Prince of Honor (House of Terriot Book 1)

by Nancy Gideon

  “Syl.” He said her name so gently. “Are you going to let my grandmother’s truth be the only one I hear? Or are you going to trust me to tell me yours?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  They sat together on the couch, close but not touching, not looking at one another.

  Turow followed her body’s signals, staying away, giving her time and room to get to the heart of what held them apart. If he could get to that truth, perhaps they’d have a chance to get past it.

  “My father . . .” Her voice broke. She couldn’t finish so he gave a quiet prompt.

  “Your father . . . hurt you?” The calmness of his tone didn’t reflect the horror in his soul, thinking about that word Colin had explained so explicitly.

  “No. I loved him. All we had was each other. He was the only one who saw me. My mother was wrapped up in her ambition. Wes was too busy becoming a Terriot prince. It was just the two of us, so lonely. And together, we were happy.”

  “What happened, Syl?”

  “We weren’t bothering anyone. We weren’t in anyone’s way. Just the two of us keeping each other company because no one else cared that we were even around. He was gentle and kind and sad. My mother bonded with him because Bram refused her, and she needed the security of my father’s position. He loved her but was afraid of her temper, was afraid to object to anything she did. He didn’t want to know what she did. He didn’t want me to learn of what she did. So we made our own world.”

  “And he was a good father and loved you.”

  “Yes.” Such a fragile, hopeless response.

  Row took a risk, letting his fingertips brush over her cold, cold hand. Hers turned, curling into the security of his palm, gripping, hiding there, warning of what was to come.

  “So what changed?”

  She fell quiet for a time, breathing soft and slow, working up to things he couldn’t bear to hear but had to know.

  “We were reading. Fairytales, my favorite.”

  She glanced up at him, smile heartrending. He smiled back in encouragement. Her focus drifted from him into the past.

  “I think I’d fallen asleep because the yelling woke me up. My mother was in my room. It was dark, but I could see her in the light from the hall. She was screaming at him, for him to get his hands off me, to get away from me. I could hear them arguing in the other room, for hours, but couldn’t hear what they were saying. I was crying, but no one came in. No one ever came into my room again. She was so angry with me, but wouldn’t tell me what was wrong. She called me a little bitch and said she wasn’t about to let me get in her way. I didn’t understand. I didn’t know what I’d done. And then he died. So suddenly. Heart failure. And she told me that was my fault. That he couldn’t live with what he’d allowed to happen. That I’d broken his heart, and it just stopped beating.”

  She leaned into Turow then, into the secure port he opened with the lift of his arm, burrowing in beneath his chin to rest against the solid rhythm beneath her ear.

  “You didn’t do anything, Syl. You were a little girl. Just a little girl. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “That’s not what they said.”

  Her low, deadened tone had him hugging her in close as if his arms could protect her from damage already done.

  “Who said?”

  “The other girls. Your brothers. They whispered when they knew I could hear them. Saying I was bad. That I’d done awful things.”

  “You loved your father. You would have done anything for him." A pause. "Syl? Did your father ever ask you to do something you thought might be wrong, but did anyway because you loved him and trusted him? Is that why you can’t trust me?”

  She went very still against him, breathing fast and hard now.

  “I’ve done things,” Turow confessed. “My father asked terrible things of us when we were just boys. We did them because we were afraid not to, not because we wanted to. Did your father ask you to do things that made you uncomfortable?”

  “No. No! I don’t know. I don’t remember. He read to me until I fell asleep. He held me in his arms. He kissed me on the cheek. My mother said he did bad things, but wouldn’t tell me what they were. Maybe she was right. Could she have been right?”

  “Syl. Maybe she was lying,” he amended quietly.

  She looked up at him, confusion and pain steeped in her tragic gaze. “Why would she do that?”

  “Why would she? You know her. What would she have to gain from crushing the soul of her only daughter?”

  He watched that question sink in, wanting to snatch her up and never let her go. But he couldn’t interfere with this awful journey she had to take alone.

