Maxen did enjoy the afternoon with his brothers, and he wished he had more time to spend with them.
“All right, Maxen?” Didier asked.
Maxen pushed the melancholy thoughts aside and tousled his hair, laughing when Didier danced aside. “Fine. Where to next?”
When they’d exhausted themselves thoroughly, they turned back for home. Maxen stopped at one of the food stalls on the way out of the market and bought a bag of spice cookies. Far too many for the three of them to eat on the walk home, but Mother, Selene, and Renaud would steal some as soon as they walked in the door. Well, Renaud would. Before Father died, Mother and Selene would have as well; Maxen wasn’t sure now.
Didier made inroads into the bag as they walked through the streets, leaving the teeming crowd of the festival behind for the quieter residential streets.
“She’ll say something again,” Thierry said as they walked through the gate and up to the house’s front door.
“I know.” Maxen tried to make it sound as if he didn’t mind, but Thierry wasn’t stupid.
“You don’t have to come in.” Didier stopped just before they got to the front door. “We’ve had fun this afternoon, and thank you for taking us. But you don’t have to come in.”
Maxen hated that his youngest siblings were already twisted up in Mother’s attempts to push her sons into the roles she planned for them. Maxen hadn’t done himself any favors with her by moving out, but he couldn’t bring himself to stay away when his siblings needed him.
“I’ll come in.”
Thierry and Didier gave him a dubious look. Maxen reached out and ruffled his brothers’ bright hair. With a sound of disgust that almost hid their smiles, they ducked away. Shaking his head, Thierry led the way into the house, and Maxen followed, smiling to himself. A maid took their coats and hats and told them Mother and Selene were in the front parlor. Maxen followed his brothers in, the smile falling away from his face.
A fire crackled in the parlor hearth, but it was the only sound in the room. Both Mother and Selene sat near the hearth, working on embroidery. Maxen went to them and kissed Mother’s and then Selene’s cheek. “How are you this evening?”
“As ever.” Mother gave him a pointed look. “I would be better if I saw more of you.”
“I’ve been busy with work.” He’d discovered that she found arguing with that excuse difficult—though she was likely to insist that as the oldest, Tristan should shoulder the responsibility—and it had the advantage of being true, if not the whole truth.
She narrowed her eyes. “That’s all well and good, but I’d see you anyway if you lived here the way you should.”
“I’m content where I am, Mother, but I’ll try to come see you more often.” He hated that he didn’t want to.
“Hmph.”
“How are you, Selene?” Maxen asked. “Would you like a spice cookie? We brought some back with us. I think Didier left you some.”
“Hey.”
Maxen glanced back and grinned at Didier who clutched the package of cookies in his hands. “We bought them to share.”
“I know.” He came forward and offered them to Mother and Selene. Mother shook her head, but Selene delicately took one.
“You’ll stay for dinner, won’t you, Maxen?” Mother asked.
“I’m sorry. I can’t. I have work I need to finish.” He’d brought home a stack of paperwork that needed to be finished despite the holiday. “Another time.”
“Soon.”
“I promise.”
Before he could take his leave, Mother spoke again. “I heard that you’re attending the princes’ anniversary ball.”
“I am, yes.” He said it slowly, cautiously. “How did you know?”
“Duna told me.” Mother obviously hadn’t liked hearing the information from Amory’s mother. Maxen wasn’t even sure how she knew the details of the guest list. Amory wasn’t close to his father and older brother, which meant he saw little of his mother. Perhaps the information had come from one of his younger siblings. “I wish you’d mentioned it sooner.”
“I was only invited a few days ago.” And Faelen’s invitation had hardly been formal, though an official invitation had followed the next day.
She frowned slightly. “I was surprised to hear you’d received an invitation when your sister and I hadn’t, but you’ll take Selene with you, of course. This is a good opportunity for both of you.”
“An opportunity?”
Mother frowned and shook her head. “Maxen. You and your sister need to marry well. What better place for her to meet suitors than a palace ball?”
