by Megan Derr
"I knew it must be funds or flesh."
"Lust is far more dangerous than money," Sharla replied. She reached into her bodice and pulled out a small key, which she then used to unlock a desk drawer. Restoring the key to the depths of her ample bosom, she opened the drawer and extracted a small, half-size portfolio. "He owed quite a bit of money when he died, but he always paid his debts in full at the end of each month. A long time customer, which is why he was permitted to pay in such fashion."
Kinnaird looked the information over, wishing what he read was still capable of shocking him. Nothing shocked him anymore, and that distressed him.
His mind flitted briefly to Reyes' outburst, about Kinnaird never being around. Because it did shock him that he thought he might be able to give it all up, if it meant staying home with Reyes at his side.
He forced his mind back to work. "So he likes pretty young women to teach him a thing or two." No wonder his mystery woman wore a scent reminiscent of children's candy. It would lend the impression of a younger woman, make him falling over eager to obey, to please.
Kinnaird could understand the bossy bit, at least. He loved when Reyes got tetchy and bossy; it made him want to shove Reyes into the nearest wall and jerk him off, until Reyes' orders turned into breathless begging.
"Yes," Sharla said. "He was good to the girls, though. And he did like women, not children, unlike some in this town I could name but won't this time around. In the end, he wasn't a bad man, really. He just… was not comfortable with authority. He liked when control was taken out of his hands." She shrugged. "I hope that helps some, dearest."
"It does," Kinnaird replied. The Chief had mostly been a good man, but one who liked to try moving in higher society and who was not comfortable with all the control in his hands. That was really all the answer he needed. "Now, darling mine, his was not the name you thought I would say. Who did you think had brought me here, this time?"
She smirked. "That will cost you, sweet. As will the Chief."
Kinnaird flicked his fingers dismissively. "I can afford you, dove."
"No man can afford me," she replied with a smile that was more cat than dove. She reached into the desk drawer again and selected a second small portfolio, handing it over the desk to him.
Opening it, Kinnaird read for a few minutes, then shook his head. "That is a lot of debt our dear Earl of Pleasant is facing. I do not think my estates are worth this much."
"Your estates are worth four times that," Sharla said, rolling her eyes. "As to our dear Earl, he has been banned from gambling in Cassala until his debts are paid in full. He is lucky no one dares kill an Earl over a matter of money, even a lot of money." She studied her painted nails with a show of boredom. "Rumor has it that he is heavily behind in his taxes, as well, and that the crown is displeased."
"Entirely possible, but taxes are not the sort of problem I handle, so I know nothing about it." If anyone knew those details, it was Reyes, but that was not Sharla's business—and she obviously did not need Reyes to figure such things out. “Speaking of payment, what is your price, fair lady?"
Sharla did not reply immediately, only stared at her cigarette for several minutes. Then she set it aside in a crystal dish and slowly lifted her pale brown eyes to meet Kinnaird's. "I am wasting away here. I am tired of hells and whores. I feel I accomplish nothing with all the skills I have gained, and I am sick of making my living through the criminal activities and vices of others. More than that, I am tired of hiding myself away. I would step out of the dark, and do something that feels… more worthwhile. I want out of this life. Give me that."
Kinnaird smiled. "It is only an accident of birth, milady, that you were not born a Queen. I will see what I can do, though I think such a thing would put you solidly in my debt for some time to come."
She returned the smile. "I know. But if you actually manage it, my dear Duke, it is a debt with which I will happily live."
"Then I will see what I can do. It will take time."
Sharla shrugged. "Time I have, though I do not like to be patient." She stood up and moved around the desk, extending her hands and kissing his cheeks as he took her hands in his own. "Let me know if I can be of further assistance to you, Kinnaird."
"I will come calling, never doubt it," Kinnaird replied, and kissed her cheek, then the backs of her hands.
"Your room should be ready by now, unless you made other arrangements?"
"Why would I make other arrangements, when no better can be found? Goodnight, Sharla, and thank you."
