by Kelly Hunter
‘It’s a five-star hotel with round-the-clock check-in,’ the older man countered. ‘Organised and paid for until the end of the month, should you wish to delay your return to the mountains. They’re expecting you.’
‘How? How has he satisfied the terms of the accord?’ asked Sera.
‘The King has an offer of marriage on the table and believes the terms of the accord have been satisfied in principle, milady. Lady Lianthe agrees. Double your weight in gold has already been delivered to her.’
‘I—’ She needed to call Lianthe. She needed to speak to Augustus. ‘Is His Majesty in? May I speak with him?’ Not that she had any idea what she was going to say. Thank you? How did you do it? Are you really going to cut me loose, just like that?
‘He’s not in.’
There’d been no evening event written into his schedule this morning. Sera knew this because the man standing in front of her had been emailing her Augustus’s daily schedule every morning for several weeks.
‘May I see him in the morning?’
‘His Majesty has a full schedule tomorrow. He needs to finish everything he put on hold today in order to accommodate your wishes.’
‘My wishes?’
‘Your wish to leave.’
‘Right,’ she said faintly. ‘That wish. The owls—’
‘Will be taken care of. Your belongings packed and returned to the High Reaches. There’s a palace vehicle at your disposal. It’s waiting for you at the south wall entrance.’
Funny how freedom felt a lot like dismissal.
Sera nodded. Manners before breakdown. Discretion over protest. ‘I’ll leave a letter for His Majesty on my desk. Will you see that he gets it?’
‘He’ll get it.’ The older man seemed to soften and sag. ‘The question you should be asking is: will he read it?’
Ari waited until the King’s secretary had left the room before turning silently towards her, eyebrow raised.
‘I need to ring Lianthe,’ she told him. ‘Alert the others that we might be on our way.’
He nodded and reached for his phone, heading over towards the entrance doors but staying inside the room where once he might have stood outside the doors to give her more privacy. Sera walked in the opposite direction and made her call from the bedroom.
Lianthe picked up on the second ring.
‘Is it true? Have the terms of the accord been satisfied?’ Sera asked without preamble.
‘Well, he doesn’t have a wife and he doesn’t have an heir but he does have a valid wedding proposal in play and I have no reason to believe it will be rejected. He also informs me that your presence is no longer required and has threatened to expose your connection to the Byzenmaach throne if I don’t agree with him.’ Lianthe drew a heavy breath. ‘So I agreed with him. I’m not sure where he got his information from. I can’t imagine you told him.’
‘I didn’t.’ Sera closed her eyes and tilted her head towards the sky, only the sky wasn’t there; it was only the ceiling. ‘He had us investigated.’
‘That information’s not available.’
‘Nonetheless, he got it from somewhere.’ The sudden sting of hot tears welled beneath her eyelids. ‘He asked me to marry him. And I didn’t know what to say.’
‘I suspect that says it all.’ The other woman’s voice was soft and soothing. ‘What a pity. I find his utter ruthlessness on your behalf quite admirable. He must be very much in love with you.’
‘He’s trapped, that’s all. He’s being forced to take a wife and his heart’s not engaged with any of the available candidates. I’ve watched him. He can drum up polite friendliness towards them if pressed.’
‘And what does he drum up for you?’
Stories from his childhood and an insatiable sexual hunger that had left her wrung out and panting. Challenge and temper and unexpected moments of understanding. ‘More. But Lianthe, I’m not cut out for love. Courtesans don’t love. They serve, willingly, and I have. We were doing well. No one ever said anything about love.’
‘You have something against it?’
Yes. ‘I don’t believe it brings happiness.’
‘Your mother was an extreme case. She had a soft heart and the man she fell for, he wasn’t soft at all.’
‘Neither’s this one. He’s difficult and demanding.’ And passionate and protective and a demon in bed. ‘And petty and powerful and...’ Gorgeous and supportive of her charity schemes and... ‘He’s a king in need of a queen. There’d be oaths to Crown and country. I’d be accountable for every minute of every day. Who would want that?’
