When he’d left the room and the door was closed again, I spoke to Raewyn.
“You can come out now.”
She descended the stairs. “How did it go? What did he want?”
“The immense pleasure of my charming company of course,” I said. “Were you able to read him?”
She nodded. “His fears were pretty loud.”
“And?”
“And I don’t like him at all,” she said. “He’s terrified of anyone who’s not exactly like him. Is he really a lord? Becausehe seems so weak—inside I mean. He’s positively bursting with paranoia.”
I chuckled at her astute summation of the man and her disdain for his bigotry.
“And the greatest of his fears?”
“Losing his privilege and power,” she said. “He does love ‘lording’ it over everyone.”
“That’s what I hear,” I said. “Aren’t you glad to be in my castle rather than his?”
“I’d rather not beina castle,” she said. “I’d rather be with my family. Hopefully helping you with your meeting today puts me one step closer. How many more are there?”
A frisson of annoyance ran down my spine, and I stretched my neck to one side then the other, trying to dispel it.
“A few. The next is three days from now. Lady Glenna of House Lalor.”
“Her name sounds familiar.” Raewyn said. “Wait… wasn’t that the woman Stellon was supposed to marry instead of marrying me?”
I gave her a bitter smile. “One and the same.”
If only hehad.None of us would be in this mess.
Lord Degan Lalor had been incensed when my brother canceled the engagement. As I’d seen during my surreptitious visit to their hearth in Windros, that anger had festered since then.
He and his household were on the verge of fomenting rebellion against Stellon, and unlike Lord Sillery, hedidfancy himself a suitable replacement on the throne.
A message had arrived by Swift bird this morning to tell me Lord Lalor had been thrown from a horse and was still recovering, so his daughter would be traveling to meet with me instead.
Hopefully when she got here I could either settle her ruffled feathers or compel her to forget all about her damaged ego and convince her father to let bygones be bygones.
“She controls a region?” Raewyn asked. “I didn’t know women held such power in the Elven world.”
“They don’t, generally. She’s coming on behalf of her father, Degan Lalor, Lord of Windros,” I explained.
“Why is she coming in his stead?”
A simple enough question. I wasn’t sure why, but instead of just answering it, I decided to provoke Raewyn instead.
“Perhaps Lady Glenna wants to see me,” I said. “Hard as it may be to believe, therearea rare few women who are more interested in my company than my brother’s… even if they are his sloppy seconds.”
I spun on my heel to leave the room.
“I’ll see you in three days.”
Chapter 13
How Inconvenient
