Page 38

“You are a princess of Harendell,” James said to his sister flatly. “The jewelers will come to you.”

Virginia glared at him as though he were the stupidest creature to ever stand in her presence. “When I invite them, they choose what items they bring to show me.”

“I’ve no doubt they bring their highest-quality items.”

Her scowl deepened. “They come prepared.”

James set aside the report he was reading. “I should certainly hope so.”

“Why are you so stupid?” She tossed her long curls over her shoulder. “They know they have to be generous to me, so they bring jewels they don’t mind parting with at a bargain and hold back the choice items to show individuals with gold but no power. If I catch them unawares, they must show me everything in their cases, and I can extort them as I see fit.”

James cast his eyes skyward. “You are the pinnacle example of our people, Ginny. Harendellian to the core.”

To his surprise, his sister turned away from him and walked to the window, drawn by the light. “Ahnna wishes to purchase new jewelry. She requested my advice.”

He tensed.

“You have not spoken, but I can feel the argument radiating out of you, Jamie,” she said. “I am bored of being locked up in the Sky Palace, with most of the court either trailing after Mother and Father or returned to their homes. And with you and yours patrolling the lands around Verwyrd day and night to root out any Amaridians with ill intent, I daresay that the journey to Abertford is safer than it’s ever been. You and Georgie will ride with us, of course, and I’ll not argue against whatever escort you might care to drag along.”

James knew that he should argue, and that if he forced the issue, Virginia would likely bend to his wishes. But it had been over a week since he’d argued with Ahnna, and he’d not seen her once. It was partly by design, for true to his word, Georgie had taken control of her security, but it was also because she was quite clearly avoiding him. A behavior he should encourage. Yet James found himself saying, “When do you wish to go?”

“Now,” Virginia said with a smile. “Else one of the servants will warn the jewelers, and they’ll hide the items I am likely to want. I told Ahnna to be ready in an hour, which gives you”—she walked to the ticking clock and opened its face, fingers brushing over the arms—“ten minutes to ready yourself. I shall meet you in the courtyard.”

She left the room, cane thudding softly against the carpet, and James gave a soft curse. Leaping to his feet, he donned the coat he’d tossed on one of the sofas, then straightened his cravat in the mirror on the wall. Glaring at his reflection, James abandoned his father’s study and strode through the Sky Palace corridors, flinging open the door to his room. “Uniform,” he said to Thomas, who showed no sign of being startled, only went to the wardrobe and retrieved the necessary items as James flung off the clothes he was wearing. Donning his uniform, he retrieved his sword and an extra set of knives, glanced at the mirror and then the clock. “Goddamn it,” he snarled, ignoring Thomas’s affronted stare, then bolted out the door.

Moving as swiftly as he could without raising alarm, James stepped out into the courtyard just as the palace clocks began to ring the hour. Georgie was helping Virginia into the carriage, but at its head, stroking the nose of one of the mules, was Ahnna.

She wore a dark-blue riding outfit: a belted coat with divided skirts, as well as polished riding boots. Sunlight glinted off her long hair, which hung in loose curls down her back, a hat that matched the clothes perched atop her head. Her skin had lost much of its suntan during her time in Harendell, the flush of her cheeks more noticeable as she glanced his way, then back to the mule, feeding it a lump of sugar from her pocket. If one ignored her height, she was the image of a Harendellian lady, though the longer he stared at her, the more weapons he noticed hidden about her person. Still Ahnna, albeit dressed in a costume. James bit down on a smile.

“You needn’t trouble yourself with this venture, Jamie,” Georgie said, and from his friend’s flat tone, James’s scrutiny of Ahnna’s attire had not gone unnoticed. “You’ve more pressing matters to attend to.”

“No, he doesn’t!” Virginia shouted from inside the carriage. “Get in, Jamie. Already, we are at risk of those greedy jewel setters having learned of my visit. We need to move faster! Ahnna, hurry, or all they’ll show us is settings in last year’s styles.”

James approached, holding out his hand to Ahnna. “My lady.”

She gave him the slightest of nods, gloved hand taking his as she climbed inside, though she immediately drew it away as she sat next to Georgie. James bit down his jealousy and sat next to his sister, who immediately started shouting at the coachman to make haste. An impossibility, for Buck and Brayer moved at only one speed.

“Is there something particular you are looking for?” Virginia asked, then waved her hand. “Do not answer that. One should never shop for jewelry with something in mind, only with a mind for something, because beautiful jewelry demands a certain dress, not the other way around. Wait and see what sings toyou.”

“I think that wise advice, Virginia.” Ahnna turned her gaze out the window while Virginia kept up her chatter, for she never enjoyed silence. Georgie obliged her, but James could feel his friend’s displeasure at his presence, and he kept his eyes on his boots, regretting agreeing to Virginia’s demands.

