Trusted (13 page)

Sarea frowned, thinking of the innocent kitchen boy who had been caught up in this mess. Poor lad.

But what to make of these accusations?

“Sarea!” the king called to her.

“Please go! Do not tell him I told you, I beg of you!” The girl looked desperate.

“I won’t. I promise. You’ll not be hurt again if I have any say in the matter.”

“Don’t do anything. Just go and leave me in peace.”

Sarea left the other woman and made her way back to the king. He reached out to take her hand and drew her close. Suddenly he felt so dangerous.

“What were you talking to Gersa about?”

“Nothing.”

“Did she say some of how she got to be looking that way? Someone has made sore use of her.”

“She told me nothing. We are not the best of friends. Why would she tell me?” Sarea said.

“True. She may be unkind, even a little spoiled, but I do not tolerate the abuse of women.” The king frowned. “Perhaps it was her father. He has been known to have sore temper.”

“Perhaps. If so, what can you do about it? You said yourself you cannot provoke the man,” Sarea said.

“True. Well, she can come to me if she has complaint. Until then there is little I can do.”

“Of course.”

Sarea didn’t know what to think. If he was truly guilty, he must be the coldest person in the world to pretend as if someone else were responsible. Otherwise, he was completely innocent and falsely accused.

But how was she to discern the truth? If it was true, asking him about it could lead to all manner of terrible things, both for Gersa and for Sarea and Isobol. They were so close to the king. If she were to anger him, who could tell what might happen? And if she told the king and it turned out Gersa was lying…what would that mean for the entire country? War between Tyron and Garrick would tear the country apart.

“Sarea, come with me. I wish to show you something,” the king said, reaching to take her hand. She let him, not knowing what else to do. Isobol followed them, as she always did, but she didn’t know how much safer that made her feel. Two small women against a man of his size would mean nothing.

He led them deeper into the castle, deeper than they’d ever been before. Usually he kept them in the more public areas, as part of preserving her reputation.

“Should we be going so far from the others?” she asked nervously.

He chuckled. “It will only be for a few minutes. And you have Isobol here. I won’t try to ravish you…yet.”

Isobol giggled, and Sarea wished they were alone so she could ask her friend what she thought. She didn’t want to come to the wrong decision about this. There was too much at stake.

“Here we are.”

Her opened the doors to a room and she was immediately hit with a wall of damp, warm air. They walked in and she found herself in a tremendous conservatory, with a stained glass ceiling letting in great streams of colored sunlight. There was greenery everywhere and flowers, beautiful, delicate orchids and passion flowers and kilua blooms with their many-petaled beauty. Songbirds chirped and she realized the hothouse was also an aviary. There were panels of glass missing from the ceiling that allowed the birds access in and out of the room.

“Oh my goodness! Sarea look at it all!” Isobol said, her tone full of the awe she felt.

“It’s a hobby of mine. Growing the orchids. They only grow in the warmest climes so I have to keep the room hot. We replace the glass in the winter to keep the snow out and the birds nest here throughout the winter. We feed them seed every day. Look at the colors on the finches,” he said, pointing out the red and gold birds.

“How do you water all of these?” she asked, touching the nearest bloom gingerly.

“I have a pump that is run directly into the room. See? Right here. And every morning I come and water…or I have a servant do it. I prefer to do it myself unless some business takes me away from it.”

“I can see why you’d want to do it. To spend time with so much beauty,” Sarea said with awe. “I should love to come here every morning.”

“There’s a table and chairs over here, see? I take tea in here sometimes. But usually I break fast here after I water the plants.”

That was when she knew he could not have done what Gersa had accused him of doing. No one who took such pleasure in something so peaceful could possibly raise a hand to someone who was utterly defenseless. But what should she do about the accusation? Should she tell him? What if it angered him and made him act against Lord Tyron. She did not wish to bring tensions between them any more than there already were.

“It’s beautiful,” she said to him, reaching to take his face in her hands. “Thank you for sharing this with me.” She stood on her tiptoes and pressed a warm kiss to his lips.

