Page 11 of A King’s Trust (Heart-Mage Trilogy #1)

11

FRUITLESS ENDEAVORS

U riel, Capucine, and Aloise had packed. Jude and Oria had readied the horses. Elias made his disapproval known with blank faces and short, abrupt answers. And Beau, ferociously hungover and miserable to be awake so early, was impatient to be home already.

A small hand tugged on Beau’s sleeve. “Do you have an extra horse, Your Highness? I don’t have one,” Theodore said, rubbing a finger along the side of his nose. Beau hadn’t heard the boy come in amidst the chaos of the morning’s scramble.

“Master Moulin,” Beau said gently, “you’re not going with us.”

Theo’s chin popped up, consternation plain on his face. “I promise I won’t get in the way! I can ride double with someone, if there’s no extra. I want to see the isles! I’m already packed!” He was kitted out in trousers and cap, travel bag slung across his shoulders.

“I’m not worried about you getting in the way; you’re a useful lad. I’m worried about you getting hurt.” Beau winced, seeing that would make Theo dig his heels in harder. “What about your mother? You’d leave her alone for weeks?”

“She’s not alone. I’ve got four other brothers and sisters. She won’t miss me. Besides, I’m the oldest; I can strike out on my own. You left your mother and went to the isles!”

Beau laughed. “I was a few years older than you, Theo. But I need you to stay.” His mind turned quickly. “I’ve got an important letter to leave with you. The most important I’ve ever written in my life. And when the time comes, I need someone I trust to deliver it.”

Theo frowned skeptically. “What letter?”

As far as Beau was concerned, there were two potential outcomes to this outing: he successfully persuaded Lady Penamour of his innocence and competence, at which point he’d have a powerful ally and being king might be workable; or he failed, and he’d know the throne wasn’t meant for him. If the latter occurred, Beau wanted to be ready. He’d already be in the isles, where a ship could take him anywhere. No reason to return to the palace at all.

“Just a moment.” Beau strode past the sacks and packs to his desk, fumbling around for paper to scrawl a letter quickly:

I, Beauregard Mylan Adelard Tristain Highput, in the interest of the continued prosperity and progress of this kingdom, formally renounce my claim to the throne of Granvallée, from the moment this letter is presented to the court and thereafter.

He signed it with a flourish, stamping a seal both on the inside alongside his name and on the outer ribbon. Let no one question the veracity of that one. Maybe it wouldn’t be needed, but maybe it would.

When he turned, Theo stood rather too close to him and startled at the sudden movement. “I need you to make two promises,” Beau said quietly, holding the letter out but not handing it to the boy. “First, you cannot read this letter, under any circumstances. It’s to be delivered exactly as I hand it to you, seal unbroken and no tampering. Is that understood?”

When Theo nodded, he continued, “Second, if I send you a pigeon that says it’s time, you take this to the king and queen and ask them to present it in court. Make sure it gets to them. Make sure they understand it’s from me. Can I trust you with this?”

“I swear, Your Highness, I’ll do it just like you said. You can trust me.” Disappointment twisted his face, but he gave a solemn nod of acceptance.

“Good.” Beau clapped the boy companionably on the shoulder and ushered him out. “Keep it safe, Master Moulin, and watch out for yourself. I’ll see you again soon enough.”

A line of horses awaited them outside the stables, starting with Oria’s and ending with two packhorses loaded with gear. Beau’s mare Tempest and Elias’s warhorse Pormort awaited their riders, Beau’s girl stamping her feet impatiently.

He gave Tempest a scratch under the chin and she butted her nose against him hard enough to knock the air out of him, begging for more. “Are we ready to ride?”

Elias nodded stiffly, hefting himself up astride Pormort as the rest of Beau’s party mounted up. Beau swung into the saddle, clicked his tongue, laid the reins across Tempest’s neck, and pressed a leg in to bring her around. The day was clear and beautiful, an idyllic scene scored by the chirping of birds and the rumble of occasional carts passing on the road. It felt like the entire world was celebrating Beau’s brief freedom.

Lady Penamour waited exactly where she said she’d be, only her guard and two servants riding with her. Beau pulled Tempest up alongside her. “Where’s the rest of your retinue? There’s only one waypoint with an inn—we’ll be sleeping rough.”

