower. One hour in Halcyon's laboratory. And twenty years? Nobody wins like that."

"You said the gate. She said kneel," the Baroness said. "I heard you both. Kneel, girl."

"I'll kneel the minute somebody tells me how she did it." Patricia turned round slowly, to the whole room.

"I was in that laboratory, Grandmother. I heard her describe what she made. Rain on a wall. A wet rope. Some old coat. That isn't a perfume. That's a laundry!”

“She cried through the whole hour, and she stopped eleven minutes early because she'd run out of ideas." Her voice went soft and reasonable.

"And Halcyon picks that over a Tiffany winter? Over this house? Perfumes like that don't win, Grandmother. Somebody pulled strings behind the curtain." She smiled. "And I think I know who."

"Go on," the Baroness said.

"Aunt Cordelia. Wednesday night. Who did you see at her door?"

Cordelia's hand went to her pearls. She looked round, pleased to be asked.

"Lord Julian," she said. "After dark. With brandy on his breath. I told you all at breakfast."

"In two years, one man went to her door," Patricia said softly. "A Pryce. The Pryces know everybody on this coast worth knowing. Wednesday night he's at her door. Friday her laundry beats a Tiffany winter."

She spread her hands. "I'm not clever, Grandmother. But I can count to two." She turned to the window. "Julian. You must have done something. Tell them."

Every head turned to the window.

Julian Pryce stood there with a glass of brandy. His wife Dulcie sat on the bench beside him, married three days, pale hands folded in her lap.

He didn't turn round at once.

Only days ago, in this same hall, Serena had been meant to choose him. She had chosen the dog boy instead, in front of the whole coast.

On Wednesday night he had stood at her door with brandy on his breath, and she had sent him home to his wife, in front of her husband and a bowl of dog scraps.

He jaw tightened. He wouldn't let this woman win—no matter what it cost him.

Julian turned round. He looked sad. He looked kind. He looked like a decent man with a heavy secret.

"I didn't want to say it," he said gently. "I'm married now." He looked straight at Serena.

"But I won't let Patricia kneel for a lie, cousin. On Wednesday night, I went down to the garage wing."

A soft breath. "And Serena let me in. Afterwards, she asked me for one thing: to pull a few strings so she could win the Halcyon competition. Ah, well... I'm also the one who gave her the invitation card, because she begged me..."

The hall went dead quiet.

Beside him, Dulcie's folded hands came apart.

"That never happened," Serena said.

"Serena." The Baroness didn't raise her voice. She had never needed to. "Did he come to your door on Wednesday night?"

"Yes."

"After dark?"

"Yes."

"With brandy on his breath?"

"Yes, Grandmother. And he left the same way he came. Alone." Her voice came out low and clear. She was proud of that, later. "I told him to go home to his wife. He went red to his hair and walked off into the dark."

"Is that what you tell yourself?" Julian asked sadly. “Come on, it's already done. Everyone's going to find out eventually—what's the point of keeping it a secret? We were together that night. It was real, and it was passionate!”

"Liar,” Serena said. “Aunt Cordelia saw the rest. Ask her what I said to him."

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