Private Dicks

by Samantha M. Derr

  Esmour flushed. "No—I am just—just clumsy with words. I did not mean to offend you."

  Amabel's teasing smile faded and was replaced by a soft, fond one as he grasped Esmour's wrist and tugged him close to kiss him. "I am sorry. I mean to tease, not wound. You say it so sincerely, I want to listen to you compliment me all day."

  "Spoiled brat."

  "But yours."

  Esmour flushed at the memory and dropped his gaze.

  "Give me your wrists," Teigh repeated. "You cannot go on this assignment with the bracelets. Do not think, however, of running away."

  Refusing to respond to that, Esmour stood up and presented his wrists, hoping the dark was enough to hide the one thing he had never wanted Teigh to see. He might not have had much pride left, but he had a scrap of it and would not simply surrender it.

  He held still while Teigh unlocked the bracelets with a key kept around his neck. When he was done, Esmour tried to withdraw—but at the very last, Teigh grabbed his wrist again, clamping down tightly when Esmour tried to jerk free and running a thumb over the band tattooed around Esmour's right wrist. "What is this?" Teigh demanded.

  "A fool's promise," Esmour choked out, all his bitterness and anguish slipping out for one brief moment before he managed to regain control of himself. He drew in a sharp breath, burying the pain again, and finally pulled his wrist free, hiding his arm within his cloak.

  Teigh looked as though he wanted to speak more of the tattoo, but in the end he said only, "See that you are waiting for me in the ward by dawn, Inquisitor. You are dismissed."

  "Yes, Highness," Esmour said, and fled. Back out in the hall, a guard waited to escort him to a spare room, the privacy one of the few luxuries of being an Inquisitor. Esmour sat down heavily on his bed, and buried his head in his hands, ignoring the way they trembled.

  Not again. He could not be that close to Amabel—to Teigh—again. Three years after Teigh had betrayed him, broken him, Esmour was still struggling to stop loving him. He would not be able to endure the proximity that came with pretending to be married. He would never keep his sanity living such a pretense. How was he supposed to pretend at what he had once most wanted in all the world and not succumb to it? He knew he would only find himself shattered beyond repair at the end of it all.

  Esmour wanted to scream or pick a fight. He wanted to find a way to undo the night they had met—

  Except that was not true. What he wanted most was for those months to have been real. For any part of Amabel to have been real. For every touch and whispered word to have been meant. He closed his eyes against the deep ache that washed through him. Why did he still care? Teigh certainly did not; if not for the fact he was an Inquisitor, Esmour doubted Teigh would even remember his name.

  Esmour hated him, but he hated himself more for still loving the bastard.

  His eyes stung as he looked at his wrist, the tattoo wrapped around it in black ink: a lover's band, a promise of eternity. A promise he had planned to surprise his lover with that very morning, when he confessed he was a robber, but was leaving that life behind forever to live an honest life with Amabel.

  Only to be arrested and told his lover was none other than Prince Teigh, Chief Royal Inquisitor. That he had fallen for the oldest trick in the book and the Amabel he loved was only a master of disguise who felt nothing for him but contempt.

  Removing his boots, Esmour stretched out on the small bed allotted to him and wrapped his cloak around him to catch what little sleep he could in the few hours left before dawn.

  *~*~*

  The townhouse where they were to stay was remarkably fine for its age. Esmour was surprised it had survived nearly ten years, given that fires were the bane of cities and most houses had to be rebuilt nearly every year.

  He pushed the door open and stepped inside, lingering in the anteroom a moment before stepping through the door into what would soon be Amabel's spice shop. He looked around the disordered room where trunks and chests and crates had been delivered, but not sorted. Amabel—Teigh, he corrected himself angrily—clearly had not yet arrived. Esmour did not know if it was better or worse that he had arrived first.

  He nodded to the guards hired to watch over the costly spices, giving them a hard look that said they had better not try any thieving themselves. Leaving the shop, he returned to the anteroom and went through the second door that led to the steep, narrow stairs.