"My pleasure," Sharla said. "Sun and moon guard your dreams, especially now that Extended Night is upon us, and the city lies so damaged."
"The same to you."
Taking his leave, Kinnaird went back down the hall, then up a set of stairs easy to miss if one did not know to look for them. His room was at the end of the hall. He could go out, continue his investigation, but this late his work would mostly be a waste of time—and he wanted people to cooperate with him. If he kept pushing so much in one day, he was more likely to drive them away.
He stripped off his clothes and extinguished the lights, then crawled into bed and lay staring up at the ceiling. His mind flitted from thought to thought, but as they usually did, they at last settled on Reyes.
Did it really bother Reyes so much, his obligations to the King? But, he thought honestly, he would not take it well at all if Reyes stumbled into the palace with a badly broken leg, soaked in his own blood.
He was sick with worry as it was, leaving Reyes relatively unguarded with that impostor running about the palace. Really, Reyes should have more care. Anyone who wanted to manipulate the King would know that Rhoten doted upon Reyes. They would not hesitate to hurt or even kill Reyes in order to force Rhoten's hand.
It made his stomach knot with worry. Did Reyes feel this way whenever Kinnaird flew off? Why had he never thought of that before? He had been completely oblivious.
It was true that he had gone stir crazy while confined to bed and room while his leg healed. But, really, once he had been able to walk again and had regained the lost strength in his leg, he had not entirely minded sticking to the palace. It had been no chore at all, seeing Reyes every day. Spending more time tending to his own affairs, instead of trusting them almost entirely to his Steward.
His favorite part had been travelling into the city to select the flowers of the week, then hunting Reyes down at some point to see how he liked them. He had been ecstatic to see how deeply affected Reyes had been by the tiger lilies. He had hoped they would still mean something, especially with all the trouble clouding their days of late.
So could he give up the work he did? Assuming Rhoten was able to release him from duty, Kinnaird rather thought he could; especially if it meant he would finally, really and truly have Reyes.
He just wished he could finish what he was doing more quickly, and fly home to tell Reyes his decision.
Seven
Reyes was tired of worrying, and tired of being tired. He wished he could simply deal with the impostor in definitive fashion, but such blood thirsty action had never been his way. His mother had made quite certain of that.
He rubbed his temple, willing away his headache, and tried to focus on his duties.
Striding through the halls, ignoring everyone, he made straight for his office. Rhoten had been in meetings most of the morning, and should have a handful more before lunch, but Reyes had managed to shift enough of them that Rhoten could meet with the twins as he wished.
When Reyes finally reached his office, the twins were already seated and drinking coffee, leaning in close to each other as they quietly conversed. Extended Night have well and truly fallen, making even late morning no different than midnight, the drapes were drawn to block out cold, the room aglow with the warm light of fire and lamps.
Reyes nodded to them in greeting, but did not pause as he walked across the room to his desk. He set all his things down, sorting out letters and notes, paperwork he n
eeded to get signed, penning in changes to the week's schedule, shuffling other appointments around. He reached out to refresh the ink in his quill, and froze as the back of his hand brushed against the tiger lilies.
He looked at them and frowned. Four days, and there had been no communication from Kinnaird. That tended to be a good thing, but he wished the idiot could be bothered to send some word. Bah. Finishing his work, Reyes grabbed his portfolio and went to join Erices and Breit at the table.
"Good morning, Reyes," Breit greeted. "Those are beautiful tiger lilies. I am impressed Kinnaird could get them; even for his Grace, they must be special ordered."
Reyes shrugged, but made mental note to tell Kinnaird yet again to stop being so ridiculously flashy with the flowers. Honestly, he did not need to go to so much effort. Not that Reyes was going to slip up again; he had already said too much, in stating that he hated how Kinnaird was simply not around. He would greatly prefer seeing Kinnaird more often to simply looking at expensive flowers.
