Pleasure and Purpose (25 page)

Honesty hoped the other woman was right. From what she'd seen on Edward's face it would have been more difficult than that to reconcile them, but when another soft burst of laughter floated out to her, she smiled and went to the door. Inside the library, the men sat in facing chairs, identical glasses in their hands. Though an herb bowl rested on the table between them, no hint of the pungent smoke reached her nose.

Cillian had laughed with her. He'd been soft with her, too, though briefly. But she'd never seen him look at her the way he was now staring at Edward, his eyes alight with something akin to joy. Envy ripped through her, fierce enough to buckle her knees and force her hand to the back of a chair in order to keep herself from stumbling. Spoiled, she was. Spoiled by her years in Service, bringing people to peace. She didn't deserve such a look from Cillian, for she'd done little enough to create it. Watching him gaze with such pleasure upon his friend, Honesty found herself wishing for the prince to turn such a gaze upon her.

It was foolishness of the worst sort. She'd mocked the tales of Handmaidens who'd fallen in love with their patrons only to be turned aside when solace was granted and the assignment ended. Not many ended up wedding them the way Stillness had. Honesty had never yearned for such a thing, herself, a marriage based on only the best of what a relationship might be and naught of the worst.

"Cillian," she said, her voice too loud.

He turned to her but it took some seconds for him to pull his gaze from his friend's face.

"Honesty. Come. Edward was telling me of his plans for the estate. He wants to plant an orchard. Can you imagine?"

She could, having loved her father's orchard so. "An orchard? For profit?" Edward shook his head. "I expect it to be a labor of love at the first. A specialty crop. Perhaps enough to sell at a market, or provide to friends. Nothing much more than that."

"He'll be brilliant with it, I'm sure. The king will be certain to grant you a land boon, Edward, and a tax boon, too. I'm sure of it." Cillian sounded eager, and both Edward and Honesty looked at him.

Things were not perfect between them. Edward still watched Cillian a tad too warily, and Cillian, despite his obvious joy, was still a little too stiff. It was better than it had been and over her envy washed relief for Cillian's sake.

"Come," Cillian said with a gesture. "Sit by me." Edward was already looking toward the door, a question in his eyes, when Stillness appeared in the doorway. Her laces had been done up but her hair had come loose round her face in frazzled tendrils. Her eyes, wide, swept from her husband to the prince and back.

"Edward—"

"What is it?" Edward was already at her side, gripping her waist. "Is it the babe?"

"No, love. Something else—"

Before she could finish a figure loomed behind her. Broad-shouldered and in shadow, the sight must have startled Edward for he pulled his wife away and stepped between her and the visitor with a cry.

"Hold!" Cillian said. "Stand down, Edward, it's my man Bertram." Bertram stepped through the doorway without a second glance at Stillness and only the most cursory for Edward. "My lord prince. Your father has fallen." The room surged into silence, broken then by Cillian's reply. "When?"

"An hour past. Fell ill at his supper and was taken to his chambers. He's not expected to make it. But you must hurry," Bertram said, moving closer. "They're coming for you." Cillian straightened, got taller, his shoulders square. "I'm ready."

"No, my prince," said Bertram. "They're not coming to have you replace your lord father on his throne."

"What then?" Edward asked.

Bertram gave a low noise of distaste and slid his gaze from Cillian's. "They're coming to arrest you."

Edward he was no longer. Cillian met Devain and his men at Edward's front door. They hesitated at the sight of him standing straight and strong, not cowering, and he remembered how not so long ago some of those men had been the ones to guard him in his cradle. Devain had risen fast but he'd not known these men as long as they'd known their prince, even with all his faults.

"Devain," Cillian said.

Devain hesitated, too, his foot on the gravel path leading to the porch where Cillian waited. "Your father is dying."

"And what a party you bring to escort me," Cillian said with a smile designed to set Devains teeth to gritting. "I don't need the pomp. I can attend my father without it."

"Your mercy, my. . . sir." Gentian, a king's man since the king himself was a prince, stepped forward. "We've come to fetch you."

