The entry was a tall domed room paved in white marble, with stairs curving away from it whose delicate banisters looked woven of white lace. Several doorways led off the entry, some of them with closed doors, others open to hallways that went farther into the palace. Ben set his bag down and rubbed his thigh. He really wanted to sit down, but even though the chairs in this room looked comfortable, he was afraid if he did he wouldn’t be able to stand again. And he had no idea where to go next.
A woman wearing blue and silver livery came through one of the doors. “What’s your business here, sir?” she said, showing no surprise at his presence.
He’d practiced this, as simple as it was, because saying it made him nervous. “I’m here to see Telaine North Hunter,” he said.
Now she looked surprised. “Is…is she expecting you?” she said.
“No.”
“The Princess is very busy. You should really make an appointment.”
He was shaking harder now and it took all his training not to let it touch his voice. “She’ll want to see me. I’m a…a friend from Longbourne.”
“Longbourne?” The woman clearly recognized the name, which made Ben feel a little more relaxed. “What is your name?”
“Ben Garrett.”
She didn’t recognize his name, but it didn’t matter. “Have a seat,” she said. “I’ll have someone bring you to meet Princess Telaine soon.”
Ben gratefully sank onto a very comfortable chair and stretched out his leg. He was still experimenting with positions that eased the strain on the healing wound, but the best one involved lying on his good side with the pillow between his legs, and it was unlikely he could do that here in the palace waiting room.
It was well-named. He waited for a long time, twenty minutes, thirty minutes, growing more nervous with every passing second. This was a mistake. She didn’t want to see him. She didn’t want to go back to Longbourne—and why would she, if she could live in luxury like this? Twice he began to get up and leave, twice his leg twinged just enough to remind him of how far he’d come, far enough that he wasn’t going to waste the journey without even seeing her.
Finally, another woman came through one of the doors. This one was magnificently beautiful, with black hair gathered loosely on her head, cornflower blue eyes, and a perfect complexion. She was also probably six feet tall with a very generous figure that her white morning dress flattered. Ben gaped at her. She came to stand in front of him, unsmiling, and said, “So. You’re Ben Garrett.” She said it as if she knew who he was already and was totally unimpressed.
“I am,” Ben said.
She surveyed him closely. “And you’re here to see Telaine.”
“Yes, ma’am.” That just slipped out.
The intimidating woman smiled a little. “Come with me,” she said, and Ben rose awkwardly and followed her through the palace, trying to keep up with her long stride. At one point, she glanced at him and said, “You were wounded, weren’t you?”
“Yes, ma’am, at Thorsten Pass,” Ben said.
“I remember. Jeffy told us. You saved his life.” She slowed her pace somewhat.
“He saved mine too, ma’am.”
“You don’t have to call me ma’am, Mister Garrett. My name is Julia. But you should probably call me your Highness.”
Julia. Julia North. Crown Princess Julia North. Ben wished he could run away. No wonder she was so cold to him. Lainie must have told her everything about how he’d treated her. It might not be too late to head back the other way, leave the palace and get on the first coach going east. But he was pretty sure he couldn’t outrun her, and her Highness looked to have something on her mind.
They came to a long, wide corridor, at the end of which were heavy wooden doors flanked by two soldiers in North livery, fully armed and armored, who came to attention as they approached. “Thank you, lieutenant, corporal, he’s with me,” the Crown Princess said, and one of the women opened the door and bowed as they passed through.
The Crown Princess continued at speed down a couple of corridors, through a large, well-lit drawing room, and into a smaller room so packed with knick-knacks Ben felt claustrophobic. He sat on an uncomfortable, hard chair with rough upholstery and watched the Crown Princess settle herself onto the only slightly more comfortable-looking sofa opposite. Ben tried to sit back, but it felt as if sharp fingers were poking his spine, so he leaned forward a little and tried to figure out what to do with his hands.
His hostess watched him with narrowed eyes. “Comfortable?” she said.
“Not really,” Ben said, figuring honesty couldn’t hurt him at this point.
“Sorry.” She didn’t sound sorry. “So, you want to see Lainie. Why?”
“That’s personal.”
“You’re good friends, aren’t you?”
“I hope so.”
“I didn’t think she had any good friends left in Longbourne.”
Despairing, Ben said, “I was hoping to change that.”
The Crown Princess regarded him, chewing her lip thoughtfully. “I see,” she said. “Excuse me a minute, Mister Garrett, while I ring for tea.” She stood and left the room. Ben wanted to look around, but was afraid if he stood, he might fall over. It was dark despite the windows, and a little cold—the hearth was bare, the grate empty—and was the least welcoming place he’d ever seen. If the Crown Princess was trying to torture him for what he’d done to Lainie, it was working.
Eventually she came back carrying a tea tray which she set on the table between them. She served them both, then sat sipping her drink and staring at him while he looked everywhere but at her. If she ever became Queen, she might be able to rule the world. Funny how she resembled Mistress Weaver, when it was Telaine who was her niece.
“Tell me about Longbourne,” the Crown Princess said abruptly. “What’s it like?”
“Uh…it’s a village, a big one,” Ben stammered. “It has shops and there are a lot of crafters. About a third of the folks work in the sawmill or the quarries.”