Erices chuckled. "Kinnaird's father was the same way, if I recall. Always with the extravagant gifts. I daresay your ring will outstrip anything even royalty owns, someday."
"I think we are getting entirely too presumptuous and ahead of ourselves," Reyes said stiffly. "From flowers I constantly tell him to stop bringing, all the way to marriage rings? That is quite the leap, Captain."
Breit and Erices only laughed.
Reyes ignored them both and focused on his coffee and cake.
A few minutes later Rhoten finally arrived, looking haggard and worn, and easily twice his age. Reyes' hands balled into fists in his lap, and it was only with great effort that he managed to force his fingers to uncurl again. "Majesty. You should be free for the next two and a half hours." And if the guards disobeyed his edict to let no one in, they would get the full brunt of his temper. Many of them had already learned not to cross the King's secretary. He hoped they remembered the lesson.
"So I see that to date, we have found no way to rid ourselves of the impostor," Erices said sourly.
Rhoten shook his head, and murmured a quiet thanks as he accepted the coffee Reyes held out. "The council is making more and more noise about giving him a chance. He is preferable to the Princess, and older than she… it all hinges on his having the magic, of course, but I fear by the time he is done, they will not even care about that."
"I do not understand why they like him so much, and more than Dilane, who is by far the more preferable," Breit said.
Reyes sneered. "Everyone loves a scandal. It makes a fine story, you must admit. Keene is powerful, being a distant cousin and so possessing both the fox shift and some measure of the royal magic—but he does not have the tragic story, he is not a guilty secret. Neither does he possess the excessive charm." It made his skin crawl, Gandy's charm—but likely he was just biased against Gandy, not least of all because when it came to charm, he preferred Kinnaird's. Not that he would ever tell Kinnaird that, whatever became of them.
Honestly, he really did hate Gandy, stepping in so selfishly to ruin so many lives just because he thought his birth entitled him to something.
Perhaps it did, to a point. Birthright was important—but at least men like Rhoten and Dilane and Kinnaird earned their birthrights. Men like Gandy just made him angry. Why could he not be happy with the life he had, or earn a better one honestly, without causing so many people to suffer for his selfishness? It was obvious he cared about the crown, not Rhoten. Reyes could not understand it. Some things were far more important than station and power.
He stubbornly ignored the little voice reminding him that same logic applied to himself and Kinnaird. But, he would deal with that complication later, after this problem of the bastard had been resolved. Now was entirely the wrong time to work out the issues between himself and Kinnaird.
"I do hope," Breit said not without humor, "that Gandy is the only bastard prince running around. One is already more than we can handle. I do not know what we would do with two or more."
Rhoten grimaced. "Oddly enough, when he said he was my son, he did not name as his mother the woman I had ho—expected."
"Oh?" Erices asked, looking astonished. "Your Majesty has had affairs? You are a damned good secret keeper. Even your secretary looks a bit taken aback."
Reyes rolled his eyes. "I am only responsible for scheduling his Majesty's leisure time—I do not arrange how he spends it. I, at least, appreciate that it is none of my business."
"There were only two," Rhoten said. "Gandy's alleged mother when I was only eighteen. That lasted only the one night. I met another woman a year or so after my marriage, at the Extended Day Festival. She was a shop clerk, though she never said as to what manner of shop. Five nights, we had together. I spent most of that festival pretending not be a King." A wistful look flickered across his face. "It was unfortunate we were both already married by that point. I would have taken her to wife and never looked back."
Reyes scowled and poured more coffee. "That would have been extremely risky and foolish. At least you did not take more risks than that."
"The first was quite stupid, I do agree," Rhoten replied. "At eighteen, however, it seemed trifling enough, being just one night. The second was more foolish still, I concede, but I will never regret it. Myra was her name." He smiled, sweet and sad, and sighed softly.
Breit smiled over the rim of his coffee cup. "I am certain she was a fine woman. No doubt if Gandy were her son, he would have turned out a better man. But, it is Gandy with whom we must contend. Have we learned anything about the mother?"
