Page 91 of Disillusioned (A Lay of Ruinous Reign #2)

“Enough of her.” Emma had followed her gaze to the table, then looked this way and that.

Half of the crowd had dispersed to the feast tables and were chattering amongst themselves, the ale flowing freely now.

Myrddin, Piper, Yanna, and Isabel swayed nearby to the pleasant song floating from the stringed instruments.

“He doesn’t look like a man from Austria. ”

“ Mother ,” groaned Rupert again, but she ignored him.

The way the countess looked at Garin was unsettling. “What do you mean? What does he look like?” Lilac tried to appear dismissive. “A Frenchman? A Breton?”

Emma leaned in. “My mother was a frivolous spirit at heart. Naturally she was devastated when father passed, but she was so young and never thought to let this stop her from enjoying herself. Shortly after, there was a friend she invited over. He was at the manor a couple of times after meeting him on her official travels. He had perfect manners, spoke several languages, and even played noddy and piquet with my sister and I once.” Emma dipped a finger into her flute and dripped it onto her tongue, and winked.

“Mother had fine taste in her friends. You two know, don’t you? Friends ?”

“My God,” said Rupert, slipping his arm in Lilac’s and tugging her away. This time, she was thankful he did. “That is far too much. Goodbye, Mother.”

“Oh, you’re no fun,” Emma laughed. But she waved them along, fanning herself.

Reeling, she allowed Rupert to drag her to the middle of the floor.

She positioned herself so his back was to the head of the room, putting Garin right in her sight.

She could barely stand to look at him, Emma’s words still haunting her—but she did so, anyway.

Garin’s shoulders were quaking with laughter, his lips pursed together.

The same irksome jealousy she felt at the brothel flooded through her. She shouldn’t have these feelings—especially not one wishing to dunk kind Emma’s face in the cider bowl for merely telling her the story of how Garin might’ve bedded Rupert’s grandmother .

This was stupid. He’d been with others. Adelaide and the like.

Lilac tried to hide her pout and secured her arms around Rupert again. He settled his arms carefully on her upper back.

Who could blame Rupert’s grandmother, honestly? Garin was unbearably charming and an excellent lover. He was almost too good in bed, like there wasn’t another care in the world but the person in front of him.

She gritted her teeth. That person needed to be her. She wiped at her brow and refocused.

Rupert was speaking again. “And the truth is, I pulled you away for a dance because I had a question regarding my area of study.”

“Oh.” Lilac was barely paying attention anymore. Garin’s stare would burn a fucking hole in her forehead. “Go on, let’s hear it, then.”

“Where I might find your scrivener?”

This snapped her out of her haze. “You mean our scribe?”

“Yes.”

“Why?” She wasn’t comfortable with him roaming the castle while off duty, nor chancing him finding John in the library, where her notes were still off limits. “Do you require something to be notarized?”

“N-no, not at the moment.” His hand went to the back of his neck. “I’m not sure there exists anything to sign. I wanted to ask him for clarification on something.”

Lilac stopped swaying and removed her hands from him. “What do you need?”

He shook his head. “It’s really nothing. It’s more a question for him.”

There was movement over Rupert’s shoulder; Garin had stood. He was leaning over to the right of Lilac’s throne, peering at the bottles of alcohol that had been gifted to them.

“My scribe is busy tonight,” she insisted. “What is it?”

Defeated, Rupert wiped his lip and stuck his hands in his coat pockets.

“There was a young family I came across in Le Conquet. They were staying at the local tavern-inn after losing their home in a fire, but would soon run out of the funds to maintain their shelter. Just outside the town, there is an unoccupied property of the husband’s great aunt, who’d recently passed on. ”

Lilac looked at him like he was crazy. “And you need this resolved right now? ”

Rupert’s cheeks flushed, but he quickly collected himself. “Given the nature of my path of study, I offered to help them. At the university, I was told I’d gain the ability to notarize paperwork after my completed third year.”

“You have no current jurisdiction to do so since you’ve only completed two.

” She could tell where this was going and disliked feeling like no one trusted her to make the right decisions—from weighing war with marriage, to a petty inheritance matter.

