CHAPTER TWO
C LAUDIA COULDN ’ T SLEEP , and it had nothing to do with the warm and heartfelt reception she’d received from her brother and his family. Maybe it had something to do with the adrenaline-filled day and the capture of her senses as she’d built new memories over old ones and tracked all the changes that had occurred to people and possessions. Mostly, her wakefulness had to do with a certain falconer with an impossibly beautiful masculine face, eyes of darkest brown and stern lips that spoke of sensuality under rigid control.
Tomas had been standing there with Ana and Cas as she’d entered the stables and he’d known who she was in an instant. She’d seen it in his eyes—a kaleidoscope of feelings she hadn’t possibly been able to decipher in such a short time before her attention had been forced elsewhere.
‘The one who left the stables first is not your friend,’ Ildris had told her just before bed, right before he’d withdrawn to his guestroom, and maybe that assessment was keeping her awake too.
Because Claudia absolutely disagreed with Ildris on that point. She stood at the bedroom window, staring out at the faint light in the building on the edge of the fortress that had once housed fledgling falcons and probably still did.
In all her reckonings of how this day would unfold, Tomas welcoming her home had always been part of it. A constant amidst ever changing variables. He would know who she was at a glance and would be overjoyed to see her alive and well and...
Well...
Apart from knowing who she was at a glance, reality really hadn’t delivered.
And that light in his window was beckoning and it wasn’t as if she was sleepy.
Donning her travelling cloak and nodding to the pair of guards stationed just outside the bedroom door, Claudia made her way through the corridors of the fortress to the kitchen and from there to the herb garden and the deep shadows of battlement walls. She was being watched, no doubt, but she couldn’t be caring about that. There was only so much space in her mind to begin with and at the moment it was full of Tomas the boy overlaid with an image of Tomas the man, and her overwhelming desire to make things right between them. Their friendship had existed in the shadows all those years ago, and in the shadows she hoped to find it again.
She knocked on the wooden door to the falconer’s workspace with every good intention and a dozen explanations on her lips, but when the door opened to allow her entry and Tomas turned without a word and stalked away from her down the narrow entry hall, speech deserted her. He was a presence. An unknown force, battering away at her senses. Too big to make sense of, his shoulders too broad. Too stern. Ever so silent.
She followed him anyway.
He led her to what had once been the falcon nursery. These days it seemed to be an office with a couple of perches but no falcons currently present.
He took a seat behind the desk and motioned to the chair on the other side, all without saying a word. She had a feeling he could sit here all night, eyes stony and lips tight.
‘Hi,’ she murmured.
Icebreaker it was not.
She tried again. ‘I’m guessing you have questions.’
‘No.’
Oh. ‘Because anything you want to know, I’ll answer you. I mean, if you really want the deep dive into what happened we’ll be here for days, but I could cover the basics quickly enough.’
Curiosity flared briefly in those assessing dark eyes. Curiosity and an internal conversation he seemed to be having with himself before he finally allowed himself a single slight nod. ‘Then cover the basics.’
‘Right.’ It wasn’t much of an invitation but it was enough. ‘I got kidnapped from the palace by northerners hoping to force water concessions from my father. That didn’t work. They wanted to return me. That didn’t work either.’
His eyes narrowed. ‘Why not? Why couldn’t they have just given you back?’
‘Because I was in the room when my father told them he didn’t want me back. As far as he was concerned, I was damaged goods and better martyred than returned. He said that if they let me go, he’d kill me himself and blame it on them anyway. Is that a good enough reason to stay away until now, do you think?’
He had the most magnificent scowl.
‘This presented a problem for my captors who, apart from the whole kidnapping thing, had treated me well enough up until that point. What were they going to do with me?’
‘Tell me.’
She did like this Tomas’s voice commands. He’d grown into his authority quite magnificently.
