Page 46 of The Traitor's Curse
“I’m sorry,” I managed at last, as the horrid silence stretched. “You must think I’m pathetic. I think I’m pathetic. Iknow I ought to be thinking about what to do next. And I will, I promise. I’ll get over it in a mom—”
“It’s not just that fucking cretin who loves you, Lucian. Not when you’re—damn it, look at me!”
He caught me by the chin and turned my head up to face him. Resisting wouldn’t have done any good, not that I wanted to—not when I found him bending down, peering at me as intently as if he wanted to see into my soul. A muscle ticked in his jaw.
“I have no doubt you’re more beloved than you know,” he said, very low. His other hand had come to my waist, somehow, his arm sliding around me. His attempt at a smile didn’t convince me at all, and it came nowhere near his troubled eyes. “Probably you have a dozen courtiers pining over you at this moment. Writing terrible poetry about your rose petal lips. That idiot who was flirting with you when I arrived last night seems like the type.”
“Even good poetry isn’t much use to me, although thank you for your suggestion that only idiots would address it to me in the first place.”
He didn’t even pretend to laugh at that. Anger built in me like a banked fire flaring up in response to fresh fuel, and I welcomed it in the place of some of my betrayal and grief. Damn it, he didn’t need to find my halfhearted jests amusing, but he also shouldn’t treat me like an idiot! He didn’t want me for more than quenching his curse or putting me on my knees—and he expected me to believe he thought someone else would?
“Don’t patronize me, Benedict. No one’s pining. And even if they were, it’s not the same. Tavius—” and my voice broke again, damn it all, “—is my cousin, and the only real family I have left. Unless I count you. And we can’t even agree on whether we are family, or on whether it’d be worse if we are or aren’t! Areyougoing to claim to love me, or—ow!”
“I’m sorry, fuck,” he muttered, and let go of my jaw where his fingers had dug in painfully.
But he didn’t release me altogether, the arm around my waist only pulling me closer. Close enough that I could’ve stretched a few inches and pressed my lips to the side of his neck. Caught that ridiculous ruby earring between my teeth and tugged on it, made him gasp. My heart beat faster and my cock thickened, pressing against the front of my trousers.
“Lucian,” he whispered, his breath ruffling my hair and tickling the top of my ear. “Do you want me to tell you I love you? Hmm?”
What I wanted was for him to throw me down on the rug before the fire, strip me bare, force my legs open and take me. That was better than anything anyone could say to me, because at least his lust was honest. And for a few minutes I might forget about everything else.
Oddly, I didn’t think he was mocking me. But his pity might be even worse.
“For the gods’ sakes, no,” I said, and put my hands on his hips—and pushed him away, even though I thought I might break in half as I stepped back, my fingers not wanting to release him. His arm felt like steel around me, unbreakable, but at last he let it drop. “I’ve had enough of being lied to for one day.”
Benedict turned away from me and back to the sideboard. He didn’t bother with the punch, going straight for the brandy decanter. Like a fool, I wished I hadn’t made him let me go. Gods. At least he wouldn’t see me rubbing my eyes.
When I blinked them open again, the dining parlor was exactly the same: the table laid, the silver covers gleaming, a few drops of rain spattering the windows.
And yet everything was different, just as it had been in the moments after I’d heard my father had died, and after I’d seen his body, and after I’d found Fabian’s. Less genuine, as if Icouldn’t quite feel real in a world where everything I’d thought I could depend on had turned out to be false. A flimsy stage set with props. Would I ever have a crucial juncture in my life after which everything would be different and alsobetter? Probably not.
Benedict put down the empty brandy glass with a click.
“All right,” he said roughly. “Only the truth for you, then, if you insist. You have two choices. You can arrest Tavius now on suspicion of treason, lock him up and interrogate him. Or you can give him enough rope to hang himself with and watch him while he plays it out.”
My stomach churned. I had to swallow down bile before I could say, “No. No, I won’t be—I won’t turn into my father. Imprisoning my relatives. Assuming the worst of everyone. If I’d wanted to reign like that I’d have clapped you in magic-suppressing irons long ago, wouldn’t I?”
Benedict’s laugh didn’t have any humor in it. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten you threatened to. And I agree that he should be left at liberty, but not because I think he deserves any benefit of the doubt. Your father assumed the worst of people who’d never hurt anyone,” he said, his face twisting with fury, his tone laced with venom.
Had my father executed or exiled one of Benedict’s friends? Or…someone he loved? The constriction in my ribs ratcheted up a notch. Was that why Benedict had never spent more than a couple of nights with anyone? If he’d never stopped grieving for a lost love, pining for what could never be, then anyone who basked in his smiles or melted under his touch or surrendered to his kisses was a fool, doomed to disappointment and heartbreak.
“You’re not your father,” he went on. “You’re nothing like him. Nothing at all. He’d have had Lord Tavius strung up with his feet in the fire here in the dining parlor, and I’ll be honestwith you, I’m tempted myself, bloody bastard. But Tavius wasn’t glad Fabian was dead. Quite the contrary. He’ll be out to pick a quarrel with whoever killed him, and all we need to do is let him lead us to his co-conspirators. And then I’ll be happy to do all the stringing up you could want. More than happy.”
Happy to do all the stringing up I could want? Gods. With Tavius’s feet in the fire. Surely Benedict would have the decorum to go downstairs to the dungeons for that and spare the dining parlor rugs.
I’d been trying to maintain some appearance of strength, but I’d had it. Two steps took me to the chair Benedict had been sitting in, and I dropped into it, elbows on my knees and head hanging down, and sucked in as much air as my lungs could manage.
My father had spent years suspecting his various relatives and vassals of betraying him, and his methods of dealing with possible treason had been harsh, dreadful, and often final.
Ironic, really, that I might truly have a treasonous cousin, and I didn’t think I’d be able to do what needed to be done and still look myself in the mirror afterward.
“He should’ve chosen you as his heir after all,” I muttered. “I am nothing like him, and I’m not sure I have the stomach to be. Why did you say I’d do him proud, then? The morning you left Calatria. I’ve always wondered.”
“I should never have said that.” I glanced up sharply, shocked out of my misery by Benedict’s anger. His eyes blazed as he looked down at me, lips pressed flat.
I shrugged. “We both said a few things that perhaps we ought not to have. But you did say it. And that he was right about me.” Without stopping to consider, I added, “You have no idea how much it bothered me, thinking about what the hell that meant.”
Benedict shook his head. “I’d have bet every silver crownin my pocket that you didn’t spare a single thought for me after I left.”
