“One more thing, my daughter,” her father said as she was about to walk out. “At Prince Jorg’s request, I’ll be arranging a new bodyguard for you.”
Alarm flared in Nalini’s chest—could her father know that she had feelings for Tristan? Could Jorg?
“Oh?” she asked over her shoulder, striving for a casual response. Even though Nalini knew that she and Tristan should be separated, it alarmed her that someone else believed it was necessary. “Why? If not for him, I might not be alive, and I certainly wouldn’t be safely back home.”
“Jorg objects to him.”
“So?”
“So he will be reassigned to guard Esrin on her shopping trips. You will receive someone equally skilled.”
“Esrin?” Nalini spun back toward her father, remembering Esrin and Fadime ambling out of the men’s bathing room where they had been, Samar had told her, attempting to seduce Tristan. She imagined him giving in and sleeping with Esrin, their naked limbs entwined under the sheets.
“Yes, Esrin. She might be an easy target for a kidnapper, thanks to her hobby. She should have a good bodyguard.”
“That’s not my objection. I just…” Nalini trailed off.
Her father was gazing blandly at her. She hadn’t even wanted a bodyguard. What would he think if she kept insisting on keeping Tristan now?
“Let him go, my daughter,” her father said gently. “Do not start your new marriage with strife.”
Nalini dropped her chin to her chest and walked out. Everything about this new marriage had her feeling defeated. It wasn’t an emotion she usually experienced, and she didn’t like it. Not one bit.
Tristan waited in the hallway and focused on her right away, alert, attentive. Handsome.
She had the urge to rush forward and kiss him, to pull him back to her suite and claim him for her own.
But that couldn’t happen, no matter how much she wished it could. She had to be responsible, to marry the prince, and ensure that her family and all those who depended on her father had a safe place in whatever universe came their way.
“Are you all right?” Tristan gave her a sad smile, as if he sensed her thoughts. Or maybe he was experiencing similarly depressing ones.
“Just thinking about how it would be nice to run away from it all sometimes.”
He looked down at her purple tassels. “Those might slow you down if they get caught in something.”
“I suppose.” She wanted to clasp his hand and take him somewhere to talk—she wasn’t even sure what she wanted to talk about—but Devi strode around the corner then.
“Nalini!” her android friend blurted. “You wouldn’t believe the dire things that happened to me while you were gone. I must tell you all about it.”
“Of course,” Nalini murmured. “Lead the way home, please.”
As they walked away, she couldn’t stop thinking of Tristan with Esrin and of the odious marriage ahead of her.
16
The lights had dimmed in the suite, signifying bedtime, but Tristan alternated between doing pushups and pull-ups from the doorjamb of his small room off the foyer. He had weights tied to his waist to make the exercises more challenging since the lower gravity of the palace station made his own body mass lighter. He wanted to go for a long run somewhere, but he couldn’t assume that Nalini wouldn’t be in danger just because she was back home. His duty was to be here near the door and react instantly if someone forced their way in.
“Well, that’s something Devi rarely did,” came Nalini’s voice from the foyer.
At that moment, he was dangling from the doorjamb. He dropped to the floor and unbuckled the weights as Nalini walked up.
She wore her nightgown with her hair loose and tumbling around her shoulders, thick and lush. Remembering well how the flimsy sleep garment revealed her curves, Tristan swallowed and made himself look into her eyes, though that wasn’t exactly safe territory. They were deep and dark and warm, inviting his gaze to linger.
He looked toward the wall. The wall was safe. A pale blue that reminded him of the sky on Odin.
Nalini’s gaze drifted to the T-shirt he wore, and he grimaced, knowing it was damp with sweat. If he’d known she was still up and would visit him this evening, he would have stayed in the uniform he was supposed to wear in the palace.
“Your android doesn’t do exercises?” he asked, remembering that she’d commented as she walked up.