‘A wealthy clan who’d voted against the abduction petitioned the council to think of me as an abandoned child and put me up for adoption. The council agreed, so the family took me in and gave me every opportunity to grow up strong and whole. I wasn’t abused by them or anyone else.’ She’d had to reassure Cas of this several times over and figured Tomas might appreciate similar emphasis. ‘My father died, Cas wants to negotiate water rights with the northerners, finally giving them a seat at the table, and here I am. I know it won’t be easy, fitting back in, but I can honestly say that so far it feels good to be home.’
‘Your brother must be overjoyed.’
‘I hope so. Are you glad to see me too? Because I really can’t tell. Ildris thinks you’re no friend of mine. I say you are.’
‘Is this Ildris an abductor of children? Or is he of the clan of opportunists who took you in? Either way, I have no time at all for what he thinks.’
‘Remind me never to seat you two beside one another at the dinner table.’
Savage little smirk from him at her words. ‘Never going to happen.’
Civilised behaviour seemed to sit only lightly on this man. Boy Tomas had been softer.
Maybe if she stopped mapping every curve and plane of his face for traces of the child he’d once been, she could concentrate more on breaking the ice with him, although, to be fair, he was studying her just as closely.
‘And you? I heard about your father’s death in the papers and that you’d taken over here and were doing good things. You’ve been well? Life is treating you well?’
I never forgot you , she wanted to say. I thought of you so many times. I never factored in that meeting you again would involve me wanting to fling myself into your arms, but here we are.
Probably best not to mention any of that right now.
‘I knew you’d grow up to be a falconer, of course.’ Small talk was her friend. ‘I did think you’d talk more and scowl less, but maybe you’re just shy.’
‘I’m not shy.’
‘Standoffish, then, but that’s okay too. I haven’t forgotten any of your kindnesses. I’d like us to be friends again.’ Start small. Build from there.
‘I see.’ He nodded as if they’d reached an accord. ‘No, that’s not going to happen.’
She reached out instinctively, her hand over his, and felt the sting of attraction rip through her skin and into her veins. He swiftly withdrew his hand from beneath hers and his eyes flashed fierce warning before he shielded them with long black lashes.
‘What was that?’ She knew exactly what it was, but did he?
‘Nothing.’
‘Then you won’t mind if we try it again.’ She held out her hand for him to shake, put it right in his line of sight. ‘Hi, I’m Claudia.’
‘No.’
‘No to a simple handshake?’
‘It’s not a handshake. It’s not simple. I’m not the boy you used to know.’
Maybe she needed a different approach.
‘You should know that I don’t give up on people easily. I’m so used to not being wanted at first glance. At second glance too. Even at tenth glance. I’m very persistent.’
‘That’s okay,’ he murmured, echoing some of her earlier words with a smile that made ice look warm. ‘You may be persistent but I’m as stubborn as they come. If you need someone to drive a team of oxen up a mountain, I’m your man. If I can be of service to you in any official or professional capacity, I will be. But I don’t weather surprises well and I hate messy emotions and right now you’re blasting both at me. I’m glad you’re back, don’t get me wrong. Surprised as hell, but glad you’re alive and relieved your captivity wasn’t terrible. God knows I never wanted you dead. But I don’t have the time or the inclination to renew old friendships or go tripping down memory lane with you. I hope you can understand my position.’
‘I don’t understand your position.’
‘What a shame. Maybe understanding will come to you in time. Now, if you don’t mind, Princess, it’s almost three a.m. and I have a sick falcon to see to. He stood and she looked up, up into pitiless eyes. ‘You know the way out.’
Well, damn. Ildris had been right.
The King’s Falconer was proving elusive.
Again.
In the three months she’d been back she’d caught up with the falconer only a handful of times, and every time he’d remained perfectly, excruciatingly polite and completely closed off to her overtures of friendship. This didn’t stop her returning to the winter fortress whenever Cas could spare her, though. She loved it here on the edge of a cliff face, with her beloved mountain in the distance and a chill in the air even on the sunniest days. And this time she’d come armed with a missive from the King, all signed, sealed and soon to be delivered.