  The solar was sparsely but well appointed, a bench and dismantled trestle table against one wall, the fire already lit. That was promising; it meant there was a good chance of a hot meal that night. Esmour walked across the solar and stepped into the kitchen, where two servants were busy at work preparing the very meal for which he had hoped. He slipped out again, not wanting to disturb them, and returned to the stairs to continue up to the next floor.

  A bed had already been put in place, long enough and wide enough to accommodate two grown men, still smelling of the dried flowers that sweetened the straw mattress stuffing. He moved close enough to run his fingers over the smooth, costly linen, heat pouring through him as unwanted memories assaulted him: Amabel taking Esmour to bed for the first time; the heat of his mouth as he had devoured Esmour's, his calloused fingers running possessively over Esmour's body as tunics and hose were hastily discarded.

  They had remained in bed for hours, rising only because there was a shop to run and Esmour had needed to slip away to do a job that, by that point, he no longer wanted to do. Every smile and touch and kiss Amabel gave him had just made the sudden desire to be an honest man stronger.

  He balled his hand into a fist, jerking away from the bed. He could not do it—could not pretend to be married, to be a happy spouse, to act as though he cared—because he would slip and forget it was an act. He was not strong enough to remember that it was an act.

  Mercy of the heavens, he wished he knew how Teigh managed the artifice so well. Esmour was an accomplished liar, a talented deceiver, but he did not possess Teigh's ability to pretend affection.

  Abandoning the bedchamber, wishing his memories and feelings were as easy to leave behind, he went up the stairs to the next level to inspect the servants' quarters. Satisfied with the house, he returned to the ground floor and dismissed the guards, then went to inspect the stable and storehouses. Satisfied with the grounds, he went back out front to retrieve his horse and lead it through the gate to the stable, rubbing it down and feeding it before returning to the house.

  Going upstairs to the solar, he encountered one of the servants. "Good day, mistress."

  The woman swept him a curtsy, bowing her head low before looking up to meet his gaze. "Gods grant you good day, sir. Be welcome in your home."

  "Thank you," Esmour replied. "All seems well. What is your name, mistress? What are we having for supper that smells so fine?"

  "Rebeka, sir. I believe that is the hare you smell. I hope it will please. May I bring you anything?" Seeming to realize he did not expect her to hold still, she went to pull out and arrange the table, then set the bench before it. Going to a chest in the corner, she opened it and pulled out the linen cloth to cover the table, then began to pull down dishes from the cupboard where they were stored. All very fine materials; Teigh had chosen a modest house, but had not hesitated to fill it with quality. The floor even had rugs, ornate, heavy things seldom seen outside the house or castle of a lord.

  Sometimes, Esmour felt as though he lived in a dream. He had been a simple thief living in a one-room house with three other men, most of his time spent poaching in the woods, helping to rob travelers, or running strange errands for Tomas.

  How had he come to a place where he trod on costly rugs and seemed to all appearances a prosperous man? Even when he was not working, he was a knight with a generous stipend who reported directly to a prince.

  He could not believe, even after three years, that his life had changed so drastically.

  The sound of noise downstairs made him tense, and dread grew in his gut when he h
eard boots pounding on the stairs. A moment later the door opened and Teigh stepped in, dressed in the clothes of a modest but wealthy merchant.

  Esmour noticed a jewel in his ear and suddenly could not breathe around the lump in his throat. Teigh wore the emerald stud he had gifted to Amabel more than three years ago. It had been his payment for a job, lifted from a lord who had been arrogant enough to travel alone late at night. He had not realized Teigh had kept it. Why had he kept it? Why was he suddenly wearing it?

  "Good day, husband," Teigh greeted, crossing the room to give him a kiss. Esmour tensed, but the fingers that dug into his arm warned him to behave and he reluctantly permitted the kiss, responded to it briefly. He hated that Teigh still tasted the same: warm and sweet, completely at odds with the hard lines of his body, the firm set to his mouth. "I see you accomplished your errands before I; all is well at the keep?"

  "Aye," Esmour said. He sat down while Rebeka finished setting the table and poured wine from the silver pitcher at his elbow into two ornate silver cups. "My lord was too busy to see me today, but I was instructed to go tomorrow before the market opened."