Reyes nodded and flipped open his portfolio, setting his coffee aside as he pulled out the letters he had received only a few hours ago. "She is definitely dead, buried in Kria. I've copies of her death certificate, and the village chief wrote a letter telling us what he could. He did say she never mentioned a son, but that she was also an extremely private person who said practically nothing about herself. They lived in a village that was in the general area called the borderlands. That means they were close to Salhara. Otherwise, I fear this all very much a dead end. We cannot definitively prove him a liar this way."
"Our best chance is to prove he does not possess the royal magic," Erices said, "but he can stall on that indefinitely."
Reyes frowned. "Kinnaird thinks he will use seven-year flower elixir to artificially create it."
"That would take a great deal of skill, and one of the higher level elixirs," Breit said with a frown, "and that comes with a great deal of risk. I never seen it used myself, but I recall Kinnaird's stories of Salhara. They train for years to use that stuff beyond the most basic of spells. Only a small percentage of the country are ever allowed to take any color above blue—that's how they are graded, you see. Violet the lowest, up through indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange, red. You must have a special license for any color above blue, and a very small handful only are allowed to use yellow and higher. The stuff is highly addictive, you see, and dangerous if you take it without training. There are very good reasons Salhara is the only country known to use artificial magic."
"Kinnaird will be able to tell if he is using it," Reyes said, not bothering to mention that Kinnaird had explained the symptoms to him. There was no guarantee he would realize what he was looking at until too late—if at all.
Erices and Breit nodded in unison, movements so perfectly matched that one almost could have been the mirror of the other. "Yes, Kinnaird certainly made that clear enough, from what I hear. Kinnaird always was the bold sort, though he can occasionally be persuaded toward subterfuge." Breit glanced at the tiger lilies, mouth curving in a smile. "Not terribly often, though. Hopefully he is too far away for anyone to feel compelled to take his threat seriously."
Reyes' hand jerked, smearing ink across papers. His body went cold with fear. "What do you mean? That someone will attempt to kill him because he has knowledge of seven-year flowers?" He scowled at his ruined notes, so mad at Kinnaird he would not mind cutting loose wit
h his temper one little bit.
He was madder at himself for standing right there on the terrace and letting Kinnaird kiss him senseless, then being so stupidly happy Kinnaird had asked him a favor. He had stood there like an idiot—a love struck idiot happy to have his lover home—and watched him intimidate Gandy, completely oblivious to the fact Kinnaird had so brazenly put his life in danger.
"Kinnaird will be fine," Rhoten said gently, squeezing Reyes'' shoulder. "Do you honestly think he will let anyone kill him after your last conversation?" He winked.
Reyes scowled. "I think he is an idiot. He can do whatever he wants, for all I care." He stabbed viciously at a fresh sheet of paper, then glared at the ruined mess, and set the quill aside in favor of his coffee.
"I think they would be fools indeed to kill his Grace after such a confrontation. It would look more than a little suspicious if he suddenly turned up dead." Erices refilled his own coffee and sat back in his seat. "Kinnaird would have known that, when he went to face Gandy."
Reyes refused to be soothed. "As I have already said, the idiot can do as he likes."
Though if he came home broken and bleeding again, Reyes did not know what he would do. Never talk to the fool again. Or finish the job. Or, more likely, just worry himself to death because he obviously wasn't doing enough of that already.
"Reyes—"
He was thankfully spared whatever Breit had to add to the conversation by a knock on the door. Standing, more than willing to snarl at a guard because the Idiot was several miles away, Reyes yanked the door open. But it wasn't a guard at the door.
Reyes frowned in confusion at the stranger standing before him. "May I help you?"
The man bowed low, and Reyes noticed he was dressed in somewhat old-fashioned clothing; the sort of thing they still wore up north, in the truly rough regions. "My apologies for disturbing you. I am looking for a Lord Reyes O'Bannon."