Addax looked at him. “Would you feel the same way if we were speaking about your sisters?” he asked. “Allie and Effie and Addie? How would you feel then?”
Cole conceded the point. “Guilty as hell,” he said. “I did not mean to diminish your feelings, Ad. I apologize.”
Addax held up a hand. “You did not,” he said. “I did not mean to be confrontational, but Adanya’s fate has always been with me, like a shadow.”
“Hopefully, she was helped to escape just like you were,” he said. “Mayhap she is safe just as you are, living a good life.”
But Addax shook his head. “Do you know what I think?” he said. “I think my uncle spared her to marry her. What better way to assume the throne of Kitara by marrying his niece, the king’s daughter? I do not think she is dead. She is a queen. But it makes me sick to think on it.”
Cole felt a good deal of sympathy for him. “Do you ever think of returning?”
A smile flickered across Addax’s lips. “I do,” he said. “I think of it often. I think of the money Es and I earned from the tournaments we competed in and the money your father and William Marshal pays us. I am saving my money so I can buy an army to take with me back to Kitara. An army of the most brutal mercenaries the world has ever seen. I will return to Kitara and I will retake it, someday. At least, that has always been my intention, but since leaving Kitara those years ago, my life has gone in directions I could never have dreamed of. Mayhap I shall return to Kitara, but not now. I still have much more to do here in the land of people who seem to fight so much against one another.”
Cole chuckled. “And more knights to defeat in the joust.”
“Exactly.”
Cole sat forward, looking Addax in the eyes. “You have become my closest friend, Ad,” he said. “The past two years have seen you and I go through a great deal together. We have faced life and death together. I hope you will not return to Kitara without me by your side.”
Addax smiled warmly at him. “I would not have it any other way, Cole,” he said. “You are my brother even if you do not look like me.”
“But I think like you. And my heart is the same. That is enough.”
Addax held up his cup to them and they shared a toast to their friendship. It was a genuine moment between them, the misplaced prince and the spawn of the man many considered the prince of darkness. In a sense, they were both misplaced, both trying to find where they belonged.
And who they belonged to.
“But until I accompany you back to Kitara, the world we live in is here and now,” Cole said after a moment. “I feel like my world has changed. Everything I thought it would be doesn’t seem so certain any longer.”
Addax leaned forward on the table, looking at him closely. “Lady Corisande?”
Cole nodded slowly. “Lady Corisande,” he said. Then, he snorted. “Odd, isn’t it? Feeling that way about a woman I have only just met.”
Before Addax could reply, Essien suddenly leapt up from the table and grabbed a serving wench who had just lost her dance partner. Handsome, young Essien could charm even the most frigid heart and the serving wench, once she got over her shock of being grabbed by a strange man, wholeheartedly jumped into the dance with him.
Cole and Addax watched Essien swing the woman around as she squealed with delight.
“There he goes,” Addax sighed. “I swear to you, we are going to have to flee England at some point because he will have gotten another girl in trouble. If I could only find him a wife.”
Cole chuckled. “You would only make them both miserable,” he said. “Essien is not ready for a wife yet.”
“Are you? Again?”
Cole looked at him, knowing he meant Corisande. “I do not know,” he said honestly. “All I know is that I am away from Corisande and I do not like it. I want to return to her so badly that I can almost taste it.”
“Are you going to tell your father?”
Cole nodded. “I must,” he said. “I promised Corisande that I would settle the marital expectations with Audie before I pursued her in earnest. She says she does not want to be the reason for another woman’s unhappiness.”
“She sounds like a wise woman.”
“She is,” Cole agreed. “Far wiser than I am. Do I want to marry her? I do not know yet. I hardly know her. But my instincts tell me that she will be the woman at my side for the rest of my life and that thought does not distress me at all.”
“Then I wish you luck,” Addax said. “You deserve happiness, Cole. I know you do not think so, but you do. What happened with Mary was very tragic, but the sun will shine again for you. Mayhap it will shine with Corisande.”
Cole lifted his big shoulders. Since it seemed to be a night for confessions, he felt less restraint than usual to confess his own.
“Mayhap,” he said. “I suppose I have always had the feeling of being cursed because of who my father is. After Mary and Lucy died, I remember hearing my father tell my mother that I was being punished for his sins. I do not think that, but I do feel as if I’ve been cursed by the de Velt name in some ways. But with Corisande… oddly enough, I do not feel any judgment from her. She does not seem to care that I am a de Velt. I feel comfortable with her, more at ease than I have ever felt with anyone.”
Addax’s eyes twinkled. “Good,” he said. “I am happy for you. In fact, I…”
He was cut off when the music suddenly stopped and something caught his eye. Both Addax and Cole looked over to where Essien had been dancing with the serving wench only to see that the woman had been yanked away from him and there were now three or four soldiers between the wench and Essien.
The implication was obvious.
Cole and Addax were on their feet.
“Who are ye?” one of the soldiers stepped forward, shoving Essien back by the chest. “Where do ye come from? I’ve never seen the likes of ye around here before.”
Essien was volatile. He didn’t take kindly to be shoved around, but Addax grabbed his brother before he could take a swing at the soldier.
Cole put himself between them.
“That was unwise,” he rumbled to the soldier. “He was minding his own affairs, as should you. Go sit down and I will pretend I did not see you shove my friend.”
The soldier looked Cole over. In fact, his companions did, too. They could see how big and fierce he was and those eyes… they were terrifying. The soldier stepped back but he didn’t leave.
“This doesn’t involve ye,” he said. “Yer friend was being rough with Matilde.”
“He was dancing with her,” Cole said. “He was not being rough with her and you had no reason to intervene, so sit back down. I will not tell you again.”
The soldier snorted, but it was all for show. He had companions that needed to see how brave he was.
“And just who are ye to tell me what to do?”
Cole didn’t take his eyes off the soldier. “I am de Velt,” he said. “Ajax de Velt is my father. If you’ve not heard of my family, then you are either stupid or daft. But if you have, then you know what we are capable of. Now, do you wish to continue this challenge?”