To Tomas.
Lor said he was in residence.
Her interest in the royal racing falcons and breeding and rehabilitation programmes was real, no need to pretend. She might not have the experience Tomas’s apprentices were getting, but she had enough knowledge to ask sensible questions and be of use when it came to handling the raptors currently in royal care. Not that anyone ever let her help. They were under strict instructions not to let anyone near their charges without the King’s Falconer’s approval.
She’d tried asking nicely, but he’d been on his way to collect a falcon. Bad timing, he’d said.
She’d put her request to have access to the aviaries in writing and received no reply.
Third time lucky, right?
In her hand she carried yet another request for her to have access to the aviaries and this time the request came from Cas. Tomas—if he had a subversive bent, which he absolutely did —could deny he’d ever received such a request if she didn’t deliver it to him personally, so here she was, about to do exactly that.
She’d warned him she was persistent.
Claudia found him in a white-walled office crammed with filing cabinets along one wall and several computers set up haphazardly on any available surface. He sat behind a corner desk with a phone to his ear and a frown on his face that deepened when he saw her. He didn’t motion for her to sit, but she placed the letter dead centre on his desk and swivelled it so that his name on the envelope was facing him, fully aware that he was watching her every move.
She’d spent a ridiculous amount of time on her hair and make-up this morning. She’d tried on three different sets of outdoor ‘work’ clothes. She’d armoured up in preparation to see him again because apparently she was perfectly capable of having a crush on him with all the avid obsession of a hormonal thirteen-year-old.
What joy.
Smiling tightly, she then turned her back on him and proceeded to poke around his office.
Okay, not poke, she wasn’t quite that rude, maybe prowl was the description she needed. There was a wall of bird photographs, with names neatly printed beneath each image. Once she’d inhaled all that, she memorised the weekly roster and the names and duties of his apprentices. And of course she listened to his side of the phone conversation.
‘I don’t have any room,’ he said more than once. ‘We’re full. I know. Leave it with me. I’ll call you back.’ Two more rapid phone calls, one to France, the other to Latvia, and he was indeed calling that first person back and giving them the contact details of the raptor sanctuary he’d organised to take their breeding pair of endangered goshawks. Finally, he put the phone down and stared at her.
She’d been waiting over twenty minutes.
‘Hello,’ she murmured now that she had his full attention. She was certainly prepared to offer him all of hers in return. ‘Good job on rehoming the goshawks.’
She loved the way he exuded healthy masculinity in his rough labourer’s clothes that included wide leather bands wrapped casually around both forearms. Muscles bulged. Angels sighed. Falconers had an unfair advantage when it came to looking effortlessly sexy. Not that she was inclined to mention it. She was all about keeping this meeting professional. Mostly professional. She’d see how she went.
‘Are you the president of some kind of raptor relocation outfit?’
‘No.’ He gestured towards the envelope. ‘What’s this?’
‘Another request for access to the royal aviaries. I’ve also included my falconry experience, starting from age seven. It’s extensive.’
His eyes narrowed as he stared at her—a suspicious-hearted person might have even called it a glare. And then he turned his attention to the envelope, discarding Cas’s covering letter after a swift glance in favour of scanning her C.V.
Quite voraciously. It was very gratifying.
‘It says here you’re a Master Falconer.’
Claudia beamed.
‘Where are your birds?’
‘Still in the mountains. And while I’d happily bring them here, I’m currently busy taming Cas’s courtiers, and it sounds like you don’t have room to keep them. I’d like to discuss it though, just in case you can find some way to accommodate them.’
‘There’s an onboarding process for anyone wanting access to the royal aviaries,’ he said.
‘Of course.’ She expected no less. ‘And I am here for it. Are you free now?’