“I know the route, Your Highness. Are you ready?”

They rode.

The road was quiet, lightly trafficked this early, and Lady Penamour was silent.

Beau looked for Elias, hoping for conversation, but El had dropped back next to one of Penamour’s servants, a broad-shouldered man in his mid-thirties with an unpleasant twist to his mouth. They quietly conversed, leaving the prince stranded with a duchess who seemed perfectly content never to speak again.

After hours of unrelenting boredom, Beau said, “So what’s your business in Estforet?”

Her hair was braided back severely today. Beau wondered how long it had taken her to untangle her curls, arms aching. “Lord Tremblay has a Maurilel artifact too fragile to be moved, and he asked me to take a look. I have a knack for identifying their uses.”

“Laccombes has an artifact? A recent addition, or…?”

“I’m not sure.”

“How is that urgent?”

Her dark eyes were amused. “Some prince ordered his entire household to the Paibon border. Perhaps he’s hoping this artifact can change that outcome.”

Beau snorted. “So he tempted you out with the promise of getting to play with magic, and you tempted me out with the promise of good stew and isles air. Ah, to be known.”

From the corner of his eye, Beau caught the flash of her nose ring, rose-gold, and the dark sweep of her eyelashes as she looked him up and down. “Tell me something true, Highness.”

Beau chuckled humorlessly. “As I always do, Penn.” Tempest frisked, and Beau calmed her with his knees. He let the birdsong soothe him. “Ask me anything you like, so long as you’re answering my questions in return.”

“Are you ever going to call me by my actual name?”

Beau smirked. “Remind me of your actual name, Participle?”

“Victoire Penamour,” she said, glaring holes through Beau’s forehead. “I’ll even bend on the ‘lady’ and ‘Your Grace’—you can call me Victoire if you must . But the nicknames—”

Beau wrinkled his nose. “Victoire? That’s terrible. Doesn’t sound anything like you. You have a question or not, Perpendicular?”

She sighed, irritation flattening her lips into a line, then rolled her eyes and summoned a question. “You told me once that you didn’t want the throne. What did you mean by that?”

The prince laughed, surprised into amusement by Penamour’s insistence on imagining deeper levels to even his most obvious statements. “I’m not sure how much clearer that can be. I don’t want to be king. I know I will be. I’m prepared for it. I’m sure there are some advantages to it. But I’d rather be elsewhere. I despise politics.”

“You can’t despise politics,” Penamour said incredulously. “It’s just knowing what people want and giving it to them. What’s there to hate about that?”

“No one tells you what they want. They tell you what they think you want them to want, and then tell the next person what they think they want them to want, and the two of them imagine things you must want that you’ve never said, and no one will take a straight fucking answer when you tell them what you do want.”

“This sounds like a skill issue.”

“It’s absolutely a skill issue, Pishposh,” Beau agreed. “I have no skill in navigating dishonesty, and everyone else seems to lack the basic skills of making their faces match their words match their godsdamned actions.”

“That’s rich, coming from an accomplished liar.” The wind teased a few strands of her dark hair out of her braid, and Beau watched them dance around her face. Her hair looked so glossy, like it would run under his hands like silk.

“I would genuinely love to hear where I gave that impression.”

“You have the court convinced you’re some drunk, bumbling idiot, not a murderer with a calculated plan to reshape Granvallée.”

Tempest frisked again, bored with their pace, and Beau bent to pat her neck. “I could be both. Minus the murderer bit.”

“You could be a lot of things.” Lady Penamour chewed her lower lip, frowning toward two oncoming wagons taking up most of the road. “What you are is a mystery.”

“I’m really, really not,” Beau said with a laugh.

“All right, then, solve some mysteries for me. What did you do with the money?” She jabbed a finger at his boots. “Charmant complained constantly about you draining the treasury, but I’ve seen better equipped merchants. Did you spend it all on Elias?”

“On Elias?” Beau was baffled.

“I know that training didn’t come cheap, and he has good quality armor, good weapons, a hell of a horse, but even all of that together doesn’t add up to—”

“What training? I haven’t paid for any training or for his equipment, although now that you mention it, I probably should’ve. Elias came to me fully equipped.”

“From where?”

