The Duchess Quest (Jordinia Book 1)

by C. K. Brooke

  Cosmith beamed at her. And then, to Bos’s dismay, the young woman slowly grinned back, her fair cheeks turning pink.

  “Yes,” Cosmith whispered. “Clever girl. Precisely like honey. Perhaps you shall venture up north with me sometime, so that you, too, may taste its sweet secretions upon your tongue.”

  “Enough, Cosmith,” barked Pascale. “You will not defile my niece’s ears with your talk.”

  The older women traded amused glances, and the duchess glanced at them inquiringly, the allusion having thankfully surpassed her innocent reckoning.

  “Forgive me, Captain,” begged Cosmith overdramatically. He returned to Eludaine, inching closer still, and Bos’s muscles tensed. “And forgive me as well, Your Royal Highness,” he said softly, their eyes interlocked, “for I have failed to formally introduce myself.

  “Jonwal Harrington Cosmith, at your service.” He bowed. “But to my friends,” he straightened, “I am simply Jon.”

  Bos wished for nothing more than to strike him.

  “Well, gentlemen,” interruped the woman called Paxiamma, clasping her hands together. “Forgive us, but we need a word with our Dainy-girl, alone. So, if the three of you wouldn’t mind….”

  She herded Bos, Macmillan and Cosmith down a cramped hallway. It ended in a small dinette, where there was naught but a pantry and an old wooden table set with mismatched chairs in varying stages of disrepair.

  In the doorway, the woman drew a privacy curtain made of seashells strung together on fishing nets, more or less confining them there until further notice. They listened as her sturdy footsteps receded.

  The moment their hostess was out of earshot, Macmillan rounded on Cosmith. “What is this?” he demanded. “How did you know to come here?”

  Cosmith held up his hands. “Relax, Mac. It’s a joy to see you too.”

  Bos had no more patience for the man after his display before the duchess. “Macmillan is right. You have some explaining to do.”

  “Whatever do you mean, Bos?” Cosmith simpered inculpably. “After Pascale robbed me of my gold, and the three of you abandoned me, I was hungry and destitute. Lo and behold, I came upon this charming place. Ms. Paxi was kind enough to invite me inside, feed me a delicious meal, and offer that I stay the night.” He folded his arms contentedly.

  “We don’t believe you.” Macmillan scowled. “There’s something fishy about this.”

  Cosmith made a show of sniffing the air. “Speaking of fishy, Mac, the two of you reek to the high heavens. I know not how the duchess has tolerated your offensive stench thus far, but I’d consider the washhouse out back, if I were you.” He shrugged, popping the last of the pan-fried plantains into his mouth. “Just a suggestion.”

  BEWILDERED, DAINY WATCHED AS HER aunts and uncle paced the tiny parlor before her.

  Uncle Pascale addressed his sister. “Perhaps you should tell her.”

  Aunt Paxi shook her head. “I don’t know nothin’ about foreign politics.”

  “Why don’t you explain, Pascale?” asked Aunt Priya mildly, as though entreating him to speak his opinion on the weather.

  “You raised her,” argued Pascale. “It is not my place to tell her.”

  “Sorry to interrupt,” Dainy interjected, “but I’m sitting right here.” She folded her arms. “What are you all going on about?”

  Uncle Pascale sighed. “Dainy, accept our apologies. There’s something we’ve been withholding from you.”

  Dread and anticipation rose in Dainy’s chest. “Then tell me, whatever it is.”

  “We believe we’ve learned the identity of your parents,” said Aunt Priya gently.

  Dainy had not been expecting this. Her parents? They had abandoned her, left her as a baby on Priya’s and Paxi’s doorstep, as she’d been told. What did it matter who they were? And why bring it up now, when she was already of age?

  Her stomach knotted. Would she even wish to meet them, after they had deserted her? “Where are they?” she inquired, in spite of herself.

  “Dead,” Pascale answered.

  Dainy stared at him. She wasn’t expecting to feel a surge of disappointment, and some distant echo of sadness. “Then why tell me at all?”

  “Dainy.” Uncle Pascale frowned. “Do you recall what happened to the royal family of Jordinia?”

