Page 19 of The Traitor's Curse
Fuck him anyway. I bent as quickly as I could and forced my other foot into the trousers, tugging them up and haphazardly getting a button through a buttonhole, any buttonhole. Enough to keep them on my hips.
When I turned, defiantly lifting my chin and ready to meet his sneer, I found him not paying any attention to me at all, his back to me as he splashed some water on his face from a basin on the washstand.
My fists clenched. What a fucking son of a bitch.
A completely unselfconscious and unashamed son of a bitch, powerful legs spread so that he could lean over the basin athis ease, heavy balls swinging, the muscles in his back and broad shoulders shifting as he rubbed at his face and ran his hands through that absurd hair of his.
Hatred boiled up from my churning belly, hot and vicious, choking and stifling me.
If I’d had magic, his back would’ve burst into flames. Maybe he’d given me some, when he spilled in me…but no, he didn’t even smolder, no matter how I glared. Damn it all.
Another hot ribbon of come wound its way down my leg, dampening my trousers. My abdomen shuddered oddly, half disgust and half…I swallowed hard.
“I presume that your curse is relieved for the time being,” I said, proud of how cold I sounded, how unmoved. The same skills I’d practiced for public appearances applied here, too. “I mean to bathe extremely thoroughly and then go about my duties, if you have no further objections.”
“None at all,” Benedict said, with a toss of his head and a final scrub of his face.
He turned and set his hands on his hips, looking me up and down with an expression I couldn’t parse. I’d resented his indifference. Now I wished he’d kept his back to me, because that piercing gray gaze and a fresh sight of his enormous cock had me flushing again.
“I’ve doubled the guard on the ducal apartments,” he went on. “I’ve left the men you chose and added some I trust most. One of each will stay at their posts, and when you leave, the other two will accompany you. And I won’t be far behind, but I have some business of my own first.” He bared his teeth at me in a flashing grin. “Bathing extremely thoroughly, to start with.”
Oh, that—I gritted my teeth together and drew a deep breath. How dare he insult me the same way I’d insulted him!
“At least you’re aware of your own stench,” I said, and moved for the door. Maybe I’d thought of a good retort, butI’d get the worst of this exchange if I stayed too long. “You’ve imparted it to me, and now we’re both vile. See that you’re less so by the time you wait upon me in my study.”
His low laughter followed me out of his bedroom, through his sitting room, and into the corridor. I slammed his door behind me, but it rang in my ears all the way to my own bedroom.
It was very hard to convince myself I’d had the last word.
Chapter Seven
Running my own bath, laying out my own clothing, and dressing without assistance didn’t present any particular challenge. In fact, I preferred it, and I’d been suffering Fabian with very poor grace since my father’s death.
But his absence hit me even harder than I’d expected in the unforgiving light of day.
This wasn’t any nightmare.
Someone had tried to kill me. They’d succeeded in murdering Fabian. And no matter how many precautions I’d taken or how many times I’d braced myself to expect it…I hadn’t. Not really. Not viscerally. My father had made so many enemies through his own actions that I could imagine dozens of people who would’ve killed him for revenge, or to prevent him from continuing on his deadly course of paranoia and violence.
But I’d executed no one but the usual handful of murderers, rapists, and violent robbers that any ruler had to condemn. I’d done nothing but work for Calatria’s best interests.
And yet some person, or likely more than one, had chosen to put deadly poison in a cup I had been meant to drink. That person had probably spent this morning frustrated, confused, or afraid of the consequences—my only real, if cold, comfort.
That and Benedict, who’d promised to keep me alive, and for whose help I’d already paid such a high price.
Every time I bent or stretched, the warm ache between my legs reminded me of it. No bath could completely remove thetraces of him.
Could he keep me alive? And would he? Did his mysterious “business” include causing a hubbub in the kitchens and setting off exactly the sort of rumors and gossip I needed to avoid? I’d been too angry to ask him. Not that he would’ve given me a straight answer—or obeyed any contradictory commands of mine—in any case. Besides, he’d almost certainly been vague solely in order to annoy me. Overseeing training, inspecting weapons stored in the armory, adjudicating disputes between hot-tempered officers, and all the other minutiae of leading an army occupied most of his time, and today would be no different.
Trailed by my two guards, including an intimidatingly silent tall fellow I’d never seen before, I left my rooms and made my way downstairs. The whole palace felt quiet. Too quiet? Surely all of the servants hadn’t conspired against me and then fled. But the paranoia persisted, and I had to exercise every bit of my self-control not to jump at every noise and shadow.
My meetings were jarringly but reassuringly normal. The wool merchants’ guildmaster scolded me—with, he insisted, all the respect due to me—for allowing foreign tradesmen to import cotton, and no matter how I tried to convince him that woolen undergarments were unpopular for a reason, he remained unmoved. And there were indeed more fish-related documents to sign.
As the door closed behind the clerk carrying away the ream of paper my morning had generated, I took a moment to lean on my desk, sigh, and rub my temples, for once not caring about my secretary seeing me in a moment of weakness. The events of the night had left me lightheaded with exhaustion, and Benedict had left me in a state I didn’t even have words for. Sitting straight in my chair without shifting my weight to try to relieve the aching emptiness between my cheeks had been torturously endless. My stomach gurgled, speaking ofemptiness. But a glance at the clock on my desk told me I had less than half an hour before I needed to appear in court, crowned and robed and dignified, to dispense the duke’s justice.
“What will you have for lunch, Your Grace?” Mattia asked me, his tone on the border of sympathetic, something that might have annoyed me from someone else. He’d been my secretary since long before my father’s death, and he was one of the few people in Calatria I thought might actually respect me.
“Coffee and sandwiches will need to do,” I told him, and sent him off to the kitchens, hoping that his personal oversight might be enough to ensure I’d survive my hasty meal.
