by Anne Bishop
Jaenelle looked at him and smiled.
Butterflies filled his stomach and tickled unmercifully before turning into heavy, sinking stones.
“Well,” his darling said, “you have a wonderful deep voice too. So if Papa refused, I was going to ask you.”
Saetan walked into the sitting room where he’d asked Geoffrey and Draca, the Keep’s Seneschal, to meet him.
“My friends, this bottle of wine arrived this evening, compliments of Prince Sadi. Since it came from the wine cellar at the Hall, I can assure you it is a very fine vintage, one best enjoyed when shared.”
He called in three glasses and opened the wine.
Draca said nothing until he handed her a glass. “What iss the occassion?”
Saetan grinned. “My son has just realized how much his father loves him.”
SEVEN
Daemon walked out of the bathroom in the Consort’s suite, noticed the look of apprehension on his valet’s face, and approached the clothes laid out on the bed with a heightened sense of wariness. He studied the gold-checked shirt and dark green trousers, which were not his usual white silk shirt and black jacket and trousers. Then he looked at his valet.
“What are those?” he asked.
“Casual attire,” Jazen replied. “You said you were walking down to the village. For exercise.”
“I said I was going to walk to the village instead of taking a carriage because I could use the exercise.” Which, in his mind, wasn’t saying the same thing. “But I’m going down to the village to talk to Sylvia. The Queen of Halaway. At her request.”
“But you’re walking. So you’ll need these.” Jazen held up a pair of shoes that were not Daemon’s usual black, polished-to-a-gleam footwear. “They go with the casual attire.”
Daemon lightly scratched his chin with one black-tinted nail. “I’ve been an adult for quite some time and have handled all kinds of personal details all by myself. I am now the ruler of a whole Territory, which means I make decisions that affect the lives of thousands of people. So why am I no longer capable of choosing my own clothes?”
“You got married.”
He studied Jazen’s face. “That wasn’t a smart-ass remark, was it?”
“No, Prince. The Lady thinks you look stunning in your usual attire, but she felt a change of pace once in a while would be good for you.”
“I see.”
While Jazen went into the bathroom to “tidy up,” Daemon shucked off the bathrobe and got dressed. There wasn’t much to tidy, but he didn’t need an audience when he dressed or undressed—unless it was Jaenelle—and Jazen, who had been viciously castrated when he’d lived in Hayll, didn’t need to see a whole male and be reminded of what he had lost.
By the time Jazen came back into the Consort’s bedroom, Daemon was dressed and inspecting a cloth bag full of broken biscuits that had been left beside the clothes.
“No!” Jazen said a moment before Daemon popped a piece into his mouth.
His gold eyes narrowed. “Since they were here with my walking attire, I assumed these were treats for the walk.”
“They are,” Jazen assured him. “But not for you,” he finished, hunching his shoulders.
Ah, Hell’s fire.
Daemon opened the bedroom door and stood in the doorway, not ready to commit himself by stepping out of the room.
Five furry little bodies waited in the corridor. Five little tails wagged happy greetings. Five little Sceltie minds yapped at him just outside his inner barriers.
«Walkies?» «Walkies!» «We go with you!»
He got bumped into the corridor when Jazen shut the door behind his back.
“Fine,” he said, vanishing the sack of treats. “Let’s go for walkies.”
The first challenge came when he reached the bottom of the stairs and was stopped by the wails and arooos coming from the top of the stairs. Apparently the puppies could get up the stairs by themselves but couldn’t get back down.
So it was up the stairs, gather a pup in each hand, down the stairs, set the pups on the floor. He could have used Craft to float all five Scelties and bring them down at one time, but…
Exercise, Sadi. You were taking this walk for the exercise.
Two more trips, and they were all heading for the great hall and the front door.
Where Beale was waiting for him, holding a water dish and a pitcher of water. A footman opened the door, and five bundles of fuzzy scampered outside, yipping for him to hurry up.