“What about the people?”
“They’re…people, I guess. Same as anywhere. Friendly, mean, smart, stupid. Mostly friendly and smart, though.”
“You don’t seem very forthcoming.”
“Not sure what you want to know.”
“I want to know,” said the Crown Princess, “what it’s like to live there. Tell me about a typical day. What do you do?”
Ben told her. He talked about his life and his work. He told her about his friends, and Lainie’s friends. He told her about shivarees and concerts and Wintersmeet. He talked himself nearly hoarse, with the Crown Princess listening attentively, all the while wondering why she cared.
He was flailing about for a new topic when the door was flung open, and both of them flinched. Standing in the doorway was Lainie Bricker.
He knew she was really Telaine North Hunter, a Princess of Tremontane, but she looked exactly as she had every day he’d known her: plain work shirt, slightly dirty trousers, scuffed boots, her hair dragged back into a braid that at the moment was messy and flaked with bits of white. He’d expected her to look different in the palace. He’d been prepared to see her dressed up, maybe wearing cosmetics, and he’d steeled himself against that because he wasn’t sure he could talk to her if she looked that way. But she looked just the same as always, except she was glaring at him as if she wanted to put a dagger through his chest. The hope that had risen when he saw her started to fade. It wasn’t a welcoming expression at all.
“Oh, Telaine, what have you—didn’t anyone tell you we have company?” the Crown Princess said, sounding as if she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
Lainie turned to look at her cousin. Ben felt as if he’d been under a giant thumb and then released. “No, I heard it from Jessamy,” she said. “He just said you were looking for me.”
“Trust Jess to leave out the most important part,” the Crown Princess said. “Where have you been? Mister Garrett and I have been chat
ting for nearly an hour.”
“Sorry, it’s a secret. Can’t tell anyone, even you.”
“Well, sit down, Lainie, and have some tea. You look as if you could use it—oh, it’s cold.” The Crown Princess didn’t sound sad about this. “Well, you did take an awfully long time.”
Lainie took the offered cup. She was ignoring him. That was a relief. Then the Crown Princess stood and said, “Well, you both probably have lots to talk about, mutual acquaintances, et cetera, so I’ll just leave you to it.”
Lainie swiveled to follow her cousin as she passed toward the door. “Don’t feel you have to go,” she said.
“I do have other things to do, Telaine,” the Crown Princess said. “Goodbye, Mister Garrett, and thank you for saving my brother’s life.”
Ben murmured something even he didn’t understand. The door shut. And Lainie finally looked fully at him. He realized she didn’t look exactly the same as before; her eyes, which had always been so brilliant and happy, looked dull, as if she’d seen things she couldn’t forget. She was still so beautiful. He couldn’t stop looking at her. Say it, fool, he told himself, but she was already speaking. “How’s the leg?”
“All right. Still hurts some. But at least I still have it.” He’d forgotten what he’d come here to say. She was so distant, so angry, and he couldn’t think of a way to get around that.
She stood abruptly and moved to the fireplace, where she stood looking down at the empty hearth. “I heard about Trey and Liam,” she said. “How’s Eleanor? And Blythe?”
“Eleanor’s recovering,” he said. “Still a little frail, if you can believe it. And Blythe…Blythe lost her baby a week after Trey was killed.”
Her shoulders shook briefly, and he thought he heard a quiet sob. “I’m sorry,” she said.
Could he go to her? She clearly didn’t want him here. What was he thinking? “They’ve had the whole village behind them,” he said, awkwardly trying to offer her comfort, remind her that no one in Longbourne was ever alone. That she was still a part of that.
She thrust away from the fireplace and crossed the room rapidly to the door. “I can’t stay in this room another minute,” she exclaimed, and fear tore through him, fear that it was already too late. She caught his eye, and he saw something flash across her face too quickly for him to read. “If you have anything to say,” she said in a calmer voice, “come with me. I just can’t hear it in this room.”
He limped along after her down the corridor a short distance, where she opened a door that looked identical to all the others. To his surprise, the room beyond was beautiful, warm and welcoming, filled with furniture of honey-colored wood and sapphire cushions. “I like it,” he said. “It’s much more comfortable than the other.”
“Two weeks ago it was worse,” Lainie said. “I’ve made a lot of changes.”
He prodded a box of Device parts that protruded from under an end table. “I can tell it’s yours.”
She shrugged. “One of them. Go ahead and sit down. You probably shouldn’t strain your leg. I have to change.” She went through another door and closed it sharply behind her. Ben went to sit on the sofa, which was every bit as comfortable as it looked. He eased his leg around into a better position and looked around. They didn’t have anything like this in Longbourne, all this beauty you didn’t realize at first meant wealth because it was so simple and understated.
Despair crept back into his thoughts. She’d never want to leave this place for Longbourne, let alone his cramped little house where the kitchen and living room weren’t even separate and the toilet had only just been added three years ago. He glanced at the door she’d gone through. And now she was going to put on a dress, and look as elegant and beautiful as the room, and he’d get his words tangled up and be completely unable to speak to her, and in a few minutes she’d show him the door, maybe walk with him to the front door of the palace, and then she’d walk away and he’d never see her again. He loved her past bearing and he would never see her again. He took a deep breath. He just couldn’t let that happen.
