3. I EXPECT YOU TO SMILE
I expect you to smile
Darkhaven’s master-at-arms escorted them all the way back to the castle.
All the way to Isobelle’s quarters, in fact.
Grimshaw glanced inside with a grimace of distaste for the vibrant colours with which Isobelle had decorated the place.
‘If you aren’t in Lord Whimsitt’s private audience chamber by half past the hour,’ he growled, ‘I will send someone to fetch you.’ And he vanished from the doorway.
The low murmur of voices came from outside, unintelligible, but Gwen knew what it betokened. He was speaking to a guard outside Isobelle’s door.
Gwen tossed her pack onto a nearby chair and let her breath out. Her head ached with the effort of staying quiet, of resisting action. The whole ride back she’d wanted to wheel Achilles on Grimshaw, knock him flat, and ride off with Isobelle … where, though?
She’d always have a place with her father, and so would Isobelle, but it’d be the first place Whimsitt sent his men to search.
Isobelle was his ward, and while he’d proven more than once that he had little care for her well-being, he did have much care for her wealth.
They were in a practised stalemate now. Whimsitt was unable to force Isobelle into an advantageous – for him – marriage, thanks to Gwen’s pull as a celebrity.
But neither did Isobelle have the right to simply leave, not without breaking the law and thus surrendering all right to her family name, her fortune … even her freedom.
‘Well, this blows.’ Isobelle’s voice was cheerful, but tired, from behind Gwen’s shoulder.
Gwen turned, reaching out so she could locate Isobelle’s hand and squeeze. ‘I think there’d be more than one guard on the door if he suspected you were trying to get around him with your parents,’ she said, though the words scarcely convinced her own doubts to subside. ‘I—’
But there she stopped, her eyes focusing past Isobelle. The movement had been very slight, just a shifting of the dusky shadows beyond the door leading to the balcony.
Someone was there.
Isobelle had felt Gwen stiffen, and had gone quiet and still, letting her champion watch and listen. When Gwen’s eyes found hers again, she only raised her eyebrows in question. Gwen gave a shake of her head towards the door, and then spoke in a very even voice indeed, as if nothing was wrong.
‘If only we had time for a bath and a change of clothes before going in front of Whimsitt,’ Gwen said, letting go of Isobelle and moving slowly, meanderingly, towards the balcony door. She was still wearing her sword belt, and she lay a hand on the blade’s hilt.
‘I do always say one feels at one’s best when properly attired,’ Isobelle agreed, her eyes tense, following Gwen’s every movement.
‘Not that Whimsitt has any appreciation for fashion,’ Gwen said, holding a finger to her lips as she inched towards the door.
Isobelle nodded. ‘Except for those ridiculous hats of his.’
‘Someday I’d love the chance to knock one off his … head!’ Gwen reached the door and threw it open. The surface collided with the person outside, knocking them back a pace – Gwen grabbed for them, hauling them back inside and throwing them down.
Or, at least, she tried to.
Somehow, the person in her grip twisted, hooked a leg behind hers, and then, without warning, Gwen was on the floor, back aching, lungs seizing for breath.
She was still gasping and wheezing when Isobelle flung herself down at her side and scowled up at the person responsible. ‘Olivia!’ she cried. ‘What the hell are you doing?’
Olivia, scarcely breathing hard, peered down at Gwen with a quirk of her lips, which Gwen chose to take as an apology. ‘Well, don’t jump on a girl like that if you don’t want her instincts to kick in.’
Gwen sat up, grimacing at the ache in her hip. She’d hit the edge of a sofa on her way down to the floor. ‘Don’t skulk outside like a burglar if you don’t want to get jumped on.’
Isobelle’s maid reached up and smoothed a lock of hair into place. She looked perfectly proper, except that over her dusky-blue dress she was wearing a cloak, and she had a bag slung over one arm. She readjusted the bag and leaned down to offer Gwen a hand.
Ordinarily, Gwen might have felt a certain flicker of embarrassment at having her arse handed to her so neatly.
But Olivia was a law unto herself. Gwen was fairly sure she could’ve bested Olivia at jousting, but unarmed, Olivia was quicker than anyone Gwen had ever met.