She’d ambushed him, used her position to corner him, and he didn’t know whether to be resentful or impressed. Just another set of opposing emotions to add to the collection he carried deep within whenever he thought of her. And with the newspapers and magazines and fortress gossip fair bursting with talk of the political demands she was making and the family gowns and tiaras she was wearing, not to mention her ever growing influence over her brother and his family, he thought about the returned princess of Byzenmaach plenty.
She didn’t even have to be present .
‘I’m here for the next two days and I’d really like to get my onboarding on track,’ she was saying, and he seriously considered making it happen.
Maybe if he onboarded her himself, he could form his own opinion on the type of person she’d grown up to be and stop buying into all the gossip she created just by breathing in a particular direction. He could stop watching the many television interviews she’d taken to giving, because they downright did his head in. It was impossible not to admire her grit, even as he wondered what the hell she thought she was doing , dabbling in political minefields that were minefields for a reason.
‘Let’s do it now,’ he said of the onboarding, choosing for once to step up and wear the emotional turmoil of connection.
Go him. Such outreach. His former girlfriends would hardly recognise him.
‘Really?’
Don’t beam at me. Don’t shine like you’ve just won the lottery.
‘Yes.’
She beamed at him, and he scowled right back because the world needed balance.
But he gave her the respect her qualifications deserved and took her on a comprehensive tour, the VIP colleague version, and she was knowledgeable, enthusiastic and full of praise. She cooed over his rare mating pairs. Told a featherless but talkative parrot he was her new favourite, and when they entered the aviary full of peregrine falcons and he handed her gloves and a bucket of feed she proved herself more than capable of feeding them by hand in orderly fashion.
She kept enough physical distance from him to render him comfortable, right up until they rounded a bend outside aviary three and she lost her footing on a slippery rock step and he shot out his hand to steady her. These paths could be dangerous, especially when covered in late afternoon shade.
‘Sorry,’ she murmured, righting herself. ‘Slippery.’
He probably should have anticipated the sudden pounding of his heart—either from touching her or at the thought of her falling. Nothing to do with sexual attraction at all. Probably.
‘Give me your shoe size and I’ll order some boots in with rubber tread like mine.’
‘You’d do that for me?’
‘I do that for everyone who works for me. Not that you do work for me or that I expect you to. But if you want unlimited, unsupervised access to the aviaries, you may as well have all the gear.’
‘And will you allow me that access?’
‘Yes.’
Her eyes lit up, the same way they always had done when they’d been kids and she’d done well and been praised for it. Made him want to preen. Made him a little too slow to drop his hand and withdraw that physical support. More fool him.
He’d embarked on project Make Claudia Welcome in an effort to get over her, not to become ever more in thrall to the woman.
By the time they got back to his office, the sun had slid behind the distant mountain range and shadows painted the ground. He scanned the clipboard on his desk, and the long list of tasks and ticks and the comments column for anything in need of his attention. She was still there. Still eager to know everything.
‘You’ve expanded so much. It’s brilliant! Imagine what you could do with more resources,’ Claudia was saying.
If only.
And why was she still here? They’d said their farewells five minutes ago, hadn’t they?
‘Do you want more resources?’ she asked perceptively.
‘Your brother and I have discussed it.’ Tomas hoped that with their recent speed trial wins that they might take another look at avian resources, but it hadn’t happened yet. Cas was busy, not least with reining in his long lost and in no way dead sibling. ‘It’ll happen eventually.’ He wanted to believe it. ‘Your brother means well.’
‘Damned by faint praise,’ she murmured.
‘But it is praise. Your father’s rule was...difficult. People are understandably wary, and your brother has yet to prove himself. I know what you’re doing, by the way. Making your views the target of political outrage when anyone with a brain knows they’re your brother’s views as well. Nice little sidestep he’s got going there. Letting you take all the heat.’
‘Careful, Tomas. I’ll start to think you’re a political being.’
