by Dan Wingreen
A reaction that Elias was growing very apprehensive about.
Because he hadn't, as of yet, reacted at all. It was very unlike the Crown Prince Elias knew. That prince would have chased Elias down and ripped him away from the Dark Prince at the ball, no doubt shouting nonsense about destined love and evil spells and innocents being taken advantage of. There would have been a massive scene, an even bigger scandal, and it all would have ended with half of the nobility fleeing for their castles in fear of war with Mournhelm, and the other half begging the King to please reconsider disinheriting the Crown Prince and impregnating someone, anyone, and hopefully doing better the second time around.
But nothing had happened. He hadn't so much as sent Elias a strongly worded letter and that worried him. There was no way the Crown Prince was emotionally mature enough to nurse his heartbreak in private while not letting it affect his duties. He let everything affect his duties. Sooner or later he would do something spectacularly stupid and unfortunately public, and depending on what it was, there was a chance it might actually lead to war.
The idea that Ellington might be dragged into war because Elias Sutterby was too emotionally impaired to notice an adolescent infatuation from a man-child two years his senior did not sit well with him at all.
So he waited, and wondered, and enjoyed his courtship despite it. The Dark Prince was charming when he wasn't trying to be, and attractive when he wasn't perfect, and Elias was slowly being pulled deeper and deeper into what he might have called blissful infatuation, if he was the type to use such terms. He had professional and emotional fulfillment, a potential future with a man who, for all their personality conflicts, fit him like a matching puzzle piece, and people were avoiding him. His life was…startlingly wonderful, in ways he'd never imagined it could be.
It really should have been less surprising than it was when everything started to change.
Chapter 21
A loud, muffled banging startled Elias awake.
It was early morning, judging by the dim light edging its way around the thick curtain covering the only window in the bedroom. Elias sat up and rubbed his eyes. Across the room Chappy was also awake, staring at the bed in confusion, as if he couldn't quite conceive of a noise waking him up which had nothing to do with his charges.
The Dark Prince was pressed face first into his pillow with his rear sticking in the air like a child, snoring softly.
The banging came again, louder this time.
"Wha…" The Prince slurred into his pillow. "Was' th' noise?"
"It's coming from the drawing room," Elias said. It was only his supreme displeasure at being startled awake that kept him from smiling at the disheveled prince while thinking words he would never admit to, such as adorable and endearing. "I think someone's knocking at your door."
The Prince growled and opened a single, unfocused eye. "They will be dead within minutes."
He closed his eye and made no further move to get up.
Elias sighed. "On the off chance that they don't suddenly drop dead in the hall, perhaps someone should answer the door so they stop pounding on it?"
"Very good. Thank you, Elias. It's much appreciated." The Prince's arm twitched, but he couldn't be bothered to complete whatever motion he was attempting.
Elias sighed again, weighing his distaste for dealing with obnoxious knockers against the possibility that whoever was knocking was important enough to cause an inter-kingdom incident should forcing the Prince to answer his own door actually result in a murder.
The odds of such a possibility were, regrettably, somewhat high.
"Very well." Elias started to reach for his glasses on the table next to the bed before deciding it was extremely unlikely he was going to have read anything and decided to leave them. He swung his legs out from under the covers and got up. The floor was carpeted, thankfully, but the fire had died during the night and his skin erupted in gooseflesh the moment he left the warm cocoon of blankets. He grabbed the nearest robe and wrapped it around his nightclothes, only then realizing it was one of the Prince's. He considered looking for another one, but the pounding got even louder and his annoyance won out over his sense of propriety.
"Considering that these are your rooms, the odds of this not being about me are astronomically high. You should get up and get dressed, unless you want to deal with whoever it is in your nightclothes."
The Prince made a very disgruntled noise, but Elias was already stalking out of the bedroom and through the drawing room. The pounding was even louder out there, with a metallic ring which brought to mind a heavy gauntlet banging against wood. Which is exactly what it was, Elias noted, when he threw open the door and fixed his most scathing glare on the two royal guardsmen standing outside in the hall.
They were both tall and broad, in the way guardsmen tended to be, clad in plate mail, open-faced helms, and castle livery. The one who had been pounding stared at Elias with a mixture of disbelief and contempt, while the other one—who was older and, presumably, of superior rank—fixed Elias with a stern, piercing look.
"Yes?" Elias said, somehow managing to push every ounce of his annoyance into that one word while still keeping it almost placidly polite.
"Are you…the Dark Prince of Mournhelm?" the one who had been knocking asked.
I could be sleeping, Elias thought, wistfully.
"No."
A short, expectant silence filled the space between them until it became obvious Elias wasn't going to elaborate.
"Is he here?" the guard asked.
"His Highness is currently sleeping, considering the hour. What is this about?"
"And who are you?" the older guard asked. His voice was calmer than the younger guard's, carrying an authority which didn't need to be snapped or shouted to be respected.
