Page 13 of Crowning His Innocent Assistant

“Of course,” she said, closing the distance and handing him his coffee.

“You did not make one for yourself?”

“I do not avail myself of the pantry outside of the hours the staff eat, sire.”

“You should. You must. You’re still far too thin.”

Irritation twitched in her brows. “Forgive me, Your Majesty, but do you always pass judgment upon the physical form of those who work for you?”

“No,” he said, “but I do find that I’m concerned for yours. You were quite poorly when I found you, I cannot forget it.”

“No more poorly than I had been in any of the preceding years. I survived.” She lifted a shoulder. “As one does.”

“Unless one doesn’t.”

She frowned slightly as if considering this. “True. But I did. And continue to do so.”

“Admirable.”

“You have also survived,” she said. And then she did something wholly unexpected. She sat down on the bed, not close enough to him that he would think she was making an attempt at seduction, but down at the end of it. A strange show of solidarity, he felt. Oddly unexpected and... He could not think of the last time a woman, a person, had sat with him in this way. Certainly not in a state of undress. Certainly not in the middle of the night.

When he was naked with women in his room, it was not to chat.

“I have nightmares,” she said softly. “There were nights on the street when I did not think I would live to see morning. I slept with a knife in my hand, carefully concealed for I had to be ready. To wake up and stab an attacker if the moment presented itself.”

His chest went tight. “And did it?”

“Oh, on several occasions. When the weather gets warm, things get difficult. When it is cold, people hunker down, go to their caves, certainly they avoid accosting women in alleyways. But summer... It was beautiful, and in many ways a more comfortable time to be homeless in Monte Blanco. For the weather here can be glorious. But... Yes, then you must worry about an increase of marauders in the street. And all that they might try and take from you.”

“Did you ever consider living away from the city streets?”

She looked away from him, picking at thread on the blanket. “I did at times. But there you have the pressing concerns of wolves, bears. And my weapons, small as they are, are more effective against men. Men are much softer.” She grinned, wide enough that he could see it through the darkness. “Though, I find wolves and bears to be less predatory, of a general rule.”

“You do not have a high opinion of men.”

“I didn’t. But I had yet to see much of the good in them. You have given me something else to consider. I think you should be quite proud of that.”

He didn’t quite know how to react to that. It was a strange sort of compliment issued by such a low creature. He found that it warmed him. For it mattered, that he was not his father. For that man had been a monster; a man with no compassion in his soul.

And he had done his best to bleed Matteo of it as well.

Yet sitting across from Livia seemed to indicate that he perhaps had not succeeded. She was the first real indicator that perhaps his father had not had a complete victory in the war over Matteo’s soul. Yes, he had purpose to be a fair leader, a good leader. One thing he had never understood about his father, though, was his comfort in being king of the trash heap. Would it not have been better to be king of a country with a thriving economy, with a reputation for caring for its citizens? Why hoard all the gold in your castle? Wasn’t it better to behave as if the citizens of this nation mattered? He had never been convinced of his own goodness, he had merely determined, logically, to be different. Livia made him feel that perhaps there was more, and he wanted to hold to it.

“Tell me what you dream of.”

“It is not a good bedtime story.”

“Well, neither of us are sleeping. And neither of us are children. I wonder if I ever was one.”

“I am the same,” he said.

It was a strange thing, for he and his brother had both been raised by the same man, but they had been so very separate. Javier had endured his own form of pain brought about when he’d realized what a monster their father was. Matteo had always known. He had never been fighting the good fight of the king before him. It was the reason he had kept a wedge between himself and his brother, until Javier became suspicious of different war tactics he’d been asked to take, and his illusion of his father had been shattered.

Matteo never held such illusions. But Matteo had been the heir and his father had not been able to contain his cruelty in Matteo’s presence. No. He had appealed to what he had seen as Javier’s sense of honor, and had lied to him about the missions he led the military on. But with Matteo... He had sought to twist him in the same ways he was, and when Matteo did not comply, he was forced to endure physical torture.

His father had been so certain he could train into Matteo the kind of ruthlessness that he possessed. But Matteo simply did not yield. He would not.

In his dreams, though, sometimes he did.

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