“No, and she doesn’t leave sweaty handprints on the doorjambs.” Nalini waved over his head, though he didn’t think he’d truly left any visible prints.
“It’s possible she’s more civilized than I am.”
“She would agree to that. She finally went to the bedroom.” Nalini waved back into the rest of the suite. “After telling me all the heinous details of her attack and deactivation.”
His mind immediately went to security threats. “Did she implicate anyone beyond those we already know were plotting against you?”
Nalini blinked, then looked thoughtfully at the floor tiles. “She described a man that sounded like Killer. She didn’t know anything about Habib but mentioned there was another man that she didn’t recognize. It could have been—what was the silent one’s name?—but I suppose it could have been someone else. Whoever was in charge wiped the cameras in the hall out there—Habib would have known how to do that—and I don’t have any in here.”
“Do you want me to contact palace security and try to get more information? We shouldn’t assume that there isn’t anyone else left angling for you.”
“In the morning, yes. I wanted to talk to you first.”
“Of course.” Tristan started to extend his hand toward his little room, but there was only a small bed and a desk and chair in there. Even if there weren’t cameras, it wouldn’t be appropriate for him to invite her in. Not now. Not ever.
He was a little surprised he hadn’t been removed from this duty yet, by someone from Jorg’s staff if not by someone from the palace. He hadn’t been able to bring himself to hunt down the prince to plead his case yet—he’d told himself that he had to stick with Nalini for as long as he was her bodyguard, or as long as she might be in danger.
She must not have had inappropriateness on her mind, because she walked into his room and sat on the edge of the bed. Tristan set his weights down with a clank, and even though she’d left room on the bed, he chose the desk chair. She gave him a sad, almost hurt look that made a lump form in his throat. Maybe it wasn’t wise, but he switched positions to sit next to her.
Nalini leaned against his shoulder, a lock of her hair brushing the bare skin of his arm. A heated jolt of awareness swept through him.
“My father wants to assign you to my sister,” she said. “Technically, Jorg is the one who wants you reassigned.”
A stab of disappointment went through him, but he’d known that he wouldn’t remain her bodyguard forever. That he’d return to the Kingdom, back to life as a knight. Though that wasn’t a certainty anymore. He might have nothing to return to now.
“I admit,” she went on, “that I’d already decided you would have to be reassigned, that it would be too difficult for me… for us…” She bit her lip and looked at his face.
“I will be sad to leave you,” he said quietly.
“Why did I kiss you, Tristan? Why did you let me kiss you?”
He didn’t think she truly expected an answer, but he had one. “Because you help people like me. You work hard to change your system and make a difference.” Maybe he shouldn’t have said anything, but it sounded like this would be their last night alone together, and he felt compelled to honesty, to tell her everything she wanted to know as she leaned against his arm, barefoot and vulnerable. “And because you’re beautiful, and I’ve been attracted to you since…” He was going to say since the beginning, but he’d been more focused on his mission than anything else that night he’d been fighting in the arena. Somewhere along the way—maybe it had been the quirky shoes—he’d start
ed to notice her. And since then, he hadn’t been able to stop noticing her. “I’ve been attracted to you for a while,” he finished.
“Me too.” She clasped his hand.
That caused more jolts of awareness, and an alarm bell rang in his mind, but there was no way he would pull his hand away. Instead, he threaded his fingers through hers.
“I mean, I was attracted to you from the beginning, even though I didn’t want a bodyguard. Now, all I can think about is that I’m about to enter a future in a prison—a lavish prison, but a prison nonetheless—with a man I care nothing for, and you… You’re going to be stuck shopping with my sister for as long as you keep working for my father.”
“A lavish prison?” He didn’t want to talk about the sister or the job he wouldn’t take, because he didn’t want to lie.
Nalini told him about the habitat the king wanted her to build and live in with Jorg.
“Ah,” he said when she finished, not sure how he felt about the political machinations, but certain he dreaded the idea of her with Jorg.