Daemon vanished the bowl and pitcher. “Thank you, Beale.”
“Enjoy your walk, Prince. I have asked Tarl to bring around one of the small gardening wagons.”
Daemon just raised an eyebrow and waited.
“It is a long walk for short legs,” Beale said. His expression didn’t change, but there was a definite twinkle in his eyes. “I think you will find the wagon more convenient for the walk home.”
When he’d be pulling that wagon full of five snoozing puppies.
“I am a Black-Jeweled Warlord Prince and the Warlord Prince of Dhemlan. I haven’t imagined being those things, have I?”
“No, Prince,” Beale replied. “You have not imagined those things. You are the most powerful male in Dhemlan.”
Nodding, Daemon walked to the door.
“However…”
He stopped. Twisted at the waist to look back at Beale.
“After the Lady came to live with him here at the Hall, the High Lord quite often asked the same question.”
Sylvia looked at the puppies. She looked at her younger son, Mikal. Then she pointed at the door. “Outside in the yard. And stay in the yard. That is not only a request from your mother; it is an order from your Queen.”
Boy and puppies scampered outside.
“Does that work?” Daemon asked. “Using both titles?”
“It usually gives me an extra fifteen minutes before I have to check on him and stop whatever mischief he was about to get into.” She brushed at her hair and seemed surprised when it came to an abrupt end.
“New haircut?” he asked, keeping his voice neutral. It was short and sassy and made her look more…athletic…than the longer, more elegant style he was accustomed to seeing on Lady Sylvia.
“New clothes?” she countered.
“I got married,” he replied dryly.
“We did notice.”
Shadows in her eyes behind the amusement.
“Why?” he asked softly, looking at her hair. But he knew.
“I needed to look different.” She touched her hair again. “I didn’t want to look in the mirror anymore and see the woman who had been the High Lord’s lover.”
She walked into the family parlor. He followed.
“I loved him,” she said. “I still do. I’ve sat in this room through a lot of long nights, thinking about what happened last year and why he chose to step away from day-to-day living—and from me.”
“Sylvia…”
“No. Let me say this to someone. Please?”
He slipped his hands in his trouser pockets and nodded.
“Saetan showed me what I deserve from a lover. Not just skills in bed, but the genuine affection, the interest in my life and my concerns. That mix of tenderness and amusement he would have when I raved on about something. That look that said, whatever was going on, he understood it was female and he would just ride it out.” She pressed her lips together and closed her eyes for a moment. “I finally realized he left…. It wasn’t just because of what was done to him when he was tortured in Terreille. He really needed to go, to step away from the living Realms.”
“Yes,” Daemon said softly. “He really needed to go.”
He watched her eyes fill. Watched one tear roll down her cheek.
“We were friends before we were lovers.” She wiped the tear and sniffled. “I miss my friend. More than the lover, I miss my friend. I wrote him letters on some of those long nights. Just newsy things about Halaway or the boys.”
�
��But you never sent them.”
“No.”
He held out a hand. “Give them to me.”
“Oh, no, I—”
“Give them to me. I can’t tell you that he’ll welcome them or that he’ll read them. But I’ll offer them.”
She opened a drawer in the rolltop desk and took out a packet tied with a rose-colored ribbon. “There are a couple of letters from the boys, too. Maybe…”
He took the packet and vanished it before she could change her mind. “He did love you, Sylvia. He still does. But he’s not coming back.”
“I know.” It was a trembling smile, but it was still a smile.
“Well, I’d best gather the furry children and—”
“No.” Sylvia made a face. “I didn’t ask you here to talk about your father. It’s your mother we need to discuss.”
Daemon studied the fronts of the two cottages, then slowly circled the buildings, checking to see that everything was well tended. Saetan had purchased one cottage fourteen years ago as a home for Tersa. Daemon had purchased the neighboring cottage for Manny, the servant who had been his caretaker when he had been an enslaved prize living in Dorothea SaDiablo’s court. More than that, Manny had raised him, had loved him, had been the one good constant in his childhood.
