“Damn your feathery hide,” Jack grumbled. “I can’t force you to make the right choice, but I’m not going to run to the rest of my relatives, if that’s what’s fretting you. I’m not going to be the one responsible for dragging my cousin’s name through the dirt.” He glared at Wyn to make sure he understood exactly who Jack did hold responsible for that. “But I won’t put your secrets over Stariel’s safety if it comes to it.”
“I would not ask you to.”
They made their way out of the hut, the air between them sharper than the icy winds.
When Wyn returned to the house, he found Hetta had gone out for a driving lesson with Marius. He stored Lamorkin’s amulet securely in his room under wards, glad to have it no longer on his person; he hoped it would remain sealed in its box forever. But he couldn’t keep from turning his godparent’s warning over as he navigated the convoluted route back down to the steward’s office. His preoccupation nearly caused him to collide with a person rounding the corner at speed in the long hallway, and only his quick reflexes saved them both.
“Sorry—”
“My apologies—”
They both spoke reflexively and then faded into silence as their eyes met.
Caroline was usually a very self-composed young woman. Just at this moment, however, her usual prim composure wobbled. Colour washed over her cheeks, nearly as red as her hair. She was no doubt recalling the previous evening.
What had Hetta said to her? Was she about to repeat Jack’s censure? If so, it would be for mortal rather than magical reasons, since Caroline didn’t know Wyn was fae and Hetta hadn’t enlightened her. He knew this with ironcast certainty. People looked at him a little differently, once they knew.
When in doubt, show none. He nodded his head in acknowledgement. “Miss Caroline.”
A crease formed between her brows, and she looked him up and down as if trying to decide whether to say anything or not. The hallway wasn’t an ideal location for a private conversation, and Wyn stretched his senses, checking no other mortals lurked around corners within earshot. Thankfully, there were none.
“It may ease your mind to know that Jack has already had words with me.” Maybe he could avoid the third conversation of the day in which someone mistrusted his relationship with Hetta.
The corner of her mouth twitched. “Did they have any effect?”
He spread his hands. “I assure you, I do not wish to taint Hetta’s good name.” Yes, and wishes are for children, as Father would say. But perhaps the sentiment would prompt Caroline to promise she’d say nothing of this to anyone else. He moved his weight subtly to suggest that they might each continue on their way now if she were willing.
Caroline didn’t point out that refraining from kissing her cousin in the first place would do a lot more good than wishing. Instead, her frown deepened, and to his surprise, she looked concerned rather than disapproving.
“No, that’s…I mean, I’m sure you don’t.” She opened her mouth, shut it, and then opened it again before saying in an undertone, “Be careful, Wyn. Hetta’s not petty, but, well…she is your employer, if this goes badly.”
Cheeks flushing, she turned away and walked briskly past him. He stared after her, torn between amusement, sentiment, and affront. Caroline was worried he’d lose his job, if his affair with Hetta went public? That was not a turn of conversation he’d predicted. I am a fae prince! Employment is the least of my concerns! he had the egotistical urge to shout after her.
He shook his head. Unreasonable to be annoyed that she thought him only the role he’d played, and yet he was. Annoyed—but also oddly touched that she cared about his wellbeing in such a fashion. Warmth filled him like sunlight, throwing the glittering fragments of his dishonesty into sharp relief.
At least, he thought philosophically, Caroline’s concern meant she’d probably keep the affair to herself for the time being. He continued to his office and unlocked the door. The steward’s office was a more battered version of the lord’s study, owing in part to the fact that old Lord Henry had not had much time for bookwork. Wyn had recently moved his headquarters to it from the housekeeper’s office on the ground floor, readying that room for its hopefully soon-to-be-appointed occupant.
There was a note resting on the desk:
To my most provoking steward—
The linesmen finally sent through their quote. I’ve been through the accounts with a fine-tooth comb, but by my reckoning we’re going to need to borrow quite a sum. Do you mind checking my figures—though I fear you too will come to a similarly deplorable conclusion.