“Mother…I can’t.” Maxen floundered for a moment. In hindsight, he should have been prepared for this demand.
“Of course, you can. Don’t you care about your sister’s future?”
Didier had shrunk back from their little cluster, clearly wanting no part of the uncomfortable discussion, but Selene was watching Maxen. She sat perfectly straight with no sign of embarrassment.
“I care very much. You know I do,” Maxen said, sharing his attention between Mother and Selene. “But I was asked to attend by…a friend.”
Mother’s gaze sharpened. “What friend? I assumed your brother invited you.”
“No. It isn’t his ball.”
“But this friend of yours did.” Mother’s frown deepened.
“Yes.”
“Well, who is it? The princess?”
Maxen frowned. “No. Why would the princess invite me to a ball?”
“You sat with her at Tristan’s wedding. You danced with her. I thought maybe…”
“Nothing happened between us beyond a conversation.” It wasn’t even the one he remembered most from that night. That one had been with a somewhat shy, beautiful man, and Maxen treasured it as the fragile beginning it had been.
“Well, go to the ball and talk to her again. She just doesn’t know you well enough yet.” Mother made that pronouncement as if courting a princess was nothing out of the ordinary—as if Maxen would obviously want to. “And take your sister. I’m sure your friend won’t mind, whoever they are.”
Maxen sighed. “I’m sorry, Selene. I’m not going to abuse the princes’ hospitality by bringing an uninvited guest to their ball.”
“Amory won’t mind. You all grew up together.”
Maxen closed his eyes for a breath and then opened them to look at Mother. “Mother, you have to stop doing this—pushing at us. Pushing so hard, especially this way.”
She bristled, drawing herself up straighter. “I’d like my children settled properly. Is that so wrong?”
“No, it’s not wrong.” He sighed again. “But you’re going about it the wrong way, and I think you know that.”
“I know nothing of the kind.”
“You should, then. This isn’t the right way to do this. I’ll marry in my own time, when I find someone I want to spend my life with.” Faelen’s face flashed into his mind. “When I’m ready. Selene has plenty of time and opportunity to do the same. You need to stop manipulating everything.”
She wouldn’t, but he had to keep saying it.
“Maxen? Is everything all right?”
Faelen wasn’t even sure he should ask, but Maxen had looked troubled from the moment they’d met up. He’d smiled and kissed Faelen on the cheek, a press of lips that should have been chaste and casual but instead felt like an expression of longing. Maxen took Faelen’s arm when they began walking, and Faelen couldn’t stop the smile from curving his lips.
Maxen jumped slightly under Faelen’s hand. “What? Oh, everything is fine. Why?”
Faelen frowned at the slight pang of hurt, but Maxen didn’t have to tell him anything—as much as he hoped he would. “You look troubled.”
Maxen sighed. “My mother and I had a…discussion yesterday.”
Faelen gathered “discussion” wasn’t the word Maxen first thought of, and he could only imagine what the real nature of the encounter was. He’d heard some thin
gs about Maxen’s mother, mostly because of what she’d done to Tristan after his wife had died in childbirth. Tristan still hadn’t forgiven her and had little contact with her, and Faelen couldn’t blame him for that. “Do you want to talk about it?”
Maxen was silent for a few moments as they continued to walk. Then he sighed again. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to ruin our outing.”
Faelen tilted his head to the side and contemplated Maxen. “We don’t have to go, if you’d rather not.”
Maxen stopped abruptly, pulling Faelen to a halt with him and nearly causing a collision with the person behind them. The man grumbled at them and went around, but Faelen ignored him, focusing instead on Maxen as they turned to face each other.
“Of course I want to go with you. Why would you think I wouldn’t?”
“It’s not that. I just thought…if something’s wrong, you might not feel like going now. There might be somewhere else you need to be.”
“No.” Maxen lifted a hand and gently tucked a stray curl behind Faelen’s ear. “There’s nowhere else I want or need to be right now.”
