Jack looked down at him, flushed, and shoved the watch deep into his trouser pocket. “Sorry, Ben, I didn’t think,” he said. He stood up, shoving the chair or box or whatever away with a scraping sound, then said, “But…”
“What?” Ben said.
Jack shrugged and wouldn’t meet his eyes. “Whatever else was true or false, she was a Deviser,” he said. “You can’t fake skills like that.” His footsteps echoed off the high ceiling as he walked away.
Can’t fake skills like that. Ben closed his eyes. Maybe that was true, but it didn’t make her any less a liar. She’d still used him for the sake of her mission. He listened for the sounds of people breathing, wondering how many other seriously injured people there still were in the old factory. Nothing. Maybe they’d isolated him from the others out of pity; maybe they cared just enough not to want him to hear them laughing at the fool who thought he was getting married. He shifted his weight a little and subsided when pain stabbed through his thigh. He wanted to be alone anyway. Easier than trying to make conversation about dead men and dead loves.
The next day Tabitha helped him sit up and relieve himself into an old chamber pot, then eat something soft and mushy. When he complained, Tabitha said, “Prove to me you can keep that down, and I’ll make you a steak myself.”
“Your cooking’s terrible,” Ben pointed out. “That’s not a reward. That’s a threat.”
“Then I’ll have someone else make you a steak. Just be patient. You’ll be back to real food tomorrow.”
Ben spooned up the gluey mess and made himself eat it. He was hungry enough it almost seemed appetizing. He finished most of it before his stomach told him it was full, then set the bowl on the floor awkwardly, trying not to overbalance and fall out of the bed.
“Garrett,” someone said, and he wobbled and was saved from falling by a hand on his arm, pulling him up. “Sorry,” the voice said, and Ben looked up to see Lieutenant North next to his bed. He jerked his arm away, not caring that it was rude, but the lieutenant didn’t seem offended. His left arm was in a sling, and his uniform wasn’t clean, but otherwise he looked completely healthy.
“I’m heading out,” he said, “going back to Aurilien as part of the Baron’s escort. I just wanted…”
Ben clenched his jaw and stared straight ahead. He didn’t need this idiot lieutenant trying to…whatever it was he wanted from Ben.
“I wanted to thank you for saving my life,” Lieutenant North said, and held out his right hand. Ben looked at it, then up at the lieutenant, and made no move to clasp it. The lieutenant withdrew his hand. Ben felt instantly guilty, but not enough to apologize.
“You saved my life, so I think we’re even,” he said instead. Now go away and never come back.
“Even so,” Lieutenant North said. “Um.”
Why was he still standing there? Ben went back to staring at the far wall. Maybe the man would go away if Ben refused to acknowledge him.
“I didn’t know Telaine was a spy,” Lieutenant North blurted out, and Ben wished he could leap from the bed and strangle him. As if he wanted to talk about her at all. “She’s sort of frivolous, you know? Loves parties and dancing and she’s always got a dozen men—anyway, I couldn’t believe it when I saw her here, dressed like that—it’s just not her. Or maybe it’s just that I never knew her. But—”
“You going somewhere with this?” Ben said.
The lieutenant cleared his throat, and Ben realized he was talking to the man who was second in line for the Crown of Tremontane, and he had to stifle an urge to laugh at himself. He didn’t feel awkward or self-conscious, talking to royalty, but then he’d gotten used to it all those weeks, hadn’t he? Even if he hadn’t known who she was.
“Lainie’s a good person, Garrett,” the lieutenant finally said, “even if she is a little giddy. I grew up with her, and I trust her, and I love her. I don’t know what she did that’s made you so angry, but I think you were friends, and I wish you could find a way to forgive her.”
It was too much to bear. “Get out,” Ben snarled. “She’s not my friend. She played a part every minute she was here, lied to every one of us, and now she’s gone and I want you gone too. There’s nothing you can say to change what’s happened.”
Lieutenant North took half a step back as if Ben’s words had physically pushed him away. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Thanks again.” Then he turned and left.
