Page 15 of A King’s Trust (Heart-Mage Trilogy #1)

15

A PEARL FOR PENNY

T he problem with packing every moment one has ever wanted to experience with someone into a single night is that it is exhausting. And when one is exhausted and curled up perfectly safe against the warm, bare skin of a beautiful man, one might fall asleep on the roof of an inn and be woken late the next morning by one’s adoptive mother banging a pot with a spoon and grumbling irritatedly about leaving noble guests rattling around her common room.

As Beau and Elias hastily, blushingly reassembled their clothing to the chorus of wolf-whistles and jeers from the street below, Ma Corlia continued her harangue.

“—has been perfectly polite, of course, and we’ve all been taking turns telling her stories about you, but I can’t imagine a highborn lady who followed you this far is too pleased to think you’re having your hurrahs on the roof with Ellie when you said you’d show her round the—”

“Please, Ma,” Beau interrupted hoarsely, tying his dressing gown, “it’s too early.”

“—island and introduce her to—eh? Ain’t early at all, Lamb, that’s the problem. Ellie, you’re putting that shirt on backwards, boyo. Let me—”

They finally struggled down the stairs, Elias tying his hair back and Beau fighting the scorching red out of his cheeks, and spotted Lady Penamour surrounded by half a dozen Leau residents, each competing to tell their story first and more loudly. Elias shoved Beau into their bedroom before she could glance up and slammed the door after him. When the prince scrambled to dress and slow his heart from its panic, he found himself reliving the night.

It was perfect. Every single moment of it, perfect.

And he’d never have it again.

“That’s His Highness’s doing. He helped me design the whole thing when we rebuilt, and built damn near half of it with his own hands!” Ma’s voice rose easily over the others in the common room, and Beau swallowed a sigh. He was proud of his work on this inn and its cheery, cozy atmosphere, but he found being talked about cripplingly embarrassing. “Kept Samuel and his cousin from leaving any corners cut. They’re good carpenters, but they’ll leave a job unfinished if they can. Paid for it all too, every last cent. And still thinks after all that I’m gonna let him pay for a room, the daft boy.”

Beau heard the faint, melodic sound of a question in Lady Penamour’s voice, and then Ma said, “Well, it burned down, didn’t it? That fool boy Cedric tried to start a fight with His Highness when Miss Solene took a shine to him, nevermind my Lamb had never looked at her twice, and he found out quick that Ellie wouldn’t stand for that sort of nonsense. Ellie knocked him right through a wall! Took a lamp or two down, and the whole thing went up like a torch. Old wood, you know. We got everyone out, but that would’ve been the end of me and mine, out on the streets for good, if my boy hadn’t stepped in.”

Beau, dressed now, slipped out of his room, burning with a blush he couldn’t shake. “Well, I had to. It was my fault,” he muttered as he dropped an arm around Ma’s shoulders and kissed her hair. “Morning, Ma.”

“No, it weren’t, it was Cedric’s fault and he knows it. Hasn’t put so much as a toe on Leau since ’cause he knows I’d tan his hide. Sit down, Lamb, and put something in your belly. That rich castle food’s been doing you good, and the practice with Ellie, but you’re still too skinny. You should’ve seen him when he showed up on my doorstep, Lady, soaking wet, bleeding through grungy bandages, one little bag of clothes on his back and a big ol’ sack of coins in his pocket. Scrawny thing, all he’d say was his name was Beau and he needed a place to stay.”

Beau grimaced. “Ma, please, can we not—”

“He didn’t tell you he was a prince?” Penamour asked, eyes sparkling. She flicked her eyes to Beau, grinned, and then turned her attention back to the innkeeper as the plump woman stacked honey cakes, sausage buns, and raspberry muffins onto a plate.

“Not a word about it. Asked if anyone had work that needed done on the island.” Ma laughed. “Had a thousand dorin in a sack and wanted work. Ha! Tried to give me the whole thing, too, when I gave him that room.” She jerked her head toward Beau’s door.