‘Never. Spare me the company of craven courtiers. I hate them all.’ He meant it.
‘And yet my brother speaks very highly of your ability to deal with them.’
‘I serve as I ever have.’
Claudia snorted, and even that managed to sound fetching. ‘I certainly hope not. From memory, you and your father and the rest of the staff here were extremely adept at limiting my father’s impact on the world around him.’
He grunted in reply. No point incriminating himself or others.
‘So what do you think of the water rights treaty?’ she asked. ‘It’s exciting, right? With conservation at the forefront and guaranteed access for those who need it.’
Always with the questions, luring him into unwanted conversation.
‘As you say, things are changing, and people are hopeful.’
He watched her cross to the picture board with the names of all the falcons on it. She’d been captivated by that earlier too. He usually asked new apprentices to memorise it within a week. Instinct told him it wouldn’t take her that long.
‘Do you still think we can’t be friends?’ she asked quietly.
‘You’re a princess, I’m a servant.’
‘Oh, c’mon,’ she scoffed. ‘We did away with that distinction twenty years ago.’
‘We certainly did not .’
‘In private we did.’ When had she become all angles and impossible beauty? So utterly compelling? He didn’t want to be her friend, that still hadn’t changed. But since when had he wanted lovers’ rights? A fully adult and possibly X-rated relationship? Had he come to that conclusion five minutes ago? Ten? Was the featherless parrot to blame?
Because he really wanted to blame something for his appalling lack of judgement.
‘If you want access to the royal aviaries, you have it.’ Time to get this briefing back on track. ‘If you let me know how many birds you want to bring in I’ll make space for them, even if we have to house them in the fortress proper—we’ve done that before and we can certainly do it for you. They’ll need vet checks and a clean bill of health before they arrive and I’ll send you an information questionnaire that needs to be filled out for each bird. If you can’t take them to the palace when you go there to be your brother’s political scapegoat—which I don’t agree with, by the way, he’s doing you no favours by letting you take point—I’ll put them in my personal flight rotation. I’ll even give you updates. Just don’t ask me to send pictures of them with little voice bubbles or videos with them dancing to music or wearing cowboy hats and neck ties, because I won’t do it. Is that a good enough extension of the hand of friendship?’
‘Well, when you put it like that,’ she said, golden eyes shining, holding out her hand for him to shake, and damn her for making his pulse spike again. ‘I’ll take it.’
Claudia spent the rest of the evening riding a wave of happiness. She had dinner with Silas and Lor in the big kitchen, with her wolfhounds at her feet and Sophia’s as well. Casimir had kept the wolfhound name traditions going. The heavily pregnant wolfhound stretched out in front of the huge stone hearth was Jelly Belly the eleventh. Or was she the twelfth?
Coming home had been harder than expected. She’d ridden in with a heart full of hope that she would be accepted and a deeply buried fear that she would prove useful to no one. Not the northerners, who expected so much from her bulldozer-style advocacy. Not her brother, whose rule had invariably become more complicated upon her return.
She needed to succeed in all her roles. She needed to be strong and powerful, politically invaluable, and above all confident. Make Cas look good. Take the extreme position if she had to so that he could swoop in with a more moderate stance and yet still make ample progress. That was the plan. Her only plan.
But Tomas had clocked it and criticised her actions and she too had underestimated just how much courage it would take to face suspicion and outright hostility from the select few politicians who, first and foremost, were still her father’s men. Cruel, powerful men with years of alliances and information to trade upon. Ugly business, the ruling of worlds. Corruption never far from the centre.
She hadn’t factored in how much energy it would take to keep her emotional armour permanently in place, and her reserves were wearing thin.
Tomas’s friendship, or whatever he wanted to call it, was a godsend.
Her mobile rang and she glanced at the screen for the name of the caller.
Cas.
‘Brother! You rang?’
‘I did. How did it go with Tomas?’