When he immigrated to Kaeleer, he brought Jazen and Manny with him, not willing to leave them to the mercy of the Queens in Terreille. Jazen remained as his valet. Manny, after a few weeks at the Hall, wanted a place of her own—and work of her own. He bought her the cottage next to Tersa’s, and Manny gradually took over as housekeeper and cook for Tersa and Allista, the journey-maid Black Widow who was Tersa’s current companion.
He rounded the corner and stopped, counting silently to see how long it took the young couple locked in an ardent embrace to become aware of his psychic scent and, therefore, his presence.
He reached twenty before the boy’s body jerked with awareness and the couple jumped away from each other.
He stared at the girl first, letting instinct rule temper. Her embarrassment came from who had caught them kissing, but he didn’t pick up any of the bitch-pride feeling that came from witches who enjoyed putting males in a compromising position. And the shy smile she gave the boy before bolting out of the yard made him feel easy enough about her to relax about the boy. This wasn’t a conquest; this was young love. Most likely, Manny would have shooed the girl out of the yard—after giving the couple enough time for a few unchaperoned kisses.
As he walked toward the boy, he wondered if Manny had taken up her other occupation—village matchmaker.
“Prince Sadi,” the boy stammered.
Sleeveless undershirt, dirt-smeared and sweaty. Wheelbarrow, hoe, rake, shovel. No doubt one of the youths who earned a few coins by helping out with the heavier chores.
“We were just…I was just…” Flustered, the boy looked at the tools and the ground as if an answer would suddenly appear.
“I noticed.” He smiled, letting dry amusement clearly show.
“The next time you want to kiss the girl in a public place, stay aware of what is around you. And try a little less tongue next time. Never hurts to have the girl wanting more than you’re giving. Especially in these circumstances.”
The boy looked at him, shocked delight lighting his face because the Warlord Prince of Dhemlan—and more importantly Jaenelle Angelline’s husband—had offered sexual advice.
Suppressing the urge to sigh, and feeling much older than he had felt when he woke up that morning, Daemon walked to the back door and knocked.
When Allista opened the door, she didn’t seem overly anxious, but he did pick up an undercurrent of concern as he stepped into the kitchen.
“Tersa is up in the attic,” Allista said. “She’s put locks on the attic door, and she’s secretive about what she’s been doing for the past few weeks.”
“Why wasn’t I informed about this?”
“It’s odd, but there doesn’t seem to be any harm in it or any danger to Tersa. In fact, she’s quite pleased about…whatever this is.”
He felt the edge of his temper sharpen. Tersa was his mother, a broken Black Widow who, seven hundred years before, had surrendered her already-tenuous hold on sanity in order to reclaim her power as a Sister of the Hourglass and see the dreams and visions that foretold the coming of Witch. She had given him hope the night she had told him about the vision she’d seen in her tangled web. But the price of seeing that vision was that her life became as shattered as her mind—until Jaenelle brought her as far out of the Twisted Kingdom as Tersa was able to go, and brought her here to live under the care and protection of the High Lord.
“I am here at least once a week,” Daemon said, his voice strained by the effort not to lash out at Allista. “I should have been informed if Tersa was acting unusual in any way.”
Allista stared at him, clearly struggling with the need to balance loyalties. Being here was part of her own education—all Black Widows took the risk of becoming lost in the Twisted Kingdom—and in that, her loyalty was to the Hourglass Coven and to Tersa. But he ruled Dhemlan, and he was the one who provided her with a quarterly income to show his appreciation of her care—just as his father had done before him.
She came to a decision. She raised her chin, squared her shoulders, and said, “She didn’t want you to know.”
He was out of the kitchen and bounding up the stairs before Allista could sputter a protest.
The physical lock on the attic door was undone, but when he tried to open the door, he heard the rattle of another lock on the other side. And he felt the tangle of a Craft-shaped lock. If Tersa had made it, that lock was potentially dangerous, even to someone with his power.
