A Deadly Secret
August DWC 2025 Day 2 - Layer
Continued from @lillandyrshadowglade post here.
Whatever Lillandyr was spilling, Nubbins was lapping it up. Her eyes flared with approval at the candid details dropped from lips far too good for a mere stop in. Oh no. This would be her entire afternoon, Nubbins would make it so. With possible cocktails and… layers of questioning.
TW: The faintest whiff of BDSM, crude gossip
"Darling, you can come in and get our lunch orders please, I know you're listening." Nubbins said flatly to her peeking assistant with a patient tilt of her neck. She ordered for all of them. "Raspberry and burrata salads. Dungeness crab deviled egg and… seared scallops with saffron cream. Four bottles of chilled bubbly and Luna Bakery's wild berry pound cake with mascarpone yogurt creme." Nubbins directed her attention back to Lillandyr but quickly added to her assistant:
"Oh and please cancel all afternoon business appointments. Thank you, Idhrys. Your help is excellent as always." her tone was on the edge of praise and a threat.
She realized since she was inviting Lillandyr to revel for the afternoon, Nubbins would have to explain why she had the new Magistrate █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ in her bathroom, naked with an expensively jeweled mask over his head during this brunch hour. After she heard the door click shut she leveled with her before getting to the gossip.
"Don't be alarmed. Little situation in the bathroom. I wasn't expecting anyone for a couple of hours on my schedule." she didn't pause long, not wanting to sound unhappy about this. "But it's not a problem. Just use the bathroom down the hall if you need to. He can wait forever." she grinned, allowing herself this slip. She felt extra mean today. Spicy secrets do that.
"Ok. There's so many questions, where to start…" Nubbins reclined elegantly and flipped her wrist in the air, diamond bangles clinking sharp in the Silvermoon sunlight beaming through her balcony windows.
"Leonardo…" Nubbins leaned in. "Isn't a carriage driver. He's Heathcliff's brother." she said with dramatic assertion. "I know because I've seen the medical records of all the Dracones, from the estate paperwork they gave me to catalog for the vaults here in the city." she paused, taking a sip of whiskey, her voice smooth.
"That "mother" died a year before Leonardo was born, technically. Tell me how that works." she grinned. "I think he's actually the seventh son, not Heathcliff. One of Eve's actual children." her eyebrows went up. "With a birthright over Heathcliff." she added with a warning. "You should know these things before you marry into that mess. And yes, Leo is a horrible snake but…" Nubbins swayed a moment in a girlish, knowing gesture and settled back in her chair.
She crossed her legs and rested them on her desk, black stockings running into a leather pencil skirt. "He's very fun to feed. That tongue… his shadows… the vampire speed…" her eyes rolled up into her head in performance. Her laughter turned into coughing.
"But I'll never tell him. And neither should you. He'd make a terrible Lord of House Dracone. My bank account agrees with Heathcliff." she shrugged. "He doesn't know either." she warned. "I wouldn't tell him. Family business is tetchy with all of them."
She said all of this shocking secret casually, smoking.
"Anyway, I knew about your troubles later, Leonardo informed me. I feel less guilty now knowing you had fun doing it." she raised one eyebrow in a tease, unbothered by the tale of the harrowing gauntlet.
"And yes, Leonardo must be punished." she smiled one that mirrored Lillandyr's.
"For the audacity, of course."
@daily-writing-challenge