"His…intended," Elias said, stumbling slightly over the word he just now realized he was saying out loud for the first time.
"And your name?"
"Elias Sutterby."
Elias frowned internally when he saw the guard take out a small black book and a portable quill before beginning to write.
"You live with the Dark Prince?"
"—Yes."
"For how long?"
"Surely any passing servant in the halls could tell you."
"I'm asking you."
"—Just over two weeks."
The guard scribbled, taking his eyes off of Elias just long enough to glance at his writing.
"Why are you asking me these questions?"
"Just getting some background information."
"Really? Because it seems like an interrogation."
"It's not an interrogation." The guard made a point to look Elias in the eyes when he said that, which Elias thought was a rather obvious tell that he was lying and thought he knew how to hide it.
"Are you sure?"
"We're the ones asking the questions," the younger guard said sharply.
Elias crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow. "That's definitely something you'd only say during an interrogation."
The older guard shot a glare at the younger, making him flinch slightly.
"Why are you here?" Elias asked.
"We'll need to go inside for this discussion."
Elias stared the older guard down, unmoving. "Why?"
"This isn't something that should be discussed where people can overhear," he replied, and Elias could hear a thread of growing impatience in his voice. Elias made a point of deliberately leaning out of the doorway and looking both ways down the desolate hallway, before looking back to the guard and raising his eyebrow again. The guard's lips pressed together, but Elias was slightly impressed to note it was his only outward sign of irritation.
"May I at least know the names of the people who wish me to invite them into quarters that are not my own?"
The younger guard scowled and opened his mouth, but before he could say—or, more likely, yell—anything, the older one answered.
"I'm Guard Captai
n Harrington and this is Guardsman Barnaby. Can we go inside, now?"
Barnaby was looking very disgruntled—probably something to do with his unfortunate name—but Harrington met Elias's gaze with a gravity which was probably meant to be intimidating. Elias debated being stubborn, they had woken him up a good three hours before he'd intended, but the fact there was a guard captain at the Dark Prince's door this early was most troubling.
He stepped back and gestured for them to come inside. They wasted no time entering, and Elias closed the door behind them before following them deeper into the drawing room, only to realize that there wasn't any place for them to actually sit. Not all three of them, at any rate, since there was no chance that Elias was going to allow guards in polished mail to sit in his chair by the—now cold—fireplace. Instead, he placed himself in the center of the room and crossed his arms over his chest.
The guards didn't seem put out by his lack of manners. They were too busy looking around the room. The fire had been out for hours, but the heavy curtains had been pushed away from the windows to either side of the fireplace by a servant sometime during the night, letting in the gray early morning light. Every so often one of them would pick up an object or a piece of parchment and study it for a few moments before pointedly placing it somewhere other than where they'd picked it up. It was childish and rude and very worrying, because this most definitely was an interrogation tactic Elias recognized, designed to unsettle a subject before they started questioning them. Sure enough, after several minutes had passed, Harrington turned to Elias and asked, "Do you know Lady Selmanica Nesbeth?"
This time, Elias raised both eyebrows. "You mean the marchioness?"
"So you do know her, then." Harrington took a step closer to Elias, straightened himself to emphasize their height difference as much as possible, and proceeded to loom.
"I met her once," Elias answered, because there really was no point in lying, no matter how much he disliked such obvious manipulation. "What is this about?"
"And was the Dark Prince with you when you met her?" Harrington asked, leaning slightly closer.
Elias met his heavy stare with a placidity completely at odds with the sudden churning of disquiet in his stomach. "What is this about?" he repeated.
"Where is the Prince, anyway?" Barnaby asked. He was right behind Elias now, somehow having managed to sneak up on him in heavy mail. Elias refused to flinch at the obvious attempt at intimidation.
"I refuse to answer any more of your questions until you tell me what this is about."
Elias stared Harrington down, ignoring the way he could feel Barnaby's breath on the back of his head.
"Marchioness Nesbeth was found dead last night," Harrington said. His eyes bored into Elias's. "Murdered."
Elias blinked. His first thought, after Harrington's words had fully sunk in, was, I've never known a murder victim before. His second, much more productive thought was, He's being this blunt on purpose. He wants to see my reaction.
Which, combined with whose rooms these were, told him all he needed to know really.
"You think the Dark Prince killed her."
If Harrington was pleased or disappointed with Elias's reaction, it never showed on his face as he continued to calmly study Elias.
"It's one possibility that we're investigating," he said a moment later.
Elias was unable to hold back a soft scoff. "That means he's your only suspect."
"That means you better answer our questions if you don't want your wedding to be held in the dungeons," Barnaby said.
They work far too well together for this to be the first time they've been partnered. And if Barnaby is routinely partnered with a captain, then he isn't the impatient oaf he's playing at.
In fact, considering they were being sent to investigate the Dark Prince for murder, he would assume they were an incredibly competent team of investigators. That they happened to be utterly wrong probably wasn't a reflection on that competence.