Beau scratched at the back of his neck. “Altagna, originally? He speaks another language, but I don’t remember if it’s Altagnan or Alzhaki. I’m pretty sure he’s lived in Granvallée most of his life.”

“No, not where—” Penamour gave him the strangest look, brows creased. “What do you mean, ‘pretty sure’? Do you two not even talk after?” She gave an unladylike snort and shook her head. “I meant from what organization? Who taught him to fight like that?”

Talk after what? “Um, another…guard…position? I suppose?”

“By the fucking Twelve,” Penamour muttered, and he was surprised to hear the curse from her mouth. “You can’t even be honest with me about this ? Why all the damned secrecy?”

Beau scratched Tempest’s withers, more to reassure him than the horse. “Penderast, why ask me questions if you won’t believe a word I say? You answer one. I heard you blackmailed your family into supporting your claim for the title of duchess. Is that true?”

She seemed to wrestle with the urge to demand more from him, but eventually she nodded. “Yes,” she said, no trace of contrition on her face, “although, some context. I’m not a villain stealing a seat.” She shot him a significant look at this. “I was and am the best person for it; some people just needed to be made to understand that. My father died when I was twelve, and my mother fought all four of his brothers to hold onto the estate and title. She won .”

The pride that lit her face made her glow, breathtaking. “Quite a feat,” he said.

“Yes. Yes, it was.” Her eyes flashed, and she looked ferocious as a hunting bird. “When she died three years ago, I did the same. My sisters and I held onto Veritelutte and I held the title of duchess by pulling every trick I had at my disposal. My two living uncles on Father’s side are in poor health, but they wanted to claim it for their own lines. One of their firstborn sons is a good friend. He knew I’d handle the family name better than he could. His is the strongest claim behind mine; his support carried a lot of weight.

“The other was not as easily convinced. But he has a second family he doesn’t want his wife to find out about. So I was able to go to the king with both of their support, and I got dispensation to hold what’s mine. All it cost was my hand.”

“In marriage, you mean? Your betrothal to Char was part of the negotiation?”

She smiled, and it was a vicious thing. “Your brother had the same problem you do—not enough available, powerful women, although he didn’t scorn them personally as you have. He simply refused to consider anyone with less than a duchy at their disposal.”

“He could’ve married Haydée, couldn’t he? Except, no, she’d have been, what, ten years younger than him? Was she even of age when you two got engaged?”

“Eleven years younger, and no, she wasn’t, although I don’t think that would’ve deterred Charmant. I wasn’t interested in seeing the Macabries grow more powerful. So I pulled a few strings to make Haydée less of an option for him, as I did for you.”

“Ah.” Beau nodded. “You showcased how cruel she always is?”

Frowning at him, Penamour said, “No. I reminded Charmant that Lord Macabrie has always been critical of the crown—and him—and that Haydée has a large, active group of friends. Charmant liked his girls dependent on his attention, and he despised being criticized. You’re harder to read, but I knew if she said to your face what she’d said behind your back about Elias, you’d snap.”

With a quick glance at Elias—still riding next to Penamour’s man—Beau cleared his throat, “I don’t like that she thinks people are for sale, fair enough. You don’t sound…forgive me if this is a rude question, but you don’t sound like you liked Char much.”

“That’s not a question,” she said dryly. “It’s a statement of fact. He had me fooled for a while. He was charming. Good at everything. Loved the finer things and lavished the people around him with them. He insisted on only spending time with special people, which had a way of making people feel special. But there were cracks. He was cruel, as most noblemen are at times. That doesn’t mean he deserved to die. Murdering one’s political rivals is the behavior of low, unintelligent cretins who lack the social skills and common sense to outmaneuver them.”

Beau could tell she meant these things to sting him, but since he had not, in fact, murdered any political rivals, they washed over him harmlessly. “Yes, Elias told me you were one of the nobles who hasn’t tried to have me assassinated. Thanks for that. We’re aligned in that philosophy, Primrose. I would never— never —kill someone to steal more power. I certainly wouldn’t have harmed my brother. I’d have done anything for him.”

“Are you going to pretend you two were thick as thieves?” Penamour’s voice dripped disdain. But her eyes were rabidly attentive, and he wanted to hold that attention, so he was more honest than he meant to be.