“So you took him in?” The duchess had an empty plate in front of her, only the sticky remnants of honey and raspberry crumble to evidence the breakfast she’d eaten.

“My son, Garrett, died ten years ago, and I… Well, the way I saw it, I needed someone to take care of and he needed someone looking after him. We found each other at the right time.” Ma pressed a kiss down on top of Beau’s waves, set the plate in front of him, and sat heavily on the bench beside him. “Everybody knew he had to be noble—too proper, too rich, and didn’t know a damn thing about anything. But I never saw a soul work half as hard as him, and he learned everything ’bout as quick as we could teach him. Kept expecting somebody to come looking for him, but nobody ever did.”

“Ma,” Beau said gently, trying to slow her, “Lady Penamour and I should probably—”

“Maybe I shouldn’t speak ill of royalty in front of a duchess,” Ma rolled on unstoppably, “but if I ever stood in front of the king or queen, I’d be hard pressed not to wring their necks. The things this boy would say about himself when he was drunk—”

“ Ma , please—”

“—and nevermind all the times Viv had to patch him up for the cuts he gave himself.”

Beau’s stomach dropped as Penamour asked, “Cuts?”

“ Ma !” He said it sharply enough to get through, and both women, along with the other Leau folk lingering around, turned to him. “Please. Stop.”

Slightly chastened, Mistress Corlia leaned against his shoulder for a moment, pointed at the plate of food, and sighed. “Never understood you getting shy over other people hurting you ,” she said.

She waited until he’d filled his mouth with honey bun before continuing, “’Course, he never liked hurting other people neither. Thought he’d never speak again after the ship. You know about it? Pirates gutted him like a fish, but he managed to kill a half dozen or so to get out alive. He’s got a gentle soul, Lady. He ain’t a killer. We pieced him back together, but all he’d do was sit on the roof and drink. Couldn’t even get a proper meal in him.”

As he struggled in vain to swallow so he could stop the woman’s tirade, Beau was surprised to feel Lady Penamour’s fingers on his wrist, the slightest squeeze, like a plea not to interrupt.

Ma barreled on. “It was Ellie brought him out of it. At first, he’d just sit next to him and they’d stare at the island and didn’t say a word. Days like that. Then they started talking. His Highness couldn’t move much while he was healing, so he’d watch Ellie practice with his sword or they’d talk for days and days.”

Beau glanced up at Elias, who stood against the far wall of the inn, staring out the window and pretending not to have ears. He remembered that period of his life very well, unfortunately. He’d been dangling his feet off the roof of the inn, enjoying his first mug of wine of the day and lamenting that the sword wound hadn’t quite killed him when Elias sat down beside him and said, “I think you’re in need of me.”

And he was.

Barely two days had passed since he’d admitted to Mistress Corlia that he needed a guard when Elias showed up. He hadn’t even considered what he needed in a guard, and certainly didn’t know how to evaluate fighting skill. El had looked fit, so Beau told him he could have the job if he’d scratch the itch in the middle of his back that had been plaguing him for days.

“When he started getting stronger, they did everything together. A lot of dancing, a lot of drinking, and a lot more work around the isles. But mostly they talked. Never seen any two people take to each other like those two did.”

Beau forced a wad of sticky-sweet pastry down his throat. “Ma,” he choked out, “this isn’t really…I’m sure the duchess doesn’t want to hear—”

“I want to hear it,” Penamour said eagerly. “I can hardly credit all the stories I’ve heard this morning. Is it true you fought off a woman’s abusive husband and then delivered her baby?”

“Well…” Beau might catch flame. “To be fair, he nearly killed me, and I ripped open all my stitches in the process, so I was more of a bloody nuisance—literally—than any help, but I was there , technically, so—”

“And you hauled in Mouthy’s—”

“Toothy’s,” Ma corrected.

“Sorry, Toothy’s nets when he was sick for weeks and shredded your hands?”

“I had soft-ass noble hands,” Beau said uncomfortably. “I was a laughingstock.”