  Dainy considered the question. She knew the northern nation had once been a great empire, until it was overthrown by the New Republic, when she was very small. “Weren’t they all killed?”

  “Almost all,” said Pascale carefully.

  She was growing frustrated. “But what does this have to do with my parents?”

  “Your parents,” Paxi whispered, and Dainy was taken aback to see tears glittering in her eyes, “we believe, were the emperor and empress of Jordinia.”

  Dainy’s breath caught. She could scarcely comprehend it. Her parents, an emperor and empress?

  Then who did that make her?

  “We believe you are Eludaine Ducelle, Duchess of Jordinia,” said Pascale, quite seriously.

  Dainy’s mouth moved wordlessly. “But…how?” she finally asked, feeling lightheaded.

  Paxi and Priya slowly divulged the true story of how Dainy had come to live with them. She had not been a baby, left in a basket on their doorstep without a note, but had been handed over as a small, sleeping toddler by foreign men in the dead of the night, begging the women to care for her, before they disappeared without a trace.

  Her aunts took turns relaying the events of that night fifteen years ago, when Dainy was only three years old. In shock, Dainy listened. She had no memory of any of it.

  Until, she realized, that perhaps she did.

  There had always been that ineffable something, those vague nightmares she sometimes suffered…her head being thrust into a burlap sack, her arms yanked to and fro. In those dreams, there was always chaos, terror….

  In her mind’s ear, she suddenly recalled the terrified voice of a woman—her mother, screaming her name: “Eludaine!”

  The distant memory no longer repressed, Dainy was overwhelmed with despair. In that moment, she was once again the tiny child shivering in the cold, unseeing, torn from her mother by uniformed men.

  “Dainy,” cried Paxi, hurrying to her side. “It was too much for her,” she scolded the others, enclosing a shaking Dainy in her arms.

  “What is it?” demanded Pascale.

  “It is a shock to her, Pascale,” came Priya’s voice.

  “Hush.” Dainy was comforted by Aunt Paxi’s warm embrace. “She’s stricken because she remembers.”

  Leave it to Aunt Paxi to know her best, she thought appreciatively.

  She regained her composure and pulled away, wiping her moist eyes. “So, who are those men? My royal guard?” she joked.

  “You have an uncle, Dainy,” said Pascale. “By blood,” he clarified with a small, sad smile. “He lives in Häffstrom. Do you know where that is?”

  She nodded. Of course she knew where Häffstrom was. It was north, like everywhere else. Someplace northeast, she thought. …Or was it northwest?

  “He wishes to be reunited with you.”

  “Those men have come to take you with ’em, baby girl.” Paxi sniffled. “To meet your kin.”

  Dainy swallowed. So she had an uncle, all the way up in Häffstrom, who had sent those men to summon her? Why did he not retrieve her himself? “How did he know where to find me?” she asked. Had he known about her survival all that time?

  Pascale shrugged. “I know not, Dainy. But perhaps you can ask him, if you wish to go with them and meet him.”

  Dainy bit her lip. Leave Beili with those strangers and voyage up north, all to meet an uncle who had made no effort to seek her until then, after she was already grown?

  Then again, what was her other option? Stay in Beili, deny her uncle
and the men he’d sent, and continue with life as usual? The notion was unthinkable now. Of course she couldn’t just resume her old routines, stuffing hay mats and picking crabmeat, now that she knew her true identity was allegedly that of former royalty, and her only living blood relation awaited her.

  She could voyage to Häffstrom, meet this man, glean whatever satisfaction may come of it, and return home to Beili whenever she wished. The inn and her aunts would still be there. What harm could it do? Would it not be rather exciting?

  Besides, she thought to herself, thinking particularly of the breathtakingly handsome Jon Cosmith, with his charming manner and bedazzling brown eyes. He had an effect on her that she’d never experienced before, making her stomach churn and her knees give way. I’d certainly like to see more of him.

  Although, the one with the polite smile and sable hair wasn’t so bad-looking, either. Already, she’d been given more attention by the male of the species in one afternoon by those northerners than in her entire lifetime in Beili. Perhaps she might rather like Häffstrom. These intimate thoughts brightened her spirits a few shades.