“No. We weren’t particularly close. I wasn’t close to anyone in the palace. Growing up there was about as you’d expect: formal, cold. Didn’t lend itself to affection. I saw my parents once a week and Char every couple of days, if I could convince him to let me hang around. He was older, though; he had other friends, other responsibilities. So I spent most of my time alone, reading or exploring, talking to the staff, playing with the dogs, that sort of thing.”

“So you resented him.”

“No,” Beau said with a laugh, shaking his head. “He could barely shake me loose. I was always begging him to ride with me, spar with me, play games. I drove him out of his mind. He’d set missions—things to steal from the kitchens or pranks to play on the servants—and wouldn’t speak to me until I’d done them. Just wanted peace and quiet, I’m sure.”

Gods, it was hard, talking about Char, all his grief compounded by his confusion over what it meant that Char might’ve been the one defrauding the crown in Beau’s name, and he’d “constantly complained” about Beau doing it, according to Penamour. Why had he needed the money? And why use Beau’s name instead of his own?

“Why on earth did you see your mother and father so rarely?”

Beau looked up, surprised, and then shrugged. “They’re the king and queen. They were busy. They saw Char more often, of course, because of his duties as crown prince. But they didn’t have much need to talk to me. Even when I got in trouble, it was with Dubois or my nurse. They didn’t escalate it to my parents often.”

“What sorts of things did you get in trouble for?”

“Char’s missions, mostly,” Beau said with a laugh. “But with my father…he has very high standards. I’m not good at meeting them, and never have been.”

Penamour’s hands fiddled with her reins idly, as if her mind was elsewhere. “Why?”

Beau shrugged again. “I’m a half-wit. Lazy, unfocused, abnormal, disrespectful. He had Char first, and then me. Hell of a downgrade.” He grinned wryly to take some of the harshness out of the words, but Lady Penamour had turned her head and shoulders fully to stare at him.

“I don’t understand you,” she said at length.

Beau sighed. “Well, ask more questions then, Pomegranate.”

So their day went, alternatively confrontational and overly honest. It was…strange.

It was uncomfortable, but Beau could’ve bowed out of the conversation at any time and found he didn’t want to. He liked talking to her, and it felt like she perpetually almost enjoyed talking to him, always on the edge of laughter before she shoved it back behind her suspicion.

When they camped the first night, Master Uriel proved the efficiency of his packing and staff by assembling Beau’s tent and getting dinner over a fire in less time than it took Beau to picket, untack, and curry Tempest. Beau sat on a stump by the fire and watched the duchess, her guard, and her two servants arrange their own campsite a few paces away.

Elias squatted next to Beau, sitting on his heels and propping his arms on his knees. His eyes stayed fixed on the other campsite—on the serving man he’d spent a good portion of the day riding next to, Beau realized.

“Do you know him?”

El shook his head, bending his mouth down at the corners in a frown. “No. No one does. Her usual footman woke up ill, and Gerard replaced him.” Elias’s eyes followed Gerard as the man hefted saddlebags over a shoulder and carried them toward Lady Penamour’s tent. He was well built and craggily handsome in a broken-nose, scar-over-the-eye kind of way, only a couple of years older than Elias. Perhaps El liked his men blond and taller than him. A prickle of jealousy jabbed at Beau and he stamped on it hard.

“I imagine no one would notice much if the two of you disappeared for a while after dinner,” Beau said companionably. “Jude and Oria can keep an eye on things here.”

“The duchess is bound to notice if her footman doesn’t come back,” Elias said dismissively, shaking his head.

Beau’s mouth popped open in confusion. “What?”

He glanced back at Gerard, then at Elias, recalculating. “Wait, did you think I was suggesting you kill him? Why on earth would I tell you to kill a random footman?”

“I was surprised,” El said. “What were you suggesting?”

Beau’s face flamed with heat. “I…well…sorry, I thought you were attracted to men. Nevermind. I shouldn’t have, um, assumed.”

Elias’s eyes and mouth both opened wide, then tightened in incredulity. He stared at Beau for a horrendously uncomfortable number of seconds. Then he laughed, a single exhalation of humor. “Highness—” he began, then shook his head, rubbed a hand over his mouth, and laughed. “I thought you were being self-deprecating at the Macabries’, but you are clueless aren’t you?”

