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I didn’t miss her cocked smile and brow.
“I don’t know what the hell you’re planning now that Vivian’s back, but… don’t draw it out, okay?” Her voice had softened. “Elspeth doesn’t deserve that. She’s been good to you.”
I held up my hands. “I haven’t planned a thing.” It wasn’t a lie. I was as shocked as anyone to see Vivian back on the island. I still didn’t know why she was here but I was sure as hell going to find out. She hadn’t come back to ruin things for Elspeth; that simply wasn’t Vivian’s style. There was another reason and one that was important enough for her to risk her life coming back here.
Marcia nodded, appeased at least for now, then walked away with the towel and cloth balled in her hands.
“What now?” Hector asked, moving to stand in front of me. “Tell me you do actually have a plan.”
I scrubbed a hand down my face. “I did have one. But that… thing… downstairs has just pushed up the deadline.”
“He’ll be out for days,” Dax said, a thread of glee winding through his tone.
“We don’t know that. I need to act quickly.”
“You also need to be a husband,” Hector warned. “Or has the window for that shortened too?”
I shook my head, thinking through my options. “No. I can’t afford for anyone to suspect I’m not all in with this marriage. Not yet. I just need two days. Three, tops.”
Dax thrust his hands into his pockets, and his chest puffed out with the motion.
“People will wonder where Ossian is. They won’t particularly care, but they’ll notice his absence.”
“Mother and Father will care,” Hector said, running a hand round the back of his neck.
“Okay,” I said, nodding to no one in particular. “Let’s say Ossian got too drunk and I took him home.”
“That wouldn’t be too hard to believe,” Hector said with a raised brow.
“And what if he comes around?” Dax asked.
“He won’t. Not before daylight, anyway. Then he can bleat all he wants to Father. I’m a married man now, joined with the Cartwrights. It’s all Father cares about.”
I looked up and saw Jasper walking towards us dressed in a cheap rented suit with two-day-old stubble lining his jaw. I held his gaze as he came to a stop a few feet away.
“Congratulations sir.” He forced a polite smile but I knew what sat behind it: blank determination. For what he had just engineered, there was no room for happiness, no room for emotion. It was a means to an end.
An end that would end us – the Thorns – and our reign on this island.
He didn’t even glance at the equally physically foreboding Dax and Hector. “Do you have a moment?”
“Of course. What’s the latest?”
I sensed Dax glance sideways at me, while Hector braced himself.
Jasper took a deep breath, and with the tone of someone who’d just done the equivalent of throwing a fatal grenade into the camp of an enemy, said, “It’s done.”
Air left my lungs in a rush. This was what relief felt like.
“What are you talking about?” Dax asked, taking a step towards him.
Jasper flicked his eyes to Dax and back to me.
I turned to face my cousin. “We were expecting the biggest delivery we’ve ever had. It was heading for the land alongside the high school.”
Dax paled. “What?”
Hector twisted. “That was coming today? Why today?”
