Page 66 of Disillusioned (A Lay of Ruinous Reign #2)

Despite Henri’s response, Artus looked amused. “You know, Francis took pity on Armand after my wife died. He was gracious in refraining from revoking their statuses. Helped him become a fine duke. You were fast friends, you and my son. All for Sinclair’s right to greatness to be stripped from him.”

“His right ?” Blood boiling, Lilac started forward.

Artus’s guards immediately covered him, one of them drawing his blade. Robes shifted and metal sang as both guards at Lilac’s side mirrored them.

But there was a quicker flash of movement.

“That won’t do.” It was Piper. She stalked past Lilac and held her hand out, holding eye contact with the Le Tallec guard before her. “Your weapons, please.” He placed his blade in her hand without question while she looked over at the other one. “You too, give it here.”

Herlinde’s laugh was barely audible behind her. “Modron. Would you look at that.”

Lilac’s mouth hung open. The room exchanged confused glances as Piper tucked their blades under her arm, leaving Artus’s guards silent and blinking.

In the same fashion, she collected Mathias and Lorenzo’s bows, quivers, and daggers.

Smiling to herself, Piper strode over to one of the far tables against the wall and laid them out neatly, one by one.

She dusted her hands off and promptly returned to Lilac and Herlinde’s side.

“Who is she?” Artus asked the guards beside Lilac. “Were you not just apprehending her?”

“Yes,” one of them answered, looking hesitantly at Henri, who had shakily seated himself once again. Marguerite was rubbing his shoulder. “We were mistaken.”

“She’s my new lady-in-waiting,” said Lilac coldly. “I’ve been expecting her but wasn’t sure when exactly she would arrive.”

Artus squinted at Piper as Henri’s eyes flitted briefly to Lilac, then back to Piper. “I’ve never seen her before,” said Artus. “Where did you find her?”

“ I did,” Hedwig responded, flicking one of her peppered brown braids over her shoulder. “I handpicked her earlier in the month. ”

Piper began to fidget at her side; Lilac stopped her with a brief glare.

“But ladies-in-waiting are chosen from prominent families by the Stewardess.” Artus laughed, as if this was all some ridiculous scheme to rob him outright of some truth he was owed. “She’s in charge of your kitchens.”

“We never replaced the one we had after my father died. Lilac has promoted her,” Henri said boredly, taking a swig from his new water glass brought over by Hedwig.

Lilac understood Hedwig’s quick thinking; the chef had covered for Lilac many times. But why was her father lying for her? Again? Did he actually pity her, or was he equally tired of the scrutiny? Surely he wasn’t doing it out of love or loyalty.

She willed the telltale heat and blooming red in her face to calm, but she couldn’t believe that after such a night, Artus was here—and that after everything, the Le Tallecs had still managed to weasel their way into her castle. At least now she seemed to have allies willing to stand against them.

Lilac didn’t dare look at Hedwig, who unsurprisingly spoke as she returned to her spot at the head of the food table.

“He wouldn’t know, Your Grace. Living in his little pub like he does.”

Artus’s ridiculing smile fell. He ignored Hedwig. “I hear your borders have been threatened.”

“I’ve handled it,” Lilac retorted, trying not to sound as defensive as she felt.

“Your father has handled it while you’ve been… elsewhere.” He eyed Piper then, and Herlinde, who’d remained patient and silent in her shadow. “Haven’t you?”

Her answer was simmering. “My whereabouts are none of your concern.”

“It is natural, given the prison you’ve finally broken yourself out of, that you want to explore.

Every young ruler should know their kingdom front to back, now, shouldn’t they?

And your parents did their best ensuring your literacy and education of the world within the boundaries you were given.

They even encouraged you, rightfully so, to consider my grandson as your husband. He would have made a worthy partner.”

“Do not patronize me. There’s not a decent bone in Sinclair’s body. He was never in my consideration.” The mere thought of him made her want to shrivel within herself. She hated remembering now, her thoughts unclouded by any partial bond to Garin, that he currently resided under the same roof.

Even as her prisoner, it wasn’t enough. She wanted him dead. The only reason he was alive was because he deserved a worse fate.

The way Artus looked at her now, as if their very interaction were a joke to him because he considered her unworthy of his time underneath it all, reminded her much of the marquis. Sinclair was much more like his grandfather than Armand.

“He would have provided for you, kept you in France’s good graces and safe from those blasted creatures.”

“Those creatures you hunt and murder unprovoked?”

A silence hung in the air. Artus’s subtle smile deepened his wrinkles as her mother whipped her head at Lilac, glaring over pursed lips while her father disappeared into his cup of water. Apparently, her father’s support didn’t yet extend to the Daemons.

Lilac turned to the guard to the nearest guard. “Will you please fetch John?”

“At this hour?” Marguerite said from across the table.

She shot her mother a silencing glare.

Artus interjected with a clear of his throat, his smile widening at the mother-daughter back and forth.

“Your Majesty, given the bloody history of Paimpont that I’m sure you’re aware of, I would not call the active management of these Daemons unprovoked.

And yet you seem to care more for their wellbeing than the security of your kingdom, which simply required a marriage to Sinclair. ”

Lilac resisted the urge to launch herself at Artus.

She could strangle him. With her freakish strength, she could literally strangle him, probably both his men and his guards.

But Artus knew better. He, like the Le Tallecs, knew better .