He stood as Beau tried to remember what he was referring to; the Macabries’ retreat was a blur of unpleasantness and boredom. Elias chuckled again, a disbelieving sound. Quietly enough not to be overheard, El said, “I’m not attracted to Gerard .”

Then he left to help Jude with the firewood, and Beau furthered his embarrassment by helplessly watching the way he swung an axe and the dimple that appeared when he smirked at something Jude said and the almost-too-pretty face turning back Beau’s way, quirking into a bemused expression. He tried not to be disappointed that he was wrong; what did it matter ? Elias was off-limits, and Beau had a mistrustful, hostile duchess to win over.

The next two days were more of the same: rising early, riding steadily, conversing exhaustingly, and settling around two separate fires and two camps in the evenings. As the palace grew more distant and the isles grew closer, Beau began to despair of convincing Penamour of his innocence, but his excitement to be home again outweighed the disappointment.

On the third night, Gerard crossed the space between the fires as they burned low, carrying a bottle of wine like a peace offering. He settled across from El and Beau, the only two who remained at the fire as the rest of Beau’s staff readied the camp for sleep. “May I sit here, Your Highness?” he asked, though he was already sitting. He gave Beau a grin that put the prince in mind of a shark. “I hear you don’t mind having a drink with commoners now and then.”

Beau frowned at Gerard. He didn’t like him but couldn’t put a finger on why. “Where’d you hear that?”

“Oh, Elias has been telling me all about you,” Gerard said, his grin widening as he pointed the neck of the bottle at Beau’s guard. He pulled the cork and took a swig straight from the bottle before offering it across the fire to Beau.

Beau took it but didn’t drink. “Has he? Strange. He’s never been much for gossip.”

“Ah. You like men who keep their mouth shut.”

The prince recoiled at the tone. It was suggestive, he thought, but so far from flirting that it felt more like a bizarre threat or accusation. Beau could make neither heads nor tails of it. “I like a guard who knows his job.”

Gerard’s sharklike smile widened, showing too many teeth. “Yeah, Elias is such a pretty guard , so versatile, isn’t he? I’m sure you put him to all sorts of uses.”

It struck Beau all at once that this man thought Elias was decorative. Incensed, he opened his mouth to invite the man to find out just how versatile El could be while kicking someone’s ass, but El set a hand on his arm. After a brief pause, Elias’s hand stroked along the inside of Beau’s forearm to his wrist, a teasing, featherlight tickle that seemed to confirm every sly comment of ‘inappropriate relationship.’ It wiped the prince’s mind completely blank.

Beau shuddered visibly, but El’s grip tightened before he could pull his arm back in surprise. “No need to worry about Gerard’s opinion of it,” Elias said, voice low, but he turned his face far enough that the blond footman wouldn’t be able to see his prompting expression. Ah , Beau thought. He’s pretending to be decorative. To be underestimated, or…?

“Quite right,” Gerard said with a smug laugh. “Who could begrudge a future king his lap candy? Though I can’t imagine it’s doing you many favors with Her Grace. Not having much luck with her, are you? And the way I hear it, she’s your last shot at a decent queen.” Beau saw why El jumped immediately to the assumption of killing him, not fucking him.

“Elias,” Beau said, standing with an uncontainable look of disgust for Gerard, “would you like to go—anywhere else?”

“Sounds good.”

El followed Beau to the tent, where Uriel was brewing an evening herbal tea and the cots were made. “You all right, Highness?” Aloise asked, brown eyes concerned. “You look a bit—”

“Who pissed on your boots?” Capucine asked bluntly. Uriel shot her an exasperated look.

Beau laughed and lifted a shoulder in a shrug. “I’m fine. We were just making delightful conversation with Gerard out there.”

Aloise’s typically sunny expression briefly curled into a grimace of revulsion, but she said only, “Elias, I was going to clean and oil the tack this evening. If you’d like, I can do your armor?”

For some reason, Elias gave her a warning look. “No thank you, Aloise, again .” She nodded, glancing at Beau, and he got the sense she was trying to assess if he’d noticed something.