“Tersa?” He pounded on the attic door. “Tersa! Open the door!”
«Go away,» she replied on a psychic thread.
«No, I will not go away.»
Annoyance came through the thread. And a trace of fear.
«Wait.»
He paced the upstairs hallway, and he waited. Five minutes. Ten minutes. Fifteen minutes.
Finally the attic door opened and Tersa slipped into the hallway. She was as thin as she’d always been, despite the regular meals, but her clothes were new and her hair, still as tangled as her mind, was clean.
“Tersa.” He couldn’t read her emotions, couldn’t untangle them enough to get a feel for what was going on. That she was unhappy about his presence hurt, but he set the hurt aside.
“It’s a surprise,” she said, a pleading note in her voice that he’d rarely heard before. “For the boy. Just a little surprise for the boy.”
The boy. Meaning him. He often wondered what she saw when she looked at him. Was it like looking into a shattered mirror with each piece holding an image from the past? Sometimes he knew she was seeing him as the child he had been before Dorothea took him away from her and drove her out of Hayll. Sometimes she saw him as the youth he had been when he’d met her again, thinking it was the first time because he didn’t remember who she was. And sometimes she saw him as he was here and now. But within all the broken pieces of her mind, he was always the boy.
Knowing why she didn’t want him there eased the hurt. She was making something for him, and she was afraid he would insist on seeing it before she had finished it.
He ducked his head and looked at her through his lashes. “When do I get my surprise?”
A moment’s startled hesitation. Then her gold eyes narrowed. “You are teasing me?”
“Just a little.” He gave her his best boyish grin.
Her eyes narrowed a little more, but he noticed the change in her psychic scent as she absorbed the fact that he was being playful instead of demanding answers.
“When do I get my surprise?” he asked again.
“Soon. But not today.”
He waited, watching her make the effort to hold on to the ordinary world.
“Today you can have nutcakes.” Tersa took his arm and tugged him towa
rd the stairs leading to the first floor—and away from the surprise in the attic. “And milk.”
“I don’t need milk,” he said, hustling down the stairs to keep up with her.
“Boys get milk with nutcakes. It’s a rule. Manny told me so.”
He clamped his teeth together. He couldn’t argue with a rule that gave Tersa a way to cope with something other people saw as simple and mundane, not when he knew Sylvia’s son Mikal was a frequent visitor. Manny, no doubt, had established the rule for Mikal’s benefit.
“Fine,” he said, trying not to snarl. “I’ll drink the”—damn—“milk.”
Tersa stopped just inside the kitchen and shook her finger at him. “And no using Craft to vanish the milk. That’s fibbing.”
A mother’s gesture. A mother’s scold. Such an extraordinary thing to come from Tersa because it was so ordinary.
It almost broke his heart.
There were so many things he couldn’t say to her, his mother, because they would confuse her, tangle her up, threaten her fragile connection to the mundane world. But there were other ways he could tell her he loved her.
So he raised her hand to his face and pressed a kiss in her palm. “All right, darling. I’ll drink the milk. For you.”
“So,” Jaenelle said as they inspected the dining room in the spooky house. “We have the skeleton in the closet, the critters in the cobwebs, the snarl in the cellar, the glowing eyes and smoke, and the laughing staircase.”
Marian shuddered. “Can’t you fix that laugh to just one stair?”
Jaenelle turned to her and grinned. “It is much creepier now that I took the original laugh and played it in a cavern to get the final sound. But we don’t want it fixed to one spot. The next set of visitors would anticipate hearing it when they reached the sixth stair.”
“Exactly.” She’d almost wet herself when she’d carefully avoided stepping on the sixth stair and then had that sound rising up under her feet when she stepped on the eighth stair. “At least, fix it to one stair while we’re still working on the house.”
Jaenelle gave her one of those long, assessing looks. “Admit it. This has made you shudder and shiver a lot of the time, but you’ve also had fun.”