He’d thought that he could keep his wits about Ahnna. Keep the feelings that he had no business feeling in check for the space of an afternoon’s ride, except even with the heavy scent of his sister’s perfume, James could smell the scent of salt and the sea, his senses telling him a storm was in the sky though he knew it was only the woman seated across from him.

Choosing to be around her was a mistake, and as he muttered answers to his sister’s questions, James vowed to find an excuse to abandon this excursion when they reached the bottom of the spiral. To fabricate some duty that he needed to attend to. Georgie would back him up, of that James had no doubt.

His friend had said little about what had transpired after they’d parted ways on the streets of Verwyrd, only that Ahnna had remained with William for the balance of the revels, returning with him without incident, though apparently his brother had indulged to the extreme. Georgie’s spies had watched Aren Kertell board a riverboat, on which he’d traveled with apparently no incident back to the coast, where he’d booked passage on a merchant vessel to Northwatch. The spies indicated that Ithicana’s king blended into the masses with ease, adopting a Harendellian accent and the pretense of being a minor merchantman. A skill that spoke to many such ventures, which simultaneously irritated and intrigued James.

They reached the bottom of the spiral and exited the carriage. James opened his mouth to say that his presence was needed in the garrison and that he’d follow along later, but instead of an excuse coming out, he said to Ahnna, “Do you need help mounting, my lady?”

“I’ll manage, thank you.” She took Dippy’s reins from a groom, mounting the tall gelding with ease. James held his breath to see how the horse would react to her in the saddle, but Dippy stood steady, ears flicked back as he listened to Ahnna speaking softly tohim.

“I can handle this,” Georgie said under his breath. “Make an excuse, Jamie. You shouldn’t be around her.”

There was an edge of anger in his friend’s voice, and though James knew he should listen, knew that Georgie spoke wisdom, he said, “Better not to risk it. If anything goes wrong, I need to be here.”

“It’s already going wrong,” Georgie snapped, but he gave up arguing to help Virginia onto Daisy.

James took Maven’s reins and mounted, then called out orders to the soldiers who would accompany them, the gates in the wall surrounding the spiral opening and their party trotting out into the city.

It was hard not to hold his breath as he waited to see how Ahnna’s horse acquitted himself, because a couple of weeks of training did not a quiet saddle horse make. But Dippy trotted calmly down the road, his ears flicking occasionally to distractions but his attention primarily on his rider.

And his rider acquitted herself just as well.

Some people took naturally to the saddle, and while her first lessons had spoken more to tenacity than talent, James was rapidly revising his opinions. Ahnna was a natural, moving in response to the horse with the same instinctive grace she’d used while captaining the ship through the storm. James was struck with the memory of how she’d talked to the ship as though it were alive, listening to it, feeling it, and though he was too far to hear her words, he could see her lips moving as she spoke to her horse.

Admiration grew in his chest as he watched her ride, hips shifting to urge the racehorse into a canter as they crossed the bridge on the road west to Abertford. Though it was the gelding’s nature to want to be at the front, Dippy seemed to sense his rider’s calm as she looked around at the trees, his pace sedate as he followed the soldiers leading the group. Ahnna’s hair trailed out behind her, beams of light illuminating all the colors in it as she rode beneath the canopy of trees above the road, and she nodded politely at the travelers who had moved to the side to allow the group to pass.

Not a princess, but a queen in the making, and James’s chest tightened with the knowledge that Harendell would be blessed to be led by a woman like Ahnna Kertell. A woman who could both stand in defense of her people and empathize with them. Who was both fierce and kind in equal measure.

Then something struck him hard in the ankle.

Startled, James looked sideways to see Georgie riding next to him, his friend clearly having kicked him.

“Would you mind Daisy?” Georgie said pointedly. “I need to speak with the soldiers up front about vigilance.”

The jab struck true. Irritation flooded James and turned his cheeks hot with the desire to snap a retort, but he bit down on it because Georgie was in the right.

This had been a mistake.

He shouldn’t have come.

But he also couldn’t very well turn around without raising questions, so instead James dropped back alongside his sister. Her horse was trained to follow the other horses, but otherwise, Ginny needed no assistance, for she was comfortable in the saddle.

“Georgie is in a mood,” his sister said. “Do you know why?”

“I hadn’t noticed,” James lied. “Do you wish me to inquire?”

Ginny snorted softly. “Hardly. I already asked him myself, and he said nothing is amiss. That he’s merely concerned to have me out because of the violence that has occurred around Verwyrd of late. Two statements in direct objection to each other, which surely means he’s lying about both.”

“The violence is a fact, Ginny.”

“Obviously, but his concern about it is a lie. There is something else that has him in a twist, and he doesn’t want to admit it.” She frowned. “I changed my mind. Go ask him and report back to me immediately.”