Behind him, Cillian felt the press of Honesty's body against his back and the chill of her fingers as she entwined them with his. He took them from her grasp and stepped forward, not looking at her. He'd give Devain nothing with which to bargain. Naught to hold over his head.

"Have you brought chains?" he asked Devain and was pleased when his voice trembled not in either rage or fear. Indeed, only coldness swept over him, encasing him in ice. His father was dying and had not sent for him; his father was dying and Devain was making his play for the throne. He must have a strong enough case for it to have garnered the loyalty of his fathers men.

"But of course." Devain showed his teeth. "I am hoping not to need them, but I would have been a fool not to prepare myself, considering your . . . history."

"You speak to the Prince of Firth," Edward broke in. "Have a care how you address your next king."

Beside him, Edward's warmth did little to chase away the chill, and Cillian didn't dare give his friend more than a small, shifting glance. Devain already had made it known he would gladly see harm come to Edward and his family. Cillian had borne much upon his conscience, but he refused to bear that.

"You won't need them," he said and stepped forward.

"Cillian, no!" Edward stepped, too, but stopped when Cillian turned. He forced his voice to the same .sly tones he'd so often affected. "Don't play the part of my fetchencarry, Edward. It doesn't flatter you.

Edward's gaze shuttered at once and he stepped back. "As you wish." Cillian faced Devain with his chin lifted and contempt in every word. "What are the terms of my arrest?"

"Debauchery. Lewdness. Coercion. Perversion. Insanity." Devain grinned at the last and made a mocking bow. "And treachery. Cillian Derouth, you are charged with failure to comply with the requirements of your position and judged unfit to rule." Cillian didn't miss the grumbling, faint as it was, from more than a few of his father's men at Devain's words. Though inside he was still ice, he stood even straighter and fixed Devain with an unwavering look. "Charged but not judged, Devain. Not even you have the power to set me aside without the chance to redeem myself." Devain's grin thinned at the truth of this, and he stood upright. "We shall see. Won't we?"

"He can't take you, can he?" Honesty spoke at last and grabbed at Cillian's arm. "Not just like that? What's he talking about?"

Cillian kept his gaze on Devain's. "Naught I've ever done in my playroom was ever done against the will of any who served in it. And yours were the medicuses that deemed me fit to leave the asylum, so your argument is faulty there as well. I have committed no treachery against my father, against my country or the people in it. And as for the requirements of my position, I have ever obeyed my lord father in all he would have me do."

"Not all," Devain said. "Come now. It's time." Behind him, Cillian heard Honesty's soft, indrawn breath. "I don't understand." Cillian wouldn't have taken his eyes from a snake about to strike, and he kept his gaze on Devain the same way. "Devain is claiming me as a perverted madman, unfit for the throne."

Again, a grumble wafted through the ranks of men at Devain's back. Cillian heard it. From the way Edward grunted low in his throat, he must have heard it, too. Devain, if he heard the small sound of dissent, ignored it.

Edward looked at him. "None of that matters, Cillian, and you know it. You were born to the throne and have ever been prepared to take it. Nothing of the past can change that, and Devain knows it. Why else would he have had to so fiercely court your father and yet still not be named in line for successor?"

"Come," Devain said again. "There's no point in delaying this." Honesty reached again for Cillian's hand and this time, he let her take it, even if he didn't look at her. "How can he say such things?"

Now he looked at her and saw the confusion in her eyes. "Because they are true." Honesty blinked and stepped back. Edward muttered and stepped forward to make a rude gesture at Devain, who ignored him and crossed his arms, foot tapping. As far as dramatic arrests went, the man's sense of show must be fair disappointed. Honesty shook her head slowly, lips parting but on air only and not words. She hadn't known, he saw that now. All these weeks at his side, her calming words and soothing touches, the lovemaking. . . Of all of those assembled, she'd known him the least amount of time and yet knew his heart the best. And yet she hadn't known him at all. Cillian took his hand from hers for the second time. "You are dismissed."

"What? No—" She stepped forward but stopped short of reaching him.

"Go home, Honesty," Cillian said in a voice as cold as the ice in his throat trying to strangle him. "Get you gone from my sight. You are dismissed. I have no need of you now."

