I fought down my urges for a dangerously married lady, trying hard to focus. Glancing around, I asked, “Where’s your maid?”
Lady Redwing shrugged and pulled back the covers on her bed before sitting on the bed. She slid between the sheets and smoothed the covers over her legs. “I sent her to bed.”
“But what about the rest of the household? Where are they? You didn’t send them to bed, too, did you?”
She giggled. “No, silly.” She scrunched up her nose, thinking. “Come to think of it, it has been rather quiet here since I arrived.”
Where had the staff gone? I realized with some concern that I hadn't yet seen any of Lord Oswald’s Angels, either.
“So,” Lady Redwing said cheerfully, apparently oblivious of the implications of missing staff, “what brings you here?” She patted the bed next to her.
I sat where the lady indicated. “The emperor.”
“Oh?” she said casually. “Phim? What does he want?”
“You.”
“I don’t understand.”
“The emperor expects you at the announcement ceremony.”
“Isn’t that sweet.” She looked away. “But I don’t think so.”
I stared at her, shocked at her display of casual disobedience. “Emperor Seraphim VI,” I said, in case she was thinking of a different emperor, “ruler of the Eighty Three Worlds of the Eternal Empire.”
She nodded, still looking away. “Yes, I know. Phim always wants me to come out to New Rome. The answer is still no.”
Flabbergasted, I reached out for the lady’s cheek, intending to pull her face around to me. She slapped my hand away as soon as a touched her. My fingers came back wet with her tears.
“Lady Redwing,” I said gently. I wasn’t sure why she was crying, but I didn’t want to upset her any more than I had to. “I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t extremely important.”
“Why?” she said, her face still averted.
“For Lord Oswald’s standing.”
She rounded on me, eyes flashing beneath wellsprings of tears, which overflowed down her cheeks. “He can go to hell,” she said, sniffing.
Momentarily flinching from her outburst, I tried to sound soothing. “Lady Redwing.”
“What?” she said, her voice cracking.
“The emperor asked for you personally.”
She shrugged and wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand. “I’m not an heir; I don’t need to be there.”
I wanted to say, “But you could be the emperor’s successor; why not go and find out?” But the possibility was such a long shot that I couldn’t bring myself to mention it.
Instead, I said, “But Prince Oswald is, and you could be his princess some day.”
Instantly, I knew it was the wrong thing to say. Lady Redwing’s face crumpled, and she threw herself forward, crying into my shirt. I didn’t know what else to do, so I just held her there, until she’d cried enough.
“We were on the ship together Thursday,” she gushed into my shirt between sobs. “No meetings, no plans, no excuses. And he still rejected me.” This brought on a fresh wave of tears.
I knew very well why he’d rejected the lady, and it was my fault, not hers, but I couldn’t tell her that without revealing why I knew. Her crying was heart-wrenching, though, so much so that I almost told her everything anyway; how I’d stolen her clothes and gotten trapped in her closet, how guilty I felt to have seen her in her négligée, how seeing my Lord spurning her had made be angry, how I’d vowed to help her make the prince see how right they could be together, how spending a single day with Willow had made me see how I might find my own love....
I decided that it wasn’t the time for talk like that, for either of us, and I kept my mouth shut.
“Don’t you see?” she said finally. “He doesn’t want me.”
My heart ached for Lady Phoenix, but I didn’t know what to say that would ease her pain, so I stayed silent, holding her close, rocking her gently as I would a child, occasionally stroking her head, which seemed to help. We stayed like that for a long time, her crying, me soothing, neither of us speaking.
I thought of Valeria Ogden, years ago, after her father, the Copse overlord, appealed to my Lord for a loan, and she ended up joining our household as part of the bargain. After my Lord graciously provided Lord Ogden the means to avoid bankrupting himself — and the planet of Copse with him — and then the prince offered the girl gainful employment in his personal household, she should have been happy and carefree. But, instead, she’d spent the better part of two weeks sulking in her assigned room, refusing to come out for any reason whatsoever.