‘Who indeed?’
‘It’s a lifetime sentence of duty and reckoning and being judged. And usually being judged wanting.’
‘Indeed.’
‘Who’d want that?’ she repeated.
‘Not you, clearly. You probably wouldn’t rise to the occasion at all, even if you loved him. Which you don’t.’
‘I don’t.’
‘Well, then.’ Lianthe sounded disturbingly cheerful. ‘When are you coming home?’
* * *
‘Want to talk about it?’
Augustus scowled at his sister and wondered, not for the first time, why he’d allowed her to invite herself to dinner. She said she’d missed him—which he very much doubted, given how busy she was. She’d wanted a catch-up—which usually meant pumping him for information or delicately revealing information that might be of interest to him. The fact that he’d banished the only other woman who’d ever come close to providing him with this type of relaxed political conversation was not lost on him. ‘Talk about what?’
‘The rumour that you’ve proposed, or are about to propose, to Katerina DeLitt. The abrupt midnight departure of your courtesan.’ Moriana waved an airy hand towards him from across the dining room table. ‘You choose.’
Sera had left four nights ago. The people of the High Reaches would be coming to collect everything that belonged to them, Lianthe had said, but she hadn’t mentioned when. Stepping into the round room only to find Sera not there was driving him insane. The soft hoot of owls mocked him. The tapestry wheel of pleasure haunted him. So many things they hadn’t done yet. Perhaps he should be thankful.
‘I choose silence.’
Moriana allowed him that silence for all of thirty seconds, and that was only because she had a mouthful of food.
‘You want to talk to Theo about it?’ she asked when her mouth was empty again. ‘Or Benedict? Benedict’s surprisingly insightful when it comes to matters of the heart.’
It stood to reason he would be, what with all that practice. ‘Thank God he’s not here,’ Augustus offered drily. ‘Sera Boreas has gone, the accord has been honoured to everyone’s satisfaction, and I’ll be married by the end of the year.’
‘So you say. But to whom? And please don’t tell me you’re madly in love with Katerina. I know you. And you’re not.’
‘Since when has love ever been a prerequisite for marriage?’
‘Since when has love ever not been a prerequisite for you?’
‘Not everyone is cut out for the kind of love you and Theo share.’
‘You’re not so different from me.’ Moriana raised her chin and regarded him haughtily. ‘You want that kind of love—you always have.’
He offered up a careless shrug and cut into his meal, ignoring his sister’s scowl. She hated it when he refused to engage. Said it was a stalling tactic that had no place in open conversation.
‘Augustus, I love you. You know this.’
Uh-oh.
‘But I’ve had a dozen calls this week from people here in your palace, begging me to come and strangle you. At which point I would become their ever so reasonable Queen.’
Augustus snorted.
‘I’d probably have to renounce Theo to do it, of course, and this baby cu
rrently in my belly would probably be kidnapped back and forward between palaces until he ran away and joined the circus, but at least your palace employees wouldn’t be suffering.’
‘You’re pregnant?’ She didn’t look pregnant, even if she did look more vibrant than usual. He’d put that down to their argument, or the wine she...wasn’t drinking. So much for his keen powers of observation. Sera would have caught that one within five minutes of being in the room.
Moriana nodded and offered up a tiny but self-satisfied smile. ‘I’m barely nine weeks in. We’re keeping it quiet until I’m a little further along, but I wanted to tell you now and in person.’
‘Congratulations.’ He meant it. ‘Are you well?’ Was she happy about it?
Theo would be ecstatic with an heir on the way.
‘I’m as well as can be, given that I can barely keep dry toast in my stomach before lunchtime. Augustus, I’m so happy. A mother. Me!’
Envy had no place in his heart. His sister was happy and deserved to be. He could wait, and one day it would be his turn to puff with pride and joy because his wife was pregnant. But there was only one woman’s face he could see in that particular daydream. Sera, with her slender frame, luminous grey eyes and flawless skin.