He ringed an arm around her waist and dragged her up tight against his body, and then he turned her sweet kiss into something far less tepid. He separated her lips with a silky slip of his tongue, dipped in to find hers, and then tangled together with her. Her entire body went boneless, melting against his hard strength. He was wearing a soft cotton shirt with loose sleeves and fabric that gaped at his throat. Her hand came up and her fingers stroked the hollow of his throat and the crisp hairs at the ‘v’ of his shirt. It was the closest she could get to touching his bare skin. She often cursed herself for not taking the opportunity to touch him the day of the hunt when she had the chance. Now she longed to feel his warm tanned skin beneath her fingertips, against her palms…against all of her skin.

Isobol delicately cleared her throat.

The king seemed to come to his senses slowly, drawing away from her mouth in small increments. Then, with a long, heartfelt sigh, he set her back down on her feet. It was only then she realized they had come up off the floor.

“I do not know how much more of this I can take,” he murmured against her cheek. “I want you from the bottommost reaches of my soul.”

Usually she would say nothing when he spoke of his deepest most heated desires, but this time she said, “I feel I would give you everything, if not for my honor which prevents me.”

Her words made him growl low in his throat and his gaze was intense as it bore down into hers.

“Isobol, take your sister friend from here and bring her home before I whisk her away and treat her most dishonorably,” he said, his voice and gaze thick with his desires.

“Come, Sarea. Quickly before he changes his mind,” Isobol said with amusement lacing her voice as she held out her hand to Sarea. But Sarea knew there was no humor to be had here. The passion between them was taking a very serious turn.

Sarea put her hand in her friend’s and let her take her away.

Chapter Twelve

Jesso found the king in the conservatory several hours later, the afternoon sunlight fading into dark. It was growing cool outside, but the conservatory remained humid.

“It’s almost time to put the glass in for the winter,” Garrick said. He was sitting at the small table he had shown Sarea only hours earlier.

“How long have you been here? It’s almost time for night’s meal.”

“I know. I’ll be down in time.”

“You’re not dressed for it.”

“Does it matter what I wear? I’m the king.”

“No I don’t suppose it does,” Jesso mused.

“Where is your slave boy?” Garrick asked, cracking a smile.

“Mending my socks.”

“I would tell you to go easy on the boy, but that would just be me doing a favor for his sister and I won’t interfere in your training.”

“I’ll say this for him, now that he’s had a few hours to accept his loss, he’s starting to adjust. Starting to resign himself that he created the situation he finds himself in and so should live out the consequences. He’s a fast learner that one.”

“He has to be around you,” Garrick said with a distant chuckle. In fact, to Jesso his entire manner seemed distant.

“Is there perhaps something on your mind? Something I might help you with, my king?”

“There is something on my mind, but I am not certain you can help me with it.”

“Perhaps if you told me what the problem is?”

Garrick sighed. “Sarea.”

“Is it something to do with her brother? I hope she is not taking his defeat out on you.”

“On the contrary. She understands her brother had a lesson to learn. It pained her to watch it, but she understands. She understands that he will put up with you…with anything…for a chance at becoming Trusted.”

“A lesser man would have quit and walked away.”

“I recognize this. It shows him to have promise.”

“Very well then, it is not her brother. What seems to be the issue?”

“I don’t know what to do next,” he said with a tensing of his shoulders.

“In what regard?”

“I want her in my bed, Jesso. More than I have ever wanted a woman before.”

“It only seems that way because she denies you,” Jesso said dismissively.

“No! That is not the way of it,” Garrick said sharply. Jesso took note of the tone and paid closer respect to what he was saying. “The fact that she denies me heightens the need in me, it is true, but there’s something else. Some feeling that…if I were to lose her, it would put a hole in my life. She is filling up a space I didn’t even know was empty. Now things seem to have more meaning than before. I find myself constantly asking ‘What would Sarea think of this?’ or ‘What would Sarea say?’ or ‘What is she doing right now?’” Garrick looked at his friend. “Why do I do that?”

“Garrick,” Jesso said with a laugh, “you are infatuated with the girl. It feels so strongly because you have never known this feeling before.”

“So what do I do? How do I bed the girl and allow her to maintain her self-respect? Her self-respect means everything to her.”

“Well, there is only two solutions. Either you convince her that she need not feel a loss of her self-respect by going to bed with you or…”

“Or?”