She could handle advising a property transfer.

Lilac glanced up at Garin. He was pouring himself a cup of the wine he’d picked: a swan-necked amber glass bottle with a paper label.

He brought the mug to his lips, his throat moving with an unusual eagerness as he tipped it back.

“Normally the head of their duchy would handle something like this,” Lilac answered. “Unless there was an issue with the natural process of property inheritance. Don’t they know homes are passed by will through male relatives first?

“That’s the issue, Your Majesty. The husband is his aunt’s last surviving relation, male or female, but he wasn’t named in her papers. Either she wasn’t prepared or didn’t intend to name him at all. It was an untimely demise.”

“That’s a shame. Then they have no immediate right to the property.

Vacant properties eventually go to the owner of the fief—its presiding earl or baron.

” Lilac couldn’t remember who was in charge in Le Conquet; the coast was littered with smaller towns, making their administrations more difficult to keep track of than those inland.

“The home belongs to the head of the duchy until the property is redistributed to them by the magistrate’s contract—or sold to someone else.

The family you mention is welcome to bid for the home. ”

“That is a shame,” Rupert replied, but his brows floated above his twinking eyes, which shifted to the door, then back. “I’ll see to it that they’re notified.”

This was common knowledge, nothing he’d need John for, and something she shouldn’t have had to explain to a third-year university student.

There was something familiar about the shift in Rupert’s eyes, the wiggle in his peppered brown beard.

Lilac couldn’t place it, and was about to ask when she felt a sudden tug in her chest. She looked up at Garin and felt her body react before she even registered the way he looked at her.

Mug in hand, he lounged back in the chair. His shoulders were relaxed, his eyes anything but bored or even amused.

They were hungry.

Her chest prickled with heat. She couldn’t tear her gaze away when Garin ran his tongue against his bottom lip, wiping the dribble of wine away. She couldn’t help but think of placing herself upon the spread before him.

Through the heat and pull of his magic, even she knew it was a bad idea.

Rupert was staring at Garin. Then he turned to her, an expression of slight alarm on his face. “Your Majesty?”

“Shut up.” Lilac barely heard him over her own heartbeat.

She didn’t register the musicians exchanging confused glances and halting their instruments, the entire room freezing to watch them.

All she wanted was to be in Garin’s arms. To sit in his lap, straddling him and the throne, her throat exposed, dress drooping.

She wanted to comfort and be comforted—to be cured from this dastardly spell put on them both, even if doing so meant accepting a most wicked fate.

She imagined him fucking her with his teeth inside her again until she cried out, wanted to nuzzle into the spot where his neck met his shoulder and taste him, a flood of his own memories pouring out.

To know him, the story of his mother and the secret apothecary under the brothel, the one that helped women.

Lilac took a step toward the table, her body flooding with warning adrenaline.

“Your Majesty.” Piper was suddenly there, shouldering Rupert out of the way and beaming with wide, alarmed eyes. There was a sharp pinch on her forearm.

“ Ow ,” Lilac snapped, yanked from her trance.

The rest of the room came into focus. The only ones moving were Myrddin, precariously picking his way through the crowd along the right- hand wall, and Yanna and Isabel who made their way over from the desserts table.

Disbelievingly, Lilac watched the warlock stride up to Garin, gripping the vampire’s arm and jolting him from his unruly stare .

When Garin’s hungry gaze finally snapped onto Myrddin, the pressure left her body. Emotion poured into the hole his stare had drilled into her.

Whispers erupted in the Grand Hall.

“How are you doing, Your Majesty?” Piper said under her breath, gripping Lilac at her elbow. “What can I bring you? A stiff drink? A warm croissant? A bucket of ice to dunk your head into, perhaps? Anything to stop the both of you from eye-fucking each other across the ballroom.”

She exhaled, desperate to compose herself. She needed to get away from him, even if for a moment. A breath of air from his pull, lest she go to him. Lest she give in.

“It’s time for a trip to the washroom.” Lilac tugged Piper to the doors. She curtseyed before the tittering crowd and then rushed into the corridor, Yanna and Isabel tagging close behind.