“And you taught Mallet how to—”

“I’m sure it’s all true, to some degree,” Beau said quickly, trying to forestall the litany that made him want to curl up and hide. “Although everybody here exaggerates when they tell stories, so assume they’re half true. I’m sorry I left you to be harangued by everyone on the isles. I forget how rabid they get when somebody who hasn’t heard every tale turns up.”

“I think it’s sweet,” Lady Penamour said. She looked stunning this morning, hair braided back simply with little curls falling around her face, fresh face free of makeup except for something shiny on her lips. He found himself staring, and his stomach flipped when she stared right back. “They all wanted to tell me how much they love you and why.”

There was no way to respond to that, so Beau shrugged a shoulder and let the corner of his mouth pull up in a smile. “So you can see why I missed home.”

“Yes,” she said simply. Her fingers were still against his wrist, and they traced slightly along his arm as she pulled away. “Lots of nicknames on Leau. I don’t think I’ve heard a single person called by their actual name.”

Beau quickly chewed and swallowed a sausage roll, brushing his hands clean. “Oh, please tell me they’ve called you Your Grace like they know they’re supposed to.”

She laughed, a bright, happy sound. “I got ‘Your Grace’ and ‘Duchess’ at first, then someone called me ‘Gracious’ and another called me ‘Gracie,’ which seemed to have morphed into ‘Grey’ and then ‘Grey Lady,’ and then someone said ‘ Gold Lady, actually,’ which became ‘Goldie’ and just ‘Lady.’”

“Oh gods,” Beau muttered.

“Well nobody’s angry with you, Lady,” Ma said, unperturbed. “Round here, you only use given names or titles if you can’t stand somebody or you’re fightin’ mad.”

“She fought very hard for her title, Ma,” Beau explained. “She deserves—”

“I don’t mind,” Lady Penamour said.

Beau raised an eyebrow at her. “You very much do mind nicknames. You scolded me every time I gave you one.”

“I didn’t understand the spirit in which they were meant,” she said, folding her hands on the table primly. “Now that I see how affectionately they’re used on Leau, I don’t mind at all. And in fact I’d prefer you didn’t address me the way you isle folk only do when you’re cross.”

Beau studied her warm, teasing dark eyes, and his stomach did another strange flip.

“All right, Penny,” he said quietly, shuddery fingers of happiness spreading along his scalp at her teasing him, calling him ‘isle folk,’ acknowledging that he’d been affectionate all along.

A pure-sugar shot of pleasure radiated over from her, so sweet and sudden it made him breathe out an involuntary laugh. He’d kill for more of the syrupy taste of her happiness. It was the most incredible feeling. Penny it was, then.

Overfed by Ma Corlia, Beau eventually extricated himself from the storytelling isle folk, made sure his staff were settled in, and escaped the inn with Penny beside him and Jude and Nilah trailing behind, leaving Elias in the yard with a handful of aspiring guards.

As they walked the waterline, greeting friends and acquaintances who hadn’t made their way to the Hops, Beau plucked a dog-rose from a shrub devouring a garden fence and offered it to the duchess. She sniffed it, then arched a brow at him. “Should I read into your giving me a flower that means ‘second choice’?”

“What?” Beau asked in alarm. “That’s not what it means on Leau—dog-rose is for beauty. Simple pleasures.”

“Hmm,” she said, tucking the pale pink blossom behind her ear. “Different flower language in different places, I suppose. What about daffodils?” She nodded toward a row of yellow flowers along the road ahead. “Do those mean friendship here, too?”

He shook his head. “Daffodils are for happiness. Bluebells or tulips for friendship.”

“Ah, tulips are for familial love, unconditional,” she said. Her pomegranate curiosity was tempered with a light nuttiness he associated with eagerness. “What about violets?”

“Violets don’t grow well on Leau,” Beau said, “but violets and lavender are both for…peace, I guess? But the healing kind. Building quiet strength. You’d bring them to someone’s bedside while they recover.” His room at the inn had smelled like lavender for months; even after the place burned down and was rebuilt, he still caught a whiff every now and then.

