Chapter 8 Seraphina
Chapter eight
Seraphina
The sight of Alyx curled atop Rogue blurred behind the sudden sheen of tears welling up in her eyes until her beloved usuru was a mere streak of blue and green atop a blanket of white. Duchess Edith was always so…calm, so steadfast, so sure of everything.
Please, she prayed while gently easing her arm out of her godmother’s hold so she could raise her hands to wipe away her tears before they could ever fall. Grant me at least a fraction of her courage and confidence.
With a tender smile, Duchess Edith leaned in close and pressed a kiss against her cheek. “And at least the man already cares about your well-being,” she observed, a teasing note now edging her voice. “That is a good start.”
“What?” Seraphina asked, nearly choking on the humorless laugh bubbling up in her throat. She hadn’t the faintest idea what the Crow actually cared about, but she couldn’t imagine she made the list at all. No. Absolutely not.
A sudden knock sounded at the door, luring all eyes that way.
Duke Percival pushed himself to his feet with a groan. “Yes? Who is it?”
When the guards posted outside the door opened it to reveal a servant standing there, holding a vase of flowers freshly picked from the greenhouse, Duchess Edith turned toward her and raised her eyebrows in unspoken question.
But Seraphina could only shake her head. The flowers were not for her.
They never were.
At the sight of the servant, Olivia groaned audibly and sank deeper into her chair, as if trying to melt into the floor.
Understanding dawned on Duchess Edith’s features in the next moment. Even so, she still teased, “My, my. I wonder who those could be from.”
“No one,” Olivia insisted, shoving to her feet. With a scowl, she gathered the vase into her arms and shuffled off in the direction of Seraphina’s bedroom, where she promptly disappeared.
The door slammed shut behind her.
Duke Percival stood next to the table, looking unsure as he glanced between his chair and the closed door. After another moment’s pause, he called out, “But we weren’t finished with our conversation, Olivia!”
Awkwardly, the servant backed out of the room.
Duchess Edith sighed, a rueful smile claiming her lips. “So much for our family dinner…Sera? Where are you going?”
Seraphina paused in the midst of her aimless following of the servant out into the corridor beyond.
Nowhere is what she wanted to say, but she knew her godparents would never be satisfied with such an answer.
She needed to concoct a destination even if her true desire was merely to wander the halls while she thought about everything.
The wedding. The pamphlets.
Her future husband.
“I wish to visit the chapel,” she decided on a whim. “And perhaps the library after.”
Again, her godparents shared a look. Something unspoken passed between them.
Tightening his grip on his cane, Duke Percival stepped toward her and asked, “Shall I come with you?”
But she was already shaking her head while making for the door again.
“No. Thank you, Your Grace, but I just need to be alone for a time.” With a hint of a dry smile, she bid over her shoulder, “I do wish you luck in luring Olivia out of her cave again, though,” before finally slipping out into the corridor.
Alone. That was what she wanted. That was what she needed. But the moment she stepped across the threshold, the Queensguard standing sentinel there in the hall swarmed around her, hemming her in on all sides. Smothering her slowly with their diligence.
“Gentlemen, please,” she sighed, hunting for Sir Arkwright amongst the lot of them.
The captain of her guard waved them off, and the squad of men in their blue and gold armor fell back without melting entirely away.
They remained her constant shadows even as, without thinking, she turned to the right rather than the left as she should have done and set off down the hall.
Both the chapel and the library lay toward the left. Nothing at all lay toward the right.
Nothing save for the long trek to the Crow’s sleeping quarters on the other side of the palace.
Seraphina’s brow furrowed as she drew to a pause mid-stride. What was she doing?
“He won’t be there,” Olivia’s voice suddenly announced from further down the corridor, nearly making Seraphina leap out of her skin.
Likewise, her Queensguard bristled with warning until her friend stepped out of the shadows pooling between the sconces lining the walls.
With a smile, Olivia gave the men a mocking salute.
She must have used the secret passageway leading out of her bedchamber to avoid Duke Percival and Duchess Edith.
Seraphina delivered up to the other woman a flat look. She still hadn’t forgiven her for keeping secrets. And now she was speaking in riddles. “Who won’t be where?”