  “Dainy?” said Priya, drawing her from her reverie. “You do not have go.”

  “We won’t force you,” said Paxi.

  But Dainy had made up her mind. “I want to go. I’d like to meet this uncle of mine.”

  “Then promise you’ll be careful,” Pascale warned her. “The New Republic believes you to be dead. They might feel threatened by your survival. Do nothing to cross them.”

  “Pascale, do not frighten the girl,” scolded Priya.

  “I’m only ensuring she knows what she’s agreeing to.”

  Dainy’s head was beginning to spin.

  “And Dainy-girl,” began Paxi, speaking over them. “There’s something else you should—”

  Dainy held up a hand. “I’ve already made up my mind.” She rose. “I’m going. Whatever else you say won’t make a difference. This is something I need to do.”

  “But, Dainy.” Pascale blocked her as she made to leave the parlor. “You must understand, your uncle—”

  “Please.” Dainy tried her best to sound courteous, but inwardly, she was screaming. It was all so much at once. “I just…need to be alone right now, Uncle Pasc.”

  “Dainy,” Priya tried, but Dainy covered her ears.

  “Can we just talk about this later?” Without awaiting their response, she hurried up to the loft.

  “Leave her be,” she heard Paxi tell the others. “Our girl’s got enough on her mind. She’ll find out the rest soon enough.”

  ONCE DAINY HAD DISAPPEARED, PAXI hurried off to tend to their guests. Priya found herself alone with Pascale.

  “So,” she said. “How ever did you find these men?”

  “I wasn’t exactly looking for them. But as the fates would have it, they fell into my path at Hopestone Bay.”

  Priya nodded. “Such is the work of the gods.”

  Pascale shrugged. “Bos and Mac are decent, far as I can tell. It felt right to help them. Mac would be a good match for Dainy.”

  “What about the other?” inquired Priya.

  “You mean Jon Cosmith?” His expression darkened. “He is not so virtuous.”

  Priya snorted. “Oh, Pascale. You only dislike him because he’s handsome,” she teased. “And you are jealous.”

  Pascale gave her an indignant look, but this merely caused Priya to giggle. “And what did he mean, by the way,” she inquired boldly, “about you being—what was the term he used?—enraptured by my loveliness?”

  She did not expect Pascale to look so serious.

  “Devil though he may be,” said the man, “Cosmith is right. You are beautiful, Priya Gupta.”

  She felt herself blush.

  “That should not be your name,” he whispered. Priya watched him, puzzled. “Your name,” he moved closer, “should have been Priya Higueleri, twenty-five years ago.”

  Her pulse trembled as she met his eyes.

  With careful deliberation, Pascale extracted something shimmery from his pocket. He lowered himself onto both knees. “Priya.”

  “Oh,” she whimpered, chills dancing down her spine. Dare she believe this?

  “I know you might think it’s too late.” He bowed his head and offered up a bracelet with both hands, in the traditional way. “The years have passed us, and I now I know that, in my youth, I was a fool. My greatest regret will always be that I did not marry you when I first had the chance. But I beg your forgiveness. And I ask you to become my wife, truly, this time.”

  Priya took in a breath, overcome. She had given up dreaming of this moment long ago. But it wasn’t a fantasy; it was really happening. The exquisite nuptial bracelet twinkled up at her.

  “Please say yes,” Pascale implored her, “and I promise that, this time, we shall wed.”

  The woman pushed the tears from her eyes. This was a joyous triumph of the heart, and she would not spoil it by crying. “Yes,” she breathed.

  Pascale rose and fastened the band around her left wrist. They stood, admiring its pearly contrast against her creamy brown skin, like moonlight over sand.

  The man pulled her into his embrace and kissed her. They did not break apart when Paxi emerged from the dinette, their guests at her heels, or even when Dainy descended back down from the loft, stopping short before them.

  MACMILLAN TOOK ONE LOOK AT Pascale locking lips with the innkeeper, Priya, and instantly understood whom the nuptial bracelet was for. The fine piece Cosmith had apparently procured for the fisherman now sparkled around the woman’s slender wrist, and it was clear by their embrace what her response had been.

