Page 70 of The Traitor's Curse
“I wouldn’t try to kill you in any case, and it ought to go without saying. Your flippancy does you no credit, Your Grace,” Zettine snapped. “And as for you, Lord Benedict, I find your hilarity most unbecoming in the soon-to-be Lord Consort of Calatria.”
Benedict’s laugh cut off in a choke and a fit of coughing that resolved in a wheeze and a raspy, “I beg your pardon?”
Oh, bloody gods. I’d kill Zettine after all. A spike had his name on it, damn it. I’d do it, no matter what Benedict thought me capable of. Right after I sank through the floor and died of confusion.
“As you ought. And please do forgive me, Your Grace,” Zettine purred, eyes glittering. “I’d assumed you’d informed Lord Benedict of your intentions before discussing it with me.”
“Of course he did,” Benedict lied, more loyally than convincingly. “I merely—damn it,” he muttered under his breath. “Lucian, do you want me to arrest Lord Zettine and put him in a cell next to Clothurn’s, or don’t you?”
I eyed Zettine, baring my teeth. “Do I?”
“No,” he said, and cleared his throat, shooting a wary glance at Benedict. “I would offer you my study to talk to one another in private, Your Grace, but unfortunately I have an appointment for which I am now rather late. Perhaps you’ll do me the honor of sending for me when you wish to speak further.”
Tempted as I was to force Zettine to leave after all, and to have Benedict fuck me over his desk simply out of spite…no. And while it rankled to be dismissed so summarily, I did need to talk to Benedict. Urgently, thanks to Zettine’s malicious meddling.
“Attend me tomorrow morning at nine,” I said, and rose. “Expect to answer a great many more questions. And we’ll have a council meeting in the afternoon at two. Summon everyone, if you please, and make it clear that the summons comesfromme,throughyou.”
“As Your Grace wishes,” Zettine said, rising with me, all smiles now that he knew he’d wrongfooted me. Bastard. Maybe he’d only live a few more years, and I’d be rid of him via natural causes before I reached middle age. I could cling to that happy thought. “I’ll also speak to the ambassador today, with your permission. And inform him of the changes to the trade agreement.”
“Only if you make it very clear those changes are by my order and not yours,” I said.
Zettine stared me down. I held his gaze, vividly picturing his head on a spike.
Perhaps he’d been imagining the same thing, because he blinked first. “Very well. Until the morning, Your Grace. Lord Benedict.”
“My guards are out here,” I said to Bendict, and led the way out to the courtyard.
“I’m glad to hear it, for their sakes,” Benedict grumbled, low enough that only I could hear him. “When I didn’t see them in the anteroom I thought you might have come here unattended. As well as unwisely. I think that goes without saying.”
A guard shut the door behind us. The little courtyard held a row of cypress trees against the wall, two small lemon trees in pots, and a tiled area with a fountain. I walked away fromZettine’s study door and around to the other side of the fountain, where its splashing would prevent the guards from hearing our conversation. A light drizzle misted down, but it wasn’t really raining, more trying to make up its mind.
I turned to Benedict, mustering every bit of bravado I had left after dealing with Lord Zettine. He had his hands on his hips and his lips pressed together, an ominous gleam in his eyes.
I swallowed hard. “It was perfectly wise,” I said, “because I held all the cards this time. Zettine wants to live and he wants to remain Lord Chancellor, and if I generously refrain from executing him for murder and treason, he’s going to be perfectly reasonable. Mostly. Anyway, I didn’t need your permission. Besides, why should it need to go without saying, when I know you’ll bloody well say it?”
Benedict took another step forward, crowding me into the nearest cypress. Its wet needles poked me in the back of the neck, and icy drops trickled under my collar.
“Anything more to add?” he asked. “Or are you going to keep babbling and hope I forget you apparently told Lord Zettine we’re getting married? And for the record, you ought to have waited for me. That man’s a rabid wolf in silken sheep’s clothing.”
“A wolf with no viable candidate to replace me on the throne, and so he’s stuck with me. He admitted as much. And as for getting married, no, I didn’t—you misunderstood!”
“Soon-to-be Lord Consort,” Benedict quoted. Another step brought us toe to toe, and I had to tip my head back into the cypress. Now I had wet needles in my hair. I should’ve been cold, but I felt hot all over, restless, almost frantic. “I didn’t misunderstand. As I recall, you accused me of making a deal with Zettine behind your back to legalize it so that I could rule through you after all. Do you remember that? Hmm?”
“But I—I don’t need to rule through you,” I stammered.Damn it, I should’ve talked to Benedict first, but Zettine wouldn’t be in this conciliatory mood forever. He’d probably be permanently more loyal out of self-interest, but that wouldn’t make him yielding, either. If I wanted to have the option of marrying Benedict someday, I had to strike while the iron was hot! “And anyway, you said it was impossible. I know you don’t want to marry me, Benedict. You don’t want to be anywhere near the throne. You convinced me of that. I just wanted to see if Zettine would, ah, cooperate, if I suggested that he might sponsor an amendment to the marriage laws.”
Benedict leaned in, eyes flashing. “Yes,Isaid it was impossible,” he growled, “right afteryousaid it sounded like a horrid thought. I love you! And you think I’m the one who doesn’t want to marry you? But finding you talking it over with him, when I’d already panicked wondering where the fuck you’d gone, until Mattia admitted it—don’t fuck with me, Lucian. I know you’ve had a hell of a time. But so have I. There’s a limit to how much I can take.”
Now I’d gone cold all over, and it had nothing to do with that blasted tree, or the rain, which had started to come down again in tiny stinging drops.
“You mean you’ll leave me,” I said, barely able to get the words out—and only realizing once I had that he couldn’t. No matter how much he eventually wanted to. And that was even worse.
Benedict’s expression softened. “No. Not even if I could. But you have to be honest with me. And yes, I know that’s a bit ironic, coming from me. You haven’t forgiven me, and maybe you never will, but Lucian. You said you held all the cards with Zettine? How many of them do you think you have with me? Have a little mercy.”
The staccato patter of raindrops striking tile picked up its pace, and frigid water flecked my face and scalp. Benedict leanedforward, curling around me, sheltering me with his body. For a moment I was standing on that balcony again where I’d watched him with Clothurn the day Fabian died. I’d been alone, and wanting, and bitterly jealous.
Now I had him right here, warm and solid and strong andmine, gazing down at me and asking me for mercy, of all things, when he’d probably never begged before in his life.
Mercy. From me. When I’d have been grateful for a scrap of his attention, little though I’d have admitted it, only a month ago.