“Or you marry the girl.”

Garrick looked at Jesso hard. “It is not as simple as that.”

“Why not?”

“That would make her queen! Do you really think a woman as sensitive as she is could bear up under being queen?”

“I think you are selling her short,” Jesso said. “She’s much stronger than you give her credit for. She has determination. Think of how you met her. She has empathy and understanding, look at how she accepts her brother’s penance. She has perseverance…just look at how she demands you respect her honor. She places high value on herself. She will not allow others to say she is less than what she is and she will give them no cause to think or say so.”

“She is a simple country girl,” Garrick said softly.

“Who better to understand the needs of the people? She is a nobleman’s daughter. It is not as though she was a farmer’s daughter.”

“I would want her just the same,” Garrick said sharply.

“Of that I have no doubt. Garrick, you are looking to me to convince you. You need to look to yourself.”

“What do you think I’ve been doing these past hours?” Garrick snapped. “You’re the one who asked me to share my troubles.”

“You are right. I did. But you are asking yourself all the wrong questions.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means you cannot ask questions about honor or suitability or what you are denied. You need to ask yourself what you feel. Do you love the girl?”

“I only just met her!” Garrick exclaimed.

“Again, you do not answer the question. Do you love the girl?”

“It is as you said. An infatuation.”

“And that is all?”

Garrick went quiet. Jesso let him think and waited patiently.

“I think…I think she is my trumate. I feel all of these things when I am around her. My senses grow sharp. My appetite for sex increases a thousandfold. I think I can hear her in my head sometimes. I know when she is laughing. I know when she is fretting. Just this afternoon, I could feel she was troubled…that she wanted to ask me something important. I could not make out what it was but…after I bed her I know we will connect on that level.” Garrick looked up to see how his friend was handling his revelation.

Jesso was utterly blown away. “And yet you question whether to take her to wife?”

“To queen. I question whether to take her to queen. As for wife…I feel that, with this connection…all things are possible. They say with trumates, love always follows.”

“Garrick, you do not turn your back on your trumate. No one does that. If you do something like that, then you are not the man I thought you were. That will be you allowing fear to rule you, and the man I know does not give in to such fears. You question whether she will be able to handle being a queen? Help her to handle it. Guide her to it. A man who has the patience to do all of this,”—Jesso encompassed the room in a gesture—“certainly has the patience to guide a nascent queen.

“Trumates are a gift to us. They are rare. Hard to find. Hard to live without. The rest of us cannot possibly hope to find a trumate. The odds are astronomical. We all marry for position, wealth and power…when we would gladly trade it all away for a trumate.”

“I know all of this,” Garrick said quietly. “This is going to come as a complete shock to her. I should prepare her somehow. It will be overwhelming enough to be asked to be queen, but to be told we are trumates…I would rather she come to that on her own. To realize it on her own. To feel it on her own. And the best way to do that is to become lovers. And the best way to do that is to be wed.”

“It is high time you had someone sitting to your left. You need heirs, Garrick. Lots of heirs. If you died your entire male line would die with you. I know you have named me heir, but you know this throne would be the desire of every grasping man of power there is. Your country would be torn by civil war.”

“I do not wish to see that happen. It was different when Ulric was alive. Now, I no longer have the luxury of a bachelor life. All the more reason to marry. But…Tyron will take exception that I do not marry his daughter. It’s another reason why I have put off wedding anyone. I didn’t want to fly right in his face with a refusal. But I would sooner wed a viper, as I told Sarea. Did you see her today?”

“I took note of her. She’s been abused…and doesn’t care if everyone knows it.”

“Try and find out who it was. I don’t care who it is, what power they think they have…I will not see women abused in front of me.”

“As you wish, my king,” Jesso said. “So have you come to it? Am I to make announcement to the rest of the Trusted?”

“Not yet. I have to ask the girl first. If she turns me down, I should like to keep the embarrassment to a minimum.”

“You cannot let her turn you down,” Jesso said with a frown. “If you think she will you must tell her about being trumates.”

“If she turns me down I will regroup and continue to court her. I will court her until next summer if I have to. She will come to me on her own, not with me pushing her around.”