Ben leaned back and closed his eyes. He was royalty, but he was an idiot. As if he knew anything about it. As if he could make anything better by babbling about how the frivolous Princess wasn’t so bad. No wonder she’d been so good at stringing him along. She probably had years of practice flirting with the nobles of Tremontane. One stupid commoner from the raw frontier must have seemed like nothing. A flirt in the city, a serious-minded Deviser in the country…how many roles had this agent played in her life? And who was she at heart? Furious with himself, he cast that question away. It didn’t matter. Heaven willing, he’d never see her again.
“You’re just being stubborn,” John Anderson said to Mel Griffin. They were both sitting on beds across the room, though both of them were well enough to leave the temporary hospital; John was there visiting his wife, who’d been injured more badly than he. “I’m telling you she might’ve lied about her name, but nobody needs to hide their identity so bad they nearly get killed rescuing someone ain’t even related to them.”
“She pretended she cared about Longbourne because it got her into the Baron’s home,” Mel retorted. “That was just another way to make us believe her.”
“Nearly got her killed, Mel,” Susan Anderson said. “Wouldn’t be much good as an agent if she was dead, would she?”
Ben turned on his side and put his pillow over his head. They’d been having variations on this argument for most of an hour, apparently not aware that he was in the room, or maybe not caring. Or maybe this was part of the Andersons’ plan to get everyone believing that the Princess hadn’t lied to them about anything that mattered. She probably went after Sarah Anderson thinking she could walk out the door with her, then had to scramble to find a solution when that plan failed. Doesn’t mean she didn’t lie about everything else. He refused to think of how she’d looked when she fell through Eleanor’s doorway, her skin unnaturally pale and icy to the touch, her head lolling as if she didn’t have the strength to hold it up, how terrified he’d been—that feeling was all for that imaginary woman.
Someone poked his shoulder. “I know you ain’t sleeping,” Mistress Weaver said, her voice a little muffled because of the pillow. He removed it from his head and found the argument had ceased, probably because of Mistress Weaver’s entry. She looked calm enough, but her eyes had tense lines around them. Well, she’d come in for her share of criticism, once everyone learned she’d known her guest’s identity all along. Strange to think of Mistress Weaver having any relation to the royal family, even if it was just by her brother’s marriage. It had almost been worse when someone remembered Owen Hunter had been a Ruskalder warrior, and learning Mistress Weaver was only his half-sister hadn’t made things much better. But there was something about the woman that made it hard to cross her, made people step quietly around her so as not to get on her bad side. Something in the eyes, maybe, or the tone of voice that could quiet a room in the space of two breaths.
“Leg doin’ better?” she said.
Ben shrugged. “Still hurts some. But I’ve still got it.”
“Good attitude.” She continued to look down on him. “No other injuries?”
“I think the leg’s enough.”
She actually smiled a little. “How about the neck?”
Puzzled, he said, “What about it?”
She drew one finger across her neck in a throat-slitting gesture. “That knife looked plenty sharp. But I guess a little cut like that, it’d heal right away.”
He had no idea what she was talking about. “I guess,” he said.
She nodded at him. “
Stay well, Mister Garrett.” Then she was gone.
Ben went back to staring at the ceiling. What about his neck? He hadn’t taken any injuries in the battle except the leg. He ran his fingers along his throat and felt nothing, not a scar, not a scab. She was mistaken.
Then he remembered. Archie Morgan’s knife at his throat, his body arched painfully back, the thin sharp pain when the blade twisted just a little as Lainie’s knife took Morgan in the eye. He’d been astonished that she managed to hit that tiny target. It was a one in a million shot for a beginner like her. She’d looked so horrified just before flinging the knife, horrified and afraid and anguished—
Her face rose up in memory, and he caught his breath. She’d been terrified for him. Terrified as if her own life were at risk. Then she’d swept that knife out of her boot and flung it in a perfect arc, and it found its target. She’d killed a man to save his life. And when she knew Morgan was dead, she didn’t look elated or sick or guilty, she’d looked relieved. As if she’d averted the greatest disaster she could imagine.
