27. A Fair Trade
Chapter twenty-seven
A Fair Trade
Marasette was unnervingly serene and unchanged. Rerdas wasn’t sure what he had expected to be different, but after the sinister air of the palace, it was odd to be in a place so peaceful, untouched by the rest of the tense city.
“I’m afraid I have nothing proper to dress for dinner, but we could at least freshen up before we eat?” Etiana asked, turning to the duke.
“Of course,” Umber said smoothly, flicking a glance at his butler. “Show the lady to a room.”
Rerdas made to follow her, but the duke hooked a hand around his arm and pulled him back. “I’m glad you’re here, Rerdas,” he murmured.
“As am I, Your Grace.” He meant it, or at least part of it.
Still, his stomach twisted when Umber leaned down to kiss him.
The duke had never gone so far to help him, and even if Rerdas was sure Umber’s feelings would eventually move on to a more delightful target, there was something awful about standing there and being kissed so fervently by someone for whom he felt only a weak gratitude.
Umber’s feelings were genuine, and Rerdas was lying to him.
He was being unkind. Using another man for his own ends, again.
The duke would be better off without him.
He pulled back, cheeks smarting with heat. “I’ll be back down in a moment,” he muttered, unable to meet Umber’s tender gaze.
Umber protested mildly, but he released Rerdas after a few more kisses, and he could climb the stairs to find Etiana in the first of the guest rooms.
“Thank goodness,” she whispered, closing her door after admitting him, “that you kept Umber as an ally. Gods only know where we’d be without his intervention.”
Rerdas swallowed. “Yes. But… we’ve got to leave now. If we wait a few moments, he’ll have gone into the dining room, and we’ll be able to slip right out the front.”
“We can’t go like that,” Etiana said. “He’ll think we’ve been kidnapped or something, and then we’ll have the Red Guard on our trail the whole way south.” She pinched her bottom lip between her forefinger and thumb, considering. “Could we not ask him for help to leave the city?”
“No. I don’t… want to do that.” It was another unkindness that he still didn’t entirely trust Umber. “It’s better for him not to know anything if the queen questions him once we’re gone. He’s at no fault.”
“Fair. Then I think we must at least wait until later tonight. We’ll attend dinner, go off to sleep, and slip away once the house is fully abed and quiet. Our absence won’t be discovered until morning, and by the time the Guard learns of it, we’ll have a bit of a start on them.”
Rerdas nodded slowly. He was bubbling with nerves. Part of him still wanted to tear down Marasette’s long drive immediately, but Etiana was right. They might not get far, or even out of the city at all.
“What about Heckly?” he asked.
“Dantin is clever.” Etiana’s smile was shaky. “He’ll move on ahead of us and meet us in the south.” She reached for Rerdas’s hand and squeezed it. “Come, let’s not keep His Grace waiting any longer.”
Dinner was excruciating. Umber seemed to want to pretend nothing was wrong and refused to discuss anything about the queen or politics.
Instead, he led them through an exhaustive review of every party, orchestral performance, and poetry recitation he’d hosted while they’d been out of Kirinoll.
If Etiana hadn’t been there to carry the load of conversation, Rerdas might have dumped the entire soup course in his lap as an excuse to escape the table.
She couldn’t save him from what came after dinner. He’d been so concentrated on their plan to escape once Umber was asleep, he hadn’t considered what it would take to get Umber to fall asleep in the first place.
Realization crept over him as they said goodnight to Etiana at the top of the stairs. Umber steered him into another wing, toward the bedroom he’d visited too many times.
The duke undressed and climbed into the bed without ceremony or conversation. He sprawled out in the light of a low lamp, his eyes closed and lips pressed tight. Perhaps he wasn’t in the mood for anything amorous either. It had been a trying day.
He wondered what the queen had set Umber to do all that time in the palace. The duke was one of her favorites, and she confided in him. He might know more of her plans, and in the tired quiet of his own room, he might be more loose-lipped about it.
Rerdas changed into one of the satiny bedshirts Umber kept in his wardrobe for midnight guests. Whoever the shirts had been made for had been much bigger than Rerdas—the fabric always swamped him. But it was much better than crawling into the bed naked.
Gingerly, he eased beneath the coverlet, settling at Umber’s side.
The duke still lay with his eyes closed.
For a moment, Rerdas dared to hope that the stress of the day had won out and Umber was already dropping off to sleep.
But the duke held himself too still, his breathing too quiet without the gentle snore he often fell into. He wasn’t asleep.
Rerdas shifted closer. He leaned across Umber’s arm and pressed a kiss to his cheek. The duke stirred slowly, arms opening to encircle Rerdas and pull him in.
“Thank you,” Rerdas murmured against Umber’s chest. “We’d be trapped there without you.” He waited for Umber to laugh or deny it.
Instead, there was a long pause. Then, “I’m glad I found you.”
That wasn’t reassuring. Rerdas swallowed down the lingering scent of the duke’s spiced cologne. “What… what do you think we should do?” He knew Umber liked him wide-eyed and weak and in need of guidance, but the act felt too close to real this time.
Umber let out a forced chuckle. “We should concern ourselves with happier things. Such as taking this off.” He had a handful of Rerdas’s bedshirt.
Rerdas bit down on the inside of his cheek. The thought of fucking anyone when he was so afraid made him sick. But he couldn’t think of how to evade it, and he was already too slow, because Umber was coaxing the shirt up over his head.
He’d done this often enough to know it would be alright. He could get through it. He let Umber roll him onto his stomach. Tried not to shudder at the faint squeak of the bedside drawer. They hadn’t seen each other in ages. It was to be expected that things would go this way.