  Teigh nodded and smiled in thanks for the wine. "My permits are set, and all is paid for and ready to set up the shop and open for business the day after tomorrow. I think we will do well here."

  Esmour managed a smile and drank his wine as Rebeka came out with a large, handled bowl of soup and a loaf of bread. Leaving Teigh to start on the soup, Esmour cut the bread into slices and passed some to Teigh. In exchange, Teigh handed him the spoon.

  The soup was delicious, the best Esmour had eaten in months. The inns and houses where he frequently lodged during his travels often left something to be desired, and he was never invited to dine at Teigh's table, of course. He was rarely invited to dine with other inquisitors on the rare occasion he crossed paths with them; many were displeased that Teigh had enlisted him rather than arrested him, even if he did wear penance bracelets.

  They continued the meal in idle conversation, neither foolish enough to discuss business where the wrong set of ears might enjoy it. By the time they had concluded and left the servants to eat and clean up, dark was falling. Rebeka lit the single lamp in the room and then went upstairs to light the one in their bedchamber.

  Following her up, Esmour waited until she had gone before he stripped off his clothes and hung them on the hooks near the bed, shaking them out first to get rid of what dirt, dust, and vermin he could. He climbed into bed, pulling the blankets up over him, and idly considered smothering himself with the pillow rather than face the conversation he knew was coming.

  How much of Teigh had been in Amabel, Esmour did not know. At his weakest moments, he liked to think that the merchant he had fallen in love with was much the same as the prince he still loved despite everything. The man who had claimed to love him in return. But if that were true, why had Teigh arrested him without ever talking to him, giving him a chance—telling him the truth?

  He closed his eyes, then buried his head in his pillow when the door opened and Teigh stepped inside. Try as he might to ignore them, he could not help but listen to every sound Teigh made as he locked the door, stripped, snuffed the light, and climbed into bed alongside him.

  Two years ago, Esmour would have watched him undress, teased him with looks and silent promises, rolled over in bed to lie on top of him, and seen to it neither of them got nearly as much sleep as they should. Amabel had never complained. Esmour dug his fingers into his pillow, clenched it tightly, and jerked when warm fingers lightly touched his shoulder. "Leave me alone, husband," he said curtly.

  "Enough of that," Teigh said in the unmistakable tone of the Chief Royal Inquisitor—the tone of a prince.

  Esmour did not turn around, simply stared into the dark beyond the bed in the direction of the wall only a couple of steps away. "I just want to go to sleep, Highness. Must we have this discussion now? Must we have it at all? There is nothing left to say, not now, not after three years."

  "You can tell me when you obtained that promise band around your wrist, and why the runes spell my name."

  "It is not your name they spell," Esmour said. "They spell out the name of a man who does not actually exist. I made a promise to a figment, which I guess is what I deserve for being both gullible and foolish enough to think I had finally found a reason to live an honest life."

  He heard Teigh's sharp, startled intake of breath right before his voice cracked out, "What do you mean, a reason to live an honest life?"

  "Nothing," Esmour muttered, willing Teigh to drop the matter.

  But of course he did not, because for all he might wonder if any of Teigh had been in Amabel, he knew the tenacity he had fallen in love with was completely Teigh. But there could be no better quality in a royal inquisitor than tenacity.

  Esmour still fought when Teigh grabbed him, tried to make him roll over. But he only succeeded in jerking away so hard he wound up throwing himself out of bed, landing painfully on the floor on his face, banging an elbow somewhere on the way down. Above him, still on the bed, Teigh swore softly. "Esmour. Are you all right?"

  Tears of pain stung Esmour's eyes, but he blinked them away. Ignoring Teigh's question, Esmour reached out and grabbed onto the blankets to lever himself up—and promptly knocked heads with Teigh, bringing more pain and tears and enough swearing to offend even the cheapest whore.

  Before he could recover enough to get out of range, Teigh grabbed him up and dragged him back into bed, and Esmour was still in too much pain—and far too aware they were naked—to fight him. "What?" he asked. He reached up unthinkingly, found and lightly traced Teigh's cheek, and jerked back when Teigh's hand touched his. "Get off me."

