Page 75 of A Wayward Movement

“I can’t vouch for the sources,” the captain acknowledged. “I won’t be able to get the full picture until we return to the capital, and I can investigate further myself. But there’s enough evidence to encourage caution.”

“This is your idea of evidence?” Xavier said contemptuously. “Whispered gossip from unknown sources about events that happened a decade ago? If you found it so compelling, why didn’t you tell me all this immediately?”

Mitchell met his eyes squarely. “Because, Your Highness, to speak plainly, it was clear that you weren’t in a frame of mind to be impartial. I feared you would respond exactly as you are now.”

Xavier swallowed his retort, knowing it wouldn’t convince the captain of his judgment.

“As you can imagine,” the captain said, “I regretted not having warned you when I discovered that the two of you had disappeared into the desert. A situation which I still find suspicious.”

“Now who’s failing to be impartial?” Xavier said, frustrated. “I take it you have some addled idea that if her father had a grievance with the crown, Alina might have been biding her time all these years to do my father mischief. And you think that she’s found an opportunity to do so through me. But she had every opportunity to harm me in the desert, and she did the opposite. That alone is enough to disprove your speculations.”

“It’s true she didn’t harm you,” Mitchell said gravely. “As for whether she protected you with a shield all night—an improbable feat, from what I understand—we have only her word, since you were asleep.”

Xavier started to protest, but the captain wasn’t done.

“And harming you isn’t the only possible aim.”

Xavier took his meaning. “You think she’s trying to ensnare me?” He gave a hollow laugh. “Believe me, I have vast experience with that particular danger, and you couldn’t be further from the mark in this instance.”

“Your Highness,” the captain persisted, “you said you haven’t been neglecting the investigation, but you surely can’t deny that her presence is a distraction. All I’m urging you is to be careful where she’s concerned.”

“You’re an excellent investigator, Captain,” Xavier said, fighting to keep his temper. “But your advice regarding my personal conduct is as unwanted as it is unsound.” He’d started for the door on the words, but he paused, half turning back. “And you’re not in charge of this investigation, I am. We’ll stay here in the city tonight, that’s my decision.”

“Yes, Your Highness.” Captain Mitchell bent in a swift bow, his opinions hidden once again under a professional mask.

Xavier was very poor company when the team ate dinner in the tavern below their inn. He was surly and withdrawn, barely seeing or hearing the people around him. Mitchell’s words made him deeply uneasy. It wasn’t that he doubted Alina—he was confident that she didn’t know why her family had left the capital. She didn’t even know the details of her father’s business failures.

In fact, her ignorance in itself was unusual enough to raise questions. It was no wonder Xavier didn’t feel sociable, with his mind going endlessly over the details of a period he usually took care not to think about.

After he’d called Alina a coward and she’d stormed away, he hadn’t been idle. He’d told her he at least was willing to fight to keep her with him, and he’d meant it. He’d gone to his father to plead his case. He’d never before spoken to his parents or siblings about Alina, and as far as he knew none of them had any idea how much she meant to him. She was one of many other young people in the vibrant social life he enjoyed with the youth of the court and the upper merchant class.

With his mind full of Alina’s warnings that no one would take them seriously, he’d strategically left her out of it. He’d told his father he’d heard one of the city’s wealthier merchants was taking his business elsewhere. He’d prodded the king to make contact with Alina’s father, to try to address the source of his dissatisfaction with the capital.

King Madoc had been very taken aback by Xavier involving himself, which wasn’t surprising. The prince hadn’t been in the habit of trying to inform himself about such matters as local trade and commerce. At the time, Xavier had thought his father was a little angry at being instructed by his young son on what he should do. Now he wondered if there was more to that flash of anger. He distinctly remembered his father asking if the merchant had approached him and put him up to saying something.

Xavier had said, truthfully, that he’d barely spoken to the merchant in his life. He’d started to explain that it was the daughter he was close to, but he hadn’t even been allowed to finish the thought.

