Page 41

“Heavens, Guinevere, you look a fright!” Betha declared in a strident tone that contained no trace of her daughter’s sweet lilt. “What has happened to you?”

“And where in blazes is the—” Illiard caught himself, finally registering Oskar’s presence as the butler discreetly took his leave. “You’re not one of the guards I hired.”

As Illiard’s and Betha’s gazes fell on him and hardened with suspicion, Oskar set the trunk down on the ground and opened his mouth to explain, but Guinevere spoke first. Her voice quavered at certain points, and she had difficulty maintaining eye contact, but she told them everything—everything within reason, anyway.

Oskar felt that she was rather embellishing the role he’d had in their continued existence in the material realm, while downplaying hers.

Or, to be more accurate, that of her wildfire spirit.

She divulged nothing about the presence that Elaras had sensed, and Oskar was quick to realize that she didn’t want her folks to know that she’d studied magic, however briefly.

He was of the opinion that they should tell Illiard and Betha and pressure them to provide answers to the mystery that had been hounding their steps across Wildemount.

But Guinevere wasn’t ready, and of course Oskar would follow her lead, even if he had his misgivings.

He watched her parents like a hawk as they listened to their daughter’s harrowing tale of survival.

They were visibly alarmed when she got to the part about the mercenaries—Illiard, in particular, looked around wildly until the sight of Lord Wensleydale’s guards hanging around the periphery of the sprawling gardens soothed him—but that was the height of the emotions that they showed.

It was an alarm that eclipsed even the concern they expressed for their only child’s well-being.

Then again, Oskar thought sardonically, she’d made it to them, her dowry safe and sound, and that was the important thing.

“I cannot believe you lost Bart and Wart, Guinevere!” Illiard groaned. “Those two beasts were as children to me.”

“I know,” Guinevere whispered, her shoulders hunching like she was trying to make herself smaller.

“She didn’t lose them,” Oskar snapped. “The bandits are solely to blame.”

“Yes, the bandits, who nearly took my most prized possession because you—” Illiard rounded on Guinevere, but at that moment she tugged imploringly at his sleeve.

A mute, desperate gesture, the kind given by a child who had rarely known love but was still reaching for it.

He flinched at her touch, and Oskar wanted to punch something.

Preferably the other man. Right in the face.

“Father, please,” Guinevere said, “what’s in the trunk? Why does the Spider’s Web want it? Oskar and I have carried it all the way from Druvenlode to Nicodranas. We have risked our lives for it. And, before that, it sat in the corner of my room all those years. I think—I think I deserve to know.”

The way her parents gawked at her, Oskar could tell that this was the first time Guinevere had asserted herself in a long, long while.

Betha was the first to recover. “I never!” she huffed. “Such impudence. You’ve picked up some rather deplorable habits on your little adventure, I see.” She glared at Oskar like it was all his fault.

But Guinevere held fast, ignoring her mother, looking her father in the eye.

Eventually, a flush rose to Illiard’s pale cheeks.

“It’s jewelry,” he said, sullen and defensive.

“A whole bunch of them—a matched set. Very valuable. I won them in a round of cards shortly before you were born. The chap who bet them was a sore loser and he tried to call me out, but I won fair and square, and the whole den can vouch for that. Maybe he nursed that grudge these last two decades and hired the mercenaries to track me down and get it all back.” His flush deepened at the skeptical expression on Oskar’s face.

“I may have boasted about your dowry, girl,” he admitted to Guinevere, scratching his head.

“Once Wensleydale signed the papers, I took myself down to the Withered Bird and had a pint too many. Bought several rounds for some sailors, too, and I maybe told them things I shouldn’t’ve. ”

Betha was apoplectic. “ This! ” she screeched at her husband.

“This is why we hardly have any money left! Why you couldn’t afford to hire more guards for the trunk!

You mismanager, you utter fool, letting total strangers leech off you—and not only that, but also running your mouth off about the Parure—”

“I was in high spirits, wasn’t I?” Illiard roared. He jerked his head at Guinevere, who shrank back. “Never thought we’d be able to marry her off, what with—”

“What’s the Parure?” Oskar interrupted, because he had the unsettling premonition that, were Illiard to finish his train of thought, once again denigrating Guinevere with the effortlessness of habit, Oskar would beat him to within an inch of his life.

Betha blinked at Oskar several times, her fury momentarily thrown off-kilter by his question. “The—a parure is the term for a matching set of jewelry.”

“That’s a parure,” said Oskar, his eyes narrowing. “What’s the Parure?”

“It’s—it’s just what the original owner called it,” Illiard scrambled to reply.

Oskar didn’t like this one bit. He knew guilt when he saw it. He knew the hunt, too. Guinevere’s parents had the tense look of prey run to ground.

Before he could call them out on it, however, a new voice echoed through the gardens. A deep, cultured voice, the kind that could only have been a product of generations of voices that expected the orders they gave to be followed.

And that voice said, “I do beg everyone’s pardon! I was out riding.”

Fitzalbert, Lord Wensleydale, strode toward them with an air of quiet, unshakable confidence.

He was a tall, trim man in his late thirties, with piercing blue eyes and thick blond hair streaked with hints of silver.

He wore a frock coat of emerald-green wool over a cashmere waistcoat and a crisp white shirt, as well as buckskin breeches and spurred boots of such handsome leather that, were they ever to gain sentience, they would surely kick Oskar for daring to be in their presence.

Guinevere’s parents instantly changed their attitudes.