“I’ve missed you.” Umber’s voice brimmed with too much feeling.
“Me too,” Rerdas said, but he marred it by flinching when Umber’s oil-slick hand touched him. He’d spent too long thinking only of escaping the capital, and he couldn’t get his muscles to unlock. All he wanted to do was run.
He could relax. He’d made himself relax before. The trick was to think of sword-calloused hands tracing along his body, a desperate kiss driven against his lips, a voice with a glint of steel in his ear, commanding him to—
Coward, said the specter in his head.
Rerdas shot up and flipped around so quickly he nearly kicked the duke.
Umber reared back just in time. “Wha—Are you alright?”
He dragged a corner of the bedspread over his lap to hide just how much the duke’s attentions did nothing for him. “Yes. Or… no. I don’t…” He stopped, afraid to say it. Somehow all his tricks weren’t working now. “I think perhaps I’m… a little too… preoccupied,” he whispered.
One of the duke’s eyebrows twitched marginally higher, but then he smiled and reached with his clean hand to caress Rerdas’s cheek. “Of course. You’ve had quite a day yourself, I suppose.”
“Yes,” Rerdas said, trying not to cry. He couldn’t tell if it was from relief or guilt or the raw pain of missing Imalroc so much he couldn’t properly breathe.
Umber leaned in and pecked his lips. “Don’t fret, love. We needn’t make it an elaborate performance. You can just use your mouth.”
Rerdas blinked at him.
Umber smiled, but it was stretched tight and brittle. “Really, Rerdas, it’s the least you could do.” He laughed as if it were a joke.
But then he rolled onto his back expectantly, half-propped among the pillows and against the headboard gilded with his crest.
“Right,” Rerdas whispered. “Right.”
Shit, he had to get through this without crying. He could choke a bit during, that’d at least give him an excuse, and Umber liked that anyway.
Moving like a man wounded, he eased slowly down the bed and lowered himself to repay Umber for his rescue.
He didn’t fall asleep afterwards, but pretended at it to avoid cuddling.
If Umber touched him, he might simply roll out of the bed and onto the floor.
He had a horrible sense that Umber might be feigning sleep as well.
The duke seemed satisfied; Rerdas still had the evidence of that coating his throat, but he wasn’t sprawled out snoring yet.
There was a distant thud and a muffled shout.
Rerdas jolted upright. “Did you hear that?”
Umber was rising beside him, a hand squeezing his shoulder. “It was probably a servant. They think they have the run of the house once I’ve—”
A scream fractured the quiet. Rerdas launched himself out of the bed towards his clothes and boots. Umber was saying something in an urgent voice, but Rerdas was already ripping open the door.
There was a storm of noise from the stairs, a drumbeat of pounding footsteps and clanking metal. He tore around the corner to reach Etiana’s door and careened straight into a tangle of guards.
They stood with weapons aloft over the struggling form of his cousin, who was crushed into the ground with a boot on her back and a scrap of cloth tight across her face.
“Get off her!” Rerdas shouted.
One guard whirled as he dove toward Etiana.
A spear struck his shoulder and knocked him against the wall.
Two more of the attackers were on him before he could regain his balance.
His pulse hammered so loudly in his ears that he could barely hear the curses frothing from his lips. They twisted his arms behind his back.
Umber would be right behind him. He shouted for the duke. “Umber! Hel—”
A guard clubbed him in the stomach with the flat of the sword.
Rerdas bent double, spit dripping from his slack jaw. His vision swam with pain, and his wrists were bound despite his useless attempts to struggle free. A blade appeared just beneath his chin, forcing his head up.
He looked up through watering eyes into the face of the dark-haired woman from the palace. She grinned and cocked her head. “Hello again, beautiful boy. I was hoping we would catch you in bed.”
“You have no idea what you’re doing invading Marasette,” Rerdas gasped. “His Grace will see you hanged.”
“I very much doubt that.” The woman straightened and nodded at the rest of her group. “Get them downstairs.”
The guards hauled Rerdas forward first, dragging Etiana behind him. This had to be some giant overstep by the guards. A mistake. Umber would appear and stop them—
And then the duke was there, at the top of the stairs in an enormous, velvety robe. Twisting the ring on his pinky finger.
“Evening, Your Grace,” the dark-haired woman said. “Apologies for the interruption.”
Umber’s face was ashen. “There must be a better way to do this. I did as you asked. They weren’t going anywhere.”
Sweat broke cold across Rerdas’s skin.
The woman bowed. “Deepest apologies for the inconvenience, but you know Her Majesty’s orders as well as I.”
Rerdas was jerked out of the manor, still pinned between two guards brandishing weapons in his face. Umber trailed him out onto the grand walkway.
One of them tipped him off balance on the last step, and he smashed into the leather armor capping their shoulder.
“Careful!” The duke’s voice was plaintive behind him. “You promised you wouldn’t hurt his face!”
Rerdas twisted back and spat as far as he could. Umber flinched away, and the female guard belted Rerdas across the mouth.
The metal ridges of her glove split his lip like overripe fruit. He staggered between the guards. Etiana roared something from behind her gag.
The guards hefted him toward a waiting cart.
He kicked wildly when they tried to back him into the cart, his feet catching one guard in the arm and another in the chest. When one rushed forward with a blade, Rerdas ducked and battered his head into the man’s shoulder.
It was a pitiful effort against the practiced bludgeoning he earned in response.
“Tiresome,” said the dark-haired woman.
Etiana shrieked, wrenching at the rope around her wrist.
Rerdas staggered upright in time to see the guard’s arm swing toward him. Something hit the side of his head like a brick. The world exploded with white light and disappeared.