“They apparently are digging out all the good stuff for their royal guests.” He winked at her. “Did I get the balance right?”
“Of course. Though I don’t know when you learned how I like my coffee.”
“I’m a clever guy. And you are my favorite subject of study. Does an intimate breakfast with the king and queen of Erie mean fancy dress?”
“Oh, are we summoned? They’re getting an early start.”
“That’s what I thought, too.”
“So, yes, not as fancy as what you wore last night, but definitely more formal than the phrase ‘intimate breakfast’ suggests.”
“Hmm. That might be a problem.” He went to answer the knock, allowing in a parade of servants with buckets of hot water to fill the tub in the bathing chamber.
“You really have nothing left?” Stella asked with a frown.
“Last night’s stellar outfit and my scarlet suit from the Feast of Moranu ball, which is considerably worse for wear,” he admitted. He’d hoped to buy more clothes on the journey to Castle Marcellum, but the overland route across the wintry steppes wasn’t exactly a shopping extravaganza. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think there was a conspiracy to keep me naked.” He lifted a brow at her.
Shaking her head, Stella stopped a servant and asked that a tailor be sent to them with at least one suit of clothes that could be quickly adapted in time for breakfast, and more for later. The girl curtsied and agreed with alacrity, as if the request weren’t odd for daybreak, and skipped off to roust the poor tailor from their bed.
“You didn’t have to do that,” he said, once the last of the servants had gone, wrestling the unfamiliar sense of irritation at the feeling of being managed.
Stella gave him a considering look. “Why did that annoy you? You need clothes.”
“I’m used to providing for myself.” He could just imagine what his Dasnarian friends—and his father—would say about him being a kept man.
“Did you mean it,” Stella asked, wrapping the blanket tighter around herself, “when you said that about arranging for hot running water in every place we lived?”
He frowned, confused. “Yes. Why?”
“Because if I do have a future, you want to live with me,” she clarified, “wherever that may be.”
“Yes. And stop questioning whether you have a future. We’re going to make sure of it. I love you and I want to be with you.” When would she get that through her head? “You better not be thinking up ways to cut me out of your life.”
“Don’t get snarly.” She came over and worked a hand out of the blanket wrapping to lay it on his chest, soothing energy coming from her. “I want to be with you, too, but this is what being part of my life would mean. If you’re going to be my official consort, you’ll have to look the part. Sometimes that will mean letting me provide for you.”
He tamped down the thrill of being named her official consort. For whatever reason, he hadn’t thought that far ahead—but of course Stella wouldn’t give herself unless she meant forever. Laying his hand over hers, he grimaced. “Yeah… All right. I’ll swallow my manly manly pride and take the clothes. But I don’t relish being the pauper to your princess.”
She regarded him seriously, no doubt sorting through his conflicting emotions better than he could. “It would be part of the deal—and I wouldn’t blame you for wanting no part of it. Being independent, to the point of disregarding manners and rules, is part of who you are. I don’t want you to change that for me.”
Lifting her hand, he kissed her fingers, then gave her a cocky grin. “I don’t think I can change that, even for you. As long as you’re willing to put up with me, I’m in.”
She smiled, the happiness lighting her face. “It won’t always be easy.”
“But we’ll figure it out,” he promised her. “As long as we agree that loving each other and being together is worth the difficulty.”
“I believe it is.”
“I do, too.” He leaned in to give her a real kiss, drawing her up against him, tempted to drag her back to bed. Instead, he patted her adorable rear. “Take your bath while it’s hot. I’m going to run some forms while I await the sleep-deprived royal tailor.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to go first?” she asked with a concerned frown.
“Tough and manly,” he reminded her. “I don’t mind tepid bathwater. It’s warmer than the cold arctic seas I bathed in as a child.”
“I’ve been on the Hákyrling,” she retorted primly, “and I recall having hot water for baths.”
“You ruin all my stories,” he complained as she laughingly skipped away and shut the bathing chamber door.
With her safely out of temptation’s reach, he settled into Danu’s Dance, the movements warming his muscles and the grace of the goddess clearing his mind.
Nothing, however, could quite remove his dread of what they might yet face. A tower surrounded by an endless field of lilies…
Feeling more self-conscious than she liked, Stella entered the cozy dining hall on Jak’s arm. At his insistence, she wore her daggers on a jeweled girdle he’d improvised to go over her morning gown of deep-blue velvet. For his part, Jak looked unusually subdued—and especially lethal—in another black suit, this one of Chiyajuan silk with a jacket of gold brocade. He’d complained about looking like a court dandy until she pointed out that he’d worn scarlet to the Feast of Moranu ball at Ordnung and that it didn’t get dandier than that.
He grumbled something about there being a difference between swashbuckling rogue and court dandy, but he subsided with good grace—at least until he’d started badgering her about being armed. She was surprised at herself, at how much she enjoyed bantering with him, and how different she felt, sated in a way that had her feeling deliciously fulfilled. It was as if she’d been starving for some nutrient without realizing it. As if some sort of essential loneliness had finally eased. She just wished she didn’t have to face people again so soon.
“Courage,” Jak whispered, kissing her cheek, and she smiled at him.
The king and queen hadn’t arrived yet, but all their friends had, observing with expectant and delighted—or, in the single exception of Astar, carefully stoic—expressions. Zeph even did a little shimmying dance, subsiding only when Astar raised his brows at her. Even Rhy, slouching against a decoratively carved pillar, smiled and tossed her a little salute.
Fortunately King Cavan and Queen Nix entered just then, with no fanfare, but with two young royals with them. The young woman, who looked to be about Stella’s age, with hair as dark as Cavan’s and his slate-gray eyes, must be Princess Marjolein. The slightly younger prince had his mother’s ivory hair and lake-blue eyes. He was introduced to her as Prince Wilhelm, who gallantly bowed and kissed her hand with an appraising look in his eye.
Jak stood back, appearing nonchalant, but tapping his fingers on his lean thigh very near one of his sheathed daggers, eyeing the young prince like a target. Stella flicked him an inquiring glance, and he grinned. Without taking his eyes off her, he said something in reply to Rhy, who was eyeing Wilhelm as the young prince kissed Lena’s hand, clearly renewing an acquaintance of the night before. Princess Marjolein greeted Astar with a wistful smile, an unhappy look on her face as she took in Zeph on his arm, flashing Salena’s ruby ring and looking carelessly glamorous as usual.