Chapter Eleven #2
His tone held only the faintest mockery as he repeated my words back to me, but it was enough to have my cheeks burning with shame and confusion.
And my stomach churning anew with fear. Aldrich had mentioned, in the offhand way of someone imparting information that everyone already knew, that Lord Benedict and my father-in-law weren’t the best of friends.
But Stefan and Lord Benedict obviously were.
What would this immensely powerful man do to someone who’d been placed in Stefan’s household to manipulate him on behalf of one of his enemies?
“You’re frightening him.” Stefan had taken a step toward the bed, and the look on his face frightened me even more. He couldn’t possibly be defending me! “He almost died tonight. You don’t need to give him state secrets, but lay off a bit, will you?”
Gods. He was. His eyes flicked to me and caught mine. The impact of that momentary connection shot down into the core of me, my heart giving an unsteady lurch. And then he looked back at Lord Benedict and I could breathe again.
“I’m not laying on,” Lord Benedict said, surprisingly mildly for a man of his authority who’d been spoken to so sharply.
“I’m simply acknowledging the reality we’re all aware of already.
You didn’t want to marry Lord Remi.” He turned back to me.
“And Stefan told me that earlier tonight you said you’d been forced into this. ”
Earlier tonight…oh, Ennolu’s mercy. I’d been already in the grips of my curse, my self-control fraying in all directions, and I barely remembered what I’d said.
But now that he reminded me, I had. I’d told him straight-out that Lord Ettori had forced me to marry him, and I had a hazy recollection of saying that I wanted to go back to the abbey.
Precisely what Lord Ettori had warned me not to say. My fingers curled into the blanket like claws.
Lord Benedict sighed. “You might as well tell us, and speak freely. Whatever you’re afraid of, and you’re obviously afraid. Of the three people in this room, I suspect you actually dislike him the least.”
My heart pounded crazily, trying to beat its way through my ribs.
Ennolu’s mercy, could I really risk it? Trust them?
After the way Stefan had accused me and hectored me and told me he’d rather fuck a venomous snake?
And now that I’d given myself away and lost any chance of lying convincingly to Stefan about my motives, did I even have a choice?
He already knew. Now it was simply a matter of whether he’d help me lie to his father, or not.
If he chose to tell Lord Ettori what I’d revealed, then Fina would be doomed…
unless he and Lord Benedict, one of the only men capable of contravening Lord Ettori’s plans, stepped in.
Would Lord Benedict’s hatred for Lord Ettori outweigh his fear of a possible plot against his husband, Duke Lucian? I didn’t know him well enough to even guess.
But I couldn’t read anything but sincerity in Lord Benedict’s gray eyes, although he probably wouldn’t let me see anything he didn’t want me to.
Stefan, on the other hand…his eyes. Gods. If whatever emotion lurked there was sincere, that might be more frightening than anything.
I drew a deep breath, closing my eyes for a moment against the dizziness. When I opened them, both Stefan and Lord Benedict were watching me. The weight of their gazes felt like it pressed me down into the mattress.
“My father was Lord Ralf Hunziker,” I said at last, into a silence so absolute I could’ve drowned in it.
“Duke Treviso executed him and his brother for treason. In the middle of his—when he was executing everyone. After…after, my mother took us to Piziano, down the coast, where she had a small estate that didn’t get taken by the duke.
I went to an abbey when my magic showed.
She thought I’d be safer there. But my little sister stayed with her. ”
“I remember that.” Lord Benedict’s face had set into grim lines, his gray eyes stormy and distant.
Whatever he was remembering, it wasn’t just this personal tragedy of mine.
His magic bristled about him like the fur of an angry cat.
“I didn’t know your father, but Ser Livio was a great swordsman.
Put me in my place once when I was about your age, knocked me on my ass in front of a whole fencing studio.
And you don’t need to argue their innocence to me.
If there were any real traitors executed during those couple of years, they were made that way by watching Treviso beheading someone twice a week. ”
My uncle had indeed been a great swordsman, and he’d worked hard to hide his disappointment that I didn’t seem to share his talent.
Fina had still been too young to pick up a sword, and Livio had never had children of his own.
