Chapter 24
Chapter
Twenty-Four
It is a challenge not to use my newfound punching skills during my outings with Duke áine over the next several weeks.
There is a planned tour of Tír na Lune’s artisanal shardlight district; we barely exit the castle gates before a group of young women pull him away to judge an impromptu beauty contest. “The duty of a duke!” he calls out with a not-nearly-apologetic-enough grin as he leaves me on the sidewalk.
The following week, he invites me to an exclusive dinner in his quarters. It is so exclusive that I am the only one there. I eat his frangipane tart. And damn him, it’s delicious.
When I return to the suite that night, I find Lachlan and Aowen discussing the various attacks on my person here in Tír na Lune.
That morning, Sir Quinn shared the news with Lachlan that the man who attacked me in the crypt had been identified.
He belonged to an anti-monarchist group that’s taken root within the territory.
A group that also included one of the duke’s courtiers—an older fae woman who was at the castle that night and likely fed my location to the assailant.
“I asked Sir Quinn,” Lachlan continues, “if there was a chance the group was also responsible for the báshound escape, and his response was such a swift, emphatic yes that the opposite seems more likely. Have you learned anything more about Lady LaBeaumont’s whereabouts that night?”
“Nothing conclusive,” Aowen answers. “She has alibis, but they’re from people close to her. Hard to know if anyone is telling the truth. And Sir Quinn could easily be protecting her on behalf of the duke.”
“If it wasn’t her, then who? Outside of the anti-monarchists, she has the most obvious motive.”
“Are we certain the anti-monarchists truly exist?” Aowen tosses her blanket of raven hair over her shoulder. “I’m still not convinced the duke himself didn’t orchestrate the whole thing in order to swoop in and play the hero. He’s certainly been milking the story for all it’s worth.”
“Perhaps,” Lachlan concedes. “But the duke was still in Farlock’s Edge when the beasts escaped their paddock.”
“He could’ve paid someone to let them loose.”
“Maybe the entire trip to Farlock’s Edge was a ruse to deflect attention from himself,” I add.
Lachlan frowns. “You’ve spent some time with him lately. What do you think?”
I snort a laugh. “On second thought, I’m not sure he’d willingly deflect attention from himself.”
An impression that is proven the next afternoon on what was to be our most promising outing yet—boating in the reflecting pool.
The duke couldn’t possibly escape me there.
And I was right. He doesn’t. He does, however, spend the entire afternoon regaling the couple in the next boat with stories about his trip to Farlock’s Edge.
I’m not sure he realizes I have been rowing the boat the entire time.
My arms are more sore than they were after I brandished that sword against Mortis.
He is, at least, marginally remorseful afterwards. Promises to share his clue at dinner this evening.
Where we are sitting next to each other at this precise moment.
And he is most assuredly not clue-sharing.
He’s spent the entirety of the meal recounting the same tired tale of rescuing me from the báshounds that the table has heard at least a dozen times.
There are a few extra embellishments this time—a refusal by Mortis to stand down, a dramatic showdown involving a decorative sword.
I suppose I should be grateful he’s included an actual detail from the event. Even if it was my detail.
His courtiers’ obsequious smiles, hearty laughter, and appropriately timed gasps egg him on. I want to beg them to stop.
I dig into my entrée—perfectly medium-rare venison drizzled with a port wine reduction, and the only thing keeping me from stabbing my fork into my hand as an excuse to leave the table.
I look longingly toward the far end where Aowen and Lachlan are seated together, the former enthusiastically chatting with the group around them while the latter quietly listens.
I would have rather sat with them.
I would have rather cleaned the castle privies with my bare hands.
Instead I cling to my boredom, trying to let it drown out the other, more petrifying emotions percolating beneath my placid surface.
The duke may be boring me, but there’s no doubt I am boring him as well.
And if I cannot turn the tide, I may literally be bored to death.
An hour later, I’m in the tub, furiously scrubbing my hair. Lathery bubbles drip down my face and sting my eyes, and I’m almost grateful for the pain.
The more time I spend with Duke áine, the less becoming his queen seems like a better option than dying.
I swallow my anger and frustration, dipping my head below the warm water before rising and using a cup to rinse my body. All I want to do right now is dry off, sink into my spiky bed, forget the past few weeks in Tír na Lune ever happened and start ov—
The door swings open and Lachlan steps in, shirtless. His lips part as he goes preternaturally still.
I shriek and drop the cup, barely managing to get a slippery arm over my breasts and a palm over my sex.
Sometimes when we’re together, plotting or talking or teasing, it’s easy to forget he’s a supernatural being. But right now, he’s every inch the strapping faerie knight.
Veins pop in his right forearm, which is flexed since he’s gripping the door handle for dear life.
His broad chest, muscular arms, and abdominals have surely been sculpted of golden marble, and curling around his right shoulder and down his ribs are paragraphs of dark tattoos in the fae script.
The few scars he bears—a puckered slash across his left pectoral, a pink half-circle by his hipbone—speak to the dangerous ways he wields his incredible body.
And glinting at his right nipple, to my utter delight, is another silver hoop.
I want to tug it between my teeth.
The diamhrán is not fully open at the moment, so hopefully he didn’t hear that thought.
I, however, am catching snippets of his. As if the sight of my wet, naked flesh has caused his control to cease functioning.
…need to stop staring at her, you idiot, she’ll…
…looks even softer than I’d…
…hear you! Close your mouth! Get your shit together! Have you forgotten how this ends? With her as your queen, for Danu’s sake…
I break the charged silence. “Can you hand me a towel?”
“Fuck.” The curse whispers past his parted lips, so soft I wonder if I made it up.
He shakes his head and anchors his gaze to the floor.
“Sorry, little queen. Didn’t realize you were in here.