Hetta
P.S. Don’t think that we aren’t going to have words about whatever it was you were doing up in the Sheep Fold!
He smiled fondly at Hetta’s handwriting and found her calculations neatly laid out on a scrap of paper next to the ledger and the linesmen’s quote for installing phone lines and elektricity to the house. Making himself comfortable in the leather chair behind the desk, he got to work.
Wyn had always liked mathematics. Growing up, his interest in the subject had been tolerated but not encouraged; mathematics wasn’t considered a particularly princely skill. Using it now to further Stariel’s interests filled him with deep satisfaction. His father would hate the idea of his son performing such a service. Wyn was self-aware enough to admit this added to his enjoyment.
He took less satisfaction, however, in coming to a similar conclusion to Hetta as to the sum that would need to be found. They were going to see the bank manager in Alverness tomorrow. For cultural mortal reasons that even ten years in this realm hadn’t been sufficient to make him fully grasp, the bank had been reluctant to entrust Stariel’s finances to purely feminine hands—hence Wyn’s recent appointment to steward after Mr Fisk’s treachery.
The major problem was going to be cashflow, as they’d already known, but if the drainage scheme they’d planned increased the rate of return on the lower flats and they could refurbish the Dower House before midsummer…he sank into a hypnotic world of numbers, where every problem had a clear, crisp solution. Outside, the sky shadowed to indigo.
The footsteps were as familiar as his own pulse, which quickened at the sound, and he knew who it was even before she knocked. Hetta came in with sparkling eyes and cheeks and lips reddened from the cold. She wrinkled her nose at the accounts book.
“My calculations match yours,” he told her, rising and coming out from behind the desk. “How was the driving lesson?”
“Good, thank you.” She met him halfway, her palms smoothing over the lapels of his coat. He leaned into the touch, and some bit of tightness he hadn’t been aware of carrying unwound itself. “Though I think I alarm Marius sometimes. Hopefully I don’t turn your hair white tomorrow.” She reached up to tousle his hair, smiling. “Although how would we tell? Now, what in Simulsen’s name were you doing up in the Sheep Fold before? It made my head ring.”
“My apologies.” He told her about Lamorkin.
There was a pregnant pause. “Remember our previous discussion regarding secrets?” Hetta asked with some exasperation.
“This was actually me trying not to keep secrets from you,” he said sheepishly. “Though I now see that it perhaps would’ve been better to tell you what I intended before summoning my godparent. I am sorry; I am making a terrible start at this transparency business.” The bone-bred instincts of Faerie to avoid revealing vulnerability were of no use to him here; he needed to be less fae, for her.
Her lips curved. “Well, it’s not as if your ingrained tendency towards secrecy is a surprise, but do try to get out of the habit sooner rather than later.” She interlaced their fingers and folded them matter-of-factly onto the seat beneath the window. Wyn had no objection to this arrangement, though he kept his ears pricked for sounds from the hallway, not wishing to be caught twice in two days for the same transgression. “All right, tell me about this godparent of yours.”
The weight of her leaning against him sparked yearning and
something hotter, darker, and entirely not appropriate to his office. It felt like flying; it felt like falling. He met Hetta’s eyes, and the exhilarating thing he could not control seemed to expand between them.
Desire. Wyn named it silently, this sparking awareness of spaces and forms. Naming it didn’t lessen its power, but then it wasn’t a sensation born of magic, was it? And desire wasn’t its true name, not at root; it sprang from a deeper emotion, one he would not name, not to Hetta, not yet, not when he could not promise her he would stay.
“Lamorkin is my oldest ally,” he began instead, taking a firm grip on his instincts, his vanity thankful for how unruffled he sounded.
When he finished telling her the whole of it, she frowned past him, towards the lake, painted gold and black in the last sun’s rays. “Should we still be going outside the estate boundaries tomorrow if the fae are up to something?”