  “Maybe she was lying.” Sylvia mouthed that as if testing the possibility. Once the notion took root, it grew like one of her mother’s noxious herbs. “She was jealous of me, of his affection for me. He was protecting me from her. He was in her way, and she wanted to be rid of him.”

  “How would she have done that?” he coaxed softly.

  “She would have gone to Bram. He still lusted after her, but she was denying him. She’d have told him her mate was abusing her daughter. She would have asked his permission, because she wouldn’t have dared without it, permission to punish him and get rid of the threat to me. To kill him in a way that would raise no suspicion.”

  “Except for the suspicion she’d already planted about his relationship with you.”

  He could see her processing that, her expression losing its vulnerable pliability, becoming hard and sharp and cunning. The image of her mother as she mentally walked in the witch’s shoes.

  “She poisoned him. Stopped his heart to stop his threat. She would have played upon Bram’s sympathies, promising herself for his compliance in looking the other way if any questions were raised. And she’d be right where she wanted to be, free, at the right hand of the throne, the true power behind a king who’d soon be going mad under her care.

  “And she had me right where she wanted me, too. Shunned, powerless, helpless without her.” Her cold, glassy stare liquefied with tears. “Oh, Row. How could she? He was such a good, gentle man.”

  The bitch had smashed her world, and she cried over another. He fought to retain his control over emotions that wouldn’t help the situation. Fury, hatred, and worst of all a sympathy that would weaken the woman he loved.

  “She ruined me with her lies,” Sylvia continued bitterly. “She made me believe I was bad, evil, that I didn’t deserve to have anyone love me. She punished me by locking me away, so I would have time to consider my sins alone in the dark.”

  As he’d done, closing her away in the cave-like interior of the truck bed. Exacting an awful punishment. No wonder she’d burrowed against him so thankfully. He’d had no idea.

  “I believed her,” she went on in that fierce, flat voice, “when she said that I would destroy anyone I let care for me. So, I couldn’t let anyone care. I couldn’t let anyone close. I couldn’t love or let anyone love me. Because I was just like her. Don’t you see? I can’t let you love me because I’m just like her.”

  “No. She lied, Syl. She tried to destroy you the same way she killed him. She poisoned your trust and your innocence. But you’re stronger than she ever could be. Because you wanted the things she was afraid of. Because you discovered the things she told you would make you weak are the ones that make you powerful. I wouldn’t love you if you were like her. I wouldn’t have come after you if I believed that for a second. I should have told you that a long, long time ago.”

  Her gaze held his intently, searching, finding, fearing the truth in those impassioned words. “Why didn’t you?”

  “I was a kid. I was naïve. I wanted to tell you I was sorry for what they said happened to you, but I didn’t want to embarrass you. I was afraid you’d think I was making fun of you. So I didn’t say anything. I wanted to tell you I understood because I knew how it felt to have someone you love let you down. But I was afraid I’d make things worse, so I didn’t. I let yo
u down when you needed me, and I promised myself I would never let that happen again. But I did, didn’t I? I didn’t see that what I was doing was hurting you, putting you into a dark place you couldn’t escape.”

  Her fingertips stroked his rough cheek. “I didn’t want to escape, but I didn’t know how to stay.”

  “Stay, Syl. Stay with me. Please.”

  His kiss was an elixir, healing all the hurts, all the pain she’d carried for so long. He’d come after her. He wanted her. He loved her. Still.

  He leaned back so just the tips of their noses were touching. “I seem to remember this couch pulls out.”

  “It does.”

  “I think I’d like very much to lie beside you and hold you in my arms.”

  “Is that all you want?”

  “For now.”

  Her eyes clouded with misunderstanding. “You don’t want me.”

  He smiled. “I’d hardly say that. I’m tired and right now, I need you more than I want you.”

  Tumultuous emotions melted away. Her arms surrounded him, squeezing hard, hanging on tight as the terrible panic of what she’d almost lost shook through her.

