Warrick’s jaw went rigid, his hand tightening into a fist. “Where?”
Wes shook his head. “Don’t know yet. I’ve set the guards on it, but no one expects her back soon. Word is her carriage was loaded with a trunk.”
Resignation swam through Warrick as he pressed his fingers to the bridge of his nose. After a moment, he sighed. “Thank you, Wes. Your attention to this matter is greatly appreciated.” He placed a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Please escort the lady Nimona to my suite until I’ve had time to sort this out.”
Wes gave a hesitant glance at the door to the stairwell. Nim bit her lip. Warrick gave him a pat. “Rest as long as you need. I’ll return her on my way down.” He held a hand out for Nim, and when she took it, she could only feel his regret and weariness.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered when they were alone on the landing behind the closed door.
He brushed a thumb over her cheek, his intimation answering that it was only this one thing. If he could just have it done and keep her safe... They wouldn’t have had to hide.
She stepped closer. “You’ve had to hide all along. I can endure this.” She thought she could, in any case. She’d been hiding so much about herself since she was a girl, though, truth be told, she wasn’t certain how long she might manage endurance with the Trust and a king hunting her down.
He didn’t want to make her. And he didn’t want to for himself.
“Warrick,” she said, “how did you come to be seneschal?” Right beneath everyone’s nose, she meant. If he was truly to be hidden, far from Inara might have been the safest place. But she supposed the king might have wanted him near in his game with the head of the Trust. The king might have made a bargain.
Warrick’s hand found hers, his thumb sliding over the delicate skin inside her wrist. “Stewart is cleverer than many give him credit for. He’s not merely king in title. He has much experience in court maneuvering, relations between kingdoms, all that is required of a station so high.” And in his dealings with the Trust.
“So by putting you at his hand…”
“Under his hand,” he corrected.
Nim frowned. Warrick was not only bound by the laws of the kingdom but by whatever deal he’d made with Calum, a contract that apparently surpassed the wishes of his mother, if not the bonds of secrecy placed on him by the Trust. It begged the question of why he was so desperate to complete their ceremony—because if he and Nim were married, Warrick would be bound again, to her.
Her eyes met his. “That’s it,” she whispered. “The only way to put us before your other vows is to bind us legally.” They needed to be bound by the laws of Inara and the laws of the Trust, besides that two agents of the king could not be seen lingering in stairwells like lovestruck fools.
“I tried to keep you safe,” he reminded her. He stepped closer, his face lowering to keep his gaze on hers. “Neither of us are able to heed the good sense of holding our distance, it seems.” It was barely a whisper that traced over her skin with a flutter of magic.
“Indeed.” Her voice wasn’t much more than a breath as Warrick drew closer to her, and any sense she might have possessed—good or otherwise—was well and truly lost to her.
Then the door rattled, and his eyes fell closed with tangible vexation.
“Oh,” was all Wes said when he appeared on the landing. After a moment of silence, wherein his gaze traveled repeatedly between Warrick and Nim, who were blocking his way toward the stairwell, he said, “All rested up. I can take her now.”
Warrick seemed to resist the urge to run a hand over his face. He let his gaze land on each of them. “Do stay out of trouble this time, the both of you.”
Nim gave a sheepish shrug as Wes nodded at the request. And then Warrick was gone, turned to descend the darkened stairs at an improbable pace. Behind them, the torch flared to life again, the pulse of the magic beating with Nim’s own heart. Wesley took the torch in hand before sidling up to her. “Ready?”
They’d managed to escape for a moment. At her nod, they began their descent into a reality Nim was not quite ready to face.
Nim paced Warrick’s suite, plucking the lids off various containers and decorative boxes to peer inside and running her fingers over the edges of trim. She arranged the fruit on his table then straightened his writing supplies on his desk. She drew the poker from its place by the hearth, raising it to eye level before testing the thing’s balance. It wasn’t half bad.
“You’re restless,” Wes said.
She put the poker back in its spot.
“Why don’t we go out to the gardens?” he offered.
She blinked at him then gestured to the tall rows of windows outside, where it was fully dark.
“Cards?”
Flopping into the chair with a sigh, she asked, “How am I to relax when there is so much to be done? We are meant to lounge around a set of locked rooms and do nothing to prevent what might come, and I loathe it, Wes. I truly do.”
Wes blew out a breath. “Would you rather work, then?”
She sat up. “Can we?”
“We can’t go to your study, but a few reports did come in. I was to deliver them in the morning.”
“Yes,” she said. “That. Please let us do anything other than wait idly to be attacked.”
He gave her a look but stood to retrieve the documents.
Nim wasted no time lighting a few tapers from the sitting room and spreading them over Warrick’s fine desk. She gestured to Wes to draw up a chair, and they began to scan through the information she’d requested of Lord Preston and his associates. Half at least were connected with the city watch. Another few held posts outside the wall, and least connected but most worrisome was from a king’s messenger who had carried missives as far as other kingdoms.
Lord Preston’s involvements appeared to be in a rather unseemly set, at best, should he have had any ties to the Trust. At worst, he could be the very person Calum had put in position to take Warrick’s place as heir. She needed to verify exactly how the succession would go. Surely, the rules were not secreted, even if the man’s lineage was. I’ll see you again, Rhen had said, soon.
Wesley glanced up at Nim’s murmured curse.
“We need to send a message to Margery,” she said.
“Right now?”
“You do it for seneschal business.”
“Yes, but Warrick doesn’t give a whit whether his recipients are awake and receiving guests.”
Nim grinned. “Margery keeps late hours. And early ones. Honestly, I’m not certain when she even sleeps.” She patted Wes’s hand. “Besides, she’ll strangle us if we don’t let her know right away.”
Wes didn’t ask what it was precisely that they were informing Margery of, but Nim assumed that was a habit he’d gained from being Warrick’s messenger. The boy probably knew as much about Lord Preston as anyone, and she would do well to remember his time in the castle and among the court—he was one of her most advantageous resources.
But Maris knocked at the door to the sitting room, bearing a tray with a very late dinner. “The seneschal asked that I ensure you both were fed.”