Reign of Shadows (28 page)

Bristling,
Albain shook his thick forefinger at her. “Now, listen to me, you spoiled—”

“My
lord,” Hecati interceded hastily. “There is good reason why your daughter is
not ready. Hear me, sir. She has been betrayed by one close to her. By one she
trusted with all her heart. Yes, and worse than that, your lordship has been
betrayed as well by this same fiend.” Hecati’s eyes flashed. “The entire
marriage agreement between Lady Bixia and Emperor Kostimon now lies in
jeopardy.”

Albain
lowered his
hand. “What?” he said blankly. “Jeopardy? Betrayal? Are you sure?”

“Yes,
my lord.” Hecati gestured mournfully at the robe lying on the floor. “The
sacred bridal robe has been torn beyond repair. I’m sure your lordship knows
the terrible omen this constitutes for Lady Bixia’s wedded happiness.”

“Superstition,”
Bixia said; then, under her father’s steady glare, she hitched her nightgown up
properly over both shoulders.

“I
hope that was a joke, daughter,” he said with severity.

Bixia
swallowed and dropped her eyes. “Yes, father.”

“Heresy,
even in jest, is a bad habit. I doubt you’ll have the freedom at court to speak
your mind as freely as you do here.”

Her
head came up defiantly, but at the last moment she said nothing. Her gaze went
to Elandra, and she shrugged.

Lord
Albain scowled at the robe. “Isn’t this the piece that cost me nearly nine
hundred ducats?”

“Yes,
my lord,” Hecati said.

Elandra
gasped, and even Bixia looked impressed.

Hecati’s
eyes narrowed to slits. She watched Elandra closely, like a cat eyeing its
prey.

Albain
looked a bit stunned, but he rallied. “Bixia’s got other robes. One of them
will have to do.”

“But,
Father!” Bixia wailed. “The others aren’t blessed. I can’t marry the emperor
like a rag girl. I have to have a robe from Mahira. You know how important it
is.”

“No!”
he said explosively. “Murdeth and Fury, girl. You’ll make a pauper of me.”

Tears
welled up in Bixia’s green eyes. “I can’t go through with it. My bridal robe is
ruined, and my marriage will be cursed forever.”

“Enough
of that!” he said roughly, bill helplessness had entered his gaze. “Oh, hell’s
breath. Don’t start that drizzling. We’ll see what can be done.”

“Oh,
Father, thank you!” Bixia flung her arms around his neck, standing on tiptoe to
kiss his scarred cheek. “You’re so good to me. So kind and generous.”

He
patted her shoulder and cleared his throat with gratification. “We’ll see. Now
mind you, get dressed in a hurry.”

Beaming,
Bixia vanished back into her bedchamber with a slam of the door. Her gong rang,
summoning attendants. One of Elandra’s duties was to help her sister dress
every morning. Right now, however, she scarcely dared breathe, and she did not
move.

“What
is to be done, my lord?” Hecati asked. “The wedding cannot proceed as planned—”

“It
must!” he shouted, then grimaced and raised his hand in placation. “No delays,”
he said in a more reasonable tone of voice. “Damn it all, I won’t insult the
emperor all because of an accursed nightgown!”

“Your
daughter must have the raiment that is her due.”

“Hell’s
teeth, woman! I’ve spent a fortune already on her damned trousseau.”

“That
is not the issue,” Hecati said coolly. “Brides of high lineage are
traditionally sent to their marriage beds in Mahiran bridal robes. The blessing
was to ensure a swift conception of an heir. If Lady Bixia fails in this duty,
there will be—”

“Enough,”
he said heavily and wiped perspiration from his brow. “No need to spell out
what I understand perfectly. All must go on as planned. I’ll send word to
Mahira about getting a replacement. Damnation! I could buy a new war mount for
the cost. Or a trio of young elephants.”

The
jinja
darted over to Elandra and
swirled around her in a green blur before joining Albain. The baron draped a
fond hand over the creature’s narrow shoulder.

“Must
this horrid thing remain in the room?” Hecati asked with visible uneasiness.
She made a shooing motion, which it ignored. “All is proven safe. It does not
need to linger here.”

“Who
was whipped, master?” the
jinja
asked with a wicked grin that showed its pointed
teeth.

Albain
ignored its question, but spots of color appeared on Hecati’s cheeks.

Elandra
watched them closely. Thus far they had ignored her. She eased one step away.
Then another, hoping the
jinja
would be quiet about the whipping. She wanted no
attention turned on her now. There would be time to explain the truth to her
father later, when Hecati was gone.

But
Hecati turned her head and looked straight at Elandra. “As for who did this
ignominious—”

The
jinja
swirled around. “Lies in the
room. Lies in the room.”

“Hush,”
Albain admonished it.

Looking
hurt, the
jinja
darted over to the window and crouched on the sill with a sulky face.

“Enough
sly accusations,” Elandra said, stepping forward. She looked at her father. “Lady
Hecati blames me for what happened to the robe.”

Albain’s
single eye met her gaze, and he frowned. She had his jaw, his temper, and his
auburn hair. Her height and slender figure she’d gotten from her mother. Her
mind was her own, and she’d fought tooth and nail all her life to get it
educated.

She
knew he had other illegitimate children besides herself. There were several
stablehands running about with the Albain hair or the Albain jaw.