He’d been much younger than my father. Still young enough that a whole family could’ve been in his stolen future.
“Thank you,” I whispered, the tears starting to thicken my throat leaving me unable to say more.
Lord Benedict’s eyes sharpened and focused on me as he came back from wherever he’d gone. Were his memories as distressing as mine?
“Nothing to thank me for. I did little enough at the time,” he said, with a deep note of bitterness. “In any case, you have no reason to love Zettine. So explain, if you would, why you’re willing to do his bidding.”
That came out of his mouth with the weight of a general’s command, enhanced by the force of his magic pressing on mine, enclosing me.
“He claims my sister has written certain letters that have come into his possession.” I glanced back and forth between Stefan and Lord Benedict.
Their expressions didn’t tell me much. “Letters that are—he didn’t specify what.
He used the word sedition. But he didn’t give me any particulars.
He made it sound like he’d have her arrested and executed, so there must be something there.
But I don’t know what. And she’s only fifteen! I’d do anything to protect her. Even—”
I cut myself off, realizing almost too late that insulting Lord Benedict’s close friend might not win his sympathy.
But it didn’t matter. “Marry me,” Stefan said, his tone dry, but with his face so neutral it might as well have been carved from stone.
“Even marry me. It’s all right. I’m aware that it’s a fate worse than death, but slightly better than the death of a younger relative. I have no illusions on that score.”
Lord Benedict frowned, and his glaze flicked over to Stefan.
“Focus on the important matters to hand, not on your self-flagellation,” he snapped, and I choked on a startled laugh.
The urge to laugh died away completely as he added, “The blackmail aspect of this aside, if Zettine has evidence of a real plot against the throne, this becomes a much greater matter.”
Oh, gods. No! I popped up like I’d been on springs, so quickly that my body moved faster than my equilibrium. “Ohh,” I moaned, leaning over my lap, as Stefan cursed and suddenly appeared at my side, tugging on the blankets and crouching down to peer into my face.
“Remi! What’s wrong? If you’re ill again, Benedict will—”
“You can’t,” I gasped, lifting my head and meeting Lord Benedict’s eyes. I tried swatting Stefan away, but he stuck to me like a burr. “Edelfina’s fifteen. My lord, she’s no more a traitor than our father was, and she’s barely more than a ch—”
“Take a breath, Lord Remi,” Lord Benedict cut in.
“Lucian doesn’t share either his father’s paranoia or his fondness for bloodshed.
And unless my sword was the only thing between her and cutting Lucian’s throat, I wouldn’t hurt her, either.
Fifteen-year-old girls don’t get beheaded in Lucian’s dukedom, they get referred to their mothers for discipline. Calm yourself.”
If I hadn’t been so busy sucking in that breath he’d recommended, I’d have told him where he could stick his adjuration to calm. But bloody hell. He meant it. I could tell he meant it. Fina might be safe—so long as her “sedition” didn’t rise to an actual threat to Duke Lucian’s life, at least.
“My concern isn’t her actions, necessarily, but those of whoever she’s associating with,” Lord Benedict went on. “Believe me, I know how ironic it would be if real treason against Lucian arose from hatred of his father, but that doesn’t mean I won’t take it seriously. Lord Remi—”
“He’s practically fainting, Ben. This has to wait,” Stefan put in, and this time, as he tried to ease me back onto the pillows, I didn’t resist. “Examine him and tell me what he needs for tonight. Everything else can wait until morning.”
“I’m going to pull the blanket down, then,” Lord Benedict said. “Only to your lower ribs, Lord Remi, calm yourself, Stefan,” he added. It made me feel slightly better that he used the same condescending words and tone on my husband that he had on me.
Stefan was right; I didn’t have much left in me. But I opened my eyes to slits to watch Lord Benedict work. Condescending and dangerous as he might be, he was also the only twilight mage I’d ever seen actually using his magic.
He reached out and laid his hand over my sternum.
His eyes did that misty thing again as he looked at something no mundane eyes could see.
I tried to see it too; I ought to have been able to, after all.
