Page 117 of With Fangs and Claws (The Wolf Queen 1)

But then I remembered Dane’s declaration at Pepin’s.

“We can’t,” I said, in a small voice. “If we do, we leave Pepin and all the others without protection. If the king found them…”

Weyland shook his head and sighed.

“I thought we might have a nice quiet little moment, just Weyland and Darcy, but of course, reality has to seep in. We’ve put ourselves in amongst something important.”

“And we have to see it to the end,” I finished for him. But as I considered our situation, my head jerked up. “But what if, tonight, we pretend we don’t? What if we act like there is only you and only me, and this house, of course? While we’re here, there is no past, nor a future.”

“Well, then.” His teeth glittered in the darkness. “That would be a fine thing indeed. Come inside, Darcy of the now, and be prepared to be amazed by my culinary genius.”

“You’re going to burn those eggs, aren’t you?”

“Probably. We’ll just scrape off the burned bits and call it good.”

There wasa strange kind of peace to food preparation. The kitchen was huge, but the lamps turned it into a cosy space, a timeless cocoon for us to hide within. Weyland washed the vegetables as I cracked the eggs into the bowl, then whisked them with milk before grating in some cheese. Weyland turned out to be an expert with the knife, dicing and slicing the cleaned vegetables with an ease that had me giggling.

“When I started in the army, as a young lad, my commanding officer didn’t take too kindly to my attitude,” he explained. “I thought as a prince that I was owed certain… privileges. Let’s just say that I very quickly became very proficient in digging latrines and peeling and cutting potatoes.” He stopped then, obviously having a little moment of reflection. “The man was a holy terror, but…” He smiled, all the golden brilliance that was Weyland on display, all the more so as he wasn’t consciously deploying his charm. “Dane tried to warn me, to get me to pull my head in, but I had to learn. Ellsworth, his name was. He was more of a father to me than my own ever was, helping me to become a human being rather than a spoiled brat and then honing me into an actual soldier.”

He shook his head and went back to chopping.

“Dane had tried to make me see since I was young, but it took the iron hand of Ellsworth to show me. I challenged him on my second day of latrine-digging duty.”

“No, you didn’t!” I gasped, remembering the brutal discipline of my father’s men. Young boys were schooled hard, through the process of being a squire, to respect the knights.

“I did. All of eleven years old. Mouth much bigger than my fists. He put a training sword in my hand and then ‘fought’ me. Spanked my arse with the flat of it each time he beat me, until finally I couldn’t get up again.”

He slid the chopped vegetables into the egg mixture in my bowl and then took over, mixing them through before setting a big pan on the griddle and dropping some butter into it with a sizzle.

“Sometimes you just have to face an equal and opposite force to realise your place in the world. In my case, it was an unequal one.” He shot me a sidelong smile as he eased the mixture in, the eggs instantly starting to bubble. “That was the moment I began to understand my brother. He saw what we pampered little bastards didn’t. Then he brought Gael home.”

“I wondered how he found his place here,” I said, moving to sit on a stool beside him. “Your father was obviously happy to leave him in Grania.”

“Dane used to intercept a lot of Father’s mail. He’s always been like that. Unable to just go along. He needs to know the hows and whys of everything, even if it used to enrage Father. But Dane never contradicted him or went against his orders, so Father couldn’t discipline him, not until he brought Gael home… Bugger.”

I peered at the frying pan, then watched him cut through the mass with a spatula, turning the dish from an omelette to scrambled eggs.

“Why the bloody hell did I say I'd do an omelette,” he muttered. “I’m terrible at them.”

“Scrambled eggs taste the same if that helps,” I said.

He paused for a second, turning to smile at me.

“Yes, I think it does.”

He focussed then on cooking the lot of it through. Once he’d finished the eggs and removed them from the griddle, he found what looked to be a fresh loaf of bread, slicing and buttering a few pieces before putting them on two plates and then spooning the eggs onto them. A little salt and pepper and mine was pushed towards me, along with a fork. Our fingers touched as I plucked it from his grasp and for a second, I just let the contact happen.

“Thank you, Weyland,” I said, meaning more than just for bread and eggs and I think he knew it.

They talked about grounding me all the time, but this? The kitchen might be grander, the china finer, but this was still a kitchen, we were still having a simple meal, as thousands of people were doing all over the continent. For a moment I imagined Cook and all the other kitchen hands settling down to eat their own meals after the dinner service was done, the only sound people chewing and the clunk of dishes in the sink as someone finished the washing up. Then I took a bite.

“Oh, gods…” I said, groaning, my voice muffled by the mouthful. I’d deprived my body of food so it seemed insistent on reminding me just how good it was, tastes exploding on my tongue. “What?” I asked after I chewed and swallowed, because Weyland just stared.

“Well, if I’d known I could get you making noises like that with my primitive bachelor dishes, I’d have cooked for you long ago,” he said, scooping up some eggs and holding them out for me.

“That’s yours,” I said.

“You’ll realise soon that everything that’s mine is yours,” he said, waving the fork around like a mother would for her obstinate child. “Now open up.”

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