And just as quick to disclaim any skill.
‘A lucky dodge,’ Olivia was saying, as she helped Gwen to her feet. ‘I’m sure if it hadn’t been dark, you’d have knocked me down quite handily.’
Isobelle was inspecting Olivia from head to toe, her brow furrowing. ‘Were you going somewhere?’ Her eyes widened. ‘Were you going to rappel down the balcony? Without telling me you were leaving?’
‘I left a note,’ Olivia muttered.
Isobelle scowled at her. ‘Well, you can just tell me what it said.’
Olivia glanced between them, sighed, and crossed the room to put the kettle on the fireplace. ‘I have some business to attend to,’ she said quietly. ‘A family matter. A private family matter,’ she added, when Isobelle’s mouth opened.
Isobelle’s mouth closed again.
Gwen took a few steps back until she could sink down onto the edge of the sofa. ‘Do you have to go?’ she asked. ‘I don’t trust Whimsitt with Isobelle, and two guards are better than one.’
Olivia’s shuttered gaze softened a trifle, and she didn’t bother to deny that she was as effective a buffer against Whimsitt’s tyranny as Gwen. ‘I’m afraid it’s necessary, and urgent. It’ll be okay. Just keep your heads down and do as Whimsitt says until I get back, and she’ll be safe.’
‘Excuse me,’ Isobelle interjected, all amusement mingling with exasperation, ‘but I’m right here and perfectly capable of taking care of myself.’
‘Don’t I know it,’ muttered Gwen, at the exact same time Olivia snorted and said, ‘Taking yourself right into the lion’s mouth.’
Olivia crossed to Isobelle’s side and stood looking into her face, solemn now. ‘I mean it, girls. No stirring up trouble. Gwen won you a lot of leeway by defeating the dragon, but that currency isn’t going to last forever. Don’t give Whimsitt reason to find new ways to control you.’
Gwen felt Olivia’s warnings settle like boulders in her heart. Her own fears had made space for them, pacing around her thoughts and wearing down hollows shaped perfectly to hold the stony weight of Olivia’s words.
Olivia took hold of Isobelle’s hand and squeezed it. But it was at Gwen she looked as she whispered, ‘Sit tight. I’ll be back as soon as I am able.’
And with that she was gone, slipping out onto the balcony. She was nothing more than a shadow vanishing over the edge of the balustrade and into the night.
Lord Whimsitt stood in front of the hearth with his back to the door, feet apart, hands folded behind him. The guard who had been waiting outside Isobelle’s door hustled both girls inside, then shut the door with an ominous thunk, leaving them alone with Isobelle’s guardian.
Though he must have known what the sounds betokened, Whimsitt didn’t move.
Gwen supposed he thought his stance imposing, but the effect was rather spoiled by the fact that the heat rising off the crackling fire was making the turquoise feather in his plum and gold embroidered hat bob up and down like the breeding plumage of a nervous quail.
For perhaps the hundredth time, Gwen’s muscles tensed with aggravation.
This was the man who held their fates in his sweaty little palm – and there was nothing she could do about it.
‘You continue to defy my commands,’ he said finally, rocking up onto the balls of his feet and back down again. ‘You were to return directly to Darkhaven Castle, and yet my men informed me you were spotted taking the road to Ellsdale instead.’
‘A misunderstanding, my lord,’ Isobelle replied, her voice sickly sweet.
When Gwen glanced at her, she saw her beloved’s face controlled by a stiff mask of polite deference.
‘We thought it would make no difference if we spent tonight at Ellsdale visiting Gwen’s father, since we’d be here in the morning either way. His health—’
‘Your loyalty is to me first.’ Whatever sympathetic fib Isobelle had been about to utter, Whimsitt wasn’t interested. He turned, his face red with heat and, Gwen supposed, a certain amount of ire. ‘I expect my knights to follow my orders – I expect my ward, and her companion, to do so as well.’
Gwen could’ve greased a rusty hinge with the oily sneer in Whimsitt’s voice as he said companion. She bit her tongue.
‘Well, we’re here now. One night ought not to matter much, my lord, surely.’ Isobelle was doing her best.