  The duchess looked surprisingly crestfallen. “But I cannot go away now,” she lamented. “Not if I’ll miss your wedding!”

  “Nonsense,” said Priya, finally releasing the man in her arms.

  The girl turned to Pascale. “When shall it be?”

  “When I return from sailing you to Häffstrom,” Pascale replied evenly.

  This, apparently, was news to the duchess. “I am sure my escorts know their way,” she insisted. “We do not need your accompaniment.”

  “Dainy,” Pascale said in a low voice, though Macmillan could hear him plainly. “It is hardly appropriate for you to travel alone with strange men. There’s no question that I shall accompany you.” He cleared his throat. “Besides, your journey shall be swifter by boat. Priya and I will wed upon my return.”

  “No,” protested the girl, and Macmillan was startled by her liveliness. “Do not delay for my sake!”

  “I’ve waited twenty-five years already, Dainy,” said Priya kindly. “I can wait one moon more.”

  But these words far from comforted the duchess, as she only seemed became more agitated.

  “Forgive her.” Paxi offered an embarrassed grin to Macmillan and company. “It’s been a trying afternoon for our Dainy-girl. This is not her usual disposition.”

  The maiden’s lightning-green eyes narrowed. “I can speak for myself.”

  Macmillan politely averted his gaze. It was awkward, being in someone else’s home, witnessing another family’s quarrel. Macmillan tried his best to pretend not to listen.

  “There will be no more talk of my wedding,” Pascale told her sternly. “Earlier, you expressed your willingness to go. Have you changed your mind?”

  She shook her head.

  “You are of age now,” Priya reminded her. “You’ve your own destiny to fulfill.”

  “Then I’d like to set sail at once,” declared the duchess, looking defiantly between them, “so that you may marry as soon as possible.”

  “Fine,” said Pascale, his face emotionless. “Have your things packed by sunrise. We leave tomorrow after breakfast.” He turned to depart, but Priya and Paxi commanded him back.

  “Tomorrow?” c
ried Paxi. “Why so soon?”

  “Dainy wishes to go, I wish to be wed, and I am sure that these men,” Pascale pointed to the search party, “wish to return her to her uncle posthaste.”

  “But—!”

  “Tomorrow morning then,” said the duchess staunchly, disregarding her aunts’ protests. She and Pascale exchanged curt nods of assent, and Pascale departed the hut, calling for the men to follow.

  Macmillan, Bos and Cosmith joined him outside. Pascale lowered himself into a chair beside a card table piled with fish and began filleting them, one by one.

  “Now,” he grunted, dragging his blade through a specimen and removing a grid of bones in one well-practiced move. “Because I see no other way around it,” he glanced up at Cosmith, “I suppose you’re sailing with us?”

  Cosmith broke into a grin.

  Bos took the words from Macmillan’s mouth. “No.”

  “I’d like to keep my eye on him,” muttered Pascale, working his knife. “Rather take him along and keep him in plain sight, than have him sneaking up behind us and kidnapping the girl.”

  “Kidnapping the girl, now there’s an idea!” Cosmith roared with laughter, although he was the only one to find it the least bit humorous. “I’m only joking,” he amended at their frowns.

  “I don’t like this,” said Bos flatly.

  “Nor do I,” declared Macmillan.

  “To be fair,” said Pascale, not looking up, “he did uphold his end of the bargain, and purchased the finest nuptial bracelet at market for Priya.”

  At this, Macmillan had to wonder if perhaps Pascale felt indebted to the rogue for that day’s good fortune with his beloved.

  “You see, boys?” said Cosmith in pleasant tones, eyes glinting. “I cannot be all bad.”

  Macmillan seriously doubted that.

  “Pascale, how can you risk the duchess falling into Cosmith’s hands?” demanded Bos.

  Pascale watched his work. “To speak plainly, Bos, I’ve a feeling that one’s only after the gold.”

  Cosmith merely shrugged, examining his fingernails. “If you say so, Captain.”