Chapter Text
“So?” he asked his agent.
Rosalie stared at him. He handed her another a hundred kred. It was like water to him and everything to her. Knowing that alone was more powerful than any kind of arcane knack in the Society. Secrets were one way to control people; shame another. He could use one to gain access to both.
Rosalie was one of seven Silverborn household staff, always perpetually underpaid, habitually mistreated (from what he knew of how Lord York treated his dogs, learning what he did to his servants was hardly a leap), and angry at their employers about that that he’d gathered and paid for information from in the past few years. They also had exceptionally good access and insight into the comings and goings of the houses, as well as the mentality and psyches of their employers. It was good to keep them on side.
“The Silver Assembly ended yesterday,” she said.
He clenched his jaw, trying not to snap. Yes I know that, we were supposed to meet at lunchtime but it ran over and there was no point arranging a meeting until right now.
The Assembly had been interminably long. Something like two or three days to iron out all the new bylaws and check on the viability of the Greater Houses, sure, that was fine. Four days with the last ending significantly after hours because a five day assembly would attract too much attention from external Nevermoor for the Silverborn to ever be comfortable? It was worth commenting on. And worth finding out about.
“Alright,” he said. “Give me the rundown.” It wasn’t going to be good. He was braced for that. He knew it would be scandalous, he hoped it would give him some more fuel.
“The Darlings have disinherited Meredith Darling.”
It didn’t hit like a freight train; it was entirely expected. But something curled up in Bertram’s stomach anyway, sick and complaining. What sort of family cast out their own daughter to save face? That had been the reason hadn’t it?
He asked Rosalie.
“Yes,” she said after a minute. “The Devereaux were trying to expel them. They’re still clinging to the house as it is, but they can’t be expelled until the next Silver Assembly. Not unless they lose so much money that they get bought out.” She peered at him. It obviously didn’t take a genius to work out what his line of questioning was in pursuit of, though Rosalie seemed fairly perceptive and intelligent from what he could tell. She didn’t work for the Darlings, none of his spies did. He still didn’t have a route to bribe any of their staff but there were other ways to their secrets all the same.
“Of course,” Bertram said instead of revealing that. “Anything else?”
She shrugged, “They’re going to raise the taxes on gold-leaf truffles again. Lady Catherine didn’t think much of it but her mother was crying.”
Lady Beauregard did have a very strong fondness for the most idiotic, expensive things going. It was put Beauregard House into dire straits financially already. Bertram would barely have to do anything when the time came. He just had to wait for the right moment.
Rosalie was staring at his face for some reason. “What?” he snapped before he felt it. Hot and a little bit salty, dropping onto his lip and into his mouth. It had happened again.
She left and he cleaned himself up, ignoring the steady thrum of the headache rattling around in his skull. Morrigan was still at nursery for another few hours and he had work to get on with before he picked her up.
“What’s your endgame?” Rosie asked as her son picked at his dinner. “Eat with your cutlery, please, Jack.” She turned back to him, “Like once you’ve done all this, taken all their money, run them and their families into the ground, your whole revenge thing, what are you going to do?”
Bertram scowled. He wasn’t about to admit that he hadn’t thought that far ahead — except that he hadn’t. What was the point of that?
“Okay,” Rosie said, rolling her eyes. “What are you going to do with the money?”
He sighed but he supposed he had family now to leave it to. He nodded at his niece, whose dinner was halfway smeared across her face. “She gets it.”
“And that’s it? You’re just going to enrich one child to an incredible level with no—”
“Fine,” he raised his hands up. “Fine, I’ll think about what I’m going to do with it. Happy?”
She grinned, showing all her teeth, and leaned back in her chair. Jack looked up from his dinner and tapped the table, “Mum, no leaning. That’s not allowed!”
“Fine, fine,” she said. “Sorry, Jack, it is very bad and dangerous to lean back in a chair.”
“What about this?” Morrigan asked, and if it hadn’t been for Bertram’s hand on her shoulder, forcing her to stay in place, he was sure she would have launched herself across the room, and cracked her skull right in two.
“Nope,” he said. “None of that. Come on, one more bite.”
She scowled at him. A vase fell off the mantelpiece. Hopefully that was coincidental. Though from the looks his sister was giving him, that hope seemed to be in vain.
“What about,” Rosie said out of the side of her mouth to him. “Morrigan, then? Wunsoc?”
He sighed, they’d talked about it before. Joked a little about the Crows becoming the new Fitzwilliams. And technically, Morrigan’s legal status in Nevermoor was… dubious. He dreaded the day someone would come around asking. There was only so much fudged paperwork could do and one day someone might look too closely.
But the Society demanded a lot. It took too much. It gave a lot too, but not enough. Not nearly close enough to make the blood worth it. It was one option. She needed family to sponsor her citizenship otherwise, proof of a blood relation. That couldn’t be taken away from her.
If he gave her up to the society, that would put her at their beck and call for the rest of her life; if they accepted her knack, that was. Otherwise, he’d broadcast the child to the rest of the world with no guarantee as to her safety. And she would never be able to live securely and privately.
Bertram had always craved that stability, even when he’d denied it to himself over and over again. How could he take it from the child when there was another option out there, no matter how unpleasant it might be for him?
Bertram wiped his upper lip, actually dry for once, while anticipation churned in his gut. He was going to have to talk to the Darlings.