Page 6 of The Flame and the Forsaken

Mariel forced a smile.“I ken she will.”

“Perhaps your brother could take over helping her?” There was no malice in Hestia’s expression, but just because she didn’t say what she was thinking didn’t mean Mariel didn’t hear it just the same.We both know he can hardly take care of himself, and we both know why.

“One day, perhaps,” Mariel said tightly.

“If not, I’m sure we can find someone suitable for her. We certainly won’t let her suffer.” Hestia divided her attention equally between them. “I’m afraid I’ll be leaving just after morning meal. Your father needs to travel to Port Worthing this afternoon to sign some documents relating to the auction. I’d forgotten my promise to the stewardess that I’d share some of my lace patterns with her, so I’m joining him.”

Mariel perked, pretending her thrall was for the fruit on her plate. An overheard conversation between Erran and his father on their handfast night had been her first awareness the auction even existed, but with Erran gone for months, she’d been relegated to the background of important matters.

“Port Worthing?” Erran asked, after chewing a mouthful of meat—tidily, with his mouth closed and a napkin against his lips.

Mariel almost laughed imagining him try to fit in with her friends as they passed a sloppy mug around the campfire and tossed picked-clean bones of rabbits and foxes at each other across the flames.

“I thought they were holding it in Sandymount?”

“Port Worthing is where they’re performing inventory and storing the gold until it’s time.”

Port Worthing and Sandymount,Mariel thought, her heart racing. It was far more than she had any right knowing, so it was important her disinterest was convincing. But when she tried to take a bite, she was so focused on the conversation, she missed her mouth.

Erran waved his fork. “I still don’t understand why we’re having this auction. Or why we’re entitled to sell the land at all when we don’t rightly own it. Are we starved for gold?”

Hestia sent a cautious glance Mariel’s way. She folded her hands atop the table. “If you have questions, Erran, your father is the one they belong to.” With a sigh, she turned her eyes toward the window. “You know, I can see why he wanted this place. Have you ever known such true quiet?”

Mariel watched, amid a glimmer of hope, as Erran processed his mother’s words. He’d come so close to seeing the problem when he’d reminded his mother the auction was nothing but stolen goods. But he only nodded and returned to his food, leaving Mariel deflated and foolish for thinking there might be more to him.

“Mariel, will you join me briefly in the gardens before I leave?” Hestia asked, though it was not a question at all.

“Of course, Stewardess,” Mariel said, nodding low in the appropriate reverence for her mother-in-law. Acting was not a skill Mariel had expected to collect on her journey, but it had proved as useful as any other she’d honed, especially now that she was no longer looking in on the enemy’s lair but was right in the center of it.

“I’ve told you, pet. Mother will do.” Hestia smiled. “Shall we then?”

Mariel followed the woman down a small staircase and out a narrow door leading to one of the few things that remained intact from when Mariel had run and played there: her grandmother’s garden. But though it hadn’t been plowed over, neither had it been tended, and as a result, it had become overgrown and unruly. Only time kept it from being the next victim of the Rutlands’ plundering.

“The adjustment hasn’t been easy on you, has it?” Hestia asked as she dodged a thatch of thorny weeds. “Marriage is often so hard in the early days, especially for women.”

Mariel wasn’t sure what answer the stewardess was looking for, what words would satisfy her. “I’ve endured harder times.”

“You have, haven’t you?” Hestia’s sidelong smile was genuine, warm. “You’ve lost so much, Mariel. Indeed, more than most your age ever should. Now, you may have been conscripted into this family on account of my son’s unseemly behavior in Warwicktown, but Idowant you to feel like you’re one of us. To feel at home in all our homes. Is there anything I can do toward this effort?”

Hestia had been nothing but kind to her, but the woman’s smooth manner served as a reminder she could withdraw her warm cordiality with a flick of her wrist. She might have started her marriage in similar circumstances to Mariel, but she was all Rutland now. “Nay. But thank you.”

“I realize you were brought up in a very different world than I was. Women had to workandrear their bairns. But you’ll have a dozen governesses at your disposal, should you desire them. You needn’t give anything up, as long as you’ve done your duty. And while we as women have many tasks and errands and responsibilities, we have butoneduty, no?”

Mariel hadn’t yet addressed, even to herself, the pressure from all sides to bear Erran’s children. It had always been her hope that she’d get what she needed and she could simply... disappear. But if her mission failed... if something went amiss and they were forced back to the start...

No. She couldn’t even consider it.

“And my son is a most comely man, with many achievements already behind him and far more ahead. Marriage into our family has afforded you a level of comfort and access you’d never have known otherwise.” Hestia stopped and looked directly at her. “You’re fortunate is what I’m saying, Mariel. More than you seem to realize.”

Tears of anger sprang into her eyes.Fortunate?And whose fortune were they standing upon at that very moment? Whose fortunes had built every brick... weaved every tapestry in their gilded life? And how could Hestia Rutland even say such words when sheknewshe was standing on stolen Ashdown land? Was she so blind to her husband’s own faults that she’d lost any semblance of perspective? “Have I done something to compel you to say these things?” Mariel couldn’t help asking.

Hestia balked slightly. “It’s rather what you have not done, dear.”

“We’ve been married three months, and he’s been away for all of it,” Mariel replied, her defensiveness mounting.Careful.

“But now he’s home. And a child will never happen at all if you refuse his bed,” Hestia answered smoothly. “There are no whispers that do not return to my ears. Oh, love.” She sighed. “You could do so much worse, but you’d never do better.”

Mariel recoiled, stung. “Stewardess?—”

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