Page 62 of Searching for the Prince
Gwil guessed he must’ve started gettingtraction if Penelope was interested in being seen with him. Part of him wanted to tell her to sod off but he wasn’t the sort to cut off his nose to spite his own face.
“I’m not expecting anything to change between me and Hyax. I know he’s being made to marry someone else but it’s not like he’s going off to make a life with him. Yeah, it sucks that I don’t get to get to have the ceremony and whatever, but I still get him and that’s what I want.”
The car drew up outside Penelope’s townhouse in Pimlico. “Come in, I think we’ve things to discuss and it’s best they’re not done in the open.”
He bit back the comment that the car wasn’t in the open either, but Penelope was likely to have a decent selection of blood on hand and he wouldn’t admit it, but Ginger had left a bit of an aftertaste.
Gwil had only been here twice. The property belonged to Penelope’s husband’s family, and since he was Penelope’s brother from before she was turned, he wasn’t considered part of her sired family and he’d been made to use the side entrance.
A butler opened the door, and Penelope gave instructions for them to be served in the parlour and to have a room made up for her guest. He didn’t argue but he didn’t intend to stay. Hyax would be home at some point, and he would want to see him.When exactly he’d be back, Gwil didn’t know but he could do a good line in pining boyfriend while he waited.
The parlour—he wasn’t even aware townhouses still had parlours—was a reception room set up to show off the wealth of the inhabitants. Penelope had always wanted the best in life, and fair play to her, she’d got it by marrying Philip. If he wasn’t mistaken, there was a fucking Fabergé egg on the mantelpiece, along with several more ornaments that wouldn’t have looked out of place in the British Museum.
She ushered him into an armchair and the butler arrived with a carafe of blood and two glasses, which he served and promptly sodded off.
“You’re taking all this far more calmly than I would.”
“Didn’t you lob a bloke’s head off with a broadsword because he got blood on your dress once? I mean, we’ve always had a different approach to dealing with drama in our after-lives.”
“But this is different. You’ve been dumped?—”
“No, I’ve been demoted and only on paper,” he said. He might have trouble believing it, but he wasn’t going to have other people question what was going on. “Hyax has a role to play, he’s assured me that there’s been no change to his feelings towards me, and to be honest, I’m surprised his mum’s allowing him to still keep me around, never mind letting him give me a fancy title.”
“Prince’s Beloved does make you sound like he’s keeping you as a pet while he goes off and plays nice with another prince.”
He wasn’t going to dignify thepetdig with a response.
“There’s more to this than just royal families wanting to join forces. Solivatus told Hyax he’d uncovered financial irregularities.”
She pursed her lips. “What sort offinancial irregularities?”
“The Elementa were running low on funds at one point, but now they’re not and he wasn’t sure what caused the uptick in how they managed it.”
“It is more common than you’d think for old families, royal ones included, to run out of money. It’s not generally something they come back from.”
“Yeah, Solivatus didn’t seem to think them having run out of money was the issue, more the fact they now aren’t. Especially as he seemed to think it was recent.”
He drank his blood, it was good, really good, and poured himself a second glass, Ginger’s taste was now history.
“That suggests they were paid money to marry Metra off to Hyax. I know Hyax’s mum isn’t a big fan of yours, but I can’t see her forking out that sort of money to get rid of you when an assassin would be much cheaper.”
He hadn’t thought about it in those terms, but she was right. “We don’t think it’s his mum. But it might also be completely unrelated.”
“Since when did you believe in coincidences?”
He didn’t. He was convinced someone wanted Hyax married to Metra but who and why, he didn’t know. “I don’t. But buggered if I know. I don’t even know off the top of my head who’d have the funds to prop up a royal family.”
“There are several vampire families, and then there’s the dragons with their hordes. Other fae and elves, but it’s not really their thing.”
“I can’t see vampires and dragons meddling in fae politics in this way. Most of the vampire connections have been vocally supportive of me bagging a fairy prince.”
She snorted. “True, it’s been a salacious piece of gossip. Philip said the Council were very happy.”
Philip was her husband. “Was he the one who told you to be nice to me?”
“I’ve been nice to you before. But he did say it wouldn’t hurt for us to be on even better terms. And we like each other, most of the time.”
“I daresay I could get used to drinking blood of this calibre, if I had to.”