The same woman that had chosen freedom over a life spent with him.
He didn’t blame her.
He’d done everything in his power to set her free.
‘You could go after her now that the accord has been satisfied,’ said Moriana, and he blinked because he thought they weren’t having this conversation, only apparently they were. ‘You always did have trouble with the she was duty bound to serve you part.’
‘If we’re using the argument that Sera’s now a free woman, she could come back at any time. Do you see her here?’ He didn’t need Moriana’s answer. ‘Neither do I.’
‘She hasn’t returned to the High Reaches,’ Moriana said tentatively.
‘Perhaps she’s sick of serving them too.’
‘I have it on good authority that she’s in Byzenmaach, at Cas’s Winter fortress.’
‘She’s where?’
‘Visiting Cas’s sister.’ Moriana eyed him with blatant curiosity. ‘They know each other. Studied together in the mountains as kids.’
He hadn’t told Moriana about Sera’s parentage. He hadn’t told anyone. He’d tried telling himself that such effective leverage could be used over and over again if he kept it to himself but the truth was he’d never go against Sera’s wishes to keep her father’s identity a secret and he’d never use that particular leverage again. He was done with it. He was done with her.
‘So what are you going to name this baby? Have you given it any thought?’
‘I’ve given it no thought at all yet.’ Her eyes glinted with sharp humour.
‘And the due date is when?’
‘Thirty-one weeks from now, apparently. You could drop in on Claudia or go see Tomas about how to get rid of the remaining owls in the round room. They shouldn’t be too hard to catch, seeing as I have it on good authority that you’re feeding them.’
‘Lies.’ All lies. ‘And the baby’s health? How’s the baby’s health?’ Why couldn’t she be one of those expectant mothers that talked of nothing else?
‘Good try, brother.’ Moriana outright smirked. ‘Should you be fortunate enough to be invited to see beyond the veil of Theo’s outright terror at the thought of becoming a father, I should warn you he will talk of nothing else but baby names, giving birth and raising children. Honestly, I think it broke his brain.’
It was Augustus’s turn to grin outright. ‘Really? Theo’s gone gaga? I’d like to see that.’
‘You have no idea.’
‘I’m thrilled for you both.’
Moriana looked positively tearful as she set her cutlery down and reached for her napkin to dab at her eyes. Their late lamented mother would have scolded her twice over. First for her unseemly display of emotion, and then for inappropriate use of tableware. Such scolding would have once sent his sister spinning into the depths of despair but the new, improved Moriana didn’t seem to care.
‘Have you really proposed to Katerina DeLitt?’ she asked, because she was a sneaky, sneaky woman, not above using tears to disarm him.
‘I’ve drawn up an offer, yes.’
‘Have you sent it?’
It was still sitting on his desk. ‘Do you have anything against her?’
‘Nothing at all, apart from the fact that you’re in love with someone else. As a woman who’s been in Katerina DeLitt’s position before, she has my utmost sympathy. If you had any sense, you wouldn’t even consider proposing to her in your current condition. If she had any sense she’d refuse you.’
‘Maybe she will.’
Sera had refused him.
His sister regarded him solemnly. ‘Will you at least meet with Sera again before you take such an irrevocable step with someone else?’
He gathered up the icy reserve he rarely wore around his sister and pinned her with his gaze. As dear as she was to him, and pregnant along with it, her interference was unwelcome.
‘I didn’t want to talk about any of this with you, but I heard you out and now it’s your turn to hear me. No, I will not seek out Sera again. I’ve had my say already and her ambitions do not include becoming my Queen. I will not discuss this with you or anyone else ever again. And if you don’t like my answer, feel free to leave.’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CASIMIR OF BYZENMAACH’S Winter fortress perched atop a mountain pass. Sera had reached out to Claudia and asked if she knew of a place where she could exercise and clear her head and it was a measure of their friendship that the other woman had instantly invited her to stay.