Faelen smiled slightly. “All right.”
They started walking again, Faelen taking Maxen’s arm. After a while, Maxen spoke. “I don’t know if Tristan has mentioned anything about our mother and the things she’s done.”
“I’ve heard a little.”
Maxen nodded slowly but didn’t look at Faelen. “I don’t want to explain all of it now, but she was pushing about a lot of things—my living away from the family, how my sister and I need to marry. Marry well.”
“Oh.” Faelen wasn’t sure what to say about that, or what it even meant. Did Maxen’s mother know about them? Would she consider him a suitable match for her son? He was a cousin to the prince, which might be all she cared about and was the last thing Faelen wanted to be valued for. Why was he thinking about marriage anyway? “Um.”
“She heard I’m attending the princes’ ball and started insisting that I bring Selene.” Maxen shook his head, the movement heavy with disgust and weariness. The weariness tugged at Faelen’s heart. “I told her that she hadn’t been invited, that I couldn’t just bring someone to a ball at the palace, and she began accusing me of not caring about my sister’s future.”
Faelen bit his lip. It wasn’t what he’d envisioned when he’d asked Maxen to come to the ball with him. He’d hoped they could spend the evening together, but he hated to cause problems for Maxen. “You could bring your sister. I can talk to Amory and see that she’s put on the guest list.”
“No, Faelen.” Maxen stopped again, this time tugging Faelen gently out of the path of other pedestrians. “You don’t have to do that.”
“I know, but I’m offering.”
Maxen was shaking his head. “You don’t need to go to the trouble, to ask for favors for me.”
“It’s no trouble. And with the size of the guest list, it’s not much of a favor. One more won’t even be noticeable.” Faelen took Maxen’s hand and squeezed. “Let me do this. It’s little enough, and if it helps… I hate to see you so upset.”
Maxen’s expression softened. He lifted Faelen’s hand to his lips and kissed his gloved knuckles. “Thank you for that, but I can’t. If I give in to Mother’s manipulations, she’ll only do worse. Let me handle this, please.”
Faelen looked up into Maxen’s blue eyes. So beloved to Faelen, but so weary. He wanted to do everything, anything, to make the weariness and the terrible resignation go away. “All right.”
“Thank you.”
He bit his lip. “Will you let me distract you for a while, then?”
A slow smile curved Maxen’s lips. “What did you have in mind?”
“Well, I think we’ll go to the festival, and I’ll drag you around the market and to all the entertainments and ply you with sweets.”
“I thought I would be the one plying you with sweets, Fae.”
Faelen narrowed his eyes and glared at Maxen, but inside he thrilled at the pet name and that Maxen’s eyes had some of their sparkle back. “Last I checked, you weren’t indifferent to them either. Now, the change of plan is that instead of staying out as long as we’d planned, I would drag you back to your house and up to bed.”
Maxen’s gaze went hot, the sweep of it over Faelen’s body almost a tangible thing, making him shiver. “And what will we do when we get there?”
His heart had been galloping in his chest at his boldness already. Could he say more? Could he describe everything he wanted to do with Maxen? He wasn’t certain. He licked his lips, and Maxen’s gaze immediately snagged on the action. It made Faelen feel powerful, but not quite enough. “When we’re there…you’ll be at my mercy. I’ll kiss you and touch you all over. And then, when you can only think of me, I want you inside me again.”
Hot and cold flashed through him as he waited for Maxen’s reaction. He’d kept a tremble out of his voice, but if he held up a hand, it would be shaking. And still, the words, the thought of doing those things, had heat pooling in Faelen’s belly.
Maxen took a shuddery breath, but he never looked away from Faelen. “I can’t think of anything except you now. Why don’t we skip all the rest and go straight to what comes after that?”
Faelen laughed, and if it shook a little, they could both ignore it. “No, you promised me the festival, and the anticipation will do us both good.”
“Or it might kill us.” Maxen lifted a hand to Faelen’s cheek, a light touch that heated him straight through. Sighing, Maxen took his arm again. “All right. Let’s go.”