"You have more need of me now than ever," she declared with that same stubborn tilt to her mouth he'd come to know so well.

He'd been a fool to think he could buy affection. Purchase peace. She didn't know him and never had, and now he hoped she never would. He would have that, at least. The memory of how she'd taken his hand and thought him an entirely different man. She stared up at him with eyes softer than any she'd ever given him. Cillian didn't want her pity. He willed the lie to his lips and into his eyes and forced himself to believe it so she would, too.

"Perhaps I do," he told her. "But I no longer want you." The king had not yet died, the prince had been put into custody, and Honesty had been escorted from the palace with only the clothes on her back and the hand-trunk she'd brought with her. She hadn't been allowed to see him, but caught a glimpse of that fine fall of red-gold hair from a distance as he'd been hustled down a far-off hallway.

"They can't put him in gaol," she said as Bertram opened the carriage door for her. "He's a prince! And he's committed no crime, he can't be treated like a common criminal!" It might have pained the man to have to treat her with so little compassion, but his orders had come directly from that insufferable idiot, Devain. Bertram, his fingers clutched uncomfortably tight on her upper arm, shook his head. "He's not only having to face the Council of the Book about whether he's fit to succeed his father, he's having to face the Temple priests now, too."

The glare he gave her meant this was somehow her fault, and though she knew she couldn't be held accountable, her stomach dropped. She shook off his grip and clutched her hand-trunk closer to her. He'd already searched it, the humiliation of having to prove she wasn't a thief was nothing compared to what Cillian must feel having to fight for his rightful place. Bertram had the grace to look discomfited.

"The priests? Why?"

Bertram shrugged, looking down, and gestured at the carriage. "Please, get in. I'm to take you to the train, lady. Please just get in."

"No. You tell me what's going on. It's obvious Devain has had it out for him for a long time and can do this only because the king fell so suddenly ill. If the king had named another his heir it would have had to go through the council, yes? Before now? So Devain is merely using the king's illness to throw everyone into confusion. He's been plotting this for a long time."

Bertram cleared his throat. "Lady, it's not for me to say." It had been a long time since Honesty had played these kinds of games, though she'd learned them at her father's knee. A long time since she'd had to stretch her mind in so many directions to imagine what might be done and how it might affect an entire situation. She'd been focused for so long, her duties to one person at a time, so now she struggled to put into place all the pieces she could grasp.

She was missing too many. "Why is he being questioned by the priests, Bertram? Firth is of the faith but not strongly so. I've never even heard the Temple chimes once since I've been here."

Bertram sighed heavily. "It's not enough for Devain to prove the prince's lack of ability, he's now got more against him than madness and debauchery and whatever else he's thrown out. Since you failed—•"

Guilt slashed at her. "I didn't fail him."

The man looked at her. "Since our prince sent you away, since he declared his Handmaiden of no use to him, Devain is contending the prince is incapable of solace. He's incapable of anything but what he's known to be, and therefore, unfit to rule. Devain has a strong and solid case, the documented support of the king himself, and the support of many of the lords of the court. He's been stoking this fire for some time while, forgive me for saying it, our prince has been playing at everything but what he was meant for. It's no wonder Devain's been able to topple him from his place."

"He's not toppled yet," Honesty said.

"No. But he will be," Bertram said. "There is no way around it, lady. You can't take away what he done in the past or what has happened since, and you can't take away the fact he's not done what's required of all our princes before they become kings."

"Which is what?" she cried, wishing more than ever she'd read the papers in her hand-trunk when she was meant to. "What, by the Arrow, could he have needed to do that would keep him from taking his place?"

Bertram sighed, apparently accepting she wouldn't do as she was told until he gave her what she wanted. "He's not married, lady. Nor betrothed, nor has he ever been and nor will anyone send their daughter to him."

This struck her back a step. "The prince must be wed before he becomes king?"

"Or promised in some fashion. How else can he get an heir?" Bertram shrugged and rubbed his forehead. "The king has sent his requests to many with whom he'd like to make an alliance. Because of what happened, none will take it."