She lied, he told himself, but was overridden by a louder voice that said maybe he hadn’t seen anything straight. He’d already gone over every detail of her time in Longbourne, finding evidence that she was a liar who’d made a fool out of him and everyone else. Now memories started springing up from where he thought he’d salted the earth. If she’d needed to make herself become one of the villagers for her ruse to work, why had she put off making friends for weeks as if she were trying not to root herself too deeply? Why hadn’t she accepted his proposal at Wintersmeet and ensured Ben would stay attached to her? And there had been that strange hesitation, that first time they’d walked by the lake, where he’d had a moment’s fear she was going to tell him she wasn’t interested in him after all; why hesitate to do what was part of the job?
He groaned, and buried his face in his pillow again. It was all starting to make sense, once he stopped thinking with his hurt feelings and used his head. She’d had to disguise her identity to come to Longbourne, not so the Princess could lie to everyone there for fun, but so the agent could conceal her identity as well. But all she’d needed to keep the Baron from being suspicious was to be a good Deviser, because he didn’t care anything about her personal life and probably had no idea Ben even existed.
Ben was sure now she hadn’t planned any of what had happened. Probably she’d intended her assignment to be over quickly, so it wouldn’t matter what she did or said to the villagers. But it went on too long, and she had to pretend to be what she’d claimed to be, and then it wasn’t pretense anymore. Telaine North Hunter had fallen in love with Longbourne and fallen in love with him. Him, the nobody blacksmith, when she could have anyone she wanted. She loved him, and he’d struck at her. Sent her away. He’d been a fool twice over.
He tried to stand, but fell shaking back onto the bed. He had to see her. Maybe it wasn’t too late, and he could apologize and beg her to forgive him. Maybe she still loved him. He had to get out of this bed.
“Need something, Ben?” Tabitha said, coming to his side.
“Need to get up,” he said, this time sitting up cautiously and swinging his legs over the side of the bed.
“Just wait,” Tabitha said. “That leg won’t support you. You need to give it a few more weeks.”
“Don’t have a few weeks. I have to go to Aurilien now.”
“Figured it out, did you?” The doctor’s smile was sympathetic. “Just lie back.”
“Figured what out?”
“That Telaine North Hunter never lied about anything but her name and her reason for being here.” The doctor pushed on Ben’s chest to make him lie down. “Don’t know as I can blame her, really. I think she never had a chance to be herself so long as she had to be the Princess. And we’d have been too awed by the title, if she’d come here as herself, to find out anything about who she really was. Unless you can make me believe Ben Garrett would have had the nerve to speak to a Princess of Tremontane when he could barely make himself talk to Lainie Bricker?”
Ben groaned. “She’s never going to forgive me.”
“I’ve seen the way she looks at you. I think you’ve got a better chance than you know.”
“I said things—the way she looked, last I saw her—Tabitha, I have to leave now.”
“You leave now, you won’t make it past Ellismere, let alone to Aurilien.” The doctor twitched aside the blanket and began unwrapping his leg. “Let’s see how it looks.”
It hurt a little, being prodded, but Ben was too caught up in his personal misery to care. Never mind the technicalities; they were betrothed, and he’d torn into her like she was his worst enemy, too caught up in his humiliation to listen to her. She was almost his wife and he’d done that to her. He groaned again, then shook his head at Tabitha when she asked if she’d hurt him. Finally, she put a clean dressing on the wound and wrapped it up again. “It’s looking good,” she said, “but you’re not going anywhere for three weeks.”
“Not going to last three weeks.”
“We’ll find you something to do. Eleanor can teach you to knit. Give you both something else to think about.”
“Tabitha—”
“I can’t make you heal any faster, Ben. Be patient.”
He learned to knit. He learned to tat lace edging for Mistress Adderly’s handkerchiefs. He learned to carve sculptures out of hard lye soap that Hope Richardson lined up in rows and knocked over with her wooden rabbit that ran by itself. Another way Lainie had left her mark on Longbourne.