Rather than answer the question, Olivia sauntered closer, glaring at the knights until they let her draw near.
“I thought we were going to the chapel and then the library anyway? Which is this way.” Linking their arms together, her friend tried to lead her in the opposite direction, as if she were a horse on a lead.
Like a mule, she dug in her heels. Olivia was being odd.
Odder than usual, at the very least.
“Who won’t be where?” Seraphina repeated, studying her friend in profile.
Olivia’s features remained smooth. Utterly unreadable.
“Look, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about the pamphlets,” she muttered under her breath, glancing about at the Queensguard still encircling them.
“I just didn’t want to worry you, honest. If you bite your nails any shorter, I’m afraid you’ll start gnawing through your fingers next. ”
Seraphina twitched away, burying her hands within the folds of her skirts. “Sir Arkwright? Give me and Mistress Olivia just a moment.” With a tight smile, she promised, “We will not wander off.”
The moment her Queensguard retreated just enough to afford them the illusion of privacy there in the middle of the dimly lit corridor, she rounded on her oldest friend and demanded through clenched teeth, “Now will you stop being cagey for once in your life and tell me what you meant before?”
Olivia finally met her gaze. “I meant that every night at this time, the Crow leaves the palace. He won’t be in his room. Assuming that was where you were originally going.”
A disbelieving huff escaped from her. She wanted to deny it. Of course she hadn’t been going to see Aldric. She had no reason to see him. There was nothing further they needed to discuss until it was time to solidify plans for Arlund…
“Well, where is he then?” she heard herself asking, even though she didn’t truly care. What did it matter where he went? What he did?
But for some reason, her curiosity gnawed at her, prompting her to press when Olivia didn’t immediately answer. “What could he possibly be doing every night at this hour?”
Her friend crossed her arms over her chest. Arching her eyebrow, she quietly asked, “Do you truly need to ask me what a man would be doing slipping off every night at this hour?”
For the span of several moments, Seraphina just stood there, her mouth flapping open and closed uselessly like a fish out of water. Her thoughts sputtered like a candle’s flame on the verge of being snuffed out at any moment.
She now understood what Olivia was trying to tell her.
But she didn’t believe it. She couldn’t believe it.
Obviously intent on driving the point home, her friend muttered with a clinical matter-of-factness, “He goes to visit with a woman. She has a little cottage in the woods within the King’s Forest.”
Every night, Aldric went to see a woman. A woman with a cottage.
Suddenly, the air within the hall was too close. Too thick. Seraphina struggled to draw in a proper breath. She wanted to laugh. The idea was absurd. So terribly absurd.
But for once, Olivia wasn’t laughing. She was merely staring at her again.
Entirely too aware of her Queensguard standing nearby, no doubt eavesdropping, she lowered her voice to a mere hiss and asked, “Are you trying to tell me that Aldric Hargrave keeps a mistress? Aldric Hargrave.” A disbelieving laugh escaped from her throat at last. “And within riding distance of my palace, no less?”
Without so much as a blink, Olivia quietly confirmed, “That is precisely what I am trying to tell you, yes.”
No. That was impossible. It didn’t make sense.
He hated her. He seemed to hate all women.
“But he has barely been in Elmoria for any time at all,” she protested aloud, gesturing vaguely while her mind whirred, trying to think of how many weeks had passed since he first arrived at court. “When would he even have had an occasion to…to meet someone?”
Someone else. That is what she had almost said, but she snuffed out that final word before it could skip off her tongue. She was nothing to the Crow. He was nothing to her. They were merely allies. Engaged for politics alone.
Breathing out a quiet sigh through her nose, Olivia took a single step closer and whispered directly against her ear, “He brought her with him, Sera. She came with him on the ship from Drakmor.”
Time seemed to slow as the implication of Olivia’s words crashed down over her. A mistress. The Crow had a mistress. He had brought her with him from Drakmor.
Her mouth ran dry. Her stomach twisted. “But that would mean—”
“She has been here the whole time, yes,” Olivia confirmed quietly. Reluctantly. Her friend clearly didn’t relish sharing this startling news with her.
Especially when the other woman whispered, “And she must have been with you at the summit on Nerina Reef, too.”