He had been wondering the same, but… “We could delay, but for how long? Lamorkin’s warning was so vague, with no indication of timeframe. I admit I do not like it much either, but we will be surrounded by iron all the way to and from Alverness, and we mean to be back before nightfall.” And Stariel needed to secure more funds for its future; he couldn’t jeopardise that.
“Well, I’m not precisely helpless if we do run into trouble,” Hetta said thoughtfully, unfurling her fingers and summoning a small ball of fire to hover in the centre of her palm. The glowing orange flames danced, throwing flickering shadows across her skin before she snuffed it out.
Wyn’s magic coiled restlessly in response. “Neither am I.”
10
Gridwell’s Bank
The next morning, Hetta got into the kineticar accompanied by an uncharacteristically quiet Wyn. She wasn’t sure what lay at the root of his pensiveness—fae machinations or domestic concerns—but she let him have it anyway, busy with the mechanics of starting the engine and fiddling with gears. Marius had been a thorough if slightly anxious teacher, and she felt confident enough as she carefully manoeuvred out of the converted garage. It was nonetheless reassuring to know Wyn could take over if she faltered.
It was a good day for driving, fine and clear. Wisps of cloud striped the brilliant azure sky, and the dew sparkled on the grass along the driveway. There were some hiccups during the first few minutes of their journey, but she hit her stride soon enough, and they curved smoothly away from the house. She beamed at the view in triumph. If only every part of lordship were this straightforward!
“You should applaud my skill, you know,” she said lightly, “or I’ll begin to fear I’m doing something wrong.”
He smiled faintly. “You drive well. I thought you would.” But he remained abstracted, his gaze unfocused as he leaned against the window. The kineticar’s configuration required some minor contortions on his part, not being designed for someone of his height.
They didn’t speak as she slowed to pass through the village of Stariel-on-Starwater, carefully steering the vehicle through the rabbit warren of turns. It was relatively quiet at this hour, but Hetta still waved at the few inhabitants they passed. She only recognised a couple, and it made her feel like a terrible lord. Wyn, of course, knew all of them, and absently supplied her with names when she asked.
This would be the first time she’d left the estate since being chosen. As they approached the border, her grip on the steering wheel tightened. She knew their location relative to the border as precisely as she knew the limits of her own body, though there was no physical marker, only empty road. She slowed the car as they drew near that invisible line until they were only crawling. Bracing herself for the loss of sensation, she edged over the estate boundary and let out a startled breath.
“I can still feel it! Stariel. It’s fainter, but it’s still there! The bond, I mean. Do you think it will weaken with distance?” She mentally tapped the bond; it was like hearing someone move in a distant room, knowing they were close without being able to see or speak to them.
“I do not know, I’m afraid. Perhaps,” he offered.
“Hmmm,” she said as she accelerated, not sure how she felt about this development. Before becoming lord, her connection to Stariel hadn’t existed outside the estate. It was disconcerting to find that now she couldn’t truly escape from it. Even more disconcerting, however, was not being able to sense the world around her now they were driving on non-Stariel lands. It made her feel oddly blind.
Brown-and-grey farmland stretched to either side of the road. To the west were the distant purple shapes of the Indigoes; to the east, the Saltcaps. Weak winter sunlight watered the landscape in pale yellow. Hetta didn’t even notice Wyn’s continued silence, caught up in her own ruminations on the nature of lordship, falling into a hypnotic trance of road, steering wheel, and wide blue sky.
“The general population of Stariel apparently thinks me some kind of monkdruid,” Wyn said eventually.
Hetta broke out of her trance with a startled laugh and risked a quick glance at him. The sunlight limned his profile in gold, turning his white-blond hair into pale flame. His focus remained on the road ahead, but there was something to the shape of his mouth that told her he was both amused by his own dry humour and waiting for her reaction. It was an expression she’d seen him adopt a lot over the years, though only when they were alone.
