Chapter Eight
Lord Fionn
It was a few days later that I slept late and awoke to bright sunshine streaming in the windows.
I turned over to stare at Braden’s bright head on the pillow beside me and felt a by-now familiar rush of something like tenderness toward him.
I shook it off quickly, telling myself I was being much too sentimental over this halfling boy. If indeed, that was what he was.
The cross had burned his lips when he’d tried to kiss it at our wedding.
That was concerning, not to mention memorable, to say the least, as it pointed toward the idea that he had demonic blood or witch blood inside him.
I wondered how that was possible and I was determined to find out for sure from Callum.
He must have known what kind of creature his beautiful woman was.
She had probably contributed Braden’s mostly mortal blood, and Callum had certainly given him his Faery blood—unless she had witch blood.
But if not, where had the rest of it come from?
Was he, as I suspected, part demon? I only thought so because of his extraordinary beauty.
Even his half Faery blood wouldn’t fully account for that, and certainly not any kind of witch blood.
That kind tended in the opposite direction, if anything.
And if demonic, then what kind of demon? Exactly how worried did I need to be?
The fact that Braden had been more or less a virgin had surprised me too, as he was so fond of saying how “grown up” he was.
But then he was fond of talking nonsense about a lot of things, and it was hard to shut him up once he started.
It was a habit I probably needed to break him of, instead of indulging him in it.
Sometimes though, I liked to listen to him prattling on and on, and I even rather enjoyed it. I enjoyed almost everything about him.
I went to my own room through our adjoining door and rang for my servants to bring breakfast. I had meetings lined up for the afternoon with my advisors, and I wanted to get a few things done in my office before then.
I’d be cutting it close now as it was, and I couldn’t let this beautiful boy distract me.
We needed to be on our way to see King Callum before he died, but I had pressing matters to attend to first. I hoped Callum would hold on a few days longer.
As I ate, I read over some treasury reports, sipping some nectar wine and eating a little goblin fruit and brown-speckled willet eggs on toast. My valet came in to lay out my clothes for the day, a white shirt with long sleeves and ruffled cuffs, tied at the wrists, along with a gold patterned brocade tunic, black trousers and polished leather boots.
I was in the process of finishing the last bites of my meal when one of my guards came in and bowed deeply to me.
“Yes?” I asked as he stood looking around the room.
Was he searching for my new consort, hoping for a glimpse of him?
I’d anticipated this kind of thing but hadn’t realized how much it would annoy me.
Maybe I should require the boy to wear a veil, though he’d no doubt kick up a fuss about that.
I was still keeping it as an option though.
“Well? What do you need?”
“I’m so sorry, Your Grace, for interrupting your meal,” he said, bowing low. “But your mother is outside in the hallway, insisting on having a few words with you.”
I sighed and moaned a little under my breath. Then I put down my fork and picked up my wine glass, taking a long, stiff drink. “Send her in.”
The Shadow Queen Orlaith came in, looking regal for so early in the morning. She waited for me to rise and hold out a hand to her. She took it and offered her cheek for me to kiss before inviting herself to sit down at the table across from me.
“I need to speak to you, Fionn, and I need you to listen to me.”
“I always listen to you, Mother.”
“Yes, and then you do exactly as you please.”
I smiled, because what was there to say to that? It was very true.
“The servants told me you’ve been spending your nights—the entire night—with that boy.”
“Are you referring to Braden? My consort?”
“You know I am.”
“What servant gave you this information?” I asked softly, taking another sip of my wine.
“I have no intention of telling you that. I merely want to know if it’s true. I need to know.”
“As you once told me when I was a small child, Mother, “You’re old enough that what you want and need won’t hurt you.”
She glared at me, and I sat back and smiled. I was beginning to enjoy myself.
“Is it true, Fionn?”
“I fail to understand how the way I spend my evenings and with whom I choose to sleep could possibly be any of your business.”
She had the good grace to blush, but she was made of sterner stuff than that and recovered quickly. “Tell me, Fionn.”
I took another sip of wine. “No. Now, mother, was there anything else you ‘needed?’”
“This is not acceptable to me.”
“Then it’s fortunate that I no longer have the need to consider what is or isn’t acceptable to you.”
She suddenly stood, stamping her foot. “I never said a word when you made the decision to marry some mortal boy instead of passing up all the many, many lovely ladies of the court that I presented you with as acceptable marriage prospects. I didn’t like the prospect of it, but I assumed you had your reasons, and naturally, I assumed it would be a mariage blanc.
” She gave me an incredulous look. “You even gave him your ring.”
A mariage blanc, or literally a white or pure marriage, was one entered into usually for some financial or personal gain with no romance and certainly no physical intimacy involved.
When my mother started throwing Frankish words at me, a mortal language from a people she pretended to despise, I knew she was very near the end of her patience.
Not that she had much to begin with. Come to think of it, Braden had leveled the same charge at me.
Her grandfather had been a mortal from the land of the Franks, a heritage she tried hard to forget and pretend never happened, but she had visited there as a child once with her mother who had wanted her to see where her grandparent had been born, and she had picked up a bit of the language and a lot of the arrogance of the Franks while she was there.
My great-grandfather had been a knight in the Carpetian Kingdom of the Franks, who had long ago visited éire on a diplomatic trade mission and while there he’d been lured into a grotto by my beautiful, though treacherous, great-grandmother.
After having her way with him, she abandoned him and he died not long afterward, because she had drained his “vitality,” and he slowly starved.
In other words, she had taken what she wanted and moved on. A family trait, I might add.
She hadn’t done it simply to be cruel. I doubt the prospect of him dying as a result of their liaison had even occurred to her.
Her husband, the king of Murias, hadn’t been able to get her pregnant, and knew that she would be soon discarded if she didn’t produce an heir (no matter that it hadn’t been her fault.
Kings weren’t any more logical back then than they were nowadays) and knowing that any other man of the court would cause a problem, she had taken matters in her own hands—so to speak.
It all worked out splendidly for me, as his eventual heir to the throne, so I had no complaints.
Plus, I had the blood of a determined, ruthless queen and a handsome, brave French knight running through my veins, so I counted it as a win.
But I had distracted myself from the conversation with that little aside in my mind and tried to focus back on my mother. “Well,” she was saying. “What do you have to say for yourself?”
“About what?”
She blew out a long-suffering breath. “About this ridiculous marriage of yours. Do you or do you not intend to put him aside soon and find a queen?”
“I do not.”
“You’re being deliberately obtuse. You know you have to provide an heir.”
“I don’t expect to need one for a very long, long time. My father would still be alive if not for that fucking ogre. Besides, I have two younger brothers.”
“Half-brothers,” she shrieked at me.
“Ah yes, but it’s the half that counts. They’re my father’s sons, and a direct link to our not so pure bloodline, I might remind you.
So get used to Braden, as I intend to keep him around for a very long time.
Probably forever. If you can’t do that, then I suggest you make other living arrangements.
I won’t have him feel unwelcome or slighted in his own home. ”
We stood there glaring at each other—clearly, she’d been defeated, but she was loath to admit it. Finally came the distraction she so desperately needed to make a dignified exit.
“Excuse me, Your Grace,” a servant standing in the doorway suddenly said, “I beg your pardon, sire, but a courier has arrived from the Gorias Kingdom with an urgent message for you.”
“I see. If you’ll please excuse me, Mother,” I said, and she inclined her head at once, gave me the sketchiest of curtsies and swept from the room.
The servant handed me a folded slip of paper and waited to see if I’d want to send a message in return.
I opened the paper, not terribly surprised at the message I read inside the hastily written note.