Page 15 of The Traitor's Curse
Chapter Six
My eyes opened. A whitewashed ceiling. Not my ceiling, I had a blue velvet canopy over my bed. I shoved up to sitting, groggy and disoriented, what the fuck had—right.
Fabian. Dead.
Benedict.
Benedict’s bedroom, and Benedict’s bed.
He hadn’t closed the curtains the night before, and the same subdued winter sunlight I’d expected flowed in through the room’s two large windows, but it illuminated a painfully austere room, all dark wood and bare surfaces rather than my own richly carved and upholstered furniture and plush rugs.
A soldier’s room, despite the fact that Lord Benedict Rathenas had never been a common soldier in his life.
Footsteps from beyond the open doorway had me tensing up, quickly shoving my hair out of my eyes—dark blond waves looked like a tangled, dirty mophead if slept on improperly, and I’d slept about as improperly as possible—and trying to blink the bleariness of sleep away.
Benedict strolled in a moment later, unfairly alert for someone who’d spent most of the night cleaning up a murder and the rest somewhere other than his own bed. He bore with him the faint scent of coffee, which might account for his sharp eyes and upright posture. Damn him anyway.
Damn him twice for not thinking to bring me any.
But if he’d been up long enough to have had his breakfast,and the sun had risen all the way…
“What time is it?” I asked, suddenly alert too despite his rude oversight. I had meetings this morning. An appointment with the Guildmaster for the Calatrian weavers and woolen cloth merchants. Possibly more fish-related documents.
And Benedict to bend over for. A tremor went through me.
“A few minutes past eight.” Oh, gods, I had my first meeting at half past. I flung the blankets back, and Benedict stepped forward, shaking his head. “And no, before you get frantic, I already informed your secretary that you’ll be keeping to your private quarters until noon. Or mine, as the case may be, but I didn’t bother informing him about that.”
I gaped up at him. “You had no right to take such a liberty! Why would I do that? Damn it, I spend every waking moment proving—” Fuck, I couldn’t saythat I’m fit to rule. “—demonstrating my dedication to Calatria, and lounging about my bedchamber half the day simply isn’t, isn’t what I do,” I finished lamely.Going to impress anyone. I couldn’t say that either.
Benedict arched one thick brow at me. “I don’t know, Lucian. Your valet, who’d served your family since long before you were born, tragically dropped dead in front of you, and then you were up the rest of the night. Maybe you need a few hours to sleep. Or mourn. Or simply be alone with your thoughts. Besides, you’re the duke, you don’t need an excuse.”
“I don’t need—I need more of an excuse, not less, in fact. And of all the absurdities. Spend an entire morning grieving my valet?” I could only imagine Zettine’s pungent commentary on that kind of sentimental foolishness. And Benedict… “Didn’t you accuse me of having the vapors last night? Are you trying to make me look the fool to the entire court?”
Oh, gods. He was. I rolled the rest of the way out of bed,ready to fight my way out of the room if I needed to.
“You bastard,” I hissed. “All of that bullshit about not wanting the throne. You’re going to use ‘allying’ with me as your opportunity to—”
“Lucian, for the love of the gods, shut up!” Benedict’s voice cracked like a whip, and I stumbled back a step against the bed, nearly falling onto it again. He stared at me for a moment in silence, and then said, almost gently, “Do you really have no idea at all what people think of you? What they—don’t you remember what everyone said about you when you took your father’s seat in the council the day he died?”
I remembered very clearly what Benedict had said to my face, at least. His anger, and his contempt. And then he’d left.
“I had no choice. You damn well know I had no choice. If I’d waited even a few days, the vultures would’ve gathered. You probably would’ve ended up the duke after all, as you claim not to want.”
Benedict’s jaw worked, and he let out a hollow little laugh. “Believe me, I wouldn’t have allowed it. And I do know you had no choice. But you didn’t even bother to act like you gave a damn about Treviso’s death, and no one more than a step removed from the throne understood why you had to take control immediately without taking time to be a son, rather than a ruler. Everyone in Calatria thinks you’re arrogant, self-centered, and as cold as a fish. And possibly that you killed him yourself.”
“That’s ridiculous,” I snapped, the offensively accurate sting of his words heating my cheeks and sending an odd, twinging pain down under my ribs. Fabian had certainly thought I’d killed my father myself. And…a fish? A fuckingfish? He had to use that word of all the ones he could have chosen? “Of course I didn’t kill him and of course I gave a damn about his death. You were there. And—he was my father, of course I cared, but I had to maintain decorum!”
As I had last night when I’d stood and stared out the window as Fabian’s pathetic corpse was carried away by strangers, or when I’d forced down my nausea while my father ordered executions, standing by pale but otherwise unmoved.
All the moments I’d hidden myself away, desperate to appear as strong and capable and brave as…Benedict, for example.
“It’s required of me in my position to remain rational in a crisis,” I told him, lifting my chin and giving him my best disdainful down-the-nose stare. “I don’t expect you to be capable of comprehending it.”
“Yes,” he said. “That’s why they see you that way. Exactly that.”
“What? What’s what? Benedict, I need to—”
“What you need to do is relieve my curse as you agreed to do. Do I need to gag you?” he demanded. I choked out a denial, and he took a step closer, making all the skin on the front of me prickle with awareness. Gag me? He wouldn’t dare! But I found that I couldn’t keep talking and run the risk, either. “No? Good. You may not care what anyone thinks of you, but it won’t do your reputation any harm to be seen to care a tiny bit that a man you’ve known all your life is dead.”