Out of pity, I had her meals sent up to her room, which was probably the reason why she managed to hold out for so long.
Eventually, my Lord chastised me for allowing the situation to continue. “Find out what her problem is,” he told me hotly, “and fix it.”
I started to protest, but he cut me off.
“Find a way, Euclid. That’s what I pay you for.” He stormed off and I went to Valeria’s room to reason with her.
The girl was confrontational at first, and she even threatened me physically. I tried hard not to laugh at this little girl, who couldn’t have weighed a third of what I did and whose rendition of a fighter’s stance left her as vulnerable as one of the girls at the Limber Ladies Lair in the middle of the Lair’s signature Flexible Ballet.
A sudden realization walloped me. I’d learned only in those two weeks that her father had felt forced to send his son and heir away somewhere with no explanation before appealing to my Lord. She probably thought that her father had essentially sold her off as a love slave. “Do you know why you’re here?” I asked her calmly.
Valeria eyed me defiantly. “I won’t do it.”
“What? The pastries?” I shrugged, mentioning the first innocuous job that came to mind. “What would you like to do, Miss Valeria?”
She blinked and looked genuinely surprised. “Pastries?”
I allowed a friendly smile and said innocently, “Of course. What did you think you were supposed to do?”
“I thought ... you know, he ... or ... well, I ... supp—”
“No,” I said quietly, putting an end to her embarrassed sputtering. From the sound of it, I’d guessed right.
We sat down to talk like civilized people, and Valeria ended up crying in my arms, blubbering about all the horrors on Copse in the previous year, her father’s present situation, her brother’s disappearance and her own uncertain future. I comforted her as best I could, explaining what Prince Oswald had done to help her father and her separately, and why.
Valeria turned out to have a wonderful head for administration. Ironically, if her overlord father had simply trained her for succeeding him instead of her empty-headed brother, the Ogdens and Copse would have been fine.
It just goes to show you that sometimes the answer is right under your nose, if you’d only take the time to look for it.
With Lady Redwing, I couldn’t shake the feeling that the answer to her problem was also right under her nose.
“Lady Redwing,” I started, but the lady pushed away from me and silenced me with a hurt look and a finger to her lips.
“How long have we known each other, Euclid?”
I shrugged. “Several years.” Actually, I knew the answer to the day, but I didn’t think this was the time to say it.
“So why do you still call me Lady Redwing instead of Phoenix?”
I looked down, embarrassed. “I’m just a secretary; I don’t have the right.” Surprising myself with my own candor, I realized I’d been a secretary for nearly ten years now. In all that time, I was still doing the same job as when my Lord first took me on. Was that the best I could hope for?
She reached out and pulled my chin up. “And I’m just an unmarried old fool,” she said gently, barely audibly, “who calls herself a Lady, even if she isn’t entitled to it.”
I looked away. I had always assu
med that Lady Phoenix was convinced of her titular right. If she knew she wasn’t really entitled, why did she insist on using it?
“Don’t you think I know what they say about me behind my back? Do you think I’m so oblivious to my real standing?” The lady sniffed. “Pretentious, opportunist, difficult, demanding.” She ticked off each term on a separate finger. “And those are some of the nice things they call me.” She turned away again, and her shoulders heaved slightly as she sobbed.
“Lady ... Phoenix?” I said, lightly touching her shoulder.
“I know why my father left me with Adrian,” she continued. “But I refuse to be a ... present ... to any man.” She spat out the word present so viciously that I expected to see red, hateful eyes when she turned back to me. Instead, she just looked sad and somewhat hurt, smiling wanly and dabbing her tears daintily with her fingertips.
Her pain stabbed me through the heart. “I’m sure Lord Oswald wants you. He took you in, didn’t he? You’re still here, aren’t you?” I wasn’t sure how convincing I sounded.
Lady Redwing’s voice sounded strained as she started to protest. “But that’s only because I won’t—”
She checked herself, and a look of childlike fear flashed across her eyes. “Never mind,” she said and looked away again.