“Hmm. That’s lovely.” Someone waved to them from a boat, and they both lifted hands to return the greeting, though Beau couldn’t identify them, squinting into the late morning sun. “I’ve seen quite a lot of people growing hollyhock. Does that mean chastity here as well?”

Beau was too surprised to suppress his snort. “You’re messing with me. Hollyhock does not mean chastity, surely?” He was overtaken with giggles.

“Why?” Her mouth shaped a smile, ready to join his laughter. “What does it mean here?”

He laughed harder. “People who throw hollyhock in the well are looking for a lively bedroom. As I’ve heard it said in vows, ‘We want lots of children and lots of fun making them.’”

“Well,” she said, a blush heating her face as she chuckled, “who doesn’t want that?” A tinge of spicy-sweet bled over from the ring. “Into the well?”

“Ah, it’s the marriage tradition on Leau. There’s a bell hung over an old dry well. Couples find flowers that say their wish for their life and toss it in the well. Then they say their vows on the steps and ring the bell.”

Beau laughed again. “And then the whole island gets the happy couple drunk and dances until their feet fall off.”

“It sounds lovely.”

Beau shot her a knowing look. “I know, it’s not the big to-do we get in the capital, with months of planning and every detail accounted for, but it is nice. I love the tradition.”

Penny’s face and ring-wash were both slightly exasperated. “I said it sounds lovely, and I meant it. I like simple, beautiful things. I like showy, well-planned things, too. They all have their place.”

“Sorry,” Beau said. “Didn’t mean to imply you don’t mean what you say.”

“Hmm. You don’t think much of nobles, do you, Beauregard? Oh!” She looked slightly alarmed for a moment. “ Can I call you Beauregard?”

The pink in her cheeks made her look angelic; Beau stared for a half second longer than he ought to have before saying, “Call me Beauregard, call me Beau, call me Barfly or Fine-eye or Crowregard or something else entirely. Just not Lamb—that’s Ma’s.” He remembered she’d asked a question. “And no, I don’t think much of nobles. I don’t think much of liars in general.”

“Do you find me to be a liar?”

Beau raised an brow. “You? Who conspired and deceived me out of the palace so you could poison me and El and accuse us of murder? No .” He laughed. “To be fair, you’re the most honest of the bunch. You’re not very much like a noblewoman, really.”

She snorted. “You’re being an ass.” As Beau coughed out a surprised laugh, she continued, “You are! I’m just like a noblewoman because I am a noblewoman. Anything I do or am is, therefore, what a noblewoman would do or be. I’m not unique. I’m not unlike all other nobility. You’ve been exceedingly unfair to your peers since you came back from the isles. You came in determined to despise them all. I watched you: you started every conversation hostile.”

“They all tried to manipulate something out of me! Or were so hateful to their people I couldn’t stand to be around them.”

“The latter I’ll give you because Haydée Macabrie is a nightmare,” she said dryly. “But the rest is categorically untrue. You interpreted every harmless attempt to get the measure of you as some sort of dishonest attack. They don’t know you! And you were so miserable all the time. They were trying to find some way to cheer you up so you’d speak. The only people you were remotely kind to or interested in were a handful of young men who can’t do anything for you, politically, and me. And I was about as hateful as possible!”

Beau’s shoulders drew up. “You were interesting. Authentic.”

“I was consistently cruel,” she insisted.

Stung, the prince tried to summon a response and came up short. Penny softened. “I understand why things were difficult. You’d lost your brother; you were navigating waters you’d never had to sail before. And may I speak frankly?”

“Have you not been?”

She set her hand on his arm again, a warm and bracing gesture. “Your introduction to nobility was honestly barbaric. What you described about growing up in the palace—that’s not normal. Parents seeing a child once a week? Denying affection, giving only criticism? That’s not ‘noble’ behavior. That’s cruelty.” She inhaled sharply. “Which I suppose is why my cruelty felt like authenticity, but that’s not who I am, or—it’s not who I want to be. I was spiteful because I believed something about you that wasn’t true. It wasn’t interesting. It was hateful.”