“I’ve considered… I think I’m too old for it to be called running away from home, but I’ve been sitting back there in my room and wondering what would happen if I said forget it to the marriage and walked away from everything. Not everything. There is one thing—one person—I’d want to walk toward.” Nalini looked at his face again, her eyes searching for answers. “What do you think I should do?”
“I…” Tristan watched her eyes, her warm appealing lips, and wanted to kiss her. But he couldn’t. “I think that you won’t be that happy with Jorg but that you’ll have the power to help a lot of people. I know that’s important to you. And I think if you ran off to be with some scruffy bodyguard that you don’t even know that well, you might regret it later. As much as I’d love to take you away from a future with him…” He frowned down at his lap. “I may have already screwed up my life, Nalini. I don’t want to entice you to screw up yours. Besides, I’m… not what you think.”
She raised her eyebrows. “What do you mean?”
He rubbed his face with his free hand. Could he tell her? Would he get into trouble? Into more trouble?
Would she be angry when she found out? It wasn’t as if he’d truly done much spying on her or reported anything detrimental. He hadn’t even known who his contact was until earlier that day.
“Tristan?” She squeezed his hand.
“I’m not a criminal back home. My father is—that much is true—but I wasn’t chased out of the knights. I met a knight when I was fourteen and fixing dishwashing robots in a restaurant in the capital. His name was Sir Sebastian Hanh, and I asked him how I could become his squire. He said commoners couldn’t become squires, but I cited every exception throughout history. I’d longed to be a knight for a long time, you see, and I’d memorized all the heroes, noble and common, from past centuries. I was very persistent and earnest—one might say annoying—and he relented and gave me a chance. I’m positive he thought I’d hate all the hard work and training, but I did everything he asked and more. It was my dream, and I wanted it badly, and he was a good man. It wasn’t hard to serve him, to learn from him. He trained me for the exams, physical and mental, and I passed, so I was made a probationary knight. That meant they would give me one year to prove that I, the common-born son of a criminal, had what it took and could be relied upon by other knights. Everything was going well, and my year was almost up when Sebastian was killed in action. I wish I’d been with him, because I’m arrogant enough to believe I could have made a difference, could have kept him from…”
Tristan paused to swallow and clear his throat. It was thick with emotion, with memories that weren’t yet far in the past.
“At his funeral, King Jager walked up and said he would confirm my knight status if I spied on this princess that Jorg was to marry and make sure she didn’t decide to run off instead of accepting his offer.” He went back to studying his lap. It was cowardly, and he knew it, but meeting her eyes would have taken more courage than he had in that moment. He feared what he would see there. Disappointment? Betrayal? “And to send whatever I learned of her and her family back to Royal Intelligence.” He didn’t mention Dom. He wouldn’t go so far as to betray his position, especially when Dom had likely worked a long time to gain trust here.
Nalini hadn’t interrupted him while he spoke, and Tristan finally summoned the courage to meet her gaze and gauge her reaction. Did she feel betrayed? He’d fought and risked his life for her, but, at least in the beginning, it had been for the king and for the Kingdom. For his duty. Not for her.
Now, he would risk himself simply for her sake, but was it too late? Would that matter to her?
“That makes sense,” she said.
Tristan blinked. “It does?”
“Actually, if I’d contemplated the story my father gave me a little further, I think I would have guessed it was something like that. The fact that you got out of there with a knight’s pertundo seemed strange, but it was even stranger to imagine you stealing one. Doing anything dishonest, really. You’re a good man, Tristan. As soon as I came to know that, it didn’t make sense to me that you would have lied and cheated your way into being trained as a knight.”
She thought he was a good man? He wanted to kiss her all over again.
But he made himself look away before he could act on that impulse. “I appreciate that, but I lied to you and your father to be accepted for this spy position.” He’d noticed earlier that she had added him to the list of people her suite door opened for, and he almost told her that it had been a mistake, that she should rescind his access.