“I was wondering about that, actually. Here you are, infernally beautiful, and yet I’ve never seen anyone so much as flutter their eyelashes at you. It’s intentional, isn’t it?” He was silent, and she sighed. “I’m going to be angry at you again in about thirty seconds, aren’t I?”
“Well, you did express a wish for more anger in our relationship,” Wyn pointed out. He snuck a look at her. “Infernally beautiful, did you say?”
She briefly took her hand off the gear stick so she could poke him in the shoulder. “Don’t let it go to your head, vain creature. All right then. What’s the explanation this time for what I assume is some nefarious use of magic?”
He explained about fae allure. “It’s a form of minor glamour native to greater fae, something we do without conscious thought. It makes us appear, perhaps, a little more… fascinating than we would be otherwise.”
“A sort of magical lipstick?”
He chuckled. “It’s not a bad comparison.” He told her about skewing his so as to subtly discourage romantic interest, and she laughed at the cook’s resulting glum assessment of his lovelife. “It’s possible I overdid it,” he added ruefully.
It was again an uneasy glimpse into the more concerning aspects of fae magic, but it also explained something that had been puzzling her until now. Wyn might maintain an entirely proper manner with the household, but no degree of professionalism should be able to transform over six feet of broad-shouldered male with the features of a woodland god and shining silvery hair into something as staid and unalluring as an elderly butler.
“So why hasn’t it affected me, then?” she asked.
“I think it did, before you left. When you came back, it’s possible your own magery gave you immunity.” He paused and confessed, with some sheepishness, “But also…I wasn’t trying as hard as I could have not to be attractive to you.”
She laughed again, a giddy lightness swelling in her chest.
Alverness was the largest city of any size in the far north; even the former Northern capital of Greymark was still many miles further south. The wide river Ess bisected the city, and the distinctive shape of the distilleries lining its edges woke mixed feelings of nostalgia in her. She’d done her schooling here until the age of sixteen, attending a boarding school for girls during the week and catching the train back up to Stariel every Friday night. It had been a relief to be away from her father, and a handful of the other girls and teachers had proved much-needed kindred spirits—but the rigid lessons and narrow assumptions of what her future would be had felt like a cage inexorably closing around her. She had a fleeting thought for the weight of duties and expectations of her new role, and a steely
determination filled her. Stariel wasn’t a cage, and she wouldn’t let it become one. Bringing some degree of modernity to the estate was the first step in establishing that, shaping her own destiny rather than being shaped by others.
Gridwell’s Bank was an impressive building on a paved street near the city centre. Hetta parked the car successfully after only two attempts. She took a deep breath before getting out of the car, settling her nerves into place.
Wyn held a briefcase containing accounts books and their notes. “Our numbers are solid,” he murmured, his eyes full of calm confidence. At least her steward had faith in her, even if his judgement couldn’t be considered objective by any stretch.
“Yes,” Hetta said, to herself rather than him. The bank’s ornate stonework still loomed down at her, solid numbers or not. She rested her gloved hands briefly on top of the kineticar’s iron, summoning her courage. At least they hadn’t met any malevolent fae on the way here, and the formal, mundane busyness of the bank was reassuring. “To battle, then.”
He nodded, lips curving. “My Star.” She watched with some amusement as he assumed the role of rigidly correct steward, every inch of him radiating aloof competence. They’d agreed beforehand that this approach would be best; the bank manager was conservative.
The bank lobby was filled with hushed industry, rustling paper and the click of shoes on the polished floor. Bank tellers looked out at the world through screens of special glass designed to see through any attempts at illusion, which made Hetta feel self-conscious even though she wasn’t illusing anything at present. Even her lipstick was real. She was the only woman currently in sight, and she fleetingly regretted having worn skirts rather than trousers. But no, she was here for Stariel, and that was more important than tweaking the noses of old-fashioned bankers. Straightening, she reminded herself that she was the ruler of the North’s oldest estate, and she had every right to be here.
The Prince of Secrets Page 8
