Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
Sitting on her bed, Adeline bent over her lap desk, her eyes burning at the late hour. The low lamplight cast orange light and dark shadows across her room and across the page, even as the words swam before her.
All this paperwork. She’d known there would be a lot as queen, but it almost seemed that the Council was piling it on to put her even more off-balance than she already was. Their means of exerting control over her and proving that she wasn’t fit to be queen.
For things like tax records and payments and military numbers, there was a team of stewards and assistants who oversaw those things.
They were her grandfather’s loyal men, but Thaddeus was also pulling late hours—later hours than he should at his age—to double-check their numbers to ensure none of them were trying to cheat the crown in some way.
But for everything else, she was essentially on her own.
The current sheaf before her contained petitions from the nobility.
Lord Lerroy wanted royal funds to repair a bridge over a river.
Lord Avery wanted a larger allotment of royal grain to supply a village after a blight killed the crops.
But Lord Fellton was arguing that the troops at the border needed every bit of grain and that the villagers would just have to fend for themselves.
Even if things appeared somewhat straightforward on the surface, there was the secondary level of politics behind everything.
Yes, that bridge over the river sounded like it was in desperate need of repair.
Someone could get hurt if it wasn’t. But if she approved the bridge for Lord Lerroy, then Lord Harding would see it as favoritism and protest, wanting her to also approve road improvements near his estate, even though those road improvements were nowhere near as necessary.
How was she to wade through all of this? If her parents had lived, her father would likely have taken her to meetings and started training her for this long before now.
But her grandfather had kept her far from all of that, and she’d had no power to protest being shut out. He’d wanted her to be ignorant and pliable so that he could marry her to someone who would follow in his footsteps, like Lord Sarlon’s son.
Thanks to her grandfather, she was now woefully unprepared. He’d ensured she would fail, even after she’d thwarted his plans to marry her off.
A knock made her jump and nearly tip her inkpot over yet again. Perhaps working on a lap desk in her bed wasn’t the best idea, even if she preferred hiding here rather than working in her study.
She lifted her head, looking first to the door to the sitting room. But that door remained closed, no one in sight.
When she turned her head, the connecting door between bedchambers stood open, and Lord Lorne leaned against the jamb, not quite stepping inside.
Her stomach gave a flip. She’d been somewhat relieved and yet strangely disappointed when she’d readied for bed, only to find it empty.
But of course, now that he could shuffle around, he would choose to sleep in the adjoining room.
His men were bedding down in his sitting room rather than returning to their own suite of rooms in order to set up a better guard over him.
Besides, now that he was healed enough to get up and walk, he could be as much a danger to her as everyone else she didn’t fully trust. She shouldn’t miss his presence. She definitely shouldn’t see him as safe enough to leave the door between their bedchambers unlocked.
Too bad her heart didn’t quite agree.
“I’m sorry to disturb you.” Lord Lorne dipped his head for a moment before raising it again, meeting her gaze with a searching look of his own.
“I considered sleeping in the other room, but I thought it might be wiser for us to stay together. No reason for our guards to protect two rooms when they can pool their resources and guard only one. And you’ll be safer with someone here to protect you. ”
She stared at him, frozen at the sight of him upright, clean, and looking rather handsome with his dark hair and duskier skin tone, shades darker than her pallor.
It was one thing to have him in her bed when he’d been unconscious and injured to the point of immobility. But it was another thing entirely to invite him to share her bed. He was still healing, still hunching slightly with his broken ribs. But he was far from immobile or incapable now.
Heat rose in her cheeks. “I…uh…”
“I promise, I will not cross any of your boundaries.” He remained where he was, as if he wouldn’t so much as step a toe across the threshold until she gave her permission. “All I’m going to do is sleep. And protect you should an assassin make it past our guards.”
“Do you think an assassin is likely?” The word assassin sent her hands shaking more than the thought of him joining her in bed.
“Sadly, yes.” Lord Lorne still didn’t enter the room.