“Oh, it’s quite all right, Lord Wensleydale!” Betha trilled. She gingerly nudged Guinevere forward. “Permit me to make known to you my daughter, Guinevere, here at long last!”

Guinevere dipped into a graceful curtsy. When she came back up, Wensleydale’s blue eyes widened as he beheld her face, and he broke into a dazzling smile.

Wouldn’t you know it, Oskar thought sourly, he did have all his teeth. And he wasn’t too old.

In fact, he looked like a fucking prince from a fucking fairy tale, and Guinevere was smiling back at him, and, fuck, Oskar had to get out of here at once. He should have left as soon as they got to the estate. It wasn’t as though she needed him anymore.

But…no. He couldn’t leave her yet. Not when her parents were acting suspicious about the trunk’s contents. Of course, it was highly likely that his low opinion of them—one that had been formed before they even met—was coloring his view of the situation, but he had to confirm that first.

He would make sure that Guinevere was safe here, and then he would go.

“Apologies for the state of her, m’lord,” Illiard said nervously. Guinevere’s smile faded, and Oskar decided that he wouldn’t leave until he’d thrown her father into a ditch.

“You cannot be implying, Master Illiard, that my betrothed could look anything less than a vision.” Wensleydale took Guinevere’s travel-roughened hand and pressed a gallant kiss to her knuckles.

Oskar added throwing Wensleydale into a ditch to his list of things to do before leaving. “Such slander shan’t be countenanced.”

“You are too kind, Lord Wensleydale,” Guinevere murmured, relaxing, glowing for him like he’d lain the world at her feet.

Oskar couldn’t even be mad—because, if Guinevere had to marry someone, it might as well be a wealthy and powerful man who could defend her not only from mid-level mercenaries but also from her stupid parents.

He might not respect Wensleydale all that much for offering for her, sight unseen, on the basis of her dowry, but it was clear that the noble was now smitten.

Who wouldn’t be? He’d treat her well, lavish his fortune upon her, and in time…

In time, he might come to love her as much as Oskar did.

Damn idiotic, to be struck by this epiphany—to finally, finally admit it to himself—right as he was transferring her into the care of another man.

Guinevere withdrew her hand from her betrothed’s loose grasp. Only then did Wensleydale notice Oskar standing beside her. What was it with these upper-class folk relegating him to the status of shrubbery?

“I do not believe that we have been introduced,” Wensleydale hinted.

“Oh, yes, of course.” Illiard cleared his throat. “My lord, this is—er—Othello—”

“Oskar,” Guinevere and the man formerly known as Othello corrected at the same time.

“Right. Oskar,” Illiard mumbled. “He, ah, escorted my daughter over the Amber Road.”

“My wagon was attacked by bandits shortly after leaving Rexxentrum,” Guinevere elaborated. Swiftly, earnestly. “Oskar rescued me from their clutches and has since then gone out of his way to keep me safe the whole journey to the Coast.”

“Then I am in your debt, good sir,” Wensleydale said in a solemn tone, extending his hand for Oskar to shake. Oskar got it over with as quickly as possible. “You shall be well compensated. Ask anything of me, and it is yours.”

Oskar glanced at Guinevere. He couldn’t have helped it any more than he could have helped turning to the warmth of a roaring fire in the depths of winter. There was an ache in his chest that made it difficult to breathe. It was like being underground.

“That won’t be necessary,” he gritted out in response to Wensleydale’s offer.

The lord frowned. “Surely a man of your station must be in need of gold, or a mighty courser—”

“Oskar already has the finest warhorse in Wildemount,” Guinevere cut in. “In all of Exandria, as a matter of fact.”

Even Oskar knew that it was the height of rudeness to interrupt a noble. Illiard and Betha both looked like they were going to drop into dead faints, but Wensleydale was unperturbed. He shot Guinevere an indulgent grin. “Be that as it may, my dear, he surely requires some reward for his service.”

“I really don’t,” Oskar said curtly. This was the most humiliated he’d ever felt, but he would die before showing it. “As far as I’m concerned, I helped someone who needed my help, and any other traveler would have done the same for me. And that’s the end of the matter.”

Wensleydale sighed. “In that case, I insist that you come to the engagement ball I’m throwing in Miss Guinevere’s honor tomorrow night—and that you avail freely of my estate’s amenities until then, and for as long as you desire. I’ll have a room made up for you.”

Oskar’s first instinct was to refuse. He wasn’t going to a ball. If anyone back home found out, he’d never be able to show his face in the Dustbellows ever again.

But it occurred to him that staying two nights would probably be enough to assess Guinevere’s future well-being and find out if Illiard and Betha truly were hiding anything.

Then Guinevere turned to him with a beseeching expression that made a mockery of his flimsy attempt to resort to logic to disguise the plain and simple truth that screamed within him.

Namely, that he couldn’t bear to say goodbye to her just yet.

“Fine,” Oskar heard himself grunt. “I’ll stay until the day after tomorrow.”

“Wonderful!” said Wensleydale. “I have commissioned none other than the Opal of the Ocean to perform at the ball. It shall be a splendid evening.”

There was a long, expectant pause.

Suspicion began to kick in. “You’re not going to have me drawn and quartered if I don’t bow with gratitude, are you?” Oskar snapped at Wensleydale.

The noble threw back his golden head and let out a booming, urbane laugh. “You’re all right, Master Oskar.” He clapped Oskar on the shoulder. “You’re all right.”