  "No," Teigh said.

  "I guess I have no choice in this either then, Highness?"

  Teigh sighed, and he sounded so tired and worn out and so exactly as Esmour felt—

  No, he would not be so weak as to delude himself. "Let me go," he whispered.

  "What did you mean about going honest?" Teigh asked, pinning Esmour’s wrists to the mattress. Esmour was no match for him in strength, for all he was no weakling. He had been good as a robber because he was quick and agile, rather than bulky and slow. Teigh was the finest warrior the crown could afford to make.

  It was too bad Esmour had never bothered to ponder why a spice monger would be so beautifully fit. "Nothing," he bit out. "It does not matter anymore, because I am an honest man, or at least a crown-sanctioned criminal."

  "It matters!" Teigh snarled. "You did not have that band the night before! You snuck out that morning to meet with the robbers waiting for the coach from—"

  Esmour cut him off by bucking and twisting angrily, snarling furiously before he said, "I snuck out that morning to get the promise band and to tell my boss that I wanted out." A knot lodged in his throat. "He—he wished me well. Said as long as I had worked for him, I deserved an honest, happy life. He paid for the tattoo. He wished me well, damn your eyes! He let me go and told me to be happy with my merchant who spoiled me shamelessly." He laughed, eyes stinging, turned his head away even though he knew it was too dark for Teigh to see the tears anyway. "I went home—home, ha!—to tell you the truth and come clean and start fresh. You know the rest."

  Teigh abruptly let him go and climbed out of bed. He fumbled for his clothes in the dark, and then yanked the door open. He paused, turning back to look at Esmour. "Remain here. I will return."

  Esmour wiped his eyes with the heels of his hands, then lay back down, tugged the blankets back up, and tried to get some sleep.

  *~*~*

  He made his way slowly toward the keep at the north end of the city, walking up a street so steep he could reach out and grab the stones in front of him, practically climb up the street.

  The guard at the castle gate recognized him and let him pass with just a nod. Passing through the portcullis, Esmour walked down the stone path that cut the ward neatly in half. He looked around with the manner of a new and c
urious gawker, taking in the way the soldiers walking the battlements were more interested in talking and loafing than in working. There was notable lack of soldiers everywhere else, minus a couple loitering in front of the cathedral.

  Chickens wandered around without much in the way of supervision; the boy who looked as though he should be watching them flirted with a girl who clearly had no interest in hauling water back to the kitchens.

  Esmour shook his head as he reached the entrance and passed through without issue. The hall was mostly empty, the tables and benches put away other than one large table near the fire where someone sat working. Not the lord, for he did not fit the description which Esmour had been given. Rifling through the other descriptions Teigh had rattled off, Esmour decided the man must be the seneschal he was meant to work under.

  Approaching the table, he remained back a deferential six paces, doffed his hat, and waited with a patience he did not feel. He had woken to an empty bed and an empty house. Even the shop had lacked its proprietor; only a sleepy-looking apprentice sat watching the unpacked spices. Teigh had not left him even a note, and Esmour was sick with anxiety wondering where he was, what he was doing, and why he was so troubled by Esmour's words that he had run away. It was not in Teigh's nature to run away, not so far as Esmour knew.

  But he would do well to remember he did not know Teigh at all. Esmour waited with growing impatience as the seneschal continued to ignore him in favor of reading the papers in his hand. Strange how quickly he had gotten used to drawing attention, after striving most of his life to be invisible. Street urchins and thieves did not benefit from being noticed. But as a royal inquisitor, when he was not under guise on assignment, Esmour was noticed. His spurs alone marked him, and always the penance cuffs.

  Finally, just as he was considering turning and walking out, the seneschal looked up. "You are my new clerk?"

  "Yes, milord," Esmour said, making certain his accent was above how he had spoken as a thief, but below the palace accent he had rapidly acquired since becoming an inquisitor. Accents were the key to any disguise—no thief would sound like a noble, no noble would sound like a thief. If he was to pass as a clerk, he must sound like a clerk. "Esmour Locke, at your service, by your pleasure and gods willing."