The door opened again, and he looked up. To his surprise, she was still in shirt and trousers. She’d brushed the white bits out of her hair and braided it again, and her face was clean of smuts from whatever secret project she was working on, but she still looked like herself, and that gave him hope. “I thought you’d be putting on a dress. Like your cousin,” he said.
“I’m going back to work later. No sense dressing up.”
“Thought you’d look more like your cousin, here in the palace. Dressed up, I mean. I didn’t think I could speak to you, but you came in looking…” He couldn’t think of a way to end that sentence without babbling about how beautiful she was. “You look just the same,” he said.
“I’m not the same person I was two months ago. Neither are you.” She came around to sit on a chair opposite him and rubbed her temples as if she had a headache. Then she said, “Ben, I’ve been trying to think of a way to ask you this without it sounding like an accusation, but—why are you here? Is your anger and embarrassment so great it can only be eased by you telling me again how well I pretended to be someone I’m not? I am sorry for what I did to you.”
She paused, briefly, but Ben couldn’t collect his thoughts fast enough to insert his words into the gap. She let out a laugh that sounded more like a sob. “I had a plan, you know? A plan for explaining it all to you in a way I hoped you’d understand. Several plans, actually, but they all began with me telling you I love you, because that’s what got me into this whole mess.”
I love you. Not I used to love you. His heart was beating so rapidly he could almost hear it. “Lainie—” he said, too quietly, because she kept on going.
“I never should have let you kiss me more than once. I never should have let myself believe I could make a home with you in Longbourne, because it was always going to end like this and if anyone’s been made a fool of, it’s me, and I did it to myself. So whatever it is you—”
“Lainie, stop,” Ben said, a little desperately. “Stop. No. Lainie, I came here to ask you to forgive me. Please.”
He’d made her stop speaking, at least, but the expression on her face wasn’t very welcoming. It didn’t matter. This was why he was here. “I’ve made the biggest mistake of my life,” he said. “Didn’t realize for so long how big a mistake it was. I don’t feeling like a fool, and that day I stood there with everyone watching me and thinking, look at that fool who thought she loved him. And I had your ring in my pocket—I carried it everywhere, like a promise—felt like it was going to burn straight through into my flesh. So I took that feeling and I turned it into anger, and then I turned that anger on you. Then I turned it on the Ruskalder. Pretty sure for a while there I didn’t care if I died.”
He took a breath, and Lainie opened her mouth to say something. “Just—let me finish, please,” he said. “I spent a deal of time flat on my back, healing, and the whole time all I heard about was you. John and Susan Anderson, talking about how nobody needed to hide their identity so much they’d rescue a girl not even related to them and nearly get killed doing it. And Jack, playing with his damned watch, saying you can’t fake skills like that. Even your cousin, babbling about couldn’t I forgive you, not that he knew anything about it. But then there was Mistress Weaver.”
He swallowed, trying to moisten his dry mouth. “She asked me how my neck was, said a little scratch like that would’ve healed right away. And that made me remember how you looked when Morgan had hold of me with his knife to my throat, like it was your own life in danger. I remembered you’d killed him to save my life. And I knew…I knew no one was that good a liar.”
“Ben—” Lainie said.
“Let me finish, just—give me that much. It took all the courage I had just to get on that coach to Aurilien, let alone to walk into the palace to see you, and if I don’t say this now I’ll never find the nerve again. Didn’t expect your intimidating cousin.” He smiled, thinking how overwhelmed s
he’d made him feel and how that was nothing compared to having to sit here and apologize, knowing his whole life depended on it. “She doesn’t like me very much. Sitting there, talking to her…I’d almost rather face the Ruskalder. If you’d been five minutes longer, I’d have run out the door and gotten on the first coach back to Longbourne. Then you came in, looking like you wanted to burn a hole in my chest—”
“I didn’t—”
“You didn’t seem to want to talk to me. I—it was like I was meeting you all over again, tongue-tied and never knowing what to say. But I thought, I’ll beg her forgiveness and go home.” He took both her hands in his, daringly, and said, “Lainie, I’m sorry I didn’t trust you. I’m sorry I said those things and that I said them in front of everyone. When I’m not having nightmares about killing Ruskalder, my nightmares are all about how devastated you looked last I saw you, knowing I made you look that way. I know you don’t owe me anything, but if you can find it in you to forgive me, I wish you would.”
She said nothing. Ben withdrew his hands from hers, but before he could move too far, she took his hands and gripped them. “I don’t want your apology,” she said.
He felt the blood drain from his face. He’d thought at least she might be able to forgive him, even if she didn’t love him anymore. But then she smiled a little, and shook her head, and said, “You don’t understand. Ben, I love you. There hasn’t been a single day since I left that mountain that I haven’t thought of you. All I wanted, through everything I’ve endured, even when I thought you hated me, was to have you beside me. So it’s not an apology I want, but I’ll take it if that’s the price for me to hear you tell me you still love me.”
Tales of the Crown Page 38