He made his way back through the house, looking in various chambers with increasing amounts of unease, until he finally found himself opening the kitchen door to the garden. If he didn’t find Léirsinn soon—
He ignored the wave of relief that almost brought him to his knees, merciless, untouchable lad that he was.
Léirsinn was standing there, looking at the pile of wood they’d left there the day before.
He staggered outside and sat down on the top step not because he thought he might fall there if he didn’t, but because he thought it might make him look a bit more relaxed and carefree.
The garden was still full of shadows, of course. Again, horse people seemed to have an unwholesome relationship with dawn, something he had definitely discovered thanks to his experience of trying to keep up with a certain one of their number. He smoothed his hand, magically speaking, over the curtain of invisibility he’d set inside his own spell, then lit discreet lamps in the parts of the garden that needed them. Léirsinn startled, then visibly relaxed.
Poor gel.
He didn’t move, though, because he’d slept with her in his arms for the whole of the night without even the most chaste of kisses and he was, after all, only full of so much self-restraint. If he wrapped her in a fond embrace at the moment, he feared he might not be able to release her.
She turned and walked over to him, then knelt on the step below his and put her hands over his arms, crossed as they were atop his knees.
“I’m not sure I believe this,” she said, looking terribly hopeful. “What could he want with me? And why now? I’ve been in a barn, unprotected, for years.”
He slipped one of his arms from beneath her hands, then reached out and tucked a lock of flaming hair behind her ear. He leaned forward and kissed her for good measure, but not nearly as thoroughly as he would have liked. Self-control was, as at least one monarch had pointed out recently, one of his most desirable virtues.
“I don’t know the answers to any of those questions,” he said carefully, revisiting the idea of pulling her into his arms and keeping her there for several decades. At least that way she would be safe.
“Who is he, do you think?”
“Sladaiche.”
She pulled back, looking as if she’d seen something very vile writhing in a pile before her feet. He understood that more fully than he wanted to admit. She took a few steadying breaths, then looked at him.
“Does he want me because I want you?”
He almost fell off his perch. “Damn you, Léirsinn, give a little hallo of warning before you say that kind of thing.”
She smiled, but she looked rather ill, to be honest.
“You’re charming when you’re startled.”
“Well, stop it,” he said crossly. “I like to look fully in control of myself and everyone around me at all moments.”
“Frustrating that you aren’t, isn’t it?”
“All part of my master plan, darling. Lull the rabble to sleep, then take over the world. Not,” he added, “that I’ve had any success so far at controlling you. I haven’t given up the fight yet.”
“You’ll never manage it.”
“I’m coming to terms with that in my own way. Don’t twist the knife.”
Her smile faded. “I don’t have anything anyone wants.”
“I assume you’re not lumping me in with that lot of uneducated cretins.” He reached out and looped his arms loosely around her shoulders. “Obviously I have work yet to do in convincing the loveliest, most courageous, decent, and, dare I say it, most discerning woman in the whole of the Nine Kingdoms that she might have drawn the attention of someone besides my own sweet self.”
“I am nothing more than a stable hand.”
“And I’m nothing more than a bastard.”
“Your mother is a witch and your father a prince’s son.”
“Your father is a lord’s son and I didn’t ask my mother to delve into your dam’s genealogy yet. Who knows what we’ll find?”
“I think you’re wrong.”