Knew she wouldn’t. From birth, Lilac had been placed on a pedestal, held to a different set of standards to begin with.

As the world watched the girl with the Daemon tongue, everyone else got away with murder.

“I can see some benefits of the marriage weren’t explained to you.

What your parents might have failed to clarify is that marrying my grandson would have secured your distance with France, at least for several more years.

Possibly generations, your entire reign, if you gave Sinclair a healthy son or two. ”

Lilac did not miss Henri and Marguerite’s exchanged glances, but she remained intently focused on the old man in front of her.

“You see, my mother was born to a viscount during Charles’s reign, and Vivien’s paternal bloodline is of junior French aristocracy, long existing in favor of the kings with several generations of pristine peerage.

Entering into a marriage contract with Sinclair would have protected Brittany because France would have been a natural ally, leaving them uninterested in annexation.

Instead, you’ve antagonized your most powerful neighbor by not only turning Sinclair down but arresting him with a public announcement.

Humiliating him. Not to mention the type of company you’ve been concerning yourself with.

” He gave Piper and Herlinde a pointed once-over before returning to Lilac with a pitying grimace.

Marguerite gripped the tabletop, looking as if she were about to faint. Henri exhaled but said nothing.

“Your grandson deserves everything that has befallen him. You don’t seem as high caliber of a man yourself if my grandfather revoked your duties prematurely, leaving them to a seven-year-old boy. One who turned out to be no better.”

She wasn’t sure what the old man had been hoping for—if he honestly thought she would have plucked Sinclair from his cell and summoned a priest—but she wouldn’t have married him even if he had come with all the power and security in the world.

Artus’s condescending expression had shifted into a snarl. “Sinclair was your best chance at retaining your sovereignty.”

“I’d be careful with your implications if I were you,” Lilac warned. “You wouldn’t want it to appear so blatantly that Sinclair was France’s intentional way into Breton nobility and the crown, would you?”

Artus leaned forward in his seat. “And if it was? What would anyone do about it?”

She should have him thrown out. She could have him arrested for the threats he’d made.

Instead, Lilac turned to her guard and looked him in his bewildered eyes. “My scribe, please . And while you’re at it, please also request the company of our coachman, Giles. He’s outside in the bailey. ”

He frowned. “The coachman? Why?”

“I won’t ask a third time.”

The fellow nodded without another word and left to fetch them both.

“I don’t owe you or anyone else an explanation of whom I spend my time with or why I’ll never marry your grandson. It is not your business, Artus, and you will not question me in my own castle.”

“Ah, but what is my business are the goings-on in my fief. Such as the increase in Daemon activity west of Paimpont, in the region between my home and yours,” he suggested, eyeing Lilac. “Two men were recently snatched up and eaten.”

Artus wouldn’t dare mention her and Garin’s appearance at the Jaunty Hog, or her suggestion on where to hunt next; doing so would be admitting mistreatment and manhandling of the queen.

She could bring it up herself and have him locked away with his grandson…

But she also wasn’t eager to have them in the same dungeon together, where they might figure out a way to scheme.

“Korrigans or ogres?” she suggested, withholding a triumphant smirk. Mathias and Lorenzo shifted uncomfortably, wincing with their movement, glaring sidelong at Artus. “I’ve heard they are both especially feral this time of year.”

Artus’s eyes narrowed. “Is that what your cartographer told you?”

“I’m sorry.” Henri held a hand up. “What does Riou have to do with any of this? And this is your fief no longer, Artus. My father made sure of it.”

Try as she might, Lilac could feel her sorry attempt at composure slipping. Realization sank in as Artus smiled up at her. That was his purpose in coming tonight. He wanted them to know of his connections to France, to remind her parents of it or inform them if they didn’t already know.

This was what Sinclair’s family had dangled over their heads for so long. Lilac’s father was wed to her mother of Breton nobility, and didn’t have the same opportunities to fortify his kingdom against such militant threats through marriage.

She was the queen; an unclaimed bride, as far as the world knew.

Artus looked down, chuckling to himself. “Henri, your daughter is in bed with Daemons, running away from her responsibilities while France is at her door, and my family is your concern? Transfers of power occur all the time. Some by marriage. Others by force. ”

Artus wasn’t even addressing her directly, speaking of her like she was an afterthought in the room, still the young black sheep of her family to be reprimanded with a slap on the wrist—or the snatching of the crown yet to be placed upon her head.

With her arcana lingua, she was bound to be.

Her stomach growled, and Lilac eyed the platters of pastries and tarts that Hedwig had worked hard to prepare for Marguerite’s early guests. It looked as though Artus had arrived in the middle of their dessert and made everyone else so uncomfortable that they left.

“If she merged our families like she was supposed to, like the whole kingdom expected her to, she might not find herself in such a predicament. My grandson is no madman; he’s been poisoned , and you lot had the nerve to remove him from his rightful place of care under his parents’ watch until a cause and remedy were found.

They’ve hired the best physicians from Paris.

” Suddenly, he gripped the table and hoisted himself to his feet.

“Seeing as you have no other propositions, because who else would want to?—”

The doors swung open to admit first the guard, then John, looking aghast and a bit frightened in his pale blue nightgown and warm cap. Myrddin—still glamored as a confused Giles—trailed in last, shrugging into the hood of his robe and glancing hesitantly around the room.

Lilac greeted them with a solemn smile. It was time to make her intentions clear once and for all.