‘It matters more than you think, girl.’ Whimsitt’s eyes narrowed. ‘I have a new assignment for your champion.’
Gwen felt the air go out of her lungs and blurted, ‘Now? We’ve only just returned, we need to rest, the horses—’
‘Of course not right now, that would be most foolish indeed.’ Whimsitt smiled unpleasantly at her.
Lately, he had not bothered much to hide his hatred of Gwen when he looked at her.
Another sign that what Gwen feared, and what Olivia said, was true: the goodwill earned by slaying the dragon was dwindling.
‘You may leave first thing in the morning.’
Gwen heard Isobelle’s breath catch before she could gasp aloud. Her own body ached at the thought of spending only one night in a bed before hitting the road again; how must Isobelle, still not fully accustomed to life outside the castle, feel?
‘The place is called Galanty-Uponne-the-Sea – it is some leagues from here, on the coast. They have sent reports of a sea monster, and specifically request the services of the Lady Dragonslayer to deal with their problem. The lord there is building a dragon-themed hot springs, and once you’ve dispatched their little sea monster, you are to stay and give your stamp of approval to the spot.
She says the steam from the springs is as hot as the breath of a dragon, that sort of thing. ’
‘So far away,’ Gwen said, still reeling, and scarcely digesting the words ‘sea monster’. It was probably a moss-covered log, floating past the town in bad light. ‘My lord, I must protest—’
‘They have offered a frankly staggering amount in exchange for your presence,’ Whimsitt said smoothly. ‘And given that someone broke my goldmine, I can scarcely decline.’
The dragon destroyed your bloody mine, Gwen thought furiously, her right hand twitching, fingers curling around the hem of her tunic instead of the hilt of her sword, which she’d left back in Isobelle’s quarters. Probably a good thing she wasn’t armed.
Isobelle had regained her breath, and lifted her chin in a way that told Gwen to step back and let her lead the charge. ‘Lord Whimsitt, you remind us at every step that Gwen is not one of your knights. You have no right to order her anywhere, or indeed to profit off her presence!’
Whimsitt’s cold little eyes narrowed as they fixed upon his ward. Gwen felt a chill run down her spine – usually, he preserved such loathing for Gwen alone. Seeing him look at Isobelle as if he’d like to crush her under his boot made her heart quail inside.
‘You’re right,’ he said slowly. ‘I cannot order Sir Gwen, the Lady Dragonslayer, anywhere.’ His eyes flicked to meet Gwen’s. ‘But I can send my ward wherever I like. And I can send her all that way alone, if I so choose.’
Gwen’s fearful heart shrank into a tiny, glittering ball of ice.
In the months since the tournament, her imprisonment, the battle against the dragon, Whimsitt had not once directly threatened Isobelle.
He didn’t dare, not with more than half the knights on Gwen’s side, and an even greater share of the people hailing Gwen as a hero – by extension, Isobelle was sacrosanct.
Now, Isobelle was spluttering with outrage.
Gwen reached out and laid a hand on her arm, clearing her throat and speaking quickly into the silence.
‘I’ll go,’ she said quietly. When Isobelle stiffened, she shook her head. ‘It’s all right. I’ll go. We’ll both go.’
She could feel Isobelle’s eyes on her, the outrage and concern there. She knew she’d get an earful later – Isobelle would want to fight back, to argue, to demand Whimsitt treat Gwen with the deference she felt was due.
But Gwen was the one who had heard the threat in his voice. And Isobelle knew what Gwen looked like when she sensed danger, and she was letting Gwen make the call.
Whimsitt smiled now, clasping his hands across his belly and rocking once more up onto his toes and back down. ‘Excellent. I felt sure you would choose obedience. You may go now – you will want to get some rest. You have a long journey ahead of you in the morning.’
Isobelle was too furious to reply, and she whirled, making one of her most spectacular exits, all flying skirts and bristling outrage.
‘Oh, and … Lady Dragonslayer?’ Whimsitt called, as Gwen turned to follow. She glanced back, hands clenched hard enough to dig her nails into her own palms. ‘Behave yourself there and be a good emissary of my generosity. I expect you to smile.’