“Have it your way then,” Jesso said skeptically. “But I think you are being foolish.”

“Never fear. I also plan to be quite convincing.”

“Oh? And how do you plan to convince her?”

Garrick gave him a sly little smile. “Leave that to me. Go send a messenger to her house calling her and her parents and Isobol to night’s meal. There’s still time for them to make ready and arrive here.”

“You’ve never had her to night’s meal before.”

“Yes, this is true. But I think I need the cover of darkness for my tactics in asking her to wed me.”

“Very well.”

“And Dakon…let the boy sit at table. Don’t embarrass him in front of his father.”

“As you wish,” Jesso said, bowing slightly to Garrick.

Jesso turned and moved quickly out of the room, calling for a page. Garrick followed more slowly, moving toward his rooms. He entered his bedroom, his mind spinning with the understanding he had come to. If he thought he was overwhelmed, as a simple country girl who never aspired to be anything other than a simple wife, she would be emotionally trampled upon. But Jesso was right. He could not turn his back on her no matter how much he dreaded becoming queen might damage her in some way. He didn’t worry for an instant that she would let such power go to her head, but he did worry that it would overwhelm her, and that the actions of others would make things very difficult for her.

But Jesso was right. He had the patience to help her through it. And when he put the troubles of making her queen aside…the idea of making her a wife, or making her his bedmate and making her the mother of his children…it excited him beyond measure of reason. He spent the next half of the hour dressing for dinner and trying to calm the excited throbbing of his heart. Even though he was king, it did not guarantee him a favorable answer. But because he was king the odds were pretty damn high. Still, he wanted her to answer from the heart, not from pressure of any other sources.

“When Sarea’s parents arrive, show them into the library without Sarea and Isobol,” Garrick instructed his manservant, Jatt.

“I shall go down now and have them secluded the moment they arrive…unless you need me further?”

“No. I can finish myself,” Garrick said, moving to change the rings on his fingers from those he casually wore to those with his family crest upon them. He put on a golden medallion that had on it a pictoral representation of the day his family rose to royal power. Then he shrugged into his dinner jacket and checked himself in the mirror.

“You look well enough,” he told his reflection after a critical once over.

Satisfied, he made his way down to the library.

Sarea didn’t know what to make of it. The king had invited them to night’s meal for the first time since they had begun this courtship, and she found it disconcerting. Something had changed. She didn’t know what, but she suspected she knew when. That kiss they had shared in the conservatory had felt as though it had changed something very fundamental in their relationship.

Now her parents had been taken away from them the moment they had arrived.

It was all too curious.

The members of the court were milling about in the antechamber that led into the dining hall. Some were already in the hall, but many were not. Sarea saw Gersa standing there with Nann and her usual clutch of female companions.

“I wish to confront her,” Sarea said to Isobol, with whom she had shared everything. Isobol had been of the mind the Gersa was an evil liar. Isobol had scolded her for even thinking of believing her. Isobol had been right and Sarea felt ashamed of herself.

“It’s not worth it. You know the truth. And what would a confrontation get you anyway? She will either stick to her story or mock you for being so gullible.”

“Would that I had the power to make her pay for such a slander. Hopefully she is not spreading her malicious lies to others in the court.”

“I’m sure the king has suffered worse in the way of rumors,” Isobol said.

“What is worse than being accused of putting his hands on Lord Tyron’s daughter? Whoever treated her thusly…they ought to be punished. Did she really blame some poor innocent kitchen lad of the crime? Surely the boy would pay with his life for his perceived crime.”

“That will come out in court. He would be brought before the king’s judgment. If that is the case then you must say something to the king. But until then, it is best for all involved that you remain silent on the matter.”

“But how will I know if it is brought before the king?”

“In this court?” Isobol laughed. “Nothing is secret in this court.”

“True,” Sarea said. But she still did not feel easy about it.

Her parents arrived in the antechamber with the king and the gong for dinner was rung. Sarea noticed her mother’s eyes were bright with excitement, which was strange. She had been invited to dine with the king several times over the past shona. Why would she suddenly find this meal more exciting? Then again, it was night’s meal. Only the cream of the crop got to dine night’s meal with the king.