Page 35 of Heart of Winter
Oliver stood, his pulse bumping just a little too hard. He’d been called a pessimist, but he preferred to think of it as having a sense for the edge of disaster. “She went riding with the princes.”
“She did?” Erik asked, sharply.
“Should…she not have?”
“No, it’s only–” He gave a sharp, long-suffering sigh. “Those boys,” he muttered.
“They’re young and eager – about everything,” Oliver said. “But I’ve not seen them behave in any sort of unseemly way toward Tessa.”
“No, but.” Erik’s jaw flexed with obvious frustration. “I’ve spoken with them – Leif istwenty-two, he’s well past the age for boyish games, and Rune knows better than to turn this into some sort of competition.”
Oliver thought of the conversation he’d overhead between Erik and Birger, Erik’s relenting, his assertion that he would let Tessa have her pick of the boys. He couldn’t admit to having witnessed that exchange, but it gave him hope that most of what he was seeing now was a kind of show.
Oliver said, “What if Tessa and Leif don’t suit? What if her heart leads her in a different direction?”
Erik’s gaze narrowed. “You wantRuneto be the Duke of Drakewell?”
“All I want is for Tessa to be as happy as she possibly can be.”
The king studied him a moment, before his brow cleared, a quiet disbelief breaking across his face. “You’re serious.”
“I tend to be, yes.”
“Whatever her choice,” Erik said, “your family will be displaced either way. The next duke will not be a Drake.”
“Lucky for me, I’m not a Drake either, so I don’t care about that.”
Erik’s head tipped.Come on, his look said.You don’t believe that.
“I’m only plain Oliver Meacham. Titles and legacies have nothing to do with me.”
Erik didn’t look convinced.
“I’ll just go up and see if she’s changed and ready for supper.”
Someone slapped him on the back with a glad cry as he left the library – and then had to grab his elbow to keep him from staggering forward and smashing his nose against the opposite wall.
“Whoa, whoa!” It was Magnus’s laughing voice. And when Oliver recovered, and turned, found him and his brother, Lars, kitted out and serving as Erik’s guard retinue this evening. “Sorry, lad, I don’t know my own strength sometimes.”
Or my lack of strength,Oliver thought, sourly, but scraped together a smile. “Hello, Magnus. Lars.”
“At the books, eh? It’s quite the collection, though I’m not one for reading myself.”
Oliver didn’t think a king’s personal guards should be so talkative on the job – or, rather, he’d never seen such a thing before, and thought it might have said something complimentary about Erik that he didn’t put a stop to that sort of thing.
He finally managed to extricate himself from the conversation, went upstairs – and found that Tessa was not in her room.
“Back again so soon?” Magnus asked when Oliver returned to the library.
“Yeah,” he said, distracted, and stepped back through the door. Erik was at a table with a book, but looked up sharply at the hurried sound of Oliver’s footfalls, a rhythm that matched the staccato beating of his heart. “Tessa’s not in her room.”
“She’s not?”
“No, and I don’t think–”
Erik lifted a hand in a soothing gesture, and stood. “She probably just stopped for a mug of cider in the kitchens. We’ll go and see.”
~*~
