Never After

And Da

After about thirty minutes of keeping near silence, Gisele and Da

Da

Harwin scooted his chair down to join our discussion, since it was clear otherwise he had no hope of conversation at all. “She seems to have done an admirable job of ru

Gisele gave me one quick glance, hard to interpret. “And he will soon be living in the palace with Olivia,” she said.

Harwin’s look was even harder to interpret. “Of course,” he said.

Da

“You could take over on your brother’s behalf,” Harwin suggested. “You possess great intelligence and a steadiness of purpose that seems to exceed your brother’s.” When all three of us giggled, he added hastily, “I meant no disrespect to Darius.”

“It has occurred to me,” Da

Servants brought in a new course, which ended that topic, and we did not get back to it for the rest of the meal. Gisele and Da

I didn’t know half so much about my own inheritance, the entire kingdom that would one day be mine if Gisele never bore my father a son.

Or if Mellicia never did.

I swallowed and glanced at Gisele. Since that first conversation in the coach, we had never again discussed the danger she was in. I turned to Harwin and asked in an abrupt undervoice, “Do you like Gisele?”

He watched me a moment with narrowed eyes as if trying to discern the question that lay under the question. “I do,” he said at last. “We have similar sober natures, and I have from time to time served as her confidante.”

Then he might know the answer to the next question. “Do you think my father wants her dead?”

He took even longer to answer this time. His eyes went briefly to Gisele and then back to me. “I think your father feels she has failed him in the singular duty for which he selected her.”

“She hasn’t given him a son.”

“Precisely.”

“She thinks he wants to get rid of her so he can marry Sir Neville’s daughter and she’ll have a son.”

His face didn’t change; this was not a new idea to him. “I’m not certain your father’s ruthlessness is so extreme,” he said. “But possibly it is.”

I took a deep breath. I had always disliked my father, but my reasons had been purely selfish. He was careless of me. Unkind to me. Uninterested in my wishes and desires. It hadn’t occurred to me to notice how cruel he might be to others, and to despise him for it. “He’s a bad father and obviously a bad husband,” I said. “Is he a bad king as well?”

“He could have been better, he could have been worse,” Harwin replied quietly. “He elevated favorites and seized lands from families that had held them for generations, but many kings do that. Ten years ago, he promoted skirmishes along the southern borders in a fruitless bid for territory, but it caused him to strengthen the army, and that might not be an entirely bad thing. Some of his taxes have been excessive. Some of his trade decisions have been disastrous. He has been open to bribes. He has been unfaithful to both of his queens. He has been an indifferent king, I suppose, but he has been a wretched man.”

“You hate him,” I said.

Harwin looked at me a long time. “He’s only done one thing that I’ve ever completely approved of,” he said.

He didn’t specify, but I had no doubt what he meant. He produced you as his daughter. I felt my cheeks heat up, and I quickly turned my attention back to my plate of food. But I have to admit I was smiling.

Arantha and Darius disappeared after lunch, no doubt so she could show him estate accounts or rent rolls or other receipts. Da

“This was always my favorite room,” Da

“Where were your parents?” Gisele asked.

“They died when we were quite young. Darius remembers them better than I do, and he says they were very like the two of us—my father was improvident, kind, and full of magic, while my mother was practical, lighthearted, and curious.”

“My sympathies, then, that you missed the opportunity to get to know them,” Harwin said.

She smiled at him. “It is hard to regret something you never had,” she said. “And we managed well enough without them.”

I remembered my own mother quite clearly. When I was a child, she had seemed like a fairy princess, beautiful and glittering and magical. And, like a fairy princess, impossible to get close to, impossible to touch. I don’t imagine I spent more than an hour a week with her for the whole of my existence. But I cried and cried after her funeral. I had been looking forward to the day I grew old enough for her to take notice of me. I had been so sure that once I was ten, or fifteen, or twenty-five, she would be interested in me, would find me fascinating and delightful. But I had not grown up fast enough. She had died before she could love me.

My father had married Gisele six months later.

I caught Harwin’s quick look and knew he was remembering my tears at the funeral. He had tried so hard to comfort me, but I would not let him take my hand, or distract me with a story about a new litter of puppies, or even talk to me at all.

I wondered if it was too late to tell him how much I appreciated his effort.

Darius poked his head inside the door before any of us had replied to Da

“Free so soon?” she teased. “I was sure we wouldn’t see you again until tomorrow—if then.”

“There was a crisis in the kitchen, and you know she doesn’t like me to worry over small domestic trifles,” he said with a grin. “So I made my escape.”

“Is it always like that?” Gisele asked. “You so favored, Da

Da

Gisele and I exchanged swift glances, and she spoke up in a quiet voice. “I believe a lot of people pin so many of their hopes on their sons that they have no energy or interest left for their daughters.”