Page 65 of If The Crown Fits
“Once. Do you remember the friend I told you about? The one I used to get in trouble with when I was younger?”
“Thatcher? Yes, I remember.”
“As we got older, Thatcher got involved in some gambling here and there. Most of the time he ended up drinking too much and they cheated him out of his money, but, once, he figured it out and got into a huge fight. I had to help him with some of the stitches so his parents wouldn’t find out.”
Before I could reply, the needle had already pierced my skin. I forced myself to be strong.
“I wonder where Benette is?” Talking helped to distract my mind from the wound, that and the feeling of Cai’s hands on me.
“Ray said he was going to get her,” Cai replied and didn’t give me time to answer before asking, “So, are you two lovers, then?”
If I hadn’t been so firmly planted on the table, I might have fallen off. “What? No, of course not. Ray is like my brother.”
“It’s certainly not how he sees it.”
I frowned at Cai. “Whatever gave you that impression?”
“I see the way he looks at you, it’s rather obvious.” He cut the excess thread and unrolled a bandage.
I shook my head as he wrapped the material around my leg.
“What am I really doing here, Lara?” Cai asked, his hand coming to rest on my thigh after tying the bandage. Did he sense that all of my focus was now drawn to the burning contact?
“I—” He looked at me as if he could find the answer in my eyes.
I didn’t get a chance to reply before the door burst open and Ray stood on the threshold. He looked surprised for a moment at the state of us, but quickly composed himself. Cai pulled away and my leg suddenly felt cold where his hand had been. I immediately pulled my skirt back down.
“Get dressed,” he said to Cai, tossing him a pile of clothes, which he caught without effort. “Can’t have people knowing there’s a prince in the camp.” Ray was right. There was enough tension as it was. Cai would have to keep his identity secret for the most part.
“Arthur wants to see you,” Ray told me and then looked Cai up and down again with an expression of distaste. “Both of you.”
I waited outside for Cai to get dressed, digging my bare feet into the ground.
It was one of the warmer summer nights and though it must have been the early hours of the morning, some people were still outside around the fires.
The way Cai looked surprised me for a moment as he exited the cabin.
His ruffled blond hair looked like he’d run some water through it and gone were the royal shirt and breeches, replaced with plain hunting trousers and a white linen shirt and some old boots. He almost looked like a bandit.
“Come along.” I walked to Uncle Arthur’s cabin with Cai following. The wooden door of the cabin creaked open. My uncle was seated at his table, looking at a map of Everness. Like all the other cabins, it was a single room. His worktable, where he spent most of his time, stood in the centre of the space. A few odd chairs, old and none of them matching, stood about the room, with a small bed in the corner. There was a trunk near his bed and I’d wondered since childhood what Uncle kept in there. Presumably weapons or something personal. Either way, he’d never let me go near it.
“Take a seat.” He motioned at the chairs on the opposite side of the table.
Cai and I each took a seat and watched as he poured us cups of wine.
“You have quite the tale to tell, Lara.” My uncle was tall, with the figure of a man who had once been a soldier. His eyes were dark to match his hair, but this had turned greyer in recent years.
“You disappear one morning and we all thought you were dead until Ray found you gallivanting around with the Prince of Norrandale.”
“It was a difficult job,” I replied.
“You’re not going to tell me much, are you?” My uncle knew me well enough.
“Unfortunately not everything went according to plan and now Prince Lance is after us, if he isn’t dead.”
“Lance has been after bandits for a long time, this is nothing new,” Uncle Arthur replied. “But with the King sick and the prince in a weak position, this could present some opportunitiesfor us. Except for the fact that you have managed to drag the future king of Norrandale into this.”
“Lance was going to kill him,” I said. “You and I both know he could prove to be useful to your cause. Cai has access to soldiers and weapons. The fall of the Evernean monarchy wouldn’t exactly be a loss for Norrandale.”