Beau absorbed all of that, not sure how to take it. His eyes traveled—as they always, always did when he was uncertain—to where Elias usually stood behind him. When you don’t know how you feel, you ask me. Except El wasn’t here.

He turned back to Penny, who smiled uncertainly at him, and felt her warmth in his bones. “That’s not what I found interesting about you. Maybe, if we’ve gotten off that far on the wrong foot, we should start over? Reintroduce ourselves.”

“Gods, no! Don’t you dare,” Penny said with a laugh. “We’ve spent months figuring each other out and only just gotten to any level of understanding. Don’t make me start again as a stranger, I beg. You’re terrible with strangers. Let’s do the opposite of starting over.”

“What, start at lovers, work our way backward?” Beau snarked without thinking, then immediately colored. One didn’t joke about such things with a duchess. “I mean—”

Lady Penamour was also pink, but the ring sent across only heat and sweetness, no outrage. “That seems a bit complicated, given our respective positions,” she said lightly. “Although I’m not entirely opposed to—oh!”

A small, human-shaped cannonball slammed into Beau’s waist, knocking him back a step and surprising the duchess into a quiet exclamation.

“Angel!” A beaming, snaggle-toothed face looked up at Beau.

Grinning, the prince crouched down eye-to-eye with Nathan. “Well, hello there, sir,” Beau said. “Tell me, I wonder if such a tall young man as yourself has seen a little boy called Nate? He’d be about half your size, just six years old—”

“It’s me! I’m Nate! I’m seven now! And look, I lost two teeth!” Nathan vibrated with energy, hands on Beau’s shoulders as he tried to climb the prince and shout at the same time.

“You?” Beau exclaimed in mock-confusion. “No, it couldn’t be! You’re much too big!”

Bernadette, Nathan’s mother, leaned against the wall nearby and smiled fondly down at Beau and her boy. “Aye, he’s getting far too big. I keep putting rocks on his head to hold him down, but he grows to spite me.”

Beau let the boy climb onto his shoulders and stood, balancing him so he could give Bernadette a hug. “Good to see you, Bunny,” he said, kissing her cheek before grabbing Nate’s ankles and doing quick squats until the boy shrieked with exhilaration.

“You too, Angel. You brought a highborn lady to us?” She had a narrowed-eye smile, too knowing. “Come for the well and bell?”

“Um,” Beau said, cheeks burning, “Lady Penamour, Duchess of Veritelutte, this is Bernadette, a friend of mine, and this little heathen on my shoulders is Nathan. Bunny, Nate, this is Lady Penamour. We call duchesses ‘Your Grace,’ Nate.”

“Hullo, Grace,” Nate said sweetly, and Penny beamed up at him. A fond wash of warm-bread tenderness came through the ring.

“Hello, Nate. And it’s lovely to make your acquaintance, Bunny. You can call me whatever you like, I suppose. No need to be formal.” The cries of the fish market floated across to them on the breeze, carrying the faint smell of the catch of the day with it. “Is this ‘little heathen’ the baby I heard about you delivering?”

“Oh aye, he is,” Bunny said. “Nate was coming to invite you to the blue hole, Angel. Fancy a swim?”

“Uh—” Beau threw a quick glance at the duchess’s fine dress. “I don’t know that we—”

“We’d love to,” Lady Penamour said with a wide smile. When Beau looked hesitant, she asked quietly, “Is a duchess not permitted to like swimming as much as the next person?”

“It’s just…that’s a nice dress, and it’s public. It’s not really the sort of thing nobles do.”

“Have you been swimming at the blue hole?” she asked dryly.

“Well, yes, but—”

“Mum has extra swimming clothes, if Grace needs to borrow any,” Nate said. He wiggled and kicked until Beau let him down, dancing on the cobbles of the street.