James bloody well already knew what Georgie was in a twist about, but he said, “I’ll ask while you’re with the jewelers.”

They rode in silence for a time, then Ginny said, “I was surprised she requested to meet with the jewelers.”

“Why is that?”

“Because I believe she is something of a pauper princess. Which is madness, given that Ithicana possesses mountains of gold. Do you think her brother doesn’t like her? I heard she is on sour terms with Lara, which I was at first hesitant to believe. Now I think that must certainly be the case. Do you think he sent her to us without a copper to rub between her fingers because his wife told him to?”

James’s mouth opened, but before he could answer, Ginny added, “Promise me that you’ll always put me before whatever woman Father decides you should wed. I couldn’t bear being set aside by you, Jamie. Or William. But especially you.”

“I have no plans to wed,” he said. Then, because his sister had hit on a suspicion he himself had once had, he asked, “What has Ahnna done that causes you to believe she’s without means?”

“Well, for a start, she has not worn jewelry since she arrived.”

“Perhaps that’s not something that is done in Ithicana.”

Ginny ignored him. “She came with one trunk. One. And since arriving, she’s only purchased gowns that the modiste was getting rid of at a steep discount, including that travesty of a pink dress that Elizabeth paid the modiste to make as a lark. The majority of what Ahnna wears has been made by Hazel.”

“Hazel is a talented seamstress.”

Ginny made a face. “She’s a laundress, Jamie. Not even intended as a lady’s maid, but we all know what befell poor Agnes on the Defiant. It was only luck that Mother lent Hazel to Georgie to do his laundry on the Victoria, and she’s only kept her position because Ahnna seemed not to know the difference between a laundress and a maid.”

“Don’t be a snob.”

“I’m not!” she huffed. “But all that could, of course, be blamed on her being Ithicanian, except she went to the lending house to secure a loan and tried to use Harendell as collateral.”

“Harendell?” He shook his head. “That can’t be right. And how do you know that anyway? The bankers keep confidence like no other.”

“But blather on without care for their own servants in the room. My maids heard that it was quite an upset among the lenders as they debated whether a nation could be used as collateral, and they decided that it could not, but a future queen’s goodwill certainly could. Either way, what need has she of such a large loan if her brother is rich as sin unless he’s cut her off?”

“You know I have no patience for gossip,” he said, even as he took in his sister’s words. Yet another secret that Ahnna was holding close to her heart?

“It is not gossip, it is a puzzle. A puzzle I wish to solve, which is why I agreed to this venture,” Ginny said. “Bankers keep confidence, but jewelers do not, so I will learn how she pays for her purchases.”

“To what end?”

“If she has no influence in Ithicana, then she is not the asset Father believes she is, and he ought to know that. Perhaps he might consider negotiating for something of more value.”

His sister had latched on to something that might actually have weight with their father as far as breaking off the betrothal, but all James felt was anger that his sister was attempting to undermine Ahnna. “This is an about-face, Virginia. I heard that Elizabeth and Ahnna had words regarding Lestara. If this is about that, you’re being petty.”

“It’s not about that nor anything else she’s said or done,” Ginny snapped. “It’s about discovering whether she’s being deceitful. I once hoped her to be the greatest of assets and worthy of William’s love, but now I wonder if she’s only using Harendell to elevate her own fallen position. I wonder if she has been lying all this time.”

“I feel as though I’m speaking to your mother, not to you.”

Ginny’s face twisted. “Perhaps Mother had the right of it not to want Ahnna. But if you must know, she’s not said a word to me about Ahnna since she arrived, so all that I have said is spoken from my own heart out of a desire to protect our brother. But by all means, please do take the side of the woman you barely know over your own sister.”

“I didn’t—” James broke off, because Ginny had already heeled Daisy for more speed, the mare moving through the group until Georgie noticed and fell in alongside, head bending close to Virginia’s.

If Ahnna noticed the tension, she didn’t show it, her posture relaxed and her focus alternating between her horse and her surroundings. Ginny’s mood could change with the weather, but instinct told James that this ran deeper than a spat, and his skin prickled with the sense that there had been a shift in the Sky Palace against Ahnna’s presence. A shift that echoed some of the rising complaints about Ithicana that he suspected were fueled by Cormac and his agents. All of which fed into James’s goals, and yet every part of him wanted to defend her. To argue that she deserved to be queen and would make a good one at that.

If anyone was deceitful, it was him, and not for the first time, James wondered how his sister would react when the day came that their father and King Ronan came to terms and she learned his true feelings on Cardiff. Neither his sister nor his brother knew anything, not even of the weeks at a time that he’d spent with his uncles in his youth, the excuse always being that he was learning survival skills in the north.

Lies upon lies, and he’d held it all together until Ahnna Kertell had strode into his life.

James risked a glance at her again, just in time to watch her entire body tense and her hand reach into the pocket where a knife was hidden.