I wasn’t sure what she would have said if she hadn’t stopped herself, but I suspected it had something to do with her three o’clock matrimonial attempts every Thursday. She probably felt that my Lord only kept her around in the hopes of one day she’d give up and he could dispense with the trouble of venturing out to the Luscious Licks Ladies of Love. It was patently untrue, of course; I knew for a fact the Lord Oswald considered her to be far too much trouble to trivialize their relationship so much. And after what we’d learned about her relationship with the Eternal Empire’s aging emperor, it was unlikely he’d be very cold to the lady in the future.
But how could I tell Lady Phoenix that without making the prince sound like a blatant opportunist himself?
Lady Phoenix turned to face me, her look hardening. “If he really wants me, what was he doing with the empress?”
I gulped. “The empress?” I asked innocently.
“Noir told me, Euclid.”
So I had gathered. It was a good thing that I came alone. I didn’t think my Lord would take kindly to being condemned for something he didn’t even do, based on a third-hand report. “What do you think he was doing with the empress?” I asked.
“You know what he was doing,” she said, narrowing her eyes. “She denied it, of course,” she said, rambling on, “and said she was trying to seduce you, if you can believe that, and that Adrian only dallied with her masseuse, but everyone knows what kind of a slut she is. She was lying to protect him, naturally. And Adrian.” She spat out his name. “Adrian was saving his affections for her, even though we were alone on the ship and I was right there, if he only—”
I cringed, thinking of Jewel’s red crotchless panties and my Lord’s timely arrival. My cheeks boiled with the flush crossing them.
Lady Redwing drew a hand to her lips when she saw my face. “Oh, Euclid, I’m sorry. She really did try to seduce you?”
Nodding, I said, “It’s true. All of it.”
“But Adrian ... you know ... with the masseuse?”
“I’m not sure. They weren’t alone very long.”
Lady Redwing wiped her eyes and giggled. “That sounds about right, from what I’ve heard of Adrian,” she muttered, probably thinking that I didn’t hear her.
Desperate to change the subject, I blurted out, “Lady ... um ... Phoenix. Why do you keep calling out Lord Oswald every Thursday?” Instantly, I wondered if I’d overstepped the familiarity she’d offered when she invited me to call her by her first name.
Her face registered surprise. “Whatever do you mean?”
My cheeks reddened. “He’s made it clear he doesn’t want to marry you. Lord Oswald and I have few secrets; he’s stubborn, I don’t see him backing down unless something changes.”
“I see.” Lady Redwing’s face colored, too. She seemed to consider whether she should answer my rather candid question or not. After a few seconds she shrugged almost imperceptibly and leaned forward to whisper in my ear.
“According to my mother, she was married and I was conceived at three o’clock on a Thursday. She told me that all the women in her family were, too.” Lady Redwing sat back again, still looking a little embarrassed with this confession. “Family lore is that the two happy events are connected.”
Mentally, I kicked myself for not figuring it out earlier. The lady knew that my Lord didn’t want to marry her, so she’d been trying to force his hand. With the calm expectation of generations of her female ancestors, she tried to stack the deck by arranging for the ceremony at the appointed hour; if she succeeded, she’d no doubt arrange for marital trysts at the appointed hour, too, blithely ignoring any number of modern methods for predicting fertility.
The more time I spent with Lady Phoenix, the less I understood her.
“Can we go back to New Rome now?” I asked, impatient to return with the lady before the emperor’s succession announcement party.
Lady Redwing said, “No,” and her face clouded over. “I appreciate your explanation, Euclid, really, I do. But the fact remains that Adrian still rejected me, and he has no excuse for that, does he?”
I bit my lip. Yes, he did have an explanation, but I just couldn’t tell the lady that I was trapped in her closet after throwing away her clothes. There had to be another way of getting her to New Rome without admitting my foolish behavior. “At least sleep on it,” I pleaded. “If I promise I’ll do what I can to change his mind?”
