Heart's Price (MxM)

Chapter 52

The one I'd thought looked a lot like Ambrose, but which was too old to possibly be him.

"This is Rowan," Ambrose says, nodding up at the artwork, "when he was about my age—my apparent age, that is. You can see the resemblance, I imagine."

I can indeed.

Rowan shares Ambrose's pale complexion, auburn hair, brown eyes, expressive mouth, and dark, even brows; the overall shape of his physique and bearing are also similar.

There, however, the likeness ends.

Rowan's hair is shorter and a slightly darker shade, his nose thinner and more arched, and his mouth has a cruel set to it that Ambrose's lacks. The light in his eyes—which the portraitist had done an excellent job of capturing—is cold and bitter, while Ambrose's is always warm.

It's as if the two men were cast from the same mold, but one has a heart of fire, and one of ice.

"He's a match, aye?" Ambrose asks.

"For the man in the photo?" I return, blinking in surprise.

Ambrose nods, not taking his eyes from the portrait, the twist of his mouth turning so grim he looks almost like the painting's mirror image.

"Yes, but...he's dead, right?" I say. "I mean, I thought the whole reason you're here is because he died and left you this house."

"Indeed, little wolf. That is the entire reason that I am here, in Spring Lakes—in this strange, godsforsaken little town—just like the rest of the remaining occultists. I am here because my grandfather—who, as I have said, hated me with something of a passion—left me everything he could call his own in this world. I am here because Rowan Oakfield wanted me here."

"But he is dead, right?" I repeat. "I mean, didn't you say you were sure of that?"

He nods, fingers pressed to his lips and his other arm wrapped tight about himself.

"I thought so. Everything was in order. His council—his lawyer, that is—showed me all the proper documents. There were even pictures of his... of his corpse. But Rowan, as you've heard, was a magician, in every sense of the word. If anyone could pull off such a deception, it would be him."

"How did he die?" I ask, looking up at Rowan's likeness with a growing sense of dislike and unease.

"Self-inflicted gunshot," Ambrose replies, miming the act. "A hard death to fake, I'd imagine, except it was quite a while before he was found. The...remains...were so degraded, he was identified by his...well, by the clothes and accessories he wore."

"Who identified him?"

"Ah...Brutus, I think," Ambrose says. "As his son, it was expected he'd have known him well enough, I suppose, and as Rowan lived here alone, it wasn't as if there was a broad field of possibilities."

"Okay...so why? What makes you think he's behind this?"

"The ring," Ambrose says. "The ring your brother took, for what his fae love might glean of it. Seeing it reminded me of the one Rowan wore, and which bore the Oakfield Crest. It should have passed to Brutus after his death, but it wasn't among his things."

"So? Maybe it got buried with him. If he was...in the condition you described..."

"No. The mortuary returned all his things—everything worth saving, that is—in a box along with his ashes. His watch, his cufflinks, the mother-of-pearl buttons off his waist-coat, for God's sake. They'd have returned his ring if it were there. After you left that day, I went and checked again. It wasn't."