But I caught only the faintest glimpses, as if the air became partially opaque for an instant at a time, and felt only a slight warmth under his hand.
And that might have been from his hand itself, and not magic at all.
A faint itchiness wriggled through me, spreading out from where he touched me and through my chest and down my limbs, and then it disappeared.
Finally he lifted his hand and nodded decisively, his eyes refocusing on my face. “You were definitely poisoned,” he said. “The traces are still there in your blood.”
My fists clenched in the bedding. “Definitely poisoned,” I repeated. “You already suspected it? And didn’t tell me?”
“You were asleep when we discussed it,” Stefan said. “But Benedict sent a trusted man to Lady Vienni’s to get hold of some of the wine. It must have been in all of it rather than just in your glass. There was no way to predict which you’d take.”
“The poison wasn’t the same that was used on me, luckily, but it brought your curse on early. And negated the effect of your potion,” Lord Benedict said to me. “The purpose could’ve been to kill you from the effects of your curse. Or to cause an embarrassing scene at the ball. Or—”
“Or to ensure the consummation of our marriage,” Stefan said, his voice very grim.
Lord Benedict turned to look at Stefan, his eyebrows rising. “Ah. Interesting. If that’s your immediate conclusion, then…?”
Stefan bared his teeth in something completely unlike a smile. “It was my father, of course. The one who forced us into this farce of a marriage in the first place.”
Coming from the man who had, little as I wanted to acknowledge it in those terms, wedded me before Ennolu’s altar and then taken my virginity in this very bed, “farce of a marriage” hurt enough to punch the breath out of me.
Not that he was wrong, of course.
And he’d said “forced us,” hadn’t he? Not “forced me.” That had to mean something.
Please, gods, let it mean something, because I couldn’t do this alone.
Not anymore. Not with my father-in-law threatening and poisoning me, and my potion doing nothing but sicken me, and that stinging ache between my legs where Stefan had taken me and would need to take me again and again and again…
I bit my lip to try to keep the tears from gathering, and I turned my head to try to hide both.
By Stefan’s quiet, bitten-off, “Damn it to hell,” I hadn’t been successful.
“Stefan’s one of my oldest friends,” Lord Benedict said gently into the miserable silence.
“If it means anything from a fellow twilight mage, I promise you that no matter what Zettine’s threatened, we won’t allow any harm to come to you or to your sister and mother.
Lucian would see to that, anyway. He’s a better and a cleverer man than the two of us combined. ”
The open adoration in Lord Benedict’s voice nearly broke what composure I had left. Lucky, lucky Duke Lucian. And lucky Lord Benedict, it sounded like. I choked down a sob, but the sniffle came out mortifyingly loud and clear.
“He is, at that,” Stefan said. “Thank the gods he’s in charge rather than either of us.
” Benedict grunted what sounded like heartfelt agreement.
“And speaking of sisters. Mine married a Surbini wine heiress, as you may recall? When your man brings you what samples he’s collected, look for anything with her estate’s label. ”
“He’ll get what we need. He knows what he’s doing.
And I’ll give you his report and all I can learn about it with magic by tomorrow morning.
In the meantime, Lord Remi, I strongly advise you not to eat or drink anything outside of this house, or that wasn’t procured in the normal way by the housekeeper, even though if Stefan’s right, then Zettine’s already gotten what he wanted and you shouldn’t be in danger from anyone else.
No gifts of wine, and so on, just in case.
The poison ought to have flushed out of your system by morning, as there’s very little left to detect already.
But it may take longer for your potion to work again, I have to warn you. ”
Longer. Gods. “How much longer?”
Lord Benedict shrugged. “I hope only a day or two, but…I don’t know.
Every mage is different, and I simply can’t predict it.
I’m sorry to say you’ll need to have patience and, ah, find another way if necessary.
I’ll let you both know what I learn from the wine itself.
Anything else before I go? Lucian’s waiting up for me. ”
I nodded, thanked him, and let the bed pull me down for a moment, gathering my strength.
They spoke a few more quiet words as Stefan let Lord Benedict out into the corridor, and then the door closed. I cracked my eyes open. Stefan had remained on this side of it, and we were alone.