“Do you suppose we call her Telaine now?” he asked Eleanor one afternoon as they were both sitting outside the laundry, knitting and enjoying the fresh air. Ben could just about hobble from his door to the chair and back, though standing for very long made him tremble and eventually fall over.
“That lieutenant, her cousin, he called her Lainie once or twice,” Eleanor said. “I think it’s actually her name, or one of them. Telaine, Lainie—you can hear how the one might’ve come from the other.”
“I don’t know what I’ll say to her. Suppose she’s changed her mind? Suppose she doesn’t want this life anymore?”
“You won’t know unless you ask.” Eleanor looked so frail these days. Losing her sons, and then Blythe losing her baby, had hit her hard.
“She can’t have changed her mind that much, right?” Ben said.
“Ben Garrett, Lainie might have concealed a few things about herself, but nothing about her heart or her mind or her spirit was false. She loves you and she loves this place. She’ll forgive you.”
“Wish I was down the mountain already.”
“Ten more days, and you will be.”
He went back and forth between despair and hope. At night, in the darkness of his bedroom—Tabitha had finally decided he was well enough to care for himself—he went over things he could say to her and found himself as tongue-tied as he’d been before the Bradfords’ shivaree. If only it could be as simple as Forgive me, or I love you, or even Come home. He dreamed of her every night. They weren’t happy dreams. He started to fear sleep, because he’d find her there, spurning his apology and telling him she didn’t love him, she’d never loved him, and he really was a fool. It became increasingly hard to tell himself the dreams didn’t mean anything.
To counter the dreams, he told everyone he was going to the city to bring his wife home and hoped that would make it come true. He practiced walking, building up the strength in his leg, telling himself when it hurt that the pain meant he was healing, and every step brought him closer to Lainie.
The morning Tabitha checked his wound and pronounced it healed enough for travel, Ben snatched up the bag he’d had packed for days and dragged Abel Roberts out of his bed—it wasn’t his day to go down the mountain, but Ben wasn’t going to wait any longer—and helped him harness the horses and did everything short of pushing the wagon himself to get them going. He limped through Ellismere to the ticketing office and paid for the journey all the
way to Aurilien, a four-day trip, then had to wait an hour for the coach. Everyone was moving so slowly it was driving him mad, but finally the coach arrived and he took his seat across from an elderly woman and next to a boy barely an adult who carried his valise on his lap as though he were afraid someone would steal it. Ben got out his knitting and settled in for the ride. He was never going to be any good at anything complicated, but he could knit squares and secure them together to make a basic blanket.
“You going to Aurilien?” the old woman said. Her dark, weathered skin made her look as if she were carved out of teak. Ben nodded. “I’m going home to Daxtry. What about you?”
“I’m going to fetch my wife,” Ben said. Please let it come true. “I mean, we’re not married yet, we’ll get married when I arrive.”
“Long way to go for a wife,” the woman said.
“She’s worth it,” Ben said.
They arrived in Aurilien four days later, very late. Ben limped his way off the coach, bag in hand, and looked around. The coaching stop was near a handful of inns; at a loss as to how to choose, Ben struck out randomly and paid some of his dwindling supply of coin for a small room in the smallest inn, down the hall from the toilet. It occurred to him, as he sat on the narrow bed, that if Lainie refused to see him, he might not have enough money to return to Longbourne. Assuming he wanted to, and face all those pitying faces. He fell asleep and into a dream in which Lainie, dressed in satin and feathers, laughed at his despair and let herself be kissed by a faceless stranger to taunt him.
In the morning, he dressed in his best clothes and set out for the palace. He decided to walk there and save his money, but it was a long way and his leg began to throb before he was halfway there. By mid-morning, he was exhausted and in pain and was having trouble remembering why this was so important. Lainie. Right.
He stopped for a cool drink at a public fountain where a dozen people stared at him, then continued on. Finally he reached the gates of the palace, where he’d expected to be challenged, but no one guarded them, so he continued up the drive until he reached the black granite steps leading to the front door. There were soldiers at the base of the stairs and more soldiers at the top, but none of them moved to stop him. Tentatively, he went up the stairs and through the front door.
Tales of the Crown Page 37