  “I love you, Turow Terriot,” she whispered against the warmth of his throat, feeling his jerky swallow as he surrounded her with all that he was.

  Curled together on the very comfortable couch, Turow managed to sleep for a time as early evening filled the room with heavy shadows. Beside him, Sylvia lay awake and anxious as the hours crept by.

  She had an appointment to keep.

  Thoughts of danger and intrigue faded away as her mate stirred beside her, his quiet breaths deepening with intention as he whispered, “I’m not that tired anymore.”

  Clothes were shed, not in a rush but with a slow, sensual reveal, not a tearing away of the wrapping to get to a surprise but the appreciative lingering that came with full understanding of the value of what one had. Their lovemaking was like that, too. Slow, unhurried, satisfying rather than dramatic.

  And in that contented afterglow, when Turow had placed his diamonds back in her ears, Sylvia found the courage to ask, “Row, what did you mean when you said you understood what it was like when someone you loved let you down? Were you talking about your mom?”

  A silent beat then his quiet, “Yes.”

  “Would you tell me about her? I’d like to know the truth.”

  She feared he’d pull away, but he remained in the circle of her arms, his head heavy on her shoulder, his answer weighed with a mixture of love and sorrow.

  “She was so full of life, Syl. The room exploded when she entered it. She was beautiful and fun, always laughing, taking chances. Everything I’m not.”

  Sylvia rubbed her lips against his hair. “You could be.”

  “If I have enough to drink, and that won’t be for a long while.” He tipped back his head, his eyes a smoldering silver as they slowly closed when she bent to kiss him.

  “Did she and your grandmother argue?”

  “Only when they spoke to one another.” A quiet laugh. “Bram Terriot was a mistake she’d never get over, she’d tell Grandma, me being the result of that mistake, the one thing keeping her from all her dreams. She wanted to be a dancer, an actress, a singer . . . depending on the week or time of day . . . not some stuffy mother of a prince bound up in rules. Grandma forced her into the match, an obligation to her family, an obligation that slowly suffocated her. An obligation she’d never be able to take with her to that life she wanted to lead.”

  “She taught you to dance.”

  “To my grandpa’s vinyl records, the only kind of music Grandma would allow in the house. It was the only time I really felt close to her, the only time she’d let me see how much she loved me.”

  “What happened to her, Row?”

  “They’d had a big fight, she and Grandma. It was late, and I was in bed. She thought I was asleep. She kissed me. I can still smell her perfume. And she was crying when she told me she had to leave, that she’d just die if she stayed. She promised she’d send for me. And she was gone. She never got where she was going. She drove out into an ugly night and off the road. All because I was so easy to leave behind.”

  “Turow.”

  “If I’d been in the car, she wouldn’t have been speeding. She wouldn’t have been drinking. She was always careful with me.”

  “Because she loved you.”

  “Because I was a Terriot prince. That’s how she saw me. Not as a son she loved, that she couldn’t bear to leave.”

  “I doubt that’s true. Because it tore the heart out of me to do it.”

  “It was a long time ago.”

  “It was last night. It wasn’t because of anything you did or couldn’t do. And it sure as hell wasn’t easy. Can you forgive us? Can you believe it was about loving you and not about wanting to leave you?”

  A pause then a hopeful, “I want to.”

  Her palm stroked down the thrillscape of his chest, lowering with purpose as she murmured, “Let me convince you.”

  The click of the front door knob alerted Sylvia that they soon might not be alone. She’d been drowsing happily, holding to the moment for as long as possible, but that contentment scattered.

  Shalimar? She didn’t think so. A friend he’d given the key?

  To prevent an awkward introduction should Turow wake to an intruder, she slipped out from under his arm and into his tee shirt over her jeans. A glance confirmed that he still slept soundly.

  Just in case it wasn’t a friend, she palmed a pair of Mar’s sewing shears off the counter on her way to the door.

