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Giving a sardonic laugh, I closed my eyes briefly before asking, “So, I’m just supposed to complete whatever Trial is coming, allow her to get her wish, and marry her? Are you guys suggesting that? It’s absurd.”
“We don’t know what the Elders will decide,” Montgomery said. “But I’m suggesting that you finish what you started. Become a member of the Order like you’ve always wanted to do. Let fate take it from there.”
“Even if fate means I get married?”
“You aren’t one to quit,” Walker added. “I know I haven’t completed my own Initiation yet, and I have no idea just how difficult the Trials are, but I know if I just spent 109 days here, I sure as fuck wouldn’t throw in the towel in the final hour.”
“I wouldn’t be the first person in our group to fail,” I said softly, hating the idea of joining the ranks of outcasts but knowing it was a possibility.
“Sully failed… but he’s a different story. He never wanted this. You do. You’ve wanted to be a member of The Order of the Silver Ghost maybe more than all of us. I know how important this is to you,” Montgomery pointed out.
I hated that they were all right. I didn’t want to fail. I wanted to be a member of the Order and had since I was a kid. “I just wish she hadn’t lied to me.”
“She’s had to lie for years,” Walker said. “I don’t think she knows how to be truthful anymore in regard to her situation. And I can’t say I blame her. Cut the poor girl some slack. None of us would want to admit what she’s had to go through. And there isn’t a man at this table who doesn’t have secrets. Just because she withheld her past from you, doesn’t mean she’s a bad person.”
“Says a man who isn’t faced with marrying her,” I bit out between clenched teeth. “And I never said she was a bad person.”
Bellamy was far from a bad person. Yes, I was pissed. Furious with her. But the truth of the matter was my heart broke for her. If she had been honest with me and came to me for help, I would have given her every last cent needed. I would have… I would have never made her complete all these Trials, just so she could pay her bills.
I think that was where my real anger was.
I wanted to help Bellamy. I would have helped in every way.
I just didn’t want to be tricked into doing it.
“Put the marriage idea aside for a second,” Montgomery said as he reached for my empty glass and placed it next to him. Always the friend looking out for his buddies. I could see he didn’t want me drinking anymore and drunk for tonight’s Trial. “Do you care about Bellamy?”
I didn’t want to answer the question. Not just to them, but I didn’t want to face my truth to myself.
They all waited for my answer, and I could see there was no way I was getting out of this with just silence.
I sighed. “You all know I do. I always have.”
“Then do what’s right for the both of you. Complete this Trial. Get what you want, and allow her to get what she wants,” Montgomery said.
“What she wants is marriage!”
“What she wants is security,” he replied softly. “She wants to feel safe and secure for the first time in years. If you care about her like you say you do, then give her that. Marriage or not, she needs to complete this Initiation, or she walks away with nothing.”
“Actually, she’d walk away in worse shape than arriving,” Walker pointed out. “Now, everyone knows her secret. There’s no hiding her financial situation from Darlington. She and her mother will be ruined in the world they both know and have lived. You need to at least give her something. Allow the Elders to at least compensate her.”
“Fine,” I said. “I’ll complete the Trial. But if her final ask is marriage… you fuckers can’t expect that from me.”
“Just complete the Trial and then take it from there once the Initiation is behind you,” Beau said.
An empty bottle of scotch and a half hour later of lectures and advice, the sound of a pistol being shot out in the garden finally announced our night was about to begin.
A man in a silver cloak arrived from a secret panel in the wall. The Elder motioned for us to follow him. And in total and complete silence, we obediently followed in single file down a narrow hallway leading us to the white ballroom.
Deep male voices chanted in Latin as we entered the room that had hundreds of white oleanders in tall crystal vases scattered around. The floral fragrance almost concealed the underlying feeling of doom that was to come. Oh so appropriate. The beautiful flowers’ milky sap was poisonous, deadly so. The rhythmic beat of the canes rapping the floor reverberated through my bones.
