Chapter 74
Seventy-four
James
Turned out getting married and crowned at the same time was exhausting.
Someone could have warned me.
I lay on the sofa like a wilted lady after a ball, one leg propped up on the arm, my jacket and cravat shed at the first opportunity. Edwin lay on the sofa opposite me, in much the same fashion; although, he’d made himself a cup of peppermint tea to sip. Habit or had his stomach rebelled again?
Most of this was his fault. And by “this” I meant today’s crowning. “Well, you got what you wanted.”
He quirked a brow at me, challenging, but I saw a spark of amusement in those blue eyes. “Blaming me, are you?”
“Who else am I to blame, then? You’re the one who wanted me to be king.”
“Yes, I did, and I love how that meant I got dragged into insanity with you.”
“Misery and company, my love, misery and company. But holy fuck, we did it. The gods indeed blessed us. This went so, so much better than my first life.”
“From what you’ve said, agreed. I feel blessed. But tired.”
“Truly.” I blew out a weary breath. “I know we needed to do both ceremonies at once, but gods was that exhausting.”
“The afterparty somehow was worse? All that peopling.”
“Agreed. One hundred percent, agreed. And I like peopling.”
“Yes, it does say something that you’re agreeing with me.” Edwin sipped his tea, then snorted. “I loved the ones who were not-so-subtly trying to suggest you’d need a concubine to have children with, and their daughters were the perfect candidates.”
“Yes, those people I wanted to throw off a cliff. How fucking dare they say that. On my wedding day, no less!”
“You think Beatrice put them up to it?”
“Why are you asking such an obvious question?”
He snorted another wry laugh. “My mistake.”
“I think the wisest decision I made this year, aside from marrying you, was kicking those two out. Beatrice can’t help but meddle, it seems.” Why was my question. It never gave her a good outcome, but she seemed incapable of learning from her mistakes.
“I’m quite pleased for my in-laws to live on the opposite side of the country from me,” Edwin said. “Especially after observing them this week. They’d make our lives hell. I now have a better understanding of what you put up with in the first lifetime.”
“Aren’t they just atrocious? They can’t keep their opinions to themselves.” His tea concerned me, so I switched topics abruptly. “Are you drinking peppermint tea?”
“For digestion,” Edwin assured me, well able to discern what I truly asked. “I had too much of our wedding cake, so I’m feeling overstuffed.”
“Ahh. To be fair, it was heart-stoppingly delicious cake.”
“Wasn’t it? I think we should have a smaller one made for our anniversary every year.”
“Absolutely agreed. Come to think of it, we had a great deal of food left over. What happens with it?”
“Staff,” Edwin answered succinctly. “If there’s any leftovers after they’re done, I ordered them to be packed up and given to the poor.”
“Splendid. I want nothing going to waste. The thought occurred to me today while speaking with our guests that we’ll actually save money.
Victor alone was a huge drain on finances because of his many screwups and vices, but Beatrice and all her many, many parties ate up a lot of the budget as well.
With the two of them gone, we’ll be able to have a healthy budget that isn’t being spent on vanities. ”
“Sounds excellent to me. We’ll have to revise the budget once we figure out how much.” He sank farther into the sofa. “Later. I have no brain power or will right now.”
“I share the feeling. It’s almost midnight, you know. We could go to bed?”
“I’ll finish my tea first—”
There was a firm knock on the door.
Both of us turned our heads to glare at the offending knock. How dare it. We had earned our respite, dammit.
I sat up and groused, “This had better be good. Enter!”
Destin, head of the royal spies, promptly entered, looking rather fit to be tied. On his heels was Stedman, who should have been home already after today’s events. I didn’t like seeing them together like this. It did not bode well.
Groaning, I let my head flop forward, feeling a new level of exhaustion hit. “Bad news first.”
“It’s all bad,” Stedman answered with a wince. “Frankly, I don’t know which is worse. Destin, you go first.”
Destin sucked in a breath. He was a thin man, reedy really, and he looked ready to let a wind carry him away so he didn’t have to deal with anything else tonight. “Your Majesties. Victor has gone missing.”
I stared at the man for a long second, rather hoping my ears had chosen this moment to not work properly. Unfortunately, they were in proper working order, as I heard Edwin mutter a weary curse.
“How does he go missing off a ship?” Edwin demanded. “I saw him board it!”
“He did board it, and reached his destination, but he’s not been seen since arriving at the house.
I suspected he had immediately headed for some gambling hall or pub, because we all know what he’s like, but…
I can’t find him. We spent two full days trying to locate him on foot and failed.
I finally called in a local mage to do a seeking spell and even they couldn’t find him. He’s outside the search radius.”
The yawning pit of unease in my stomach started churning, and I almost swiped a gulp of Edwin’s tea.
Victor was not a man of common sense, true, but he was also a creature of comfort and habit.
He wouldn’t leave an area he knew his money was tied to, nor would he disappear without someone being the wiser.
He wasn’t one to go quietly anywhere. “Are your people still looking?”
“They are, in an ever-broadening search.”
“Good, keep going until you find him. Hopefully he’s just sleeping in a ditch somewhere. Stedman, what’s your equally bad news?”
“Princess Valentina is also missing,” he admitted, grimacing. “We just received word from Ascor, asking when the princess was supposed to arrive. I messaged Lenville first, but he hasn’t been able to see the monarchs at all.”
“Still? It’s been a week already. With their own child missing, surely they’d be more eager for news!
Also, how the hell did Valentina get lost when it’s a straight shot south?
That’s not possible…” Logistics whirled in my head.
Ascor wasn’t very far from us. It didn’t take a solid week via ship to arrive at their capital. I looked to Edwin.
“She boarded that ship,” he swore.
“Then she must have gotten off it, somehow.” I turned back to Stedman. “Did you confirm her ship’s arrival?”
“We’re in the process of that now. I say process because our initial inquiries were met with confusion.”
“So there’s odds it made a stop somewhere, for whatever reason, causing her delay in arriving?” A very brief light of hope flickered somewhere in the distance. Very brief, because the logistics started overlapping.
Victor was traveling south, his destination a city along the coastline.
Valentina was traveling south, along our coastline, to reach her country.
Granted, they were on two different ships, but…
Edwin’s eyes met mine, and I could see he was thinking along the same lines. His brows were pinched in a thoughtful frown. “They could easily have met up if she stopped in his city. But why would they? Victor is of no use to her now. He annulled their engagement. She knows this.”
“I can’t begin to explain a motivation. I’ve never understood how Victor’s thought process worked to begin with.”
Edwin’s face scrunched up further. “True. Logic doesn’t really enter into it. Would he have thrown it all aside if she offered to harbor him? Gone with her instead of staying quietly in his own house?”
“Again, logic has no bearing on his thoughts. You and I would stay with the sure thing. But if she offered him safety from any repercussions—though how she could guarantee this I’m unsure—he may have taken it. He has nothing to lose in his view.”
“That would explain why we can’t find him,” Destin admitted. “It’s not like anyone was keeping a close watch on him after he got to his new house. He could have turned around and gone straight back to the docks and no one would have been the wiser.”
I could picture it all too clearly. That was the main problem. I could see Victor doing that very thing.
“That doesn’t explain why Princess Valentina is still missing,” Stedman pointed out. “Even if she made an overnight stop to pick up Victor, she’s still overdue at home by a good two days. Unless she has no intention of going home.”
She might not. Having a taste of freedom, with Victor’s unfortunate influence, they may have chosen to galivant off somewhere for fun. Which really only left me with two questions, neither of which I had ready answers for.
Where in the world had the two troublemakers gone off to?
And was it my responsibility to find them?