“There you are, his mum has extra swimming clothes,” Penny said briskly. “So it’s all taken care of. Lead the way, young man.”

Nate took off like a shot, darting over fences and hedges to take the straightest line home. Beau led Penny the long way around with Bunny, up and down the sloping hills of cobbled street, guards trailing behind. Every few feet the boy popped up atop a fence post or tree, waving and calling to be chased. Penny said, “If I weren’t here, would you follow him through all those yards and gardens?”

Beau grinned sheepishly. “Yes, probably.”

She set her hand on his arm, drawing him to a stop. “I asked you to show me around the isles because I want to see your isles. The way they are, not the way you expect me to want to see it.”

Beau shifted his feet and shoved his curls back from his face, but Penny didn’t let him turn away from her. “You’re nervous that I won’t like Leau. I understand. You love it. But if you keep spending all your time trying to make it ‘proper’ for a noblewoman, you’ll never know if I actually do like it or not. And everything you’ve shown me so far has been wonderful.”

“Be gentle with him, Lady,” Bunny said. “We’ve never made him be a noble here.”

“Yeah,” Nate popped up, bouncing out of a hedge, “he’s not a noble, he’s mum’s guardian angel! ’Cept he’s real. And a king!”

“I’m not an ang—” Bunny smacked Beau hard enough to cut him off, and Beau sighed. “Fine, I’m not a king . I’m a prince.”

Nathan’s brow furrowed as he scratched an arm. “But you’re going to be king, right?”

“Well, sure, if I live that long,” Beau said with a hollow laugh.

“What?” Bunny said, just as Penny said, “ Beau .”

“You’re dying?” Nate shrieked.

“No—oh, no no no,” Beau said, backpedaling furiously. “I just meant, you know, sometimes princes die and then their younger brothers have to—” Nate’s face contorted in horror on the edge of tears. “ No , no, no, I’m sorry. It was a bad joke! Dark humor. I’m not dying. I’m not going to die, Nate, please don’t cry. I’m going to be king, and I’ll wear a big silly crown, and sit on the throne next to the queen, and I’ll rule the whole kingdom. Okay?”

Nate sniffed dubiously, watching Beau with wary yes. After a consideration, he pointed at the duchess. “Is this the queen?”

“Oh—um.” Beau tilted his head to the side, struggling with how to answer that. “Not…yet?” Penny turned to Beau, eyebrows high. “I just—I—” He bent close to Nate and stage-whispered. “I haven’t asked her yet. It’s a secret.” He pressed his finger to his lips, and Nate grinned, following suit.

“Do you have a ring?” Nate whispered loudly. “I found Uncle Mallet a piece of sea glass and he made a ring for Auntie Jojo and she said yes. I could find you something for a ring, if you wanted.”

Beau had a sudden, overwhelming urge to squeeze Nate and had to grit his teeth to avoid crushing the boy. Instead, he smiled. “Yeah, I’d love something pretty for a ring.”

“Okay!” Nate said, then promptly shushed himself and Beau with his finger pressed to his lips. He skipped away, and Penny sidled up to Beau’s other side, all warm syrup on fresh bread through the ring with the ever-present burst of pomegranate curiosity.

“Yet?” she said quietly.

Beau scratched at the back of his neck. “Not that I’m making any sort of assumptions.”

She stopped him before the turn into Bunny’s yard, and Bunny, after a quick glance at them, went into the house to give them privacy. Penny said, “So you’ve forgiven me, then?”

Beau had the sudden urge to touch her silken dark hair, and because she was looking at him with such open happiness, he let himself, tugging gently on her braid. “If I’d thought someone murdered my brother, I’d have done worse.” His fingers dislodged the dog-rose, and he caught it as it fluttered down, handing it back.

Penny stared down at it, twirling it in her fingers, and when she met his eyes again, she looked pained. “I understand the message you’ve been trying to send, and I…well, I understand.”

“Message?”

“The second-choice flower?” She gestured with the dog-rose.