  The crowded living space was all undisturbed darkness. Sylvia hesitated, wondering if she’d imagined it as she crossed cautiously to the door to find it still locked. With a sigh of relief, she began to turn. And bumped into the intruder.

  Fingers clamped about her jaw to hold in her cry of alarm. The sharp scissors were plucked from her hand in mid arc.

  “No need for these.”

  The identifiable whisper brought no lessening of her fear until a low growl rumbled behind them.

  “Let her go and step away, or you’re dead before your next heartbeat.”

  Sylvia managed to wrench her head to the side, freeing a quick, “No, Turow!”

  Her assailant released her, turning without concern to chide, “That’s not much of a greeting.”

  Sylvia snapped the light on, illuminating a very shocked and very naked Turow. He went immediately down on one knee.

  “My king. Forgive me.”

  “Maybe once you put some clothes on.”

  Turow shook his head in confusion. “How did you find us?”

  “GPS on your phone. Don’t be an ass.”

  When he started to stand, Cale made a shooing motion. “Clothes first. Then conversation.”

  As he scrambled to find his pants, Sylvia confronted their ruler warily. “Why are you here?”

  Cale smiled tightly. “Do you think I’d let him handle you alone?”

  “He was handling things just fine.”

  Hastily garbed in jeans, boots and his jacket over bare chest, since she was wearing his shirt, Turow stepped between them. “I’ve got things under control, my king.”

  “Really?” Cale inhaled slightly, breathing in the musky scent of sex. He raised a brow.

  To evade questions both spoken and unasked, Turow changed the subject. “You’re not here alone, are you?”

  Cale laughed at that. “Hardly. Bull’s outside. He finessed the lock. Usually he just knocks the door down. It’s all I can do not to have him breathing down my collar. We have spotters placed around the area. I’m as safe as in the arms of my queen.”

  “Kendra’s here?” Turow gaped at him, aghast.

  “Oh, hell no. I don’t need two nannies hovering over me. I put her to bed with a quart of ice cream and told her I had some things to work on.”

  “You lied to her?”

  His disapproval made his king scowl. “No. I’m here . .
. working on some things. Is that okay with you?”

  Turow flushed slightly and lowered his gaze. “Yes, my king.”

  “I need a face-to-face with you, and then I’m outta here. But first I need to talk to her. Alone.”

  A subtle bristling accompanied the slow lift of Turow’s stare. “About what, my king?”

  “Some business between the two of us. Is that all right with you?”

  Despite the testiness of the question, Turow still took exception to it. “I’m not sure.” He glanced from Cale's unreadable expression to where Sylvia stood.

  “It’s all right,” she assured him, betraying no obvious distress. “Why don’t you step outside and get some air for a minute. I’ll be fine.”

  After stabbing his brother with a warning glare, he nodded and brushed past them, his hand sliding briefly over hers. It took all her restraint not to grab on tight.

  The second the door shut, Cale’s hand was about her throat, shoving her back against it.

  “Can you give me a reason not to kill you?” he snarled low and fierce.

  “No, my king. I have no reason. No excuses. Just regrets.”

  “How could you rip him open like that? That’s a low I wouldn’t have expected, even from you.” When she didn’t answer, his fingers tightened. “What do you want from him?”

  “I left him to save him.”

  “From what?”

  “From me.”

  Lids lowered over coldly-calculating eyes. “I don’t believe you.”

  “I don’t care what you believe. This isn’t about you.”

  “Oh, it’s very much about me. About bringing me down, destroying me after what happened to your mother. Deny it.”

  “I had the chance. I walked away from it to save him. My mother got what she deserved. He doesn’t deserve any of this. Let me go, Cale. Take him back with you. Let me finish what I need to do.”

  Cale sighed, grip loosening slightly. “He won’t go. Not without you. He thinks you’re worth saving.”

  “We both know that’s not true, don’t we?”

  “I want you out of his life. What’s it gonna take?”