‘I like to think I wowed him with my poise, maturity and falcon-feeding skills and maybe even reclaimed the threads of an old and valuable friendship. The reality is probably a lot less rosy, but progress has been made, which makes me happy.’
She could almost see her brother picking over her words, analysing her good humour, and coming to conclusions.
‘I never realised how close you and Tomas were as children.’
‘He was safety,’ she offered simply.
‘How did I not know this?’
‘ Secret safety.’
‘And now what is he?’
‘Who knows?’ A reluctant champion? Her latest late-night fantasy? Definitely the latter. ‘He’s incredibly hard to read. All that iron control, and I know he needs it for his birds, but it’s annoying. Cas, stop laughing. It’s not helpful.’
Her brother did stop laughing. Eventually. ‘He’s not an easy man to know, our master falconer. By all accounts, he’s a demanding but fair teacher. He’s not a fan of small talk. He could barely stand to be in the same room as Sophia when she first arrived. I believe it was because she reminded him so strongly of you. Now she tracks him down whenever she visits and his patience with her is a sight to behold.’
‘I refuse to feel jealous of my niece,’ she told him loftily. ‘Even if I am.’
‘Tomas knew you had returned the moment you rode into this valley. The facts were all against it. He could barely bring himself to voice the words lest everyone think him a madman, but he knew it was you. Ana will tell you that he never truly released you from his heart, even though everybody said you were dead, but that’s just...wild.’
Yes, it was.
‘I’d love to see him with the capacity to expand his role beyond being merely your falconer. He’s worth investing in.’
‘ Merely the King’s Falconer? Is that not exalted enough?’
‘He needs more resources. Would you like to hear my plan?’
‘Perhaps. But first I have a question. What is it you want from him? Not for him. From him.’
She thought long and hard before answering. ‘I want him to feel more comfortable around me than he currently does. I want him to like me.’ There it was. ‘And I can’t get it out of my head that he’s hurting because of me. Because I left. Because I’m back. Because I didn’t write to say hi, I’m still alive . I don’t know why my presence pains him, but it does. All I can do is guess.’
‘And guess badly,’ Cas admonished.
‘Maybe if he thought of me growing up at all, he imagined someone different from who I turned out to be. Maybe I’m a disappointment. Not worth spending time on.’
There it was, her primal fear revealed—nurtured by years upon years of having to justify her existence.
‘What if it’s that?’
‘It’s not. You are a survivor. You’re smart and strong and incisive and caring and open. And you could have turned out differently after all you’ve been through. You could have been hard-hearted and resentful, suspicious and untrusting, and no one would blame you, but you’re not. You’re an inspiration. Don’t let the falconer get you down.’
‘Aw.’ She had a champion. ‘Thank you. Music to my ears.’
‘Besides, maybe you’re looking at this the wrong way around. Maybe Tomas thinks he let you down by not preventing you from being taken in the first place. Guilt might be part of his response to you.’
‘That’s just stupid.’
‘I speak from experience. Guilt plagues me that I did nothing to prevent your abduction. We lost years .’
The pain in his voice was only too real and she stopped to consider his words more carefully and form a more appropriate reply.
‘If you need my forgiveness, you have it. But Cas, you were just a kid. You and Tomas were both kids. What could you possibly have done to prevent my kidnapping?’
‘Something,’ he muttered darkly. ‘All I’m saying is that if Tomas was your unofficial secret protector, he would have guilt. I guarantee it. And our falconer doesn’t particularly like being reminded that he has feelings. That’s all I’m saying.’
‘I’m not giving up on him.’
‘What a surprise,’ he replied dryly. ‘I’m on your side, Claudia. I’m glad it went well today.’
‘Thank you for the new perspective. I’m going to keep it in mind when I corner him next. And, brother, just so you know, I’m going to knock any harbouring of guilt for the life I’ve led right out of your head too.’
‘Please,’ he offered drolly. ‘Do.’