“I wouldn’t ever cheat on Takun!” she assured him, looking a little offended.
It was his turn to clear his throat and confess, “I might have thought that you hadn’t been given a choice.”
She looked aghast again. “Prince Torex would never!”
Pel was starting to think… maybe she was right? He had to reluctantly admire that Torex had kept Lashuna’s and Takun’s business private and not revealed anything, even to protect himself.
Only Pel had now dragged it out in the open and made Lashuna explain more about her intimate life than he needed to know.
He tried to apologize, but she said she appreciated that he was looking out for them.
With a smile, she added, “I know you always do.”
He alwaystried, but he had very little influence over his father, and… sometimes he got the wrong end of the stick and accused an apparently completely innocent guest of terrible behavior.
She went back to work, and Pel just sat there for a moment and wondered if he was supposed to apologize to Prince Torex. He had the lowering feeling that he had to.
Pel had punched the High Prince of the United Realms and accused him of taking a servant against her will on the flimsiest of evidence and without actually talking to her about what had happened.
He’d been looking for evidence of wrong-doing again, hadn’t he? He’d been so fired up at the idea of evidence backing up his opinion of Prince Torex that he not only hadn’t given him the benefit of the doubt, he’d jumped to conclusions.
Pel didn’t at all understand the draw to sleep with someone else with your partner, but it was clear that Lashuna wasn’t upset about it in the least. To the contrary, before Pel had cut her off, she’d seemed about to tell him just how well it had gone.
It might not be conventional, but Pel couldn’t really accuse Torex of just suggesting something that would benefit himself. It didn’t sound like he’d been the one to suggest himself at all.
Ugh.
Maybe Pel could sit here and think about it for a little longer.
He drew a deep breath and then blew it out, forcing himself to his feet because he had the lowering thought that if he didn’t move now, the servants would find him in here hours from now, still procrastinating.
He marched out of the storage room, marched back to where Pel had confronted Torex, and… he wasn’t there, of course, because why would he just stand around where Pel had attacked him?
Pel checked the stables, the gardens, the portrait gallery, the dining room… and finally tracked him down to the kitchen, of all places.
Torex was surrounded by servants, laughing and joking as he was fawned over for his injury, a compress of some kind pressed to his jaw. All the crystal lamps in the kitchen had been lit, something that Pel’s father never did, since he didn’t come into the kitchen, so it would be of no use to him.
Pel felt like the room went unnaturally silent when he arrived, but after a moment he realized they were behaving much as they normally did, several staff coming over to see if everything was all right and if he needed anything, most continuing on with their tasks.
Pel assured them that he was fine and that there was nothing that he needed, and then he reluctantly drifted over to the other man and was slowly absorbed into the worried and enthralled throng around him.
Prince Torex met Pel’s eyes with a challenge in his own.
Pel gritted his teeth but made himself speak. “I was misinformed. I apologize.”
To his astonishment, the man simply flashed him a smile, absurdly charming and handsome given that he was holding a compress to his jaw.
He said simply, “No problem,” and went back to the story that he’d been telling when Pel arrived.
Pel stared at him for an unflatteringly long moment, not really sure what to make of that. Surely it couldn’t be that simple.
But perhaps Torex didn’t want to drag it out in front of the staff. That actually made sense, especially since he’d been so circumspect about Lashuna. Pel would no doubt hear about it later. He might even get his own punch to the jaw and couldn’t really blame the man for it.
He’d accept it because he’d made the error.
Only it didn’t come up again. That night at dinner when the King questioned him about the bruise, Torex passed it off as a training injury. And when the King flat-out mocked him for falling prey to someone so much weaker than himself, Torex merely laughed.
“There’s no guard in the United Realms who’s never been bested by another. That’s why we train. It’s not about always winning, it’s about being strategic and working as part of a team.”