About Elias? Beau did a quick sweep of El with his eyes as they ducked past the canvas flap dividing Beau’s sleeping space from the rest. His guard was as alert as he had been since they left, his usual partial leather armor in place, his sword and knife buckled on. As Beau studied him, Elias raised his eyebrows, clearly waiting for an explanation for the scrutiny. His eye sockets had grown bruise-dark in the last few days, and there was something about the way he held his shoulders that gave Beau the impression of exhaustion.

“You’re wearing your armor to sleep, aren’t you?” Beau asked, and the slight, defensive raise of El’s shoulders was enough answer.

“I’m doing my job,” El said shortly.

“You have to rest , El. You can’t half-ass doze all the way to the isles. Is it Gerard that’s got your back up? I think you can take a footman,” Beau said with a chuckle.

“If that’s what he is,” El muttered.

Beau sat down on his cot, plucking at his bootlaces. “What else would he be?”

With a shrug, Elias paced the small space. “He thinks he can take the prince’s ‘lap candy’ in a fight. Not many footmen believe that, even if they think you gave me a guard position as an excuse to keep me close.”

“Do a lot of people think that?” Beau asked, face growing warm. Is it that obvious that I want this man? Is it obvious to Elias?

El’s hand on his shoulder was so welcome but also made his face go pinker. “It’s nothing to do with you, Highness. My face has been misleading people for a long time.”

“Well, if you wanted to be the scariest man alive, you should’ve thought of that before being born so godsdamn pretty,” Beau said, chuckling and turning away so he didn’t have the temptation to look at El, and hopefully the blush would drain from his cheeks. “Are you trying to bait him into attacking? Why the performance out there about being”—Beau had to force the words out with a tongue numb from embarrassment—“lap candy?”

Elias’s fingers tightened for a second, then let the prince go. “Please don’t call me that.”

“Oh, no!” Beau looked up at him again, shook his head. “I wasn’t calling you that, I was repeating—I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”

El shook his head and waved a dismissive hand. He looked so tired , lines between his brows and around his mouth, dark purple under-eyes making his hazel eyes look brighter and greener. “I know you weren’t. Forget it. Please.”

“Are you sleeping at all?”

Elias scowled. “I’m doing my job. Leave it.”

“Is that why Aloise wanted me to know you weren’t taking your armor off? She’s worried about you not sleeping? You have to sleep, El, even if it means—”

“ Leave it ,” Elias said too sharply. “What I have to do is keep you safe while you win over a duchess so we can get the fuck back to the palace. How is that going, by the way? Because I notice there’s still a distinctly frosty wall between the campfires.”

Beau began to think Elias hadn’t slept once in the three days they’d been traveling. His guard didn’t talk to him like that. Ever . “She keeps toying with the idea of liking me, and then deciding she doesn’t trust me again. It’s—”

“This isn’t a fucking game,” El said, not looking at Beau, pacing. His fingers checked his weapons, clenched into fists, tapped against his thighs, and then began the process again.

Do you think I don’t know that? rose to Beau’s tongue, but he didn’t speak it. Elias wasn’t trying to pick a fight. He was nervous. Something had him so spooked he was sitting up all night in armor, getting more exhausted and jumpier by the day. And the only thing the prince knew had changed was Gerard. “Who is he? Gerard? You know something about him I don’t.”

El shook his head jerkily. “No. All I know is he’s lying .”

So are you, Beau thought. Without his usual polished serenity, Elias’s lies were more obvious. The prince lined his boots up next to the bed, pulled off his shirt, and considered. He was almost certain Elias and Gerard knew each other from before, and what El knew of him made the guard nervous for Beau’s safety.

Perhaps they’d served the same noble before? If Gerard’s sly digs at El and Elias’s sharp reaction to being called ‘lap candy’ were any indication, maybe El…hadn’t been a guard. Beau could understand lying about that, if the memories were bad.

“Hey,” Beau said, waiting until Elias met his eyes before saying, “I don’t care what you were before you came to me. You’re the best guard alive and I trust you. If…if you say you don’t know him, I’ll believe you, El. But when you’re this nervous, I’d really prefer at least a little of the truth so I can understand what’s at stake too.”

Elias looked devastated. But he didn’t speak again, and he didn’t take his armor off, and though Beau eventually drifted into unconsciousness, Elias didn’t sleep.