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“I still don’t think I like you.” The words lacked conviction.
“I still don’t think I like you.”
“Then we’re back to…not liking each other.”
She beamed at him. “Precisely.” She went to her room to change, calling back, “Make yourself useful and have breakfast sent up. You owe me a carafe of coffee.”
Chapter Sixty-Two
Socializing Is Hell
Socializing was every bit the hell Clare had imagined it to be. Everyone today had flocked to one of the inner gymnasiums, in order to watch… “Fencing?” Distaste laced the single word.
Alys made a noise of sympathetic agreement. “You know how much men love to poke things,” she said, making Lina snort. “Personally, I long for the days the history books describe, when the nobility had to learn how to actually fight, rather than this fancy-stepping artful mimicry of it. But I think our illustrious leader prefers his lesser rulers complacent and lacking in the martial arts.”
They stood just inside the gymnasium door, drawing a fair number of gazes with their entrance.
“What do you think they’re more upset by?” Alys mused to Clare. “My face, Lina and I’s engagement, or you?”
“Does it matter?”
“Of course it matters. If my face doesn’t win, I’ll be sorely disappointed.”
“You have the strangest sense of vanity,” Lina said affectionately.
A peel of laughter drew Clare’s gaze to the right. Numair, surrounded by a small crowd, was gesticulating wildly about something. A new woman stood too near him today, closer to Verol’s age than Numair’s, though her glamour did its best to hide the fact.
Alys followed Clare’s gaze, her mouth tightening. “I don’t understand him.”
“Do you have to?” The words came out more irritated than she’d intended them to.
Alys's eyebrows rose. “You know, he asked me the same thing, and I…don’t know. I can’t condone what he does.”
“No one is asking you to.”
“And it doesn’t bother you?”
Of course it bothered her. “Why should it?”
Alys shrugged. “No reason.”
Across the room, the apparently abandoned Dahlia of Moria glared daggers at Numair while she stood within a protective coterie of friends. Clare was certain, by the sly looks being sent the woman’s way, that Dahlia was the subject of much discussion that morning. She just couldn’t ascertain what kind without hearing it.
“Could you explain something to me? What exactly are the social mores concerning…” She trailed off.
“Fornication?” Alys offered. “Attempting to sleep one’s way into the royal family?”
Clare’s teeth clenched. “Yes. That.” No one seemed to care beyond it being fodder for gossip or an excuse to laugh about or shun someone they already didn’t like.
“There aren’t really any. Our king is the law, and our king does not care. If one had to guess by the way he indulges Numair, he practically approves. That isn’t to say the older families can’t be more puritanical on the subject of virtue, but it’s become a private matter these days.
“And though people are typically more circumspect, when it comes to Numair…well, I’m sure he’s had lovers who didn’t broadcast the fact, but most of them do, and their families approve. They’re all certain they’ll be the one that convinces him to settle down and make them princess, right until he doesn’t.”
That seemed, to Clare’s mind, a poor bet. Even if she hadn’t known what she did about him.
“Of course, people weren’t quite so desperate before Prince Brennan took sick, even when it looked certain he would propose to Lady Meraland.”
Clare frowned. “Prince Brennan?”