“Because you thought serving your king was a greater good. Though I’m not sure I’d agree with that.” She snorted, sounding more amused than offended.
“Because I wanted to be a knight so badly, I was willing to believe anything I did for the king would be for a greater good.”
“It’s easy to let one’s dreams cloud one’s judgment. I know all about that.” She sighed and gazed at a blank spot on the floor.
Was she thinking about that habitat she was being given the opportunity to develop? He could see her finding that appealing.
“I’ve been told,” he said carefully, not wanting to reveal his contact in the palace, “that we made a poor choice in staying alone on the shuttle, and that Jorg isn’t pleased with me because he assumes… Well, I don’t care what he assumes, but he has the power to ensure my probation period never turns into the real deal, that I’m not made a knight.”
Nalini’s grip tightened on his hand, and her chin came up in indignation. “You did everything they asked you to, and you saved my life. You’re amazing. They’d be foolish not to take you into their stodgy knighthood.”
“Thank you for that.”
“I can do more than praise you.” Nalini rose to her feet. “I’ll speak to Jorg. If he wants this alliance, he’d better treat you right. You deserve everything you want and more. It’s not like you want something that’s not noble.”
“Wait, Nalini. If you tell him, he’ll know I told you I’m his spy and not… Oh, I suppose it doesn’t matter. I’m a lousy spy, and the lying made me uncomfortable from the beginning. It always seemed to go against the code. But listen, please don’t bargain away your freedom for my sake. If you want to marry him and build that habitat because it will benefit the people of your system and your family, I can’t object. I meant to encourage you in your dreams, not be an obstacle that leads you astray. Please don’t make any deals for my sake.”
“You’re not an obstacle, Tristan. You’re…” She lifted her hand and touched his short hair, then slid her fingers down the side of his face.
He closed his eyes, wanting… what he couldn’t have. What they couldn’t have.
“I need to go,” she blurted, then rushed out the door.
He stared out into the foyer long after she was gone, confused by her abrupt departure, but understanding that it was for the best. He just hoped h
e hadn’t made a mistake by telling her the truth. It had been better when the only thing she’d worried about was him going to work for her sister. Now… He dreaded the idea of her making some draconian deal on his behalf. He wouldn’t let that happen. Even if she might have the influence to make sure Jorg didn’t stand in the way of his career, he couldn’t let her do that. If she married Jorg, Tristan wanted it to be because it aligned with her dreams, not because of anything to do with his.
17
Nalini watched the preparations from the library balcony that overlooked the great ballroom. The big event was hours away, but decorations were being hung and tables carried out.
Behind her, palace guests and off-duty staff checked out books, played games at the terminals, or chatted at the tables around an espresso cart where a robot doled out caffeine and alcohol. Prince Jorg was supposed to be on the way to meet her. He’d sent a message requesting that she not bring Tristan, which irritated her, but she didn’t need to start a war with her future husband before they’d even had a private conversation. Devi was trailing her around the palace instead.
Nalini was barely conscious of her and her occasional chitchat. She kept thinking of her conversation with Tristan the night before—the truths he’d revealed about his mission here, and the truths he had inadvertently revealed about himself. That he cared about her and didn’t want her to risk her future for his sake, even though he might have no future of his own to look forward to right now.
By the stars, how she wanted to give him a job and tell him to leave the Kingdom behind. No, more than a job. He wasn’t simply some uneducated security man. He was good at math and handy in all manner of situations. She could easily imagine making him a partner in her business. And in her life?
Perhaps. She wished she had the freedom to pursue a romantic relationship with him and see if they would be as good together as she kept thinking they might. Her cheeks flushed as memories of her previous night’s dreams came to mind. It had been difficult to walk out of his room after brushing her fingers through his soft hair, down the hard line of his jaw. She’d wanted to kiss him so badly, and she knew he’d wanted it, too, but also that he wouldn’t act on that desire.
Knight Protector: a Star Kingdom novel Page 17