“But that’s not what it—”

“And leaving the ring on last night? Leaving me waiting while you got ‘caught’ this morning? I understand what he means to you, Beau, and what that means for—”

“Wait, wait ,” Beau said sharply, “oh, fuck, I left the—” His stomach dropped, a deep swoop of embarrassment, and he groaned. “None of that was intentional. It wasn’t a message . And it wasn’t what you think it—oh gods .”

Penamour laughed, a bright trill of surprise.

“All right, your unintentional message, then,” she said. “Still—”

“No, ‘still’ nothing.” Beau waved his hands as if he could smooth over the misunderstanding physically. “He doesn’t even want—I mean, it’s not—” He blew all his breath out at once, lifting his curls off his face. Humiliating as it was, he’d have to tell her at least some of his and Elias’s business, since he’d accidentally made it her business.

“I know everyone in the capital—and on Leau—thinks El and I are together. We’re not. Last night was the first and last time we…” He swallowed down the thick, painful lump in his throat.

Penny’s fingers rose to touch her own throat. “ He doesn’t want…” she muttered.

“I mean, it’s mutual. I don’t want anything he doesn’t want. And it doesn’t matter anyway because I’m going to be king , you know, so—so I have to—” He gestured toward her, then paused, horrified. Words rolled out too fast, half stuttered. “No, I don’t mean have to —I— fuck , I can’t even explain myself without sounding like a complete fucking asshole.”

“What on earth is going on out here?” Bunny said, reappearing with a baffled grin and a stack of towels in her arms.

“Angel’s being a complete fucking asshole,” Nate repeated in a near-perfect recreation of Beau’s intonation, scrambling over the rocks. Beau slapped a hand over his face, digging thumb and forefinger into his eyes as he tried to process all the mortification at once.

“Nathan Dane, language ,” Bunny said sharply. “Though why I even try—the boy’s got a dozen sailor uncles and fishwife aunties all trying their best to teach him every swear word in the isles. He doesn’t need it from you, too, Highborn .”

With a deeply apologetic look at Bunny, Beau scooped up the boy, swung him around, and all but sprinted the distance to the blue hole. He flung the shrieking boy into the water, and then pulled off his boots and shirt as Nate bobbed up, giggling and splashing. Beau dove past and swam beneath him so Nate sat on his shoulders when he resurfaced. Bernadette and the duchess, in deep conversation, lingered at the shore while the duchess changed behind the shelter of Bunny’s towel, and Beau played with Nate.

When at last Penny swam smoothly over, Beau threw Nate backwards, waiting for the splash and the squealing laughter. He took a deep breath to calm himself, but Penny didn’t try to pick up the conversation where they’d left it. Her eyelashes beaded together with water and a few loose curls plastered themselves to her graceful neck. Beau had never wanted to kiss her more, and never been more mortified to know she knew that from the ring.

“Shall we race?” she said, a grin chasing playfully over her lips.

Beau smiled back. “On the count of three...”

They raced. They floated. They played with Nate and splashed one another and had the kind of time Beau hadn’t thought nobles could have, without pretending to be common for a while. But Penny was right; they were noble. What they did was what nobles did.

“Should we head back to the inn?” she asked eventually, soaked and bright-eyed and beautiful. “I’d like to see what recruits Elias found.” Beau nodded.

They bid Bunny and Nate farewell as they dried and dressed, and the boy pressed something tiny into Beau’s hand: a shimmering, uneven pearl, its pale surface shading toward pink.

“That’s beautiful, Nate,” he said, hugging the boy to his side. An idea sparked. “Do you want to see some magic before we go?”

“Yeah!”

Beau reached into his pocket and pulled out a spoon. “Prepare yourself. This will boggle the mind. I have only to speak the magic word—d’you know the one? Please . Could you be a toy horse, please?” He cupped his hand around a miniature metal horse.

“You can change spoons into toys?!” Nate shrieked. Penny laughed, and Beau winked at her, a grin spreading across his face.