"Then it's fortunate for my hypothetical future wedding His Highness didn't commit any murders. He was with me the entire night. Both me and our chaperone can attest to that."
Instead of the anger or frustration he would have expected to see on Harrington's face at the irrefutable evidence that his only suspect was innocent, he saw a smirk briefly cross the captain's lips.
"That doesn't prove your prince didn't kill her."
Elias had just opened his mouth to argue that, in point of fact, it very much did prove that very thing, the door to the bedroom was flung open and a very dressed, very awake, very sprightly Dark Prince strolled into the room.
"So," he said, flashing a cheerful grin, "who have I murdered?"
Elias sighed. Harrington turned away from him and fixed a suspicious, narrow-eyed glare on the Prince. He couldn't see what Barnaby did, but judging by the way the Prince's grin widened as he looked over Elias's shoulder, he could imagine it was something similar.
The Prince seemed to decide very quickly Harrington was the one in charge, because he barely glanced between the two guards before walking up to the captain and stopping just inside of what would have been considered a polite distance. Harrington was slightly taller than the Prince, and much bigger in almost every other way as well, yet the Prince still gave off the impression he was looking down his nose at him.
"The bedroom door is very thin," the Prince said in response to the unasked question clearly written across Harrington's face. "Hence why your incessant knocking wasn't ignored until a more reasonable hour."
He said it amiably enough, yet Elias could see that his eyes were a shade darker than usual. The Prince was angry, and Elias suspected it had more to do with being woken up than the accusation of murder.
"This is Guard Captain Harrington and behind me is Guardsman Barnaby. They're accusing you of murdering the Marchioness Nesbeth," Elias said before Harrington could attempt to employ any more interrogation tactics. His earlier fears about the person knocking at the door being murdered hadn't quite disappeared.
The Prince frowned in confusion, his eyes going distant for a moment before lighting up with recognition. "That horrible woman? Well, that's not much of a surprise. She was rather unpleasant."
He smiled placidly up at Harrington, but Elias could see a small glint of anticipation in his eyes that the scholar easily recognized.
He's baiting the guards who are investigating him for murder.
Elias wasn't sure if he should be horrified, infuriated, or grudgingly awed by his effrontery.
"You knew the victim, then?" Harrington asked, his portable quill poised over his notebook.
The Prince glanced at the scholar. "Look, Elias, he's writing a book on me as well."
"Highness…" Elias shot the Prince a disapproving look.
The Prince ignored it and turned his attention back to Harrington. "Yes, I knew her. How else would I know how unpleasant she is? Or should I say 'was', now?"
"You don't seem very broken up over her death," Barnaby said.
The Prince rolled his eyes. "Of course I'm not. Did I not just say, twice, that she was unpleasant?"
"Is that why you killed her?" Harrington asked.
"Oh, very clever," the Prince said with a lopsided smile. "But, unfortunately, your cleverness is wasted on me because I didn't kill her."
"It was 'unfortunate' that you didn't kill her?"
"Again with the clever wordplay and trying to trip me up with it." The Prince looked at Elias again. "Are you memorizing all of this, my dear? It will make a fascinating chapter in our book."
Without waiting for a response, he went back to talking to Harrington.
"But, yes, quite unfortunate."
Harrington, to his credit, didn't seem to be thrown by the Prince's "clever wordplay" any more than the Prince was falling for his. "So, by your own admission, you wished to kill her."
"There are a great many people I wish I had killed," the Prince said. His airy, easygoing tone was completely at odds
with the sudden sharp look he fixed on Harrington. "Some more than others."
"And yet"—Elias cut in—"he didn't kill any of those people just like he didn't kill Marchioness Nesbeth because, as I've already informed you, he was asleep next to me all night long."
"And there you have it," the Prince said, spreading his arms. "Irrefutable proof of my innocence. Now comes the part where you apologize for wasting my time and I ignore your apology and tell you that if you ever knock on my door this early again, I will give serious thought to burning you alive."
Elias just barely resisted the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose.
It's almost like he wants to be a murder suspect.
"You're threatening a captain of the guard?" Barnaby growled. He was so close to Elias now, the scholar could feel the plate armor pressing against his back. The Prince's eyes slowly shifted towards Barnaby and then darkened several more shades.
"I don't threaten," he said, enunciating every word with icy clarity. "I promise. And if you don't step away from my intended within the next three seconds, I promise that you'll wish I decided to burn you alive."
Elias could count on one hand the amount of times he'd seen the Dark Prince truly angry. It was an impressive sight, to be sure, yet it was one of the few things that had never gotten much of a reaction out of Elias, even when that anger was directed fully at him. For some reason, he expected his own lack of intimidation to be reflected in others. So, he was understandably surprised when the pressure on his back disappeared, and he heard Barnaby take several quick steps away from him. Even Harrington gave the Prince a wary look before backing up a few steps of his own.