Her expression softened. “Okay,” she said, then smiled and kissed me on the cheek. “Since we’re such good friends, I’ll think about it.”
I’d never felt closer to the lady than at that moment.
***
I decided to visit Lady Redwing first thing in the morning, following one of the most miserable nights I’d spent in years. Nightmares of Lord Noir in red crotchless panties flirting with Prince Oswald mingled with visions of Willow killing Lady Redwing in her sleep with an arrow and flying off with the Phoenix to take over as the Empress of Eighty Three Worlds.
Sweat soaked my sheets, so that when I woke, I felt as though I’d showered wearing my night clothes and hopped into bed straight away. Reeking of sweat stink, I stripped and tossed my night clothes in for instacleaning while I showered quickly. I dressed comfortably, then headed to see Lady Phoenix.
Once again, the hallways were empty. I’d been too preoccupied the night before to find out where everybody was — especially the Angels — but the situation was spooky, and I thought I should figure it out before my Lord returned from New Rome. And that meant before I left for New Rome again.
Still, my main concern right now was making sure that I had a particular passenger for the journey, and that meant I needed to talk to Lady Redwing immediately.
I knocked on her door, but there was no answer, so I went in anyway.
Her rooms were empty. All of them.
I stood in the middle of her receiving room, shocked, wondering why I was unable to get a firm grip on the lady these days. It seemed that every time I caught up with her recently, she’d slip through my fingers again like an eel.
Foster barged in. He stopped for a second, surprised to see me, then strode past me into the lady’s bedchamber, swinging a large suitcase.
I followed him. “Foster?”
“Yes?” He looked up from his task briefly, which appeared to be packing Lady Redwing’s remaining underclothes into the suitcase.
“Where’s Lady Redwing?” I asked.
“Oh, didn’t she tell you? Her father sent a jumper for her last night. He said it was urgent for her to go home at once.”
I scowled. “This is her home,” I said, confused.
“Not any more. She’s returned to Telsor for the d
uration.”
“Duration? Of what?”
Foster stopped packing and looked at me, shocked at my ignorance. “Why, the civil war, of course.”
Chapter 15
Fighting Cocks
CIVIL WAR? WHAT WAS FOSTER TALKING ABOUT? I grabbed Lady Redwing’s butler by the shoulders. “What’s been going on around here? The prince hasn’t even been gone a week and there’s a civil war?”
Foster shrugged out of my grasp, apparently unfazed. “I was in New Rome with you, remember? I just found out yesterday.”
“What?” I demanded. “What do you know?”
“There’s not actually a civil war ... yet. The governors have got it into their heads that they’d be better off without the prince, that’s all.”
And they got this idea all by themselves? I doubted it. Lord Oswald had been gone from Oasis for weeks at a time before without this kind of trouble brewing. And it seemed a little too convenient that this civil war was starting up at the same time that my Lord was under suspicion for murdering a fellow heir. There had to be some kind of outside influence at work.
“Fine,” I told Foster firmly. “I want to know about it the minute one of the governors tries anything that smacks of revolution. Okay?”
Foster nodded casually. “You mean, like a meeting with all of them to discuss a revolution?”
I stared at the butler. In all the time I knew him, he didn’t strike me as the sarcastic type, but I wasn’t sure how else to take his question. If he wasn’t kidding, the situation in Oasis was more serious than I could handle alone. Oasis would need Lord Oswald back home as soon as possible.
Choosing my words carefully, I answered Foster’s question. “Yes, exactly like that. Do you know of such a meeting?”
“Of course,” Foster said, swelling with pride at his superior knowledge of current events. “Lord Redwing is hosting such a meeting this morning.” He glanced at a timedot. “Right about now, in fact.”
My heart stopped. The governors were gathering as we spoke, readying to overthrow Lord Oswald while he wasn’t even there to defend himself.
Ninth Euclid's Prince Page 18