He held the Useful Thing higher so Nate couldn’t snatch it from his hand. “Not just toys. Let’s try something else. Could you be a small cup, please?” Into the now-cup, he dropped the pearl. “And now, for something that may not be possible. The grand finale. Nate, could you give us a drumroll?” As the boy pounded on the ground in a loose imitation of a drum, Beau said, “Could you be a beautiful ring incorporating that pearl, please?”

There was a pause this time, and Beau worried for a moment it wouldn’t work. The Useful Thing grew hot in his palm, a faint glow lighting his skin. Penny made a small, choked gasp. And then, in his palm, a stunning ring lay. It looked like it’d been grown, not made, its intricate, organic whorls wrapping the pearl elegantly. Beau had never seen anything like it. He examined it, ignoring Nate’s exclamations because he was getting saccharine, delicious pulses of emotion from Penny. He felt his body relax in reaction, his lips curve up, his heart speed. It was incredible: she felt this much joy naturally?

Feeling it with her was like stealing something from her, though he knew the ring didn’t diminish one’s own emotions as it broadcast them. But something so good couldn’t be freely available; it had to be stolen, surely.

“Are you all right?” Penny touching his arm, and he met her eyes as her joy tinged with concern and amusement.

“How are you so happy?”

She laughed. “Why wouldn’t I be happy?”

“This ring is for you!” Nate screeched, trying to grab it.

“Well—hold on, there’s a proper way to do things,” Beau said, settling the boy down with a hand on his shoulder. “You don’t hand someone a ring sopping wet on the edge of a swimming hole if you want to marry them. You plan something special, think about things they like, create some romantic atmosphere. You have to—”

“No, you don’t,” Penny interrupted. “Nate, the only thing you have to do is form the words of a question and ask the person if they’ll marry you. Everything else is optional.”

Beau stared at her, surprised. That had sounded, despite the horrific bungling he’d made of everything that morning, like an invitation to ask. As Beau studied the light in her eyes, her amusement spiked, fresh orange in his mind.

“That does leave one open to a particularly painful brand of rejection,” he said, and found his voice quite hoarse.

She winced. “Not if the person you’re asking has any sense at all,” she said, and the treacly taste of apology slicked his tongue.

That seemed obvious enough. It was exactly what he’d wanted, what he’d hoped for, and still he hesitated. He cleared his throat. He rolled the pearl ring in his fingers. “Victoire Augusta Bridgette Penamour,” he said quietly, “Duchess of Veritelutte by cunning and force of will…”

He licked his lips, and Leau went still. Penny’s eyes were wide and luminous and expectant. Beau swallowed and continued, “Formerly my most formidable opponent and currently—” He laughed hollowly. “—the keeper of my sanity. Would you marry me?”

He held out the ring, and Penny plucked it gently from his fingers, studying it with a warm, delighted smile and a warm, delighted syrup of emotions in his head. Beau’s dread began to dissipate, though not completely; she hadn’t answered yet.

“You know, you already gave me a ring. I’m not sure a second was strictly necessary.”

“The first wasn’t an engagement ring. It was a threat. Something new was warranted.”

Penny’s smile broadened, grew wicked. “Are you going to want the ‘threat’ back, then?” She made as if to pull off the Ring of Thrones, and Beau jerked toward her.

“What? No, of course not.” The thought of losing her constant, cool pool of emotions in his head was repellent. “How else will I get my dose of joy—and curiosity?”

“You’ve got your own fair share of the latter.”

Nate tugged Beau’s shirt. “Did she say yes?”

“I don’t think she’s decided yet, Nate,” Beau said, watching Penny spin the ring between her fingers, heart pulsing in his throat.

Penny’s face creased with incredulity as she slipped the pearl-adorned Useful Thing onto the ring finger of her left hand. “Of course I’ve decided, silly man. Yes. I’ll marry you.”

When Beau took her hand, intending to kiss the back, and she pressed closer to kiss him on the lips instead, the rush of joy through Beau’s head was all his own.