Page 44 of Garden of Poisoned Delights

It was for Arthur, wherever he was, who’d never had the chance to meet the man his youngest son became, a noble knight who drank liquor and backtalked kings who tried to hang them.

When he’d apologized to Sabre by an empty grave, he’d left a flower, but flowers weren’t the same as something that had roots. If falling in love with Bazyli had taught him anything, it was that.

Perhaps with time, this seed would grow, and one day flower. Perhaps it wouldn’t. But it would have a chance.

CHAPTER 7

Good Boy

There were flowers in Ferrin’s office.

At first, he wasn’t sure if it was a ploy by King Adrien to ease his mood before asking for yet another wild favor. Adrien’s Hawks were causing chaos in Duciel already, thanks to a series of high-profile cases involving nobles exploiting their servants. The nobles were near pissing themselves, commoners were signing up for the Hawks in droves, and Sabre de Valois was handing over warrants with an air of barely-restrained delight. Adrien was well on his way toward either inciting a full-scale revolt or becoming a folk legend, and it was Ferrin’s job to somehow keep him alive.

Ferrin checked the card attached to the flowers and sighed as he recognized Silver’s looping handwriting.

“Don’t forget to eat lunch for once,” he read aloud. That was a moot point anyway, since he hadn’t made lunch in the first place.

Then he saw the tin next to the flowers, wrapped in a violet ribbon.

“Ah,” he said, tugging the ribbon free. The tin was full of buttery cookies. “Someone wants to be flogged today.”

Some submissives, like King Adrien, liked to appeal to their other halves by being insufferable brats. Even Sabre, who was a relatively reasonable fellow for a noble, was often found teasing his husband on the rare occasion they attended court together. When Silver wanted to be spanked, he was good. After all, spanking was a reward, wasn’t it?

There was even a handkerchief under the cookie tin, which likely meant he wanted to be spanked until he came. The embroidered S+F was just because Silver was…well, Silver. He was fond of little touches of whimsy and romance, Ferrin had learned.

It was remarkable, what he’d done to Ferrin’s life in such a short time. Ferrin was going to regular weekly dinners with his family. There were paintings on the walls of his small, once-featureless house, rugs on the floor, and curtains that blocked out the light in a desperate attempt to make Ferrin sleep in. He even took his days off instead of sneaking over to the palace for lack of anything else to do.

Now he had flowers and butter cookies as a secret code for spank me until I’m crying. Truly, the world was full of wonders.

Silver appeared at his office door just as the bell rang to mark the end of Ferrin’s shift. He’d artfully tousled his hair and was staring at Ferrin with the kind of doe-eyed fondness that made Ferrin so flustered, he didn’t know how to respond to it. Other men would have swept Silver up in their arms or called him my dove or my darling, but all Ferrin could do was nod in greeting and push away from his desk.

“You look so handsome,” Silver said.

That was also code, in its way. Silver probably wanted Ferrin to fling him over his desk then and there, but they had strict rules about that sort of thing after Ferrin had nearly given Silver a concussion with his knee when someone walked in while Silver was kneeling underneath the desk.

Ferrin walked over and tipped up Silver’s chin. Silver stood on his toes as Ferrin kissed him, and reached up to wrap a dark blue scarf around Ferrin’s neck.

“It’s getting cold out,” he said, a little breathlessly, as Ferrin drew back.

Ferrin adjusted the scarf. It was sturdy and soft, not like the wispy things the nobility shivered in for the sake of fashion. “Good boy.”

Silver beamed.

He was in rare form on the way home, walking with perfect posture, offering to carry Ferrin’s bag, and glancing sidelong at him every five seconds as though to reiterate can’t you see how good I am?

“You’re not exactly being subtle,” Ferrin told him, as he unlocked the front door.

“I like to think I’m being restrained,” Silver said, waiting for Ferrin to enter first, and then got to his knees to help remove his boots. “I almost sent you a proper lunch from the kitchens, but I figured that might be overdoing it.”

“You can just say you want to be turned over my knee.”

“But begging is fun,” Silver said. He blinked wide, sad eyes up at Ferrin. “Sir.”

Ferrin made a warning sound, and Silver laughed. Really, submissives didn’t know how much power they had—well, Silver probably did, and King Adrien. But the doms who thought all submissives did was look pretty and make appreciative noises clearly hadn’t met a brat or a good boy, because Ferrin was already on the verge of giving in, and he hadn’t even taken off his coat.

“I’ll start a fire,” Silver said, and went running off toward the hearth, which he had turned into a cozy nook complete with low cushions and a tray to hang cups for tea and chocolate. As a former thief, Silver was still a bit of a magpie, spending too much of his monthly stipend on barely useful but aesthetic decor. Ferrin felt guilty about it now and then, but he never spent much of anything. Besides, pretty things weren’t so terrible, really. They were starting to remind him of Silver. The week before, Ferrin had even bought, entirely on impulse, a porcelain figure of a crow painted gold just because he thought Silver might like it.

“It’s called being in love,” his sister told him once, after a family dinner. “Not that I bother with that nonsense.”

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