I thought you’d still be with the duke.” He side-steps to the shelf, then extends a towel toward me. “I promise I won’t look.”
Look. Please look, I nearly scream. I am battered from my failures, and Lachlan’s face when he opened the door was quite the ego boost.
I grab the towel and wrap it around my figure as I step out of the tub. “All my naughty bits are hidden. You’re safe.”
His smile is rueful, a little sad even, when his blue eyes meet mine. “Am I?”
I should leave, allow him privacy for his own bedtime routine. But my fear that I am running out of time to hear the duke’s clue emboldens me.
“Am I boring?” I blurt.
Lachlan rears back as if I just asked him the most absurd question in the world. “What?”
I finger the hem of the towel. “Duke áine has no interest in me whatsoever. I don’t … I don’t think I can do this.”
Lachlan cocks his head, eyes narrowing in confusion, but not anger. They’re chivalrously homed in on my face, staying well above my collarbone.
I am not being even half as respectful.
But my spirits are low. And the sight of all his pierced, tattooed, muscled strength—so close I could reach out and touch him if I were feeling really bold—is the only thing keeping me from collapsing to the floor in a puddle of tears.
“I’ve already been passed over once.”
“What does that mean? Passed over?”
“The man I was in love with before I came here? George? The one I told—”
“A name as insipid as the man himself, no doubt,” Lachlan snarls, as if unable to stifle the comment.
“I thought he was going to propose. But he … He chose someone else. A real Favourite.” I’m already physically naked. Might as well get a bit psychologically naked, too.
Lachlan sucks in a breath. “You’re not the Favourite?”
I shake my head. “I thought I could fake it, but … I seem to have reached the limit of my acting skills.”
Lachlan blinks, then clenches his jaw. Now he looks angry. Furious. A little devastated, even. But only momentarily. He circles the heels of his palms against his eyes. “You’ve enchanted Desmond, though, and he—”
“Wants to be king. He doesn’t care who his queen is.”
“He is very focused on that goal, but”—Lachlan grasps my damp chin, forcing me to look at him—“you have a very distorted view of yourself, Charlotte, if you believe you are without charm.”
I cannot bear his intense sincerity right now. I crack beneath its weight, tearing away. “How can I trust your judgment? You barely talk to anyone.”
“That’s not true, I … ” He scoffs, scratching the stubble shadowing his sharp jawline. “Well, I talk to you all the time.”
“Often only me.”
“You’re very easy to talk to.”
“For you.” Fists on my hips, I cling to my petulance even though I’m immensely flattered. And feel the same about him. “Duke Cernunnos rejected me.”
“I don’t think that had very much to do with you.”
“That’s precisely my point!”
I toss a finger in his face, and he wraps a fist around it, looking very much like he wants to smile but is trying to stay serious in what I have clearly deemed an argument.
“His Grace will come around. Desmond is working on him.”
I pull away, frustrated. “Even if he agrees, what does it matter? I’ll fail with him as I have with Duke áine.
Before I came here, I thought my future was guaranteed.
I had no need to beguile anyone. And now my life, the entire Otherworld’s peace, and your future all depend on my doing so.
I am not prepared for this. I am desperately out of practice. ”
My bottom lip quivers, and tears threaten to spill over my lashes. The only sound in the room is the drip, drip, drip of my wet hair upon the floor.
A silent stand-off stretches, me with my arms crossed over my chest, him with his large hands braced on his waist. Even those cuts of muscle that V into his trousers cannot lift my despair. Well, not all the way.
This time, he’s the one to break the silence.
“Use me.”
I blink, my tears dissolving, and stand up a little straighter. “What?”
He searches my face, examining every nuance. He could so easily slip into my mind, unearth my secret desires. The fact that he won’t makes me trust him even more than I already do. “You said you’re out of practice. My duty is to serve you. Use me.”
“Use you … how?”
He shrugs, though there is nothing nonchalant about it. “However you’d like. You want to learn how to seduce powerful faerie men? I am a powerful faerie man—with a storied history of seduction, as I’ve been told you now know.”
I flush. Aowen really is the most terrible gossip. “I’m sorry, I should have waited for you to—”
“I’m not ashamed of my past.”
“I do not want to burden you.”
Lachlan bites his lip ring, his eyes roving down my body. Finally. “Trust me, it would be no burden.”
“Cad,” I chuckle, half-heartedly swatting at him though my heart is leaping. “But wouldn’t you feel like I’m taking advantage of you? Like your clients did.”
His brows crinkle. “My clients didn’t take advantage of me. They paid me for a service. One I was happy to provide. Besides, you’re not a client. You can’t afford me.” I want to be affronted, but he’s probably not wrong. “Consider this a gift to secure your and Desmond’s future.”
And there it is. Of course that’s why he’s offering to help me. For his duke. To ensure his own next chapter. For a second, I had thought … I curl a wet strand around my finger. “And what about Desmond? Would he be upset if I—”
“Started cavorting with his knight?”
“His friend.”
Lachlan sighs, breaking eye contact to stare at the wall.
“Desmond and I … what we are to each other … It’s hard to call someone a friend when they control your life choices.
” He turns back. “And Des is very expansive with his affections. I can assure you he’s not saving himself for your marriage bed. Why should you?”
It’s so tempting to agree with him. And mostly, I do. I’m just not convinced the other dukes would. God, if any of them ever found out … I can’t put Lachlan in that kind of danger.
“Thank you. So much. You’re very kind. But … I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
He nods, resigned. Maybe a touch disappointed. But he doesn’t try to persuade me. All he does is bow slightly at the waist, the shardlights glinting off his piercings. “Sleep well, Your Majesty.”
I flee to my bedchamber without another word, cheeks hot, body aflame.
And stay up all night wondering whether I’ve just made the stupidest decision of my life.