Accepting that invitation without disclosing the secret of her parentage made Sera the worst friend in the world, but up here in the mountain pass, with Tomas’s falcons soaring overhead and dawn breaking softly over the horizon, she felt a peace steal over her that she hadn’t felt in days.
She finished her forms and bowed to the valley below and the rising sun and turned to find her hostess sitting silently on a rock behind her, watching. So she bowed to her too and watched the other woman smile.
‘That was beautiful,’ said Claudia. ‘But then, you always have been very beautiful.’
‘My lot to bear.’ Always making waves, being coveted or even despised for no other reason than she’d drawn someone’s eye. Glazed stares, suspicious glares and people wanting to possess her.
Augustus had wanted to possess her from the beginning.
It was a miracle, really, that he’d withstood that urge for as long as he had.
‘Whose heart have you broken this time?’ Claudia asked.
‘One does not kiss and tell,’ she replied quietly and picked up the towel she’d brought with her and put it to her face.
King Casimir and his family were at their Summer palace in the city, not here. She’d wanted to meet him. She hadn’t wanted to meet him. Those two thoughts did not coexist peacefully.
She didn’t know what she wanted any more.
Lowering the towel, she closed her eyes and drew fresh breath, feeling at home here, in a way that had everything to do with cool mountain air and not having to view the sky from beneath a web of steel and glass.
No endless dinners, galas and fund-raisers to oversee.
No severely tailored work clothes.
No king to serve.
No duty.
‘I don’t know what to do any more,’ she confessed. ‘I have no plans, no direction, no thoughts for the future. I’m finally free and all I’m doing is looking over my shoulder at what I left behind.’
Claudia nodded. ‘I know that feeling. Here.’ She opened a small basket at her feet. ‘I brought breakfast. The food here is amazing.’
Sera s
pread her towel on the ground and sat cross-legged, and for a time they feasted on meat pastries and sweet milky tea. But Sera wasn’t quite ready to let go of her friend’s earlier comment. ‘Do you ever think you should have stayed in the mountains?’
‘I’m of more use to the people of the High Reaches if I’m advocating for them here, so no. I shouldn’t have stayed in the mountains.’
‘But do you like it here?’ Sera watched as the other woman’s gaze tracked a falcon in full flight. ‘Do they treat you well?’
‘They treat me like a princess, because that’s what I am. Some treat me like a newfound friend and confidante and I like that. Some can barely look at me but dream of the day I was taken from them, nonetheless. It’s not always easy but I’m making my home here.’ Claudia reached for a paper napkin. ‘I wanted you to meet my niece. Face of an angel and an absolute terror. Wants to be a Samurai this week. I thought you two could bond.’
‘I’d like to meet her.’ A niece. She blinked back sudden tears.
‘Hey.’ A warm palm snaked out to cover her forearm. ‘What is it?’
‘Nothing, I—nothing. I’d like to meet her some day.’
‘Hardly a thought to induce tears—although some of the guards here may beg to differ.’
Sera smiled, as she was meant to smile. ‘Thank you for inviting me here.’
‘Stay as long as you dare.’
‘Another day, perhaps. After that I don’t know. I need to keep moving.’ Searching, so that she didn’t keep remembering nights full of politicking and quiet confidences and one night in particular when she and Augustus had forgotten their roles and let honesty rule them.
‘May I do a visualisation exercise with you?’ Claudia reached out and took both of Sera’s hands in hers. ‘It’s one I’ve found useful whenever I find myself adrift. Close your eyes.’
Sera nodded and closed her eyes.
‘You’re standing at a crossroads. Seven paths to choose from, radiating out in all directions. Some safe, because you know where they lead. Some bright and beckoning and full of new adventures. Others dark and seductively forbidding. On some paths you can see family in the distance and maybe you’re not sure of your welcome because they look so happy. What else could they possibly need?’