Childlike glee bubbled up inside Faelen, had him nearly bouncing as they walked arm in arm down the street. He worried that his silliness would annoy Maxen, but he should have known better. Maxen smiled as Faelen talked about the things he’d like them to do—much easier to talk about what he planned for the festival than for later in bed—and seemed altogether ready to indulge him. For all Faelen had said he would ply Maxen with sweets, Maxen was the one who stopped at a stall and purchased a little bag of fried dough tossed in cinnamon and sugar.
He took Faelen’s gloved hands and laid the bag into it. “For you, Fae. Try these.”
“I thought I was supposed to be giving you sweets.” He reached into the bag and popped one into his mouth, nearly groaning as the warm sugar and spices of the cake burst on his tongue.
“You can share.”
Faelen hunched over the bag and turned away a little. “They’re mine.”
Maxen laughed, a light, happy sound that Faelen thrilled to. He wasn’t deluded enough to think he’d eliminated the unpleasantness with Maxen’s mother from his mind entirely, but perhaps this was some small help.
Jumelle’s marketplace always bustled and was filled with wares from seemingly everywhere in and outside of Tournai, but at Midwinter, even more goods crowded the stalls. Faelen had almost forgotten—the capital of Teilo didn’t have near as much diversity of goods and food. With some silent accord, he and Maxen decided to look at everything, and Faelen did share his food, holding out the little bag so they both could eat from it.
They looked at hats and gloves, at swords and knives, at leatherwork, at bound journals and stalls of secondhand books. After discovering little miniature portraits of Philip and Amory with the date of their wedding painted on them and then odd little dolls depicting the two men in their wedding finery, they made a game of seeing what other strange merchandise commemorating the anniversary they could find—and tried not to be too obvious in their laughter. Painted pottery, various embroidered items, toys, glassware. Faelen kept shaking his head as they saw ever more outlandish tributes.
“I can’t believe some of those things,” Faelen said as they wound their way back through to the food stalls. “Who thinks of them?”
“I have no idea.” Maxen stopped at a foodseller’s and ordered something from the girl. “I still think we should have bought those dolls for Prince Julien.”
Faelen burst into giggles. “Could you imagi
ne Philip and Amory’s faces? I can’t even think what Julien would’ve made of them. It might have been worth buying them just to see.”
“We can always go back.” Maxen turned to him and handed him a pastry drizzled with honey and studded with dried fruit and nuts.
Faelen took a bite and made a little noise of pleasure. When he’d swallowed, he looked up to find Maxen watching him. “What is it?”
“Just trying to stop myself from abandoning the market to drag you to bed and see if I can get you to make that noise for reasons other than pastry.”
Faelen’s breath caught even as his cheeks heated. Cursing his fair skin, he bit his lip and stared into Maxen’s eyes. “Why don’t you?”
Maxen sucked in a sharp breath. “And if I said I’d like to see if you taste better than the pastry drizzled in honey?”
Faelen’s eyes flew wide. Well, that was…interesting. “Is that meant to make me refuse?”
For a moment, Maxen just stared at him. “Do we have anything else we have to see here?”
Faelen didn’t even think about it. “No.”
Maxen was smiling a slow, wicked smile that made heat zip through Faelen again, when a voice came from behind him.
“Faelen!”
Chapter Seventeen
Faelen frowned and turned to find Alexander walking toward him with Meriall and Adora beside him. He blinked, but his twin, his cousin, and Amory’s sister were still there. Why were they there? He narrowed his eyes.
“Alexander.”
Maxen was already moving to greet Meriall and Adora, Meriall more formally than Adora, whom he kissed on the cheek with a familiar smile. Faelen forced back a prickle of what he realized was jealousy. He had no reason for jealousy. Maxen wouldn’t dally with anyone else, not behind Faelen’s back or right in front of him, and Maxen and Adora behaved more like siblings than anything else, which he could see after that first silly reaction.
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