He was leaning more heavily against the jamb, and he moved one arm to wrap over his stomach.
While he looked more hale and healthy, he was far from strong.
Just standing for that long had his face paling, his breathing growing heavier.
“Although, the assassin could just as easily be for me as for you. After all, I’m the one standing in the way of you marrying a lord’s son of the council’s choice. ”
“Then having you here could put me at even more risk, not less.” She twisted her hands in the blankets, her heart hammering harder in her throat.
Despite her protests, her skin crawled at the thought of being in this room alone, sleeping and vulnerable, now that he’d mentioned the probability of an assassination.
“Perhaps.” Lord Lorne grimaced, although the expression could have been because of his growing pain as much as the topic.
“But anyone who sends an assassin after me might consider it just as easy to have the assassin kill both of us while he’s at it.
Yes, sleeping in the same room will make it easier for the assassin.
But it won’t split our guards’ response, especially since those we know are loyal are so few.
I’ll have a chance of fighting back, once I’m more healed, of course. ”
Lord Lorne shouldn’t feel safe. He was an enemy lord, only bound to her by their tenuous marriage vows and their shared desire for peace. He could even be using the excuse of protecting her as a means to get close enough to kill her himself.
Yet he’d offered comfort. Safety. A listening ear. A hand to hold. And that was all in the few hours he’d been lucid. He’d given her more warmth and care than her grandfather ever had.
And now he was offering to essentially be her bodyguard while she slept.
Her fingers clutching the edge of the lap desk, she managed a nod. “Yes. Please come in. Come…”
She couldn’t manage to finish, her face burning.
She couldn’t look at him as he crossed the room with soft steps, the bed dipping under his weight as he sat on the other side.
Instead, she busied herself with setting aside her lap desk and paperwork.
When she didn’t have anything else to fiddle with, she buried her fingers in the blankets.
Her skin prickled with awareness of him, her breath catching in her throat.
He was so close, and she was so vulnerable.
Vulnerable to him. Vulnerable to the council.
Vulnerable to a potential assassin. It seemed all she managed to be was vulnerable and scared.
Hardly the strong queen her kingdom needed.
The blankets shifted as he tucked his legs beneath them, although he didn’t lie down. Instead he remained sitting against the headboard as she was doing.
After a moment, he placed his hand on the bed between them, palm up. Extending the offer, but not presuming to simply take her hand. When she glanced at him, he gave her a small, slightly lopsided smile. “Just sleep. I promise.”
Maybe she shouldn’t believe the truth in his voice and sincerity in his eyes. Perhaps she was truly as weak as Lord Sarlon and most of the council believed.
But she untangled one of her hands from the blankets and grasped his hand, squeezing tightly even before he closed his fingers around hers. She needed someone to hold on to, and it turned out that this enemy lord was her only choice.
His smile widened, his posture easing slightly.
But instead of looking at her, he rested his head against the headboard, tipping his head back as he closed his eyes.
“If you are amiable, I was thinking we should randomly switch sleeping in here and sleeping in the other room. We’ll let our most trusted guards know which room we’ll be in, but no one else.
Not even the other guards stationed in the corridor.
A few minutes of trying to find which room we’re in could buy us crucial seconds in the case of an assassination attempt. ”
“A good precaution.” Adeline peeked at him. “How dangerous is the Lalsacian court that you think of these things?”
“Far less dangerous than the Kelvernese court, I assure you.” Lord Lorne’s eyes remained closed. “But we’ve had reason to fear assassins sent from Kelverny.”
Oh. Right. She would have said her kingdom wouldn’t do such a thing, but she wouldn’t put anything past her grandfather. He had, after all, arrested and tortured diplomatic envoys who had been under the flag of truce.
“About assassins…” Lord Lorne’s posture tensed, and he lifted his head once again.
When he met her gaze, there was something compassionate and aching in his eyes.
“I have something to tell you. About your parents. I meant to tell you long before now. After all, it’s the reason I organized the diplomatic mission.
I thought this information might make a difference to relations between our kingdoms.”