“I should have known this had to do with something as childish as a silly flirtation.” Xavier could still hear his father’s dismissive words. “Now you mention it, I remember seeing you making a fool of yourself at your mother’s gala, laughing and carrying on with a girl during the introductions. If that was her, then I’ll count it as a blessing to have her removed from your reach. She’s not an appropriate companion for you, Xavier, and you’d do well to remember it.”

The king had cut off Xavier’s hot protest.

“I’m sure you’ll find another girl to pander to your pride within the week. Xavier, when will you take your position seriously? You’re too old to be carousing around so recklessly, contributing nothing and creating scandals. The fact that you want me to interfere with business decisions of an influential merchant to suit your current flirtation shows just how far you are from displaying the responsibility I expect of my heir.”

It had been years, but Xavier could still feel the anger that had coursed through him at his father’s harsh words. And he hadn’t hidden it, either. He’d responded to the criticism with some strong words of his own, resulting in an ugly fight that drove away any chance of convincing his father to intervene with Alina’s situation.

What the king would never have suspected was that there had been as much hurt as anger in Xavier’s response. His father’s lack of faith in him had been salt in the still-bleeding wound of Alina telling him he wasn’t responsible enough for her to trust with her future. His father thought he was an empty-headed flirt, hopping from girl to girl each week. If he’d paid attention to his son, he would have noticed that only one girl had absorbed his full focus for many months past. True, he’d been flirting outrageously every chance he got, and in a more general sense, he’d incurred plenty of censure with his unsanctioned absences and undignified escapades. But all of that had been with her. Without her, what would have been the point?

He’d thought Alina at least would understand that, but even she had thought no better of him. She’d told him he would change his mind about her by the end of a month.

The king’s words had been as much a motivator as Alina’s rejection in the questionable way Xavier had dealt with his heartbreak. It was hard now to recapture the intensity of the defiance that had taken hold of him at the time. But he easily remembered the rebellious victory he’d felt when he’d convinced the supposedly un-winnable baron’s daughter to kiss him, knowing perfectly well they were positioned to be seen by the fiercest rivals for her attention.

He’d known she was only swayed by his rank, but he hadn’t cared. He’d told himself that the stolen kiss with that now-forgotten girl had erased the bitter memory of the one he’d shared with Alina. The kiss that had so elated him in the moment, but that had been met with the girl of his dreams telling him he was too young and unreliable to be taken seriously.

That baron’s daughter had been the first of many flirtations, too many to count. It had felt like he was winning a point against Alina’s rejection every time another girl welcomed his attention. Like he was convincing himself piece by piece that he didn’t need her. He had endless options. And if his father considered him a disappointment, so be it. Xavier wasn’t going to bleed himself dry trying to win the king’s approval. Theo was there for that, and watching the lengths his brother went to in undertaking the task certainly gave Xavier no taste for it. Xavier had no need to prove his father’s opinion of him wrong. Deciding to instead prove him right had felt like having more control. At least that goal he knew he could succeed in.

He hadn’t completely lost himself all at once. In those early weeks and months, there were times he was ridden by impetuous defiance, but there were others when he hated himself. If Alina had magically reappeared then, he would have thrown himself at her feet and begged her not to give up on him, to believe he could be someone of substance, because then maybe he could learn to respect himself again. But she hadn’t magically reappeared. And as the initial passion of his disappointment had faded, he’d welcomed the hardening he felt in his heart. He’d even despised himself in a different way for thinking that Alina’s respect would somehow fix him. He didn’t need fixing. And he didn’t need her respect or anyone else’s. If they wanted to think he was irresponsible and shallow, he would give them all quite a show.

Xavier hated remembering that time. He didn’t want to relive the powerlessness that had haunted him, and he certainly didn’t want the pain of entertaining regret. But once the floodgates of the memories had been opened, there was no stopping them.