“I wouldn’t. But. everyone else will.” He sighed. “Fitz, Fitz, Fitz.” He came up behind me and put his hands on my shoulders. Very, very gently, he said, “It might be best to let her go.”
The touch and the gentleness had disarmed me of my anger. I lifted my hands to cover my face. “I cannot,” I said through my fingers. “I need her.”
“What does Molly need?”
A little chandlery with beehives in the backyard of it. Children. A legitimate husband. “You are doing this for Shrewd. To make me do as he wishes,” I accused Chade.
He lifted his hands from my shoulders. I listened to him walk away, to wine being poured into a single cup. He brought his wine with him to his chair and sat down before his fire.
“I’m sorry.”
He looked at me. “Someday, FitzChivalry,” he warned me, “those words will not be enough. Sometimes it is easier to pull a knife out of a man than to ask him to forget words you have uttered. Even words uttered in anger.”
“I am sorry,” I repeated.
“So am I,” he said shortly.
After a time I asked humbly, “Why did you wish to see me tonight?”
He sighed. “Forged ones. Southwest of Buckkeep.”
I felt ill. “I had thought I would not have to do that anymore,” I said quietly. “When Verity put me on a ship to Skill for him, he said that perhaps-”
“This does not come from Verity. It was reported to Shrewd, and he wishes it taken care of. Verity is already … overtaxed. We do not wish to trouble him with anything else just now.”
I put my head back into my hands. “Is there no one else who can do this?” I begged him.