But
she was the only highborn bastard in his progeny,
her lineage proud on both sides. Why her mother had consorted with
Albain, breaking her own marriage vows while her husband was away at war, had
never been told. Why her mother had not kept Elandra, but instead sent her to
Albain when she was four years old, was also unexplained. As long as Bixia’s
good-natured mother was alive, Elandra had been well treated and happy within
the household. When Lady Ousia died trying to bear Albain’s son, her sister
Hecati came to take charge of the children.

“There, she admits her guilt to you, my lord,” Hecati said
now while Elandra faced her father’s glare. “She has cost you nine hundred
ducats—no, double that if the robe is to be replaced suitably. And all because
she envies her half- sister’s good fortune.”

Elandra glanced at the
jinja,
but it
was still pouting on the windowsill, gazing outside. It was a creature of whim.
Its only allegiance was to her father. She couldn’t depend on its help at all.
Her heart sank.

Albain looked at her with disappointment. Her throat
choked, but she refused to lower her proud chin even a fraction. All she’d ever
wanted was his affection, but he was a busy man who spared scant time for
family. She had been hoping that with Bixia and Hecati gone, she and her father
might finally become companions.

It killed her for him to look at her this way now.

“I admit no wrongdoing,” she said, her voice low with the
effort not to cry. “I deny their accusations.”

“Wicked girl!” Hecati said angrily. “Your defiance does you
no good. You hale and envy your half-sister. Admit
your
jealousy. You are a horrid, lying troublemaker.”

“Lady Hecati,” Albain said sharply, “mind your tone.”

Hecati bowed al once. “Forgive me, my lord. But this
wretch—”

“—is my daughter.”

Something
unreadable crossed Hecati’s face. She swallowed. “Yes, my lord. But as a
bastard—”

He
scowled. “Elandra’s maternal side comes from one of the most venerable and
ancient bloodlines in Gialta. My own lineage is equally faultless. The fact
that she was born of a love union rather than a sacramented one does not give
you leave to yell at her like a fishwife.”

A
tiny smile quivered on Elandra’s lips. He filled her eyes, a hero. His fairness
and justice was on her side today, and she gazed at him with love, pleased to
have such a champion.

Hecati
turned red. She curtsied. “Again, I beg my lord’s forgiveness.”

He
grunted and turned back to his daughter. “Elandra, you will tell me the truth
of this matter.”

For
a moment it all rushed up inside Elandra, the urge to tell him everything about
the way she was treated, the trick Bixia had pulled with the bridal robe, the
scuffle with Hecati that had torn it. But instinct warned her to take care. She
felt danger around her, like a hot wind blowing across the plains. The
jinja
apparently did not sense it;
perhaps it was only her imagination. But she had learned the hard way not to
underestimate Hecati’s menace. And if she lost her temper or grew shrill in
what she said, her father would not listen to her. Experience had taught her
that as well.

She
could not accuse Bixia, his golden child. His sense of fairness would stretch
only so far.

Swallowing
hard, Elandra said, “Last night before she retired, Lady Bixia asked me to
shorten one of her dressing robes because it was far too long for her.”

“A
lie!” Hecati broke in. “You took the robe from the box and deliberately ruined
it—”

“No!”
Elandra insisted, her eyes flashing. “I knew nothing about its special
significance. I never saw any box.”

She
turned her gaze to her father, who was frowning. “The robe dragged on the
floor, and Bixia was very upset.”

“Everything
was made to exact measurements,” Hecati said. “I do not understand why you
persist in this false tale when anyone knows it’s untrue.”

Elandra
picked up the robe off the door and held it up. “Look,” she said. “I worked all
night to replace the hem. See where I didn’t finish? See how long it is?”

She
held it against her. “As it was, it would have fit me because I am much taller
than Bixia. But it looked terrible on her. I really tried to help her, Father.”
She upended the garment and showed him the stitches she’d sewn. “See the
embroidery? I tried very hard to replicate it. And all would have been well had
I had another hour to finish it.”

Her
father took the white brocade in his broad, battle- scarred hands. “How came it
to be ripped?”

Elandra’s
gaze shifted to Hecati, who opened her mouth, then pinched it together very
tightly. Hecati’s eyes were glittering with warning, but as frightened as she
was, Elandra wasn’t going to lie. In a faint voice, she answered her father’s
question: “I was trying to show Lady Hecati what I had done when she lost her
temper and grabbed it from my hand.”

Hecati’s
face drained of color. “You—you—”

Albain
scowled, and Hecati choked on the rest of her sentence. “This work is very
fine, daughter,” he said. “I cannot tell where your stitches begin and the
others leave off.”

Elandra
smiled at the praise. “Thank you, Father. I tried my best. I’m sorry I could
not finish it. And now it’s torn. If I’d known it had been blessed, I wouldn’t
have touched it. You must believe that.”

He
met her eyes, but his own gaze still held doubt. “How could you be ignorant of
such an important part of your sister’s trousseau? That is the weakness of your
story, which makes me doubt the whole.”

“But
I haven’t seen the trousseau, Father,” Elandra said.

His
brows drew together, and now he did look disbelieving. “What is this? Have you
no interest in Bixia’s good fortune? I did not raise you to be petty and
jealous, Elandra.”

Anger sparked in her.
You did not raise me at all,
she thought with
resentment.
You gave me instead to this
creature.