Disgusting he was not.
Five months! Now she knew better. Older and more mature now, she could see that the naive child she had been then could have held no real interest for a man of the world like Andor. But he had taken pity on her and entertained her, cheering her up. Then, when he had seen the juvenile infatuation he had unwittingly provoked, he had found a gentle way to end it. The dramatic post-haste flight into the darkness, the romantic tale of honor and danger—those had been so much kinder than just saying he had more important things to do now, thank you. He had known that she would grow up quickly, and then, when she was mature enough to survive on her own feet—as she now was—then she would see that it had all been a mirage. And all for the best.
The sound of a cough caught her attention and she looked up to see that the young footman was shifting from one foot to the other in front of Aunt Kade, while wrestling with the terrifying problem of awakening a sleeping princess without coughing hard enough to disturb the other assorted nobility slumped in the nearby chairs.
Probably the dressmakers had arrived with the gowns for the Springtide ball. Amused, Inos watched to see how the youth would solve his puzzle. In the romances, the correct way to tackle that particular assignment was with a kiss; but if he were to try that in the library at Kinvale, he would very soon find himself being scorched by the breath of the Dragon Herself.
Even at that age, she thought, Andor would have gone for the kiss and gotten away with it.
Then he glanced frantically around the room, and his eyes caught hers. She took pity on him and nodded.
As Andor had taken pity on her. Andor had shown her what she should look for in a suitor—and perhaps done so deliberately, although he had thereby raised her standards so high that they might never be satisfied. The rock of Krasnegar was a tombstone. A man like Andor had all of Pandemia to play in and need not throw away his life in the barrenlands. A princess had duty and obligations. She must live out her days on the rock, but to ask anyone else to do so, just for her sake… For the millionth time, she pondered the ironic truth that a princess lacked some freedoms a common serf could take for granted.
The footman arrived before her and bowed. She thought this one was the Gavor her favorite coiffeuse spoke of, and if half those stories were true then he was quite a lad. But now he was showing nothing but polite inquiry on a boyishly pink face.
Inos resisted a temptation to suggest he try a kiss to awaken Kade. She had learned now that excessive familiarity merely unsettled domestics; their life was easier when their place was clearly defined for them. “You can give me the message, and I’ll see that the princess gets it,” she said.
Gavor, if that was his name, did not try to hide his relief. “That is most kind of you, ma’am! Her Grace requests that both you and your aunt attend her, should it be convenient.”
Not the Springtide gowns! Inos slammed her book shut with a thump that awoke half the snoozing peers in the room and she flashed the stupid boy a glare that made him blush to the ears. He should have come straight to her, instead of doing all that dithering in front of Aunt Kade—sometimes they just did not seem to have the brains they were born with! But she rose calmly and said merely, “Thank you.” She headed for Aunt Kade. Ekka did not enjoy being kept waiting, and Inos must certainly go around by her own room on the way and brush her hair.
The dowager duchess’s boudoir—which Inos thought of as the Unholy of Unholies—was a tribute to her son’s peerless taste in decor. It was at once large and light, imposing and intimate. White and gold and powder blue, it bore a heady scent of grandeur and a glitter of pomp, yet nothing obtruded. The walls were paneled in silk within white moldings, the furniture shone in white lacquer trimmed with gilt. Clouds of gauzy lace sheathed the big windows, although that detail always reminded Inos of spiders' webs. A cheerful crackling blaze in the marble fireplace drowned out the sound of rain, keeping the room uncomfortably warm, soothing old bones.
Following her aunt in through the door, Inos first saw Ekka herself, straight and tyrannical on one of the high-backed chairs she favored, with her feet placed tight together on an embroidered footstool. Her chair was higher than any of the others, so that she could dominate, as from a throne. One dark-veined hand rested on her cane, exactly vertical at her side. She wore a high-necked, long-sleeved gown of shining ivory satin and her white hair was as flawless as carved and polished marble, incongruous above a desiccated face of weathered walnut.
Other chairs were arranged in a semicircle before her. Just rising from one was the portly duke, immaculate in aquamarine. He looked worried and puzzled, as if wrestling with some problem, and his drooping lower lip was even wetter than usual. He could not have been sucking his thumb, could he?
Already on his feet beside him was the obnoxious Proconsul Yggingi, a hard, curt man in his forties. Ugh! His hair was cropped so short that his square head seemed bald, and as usual he was decked out in bronze and leather, from cuirass to greaves. Dancing with Yggingi was like wrestling a water butt. As usual, too, he was clutching his helmet under one arm—perhaps he had a deep fear of earthquakes and did not trust the Kinvale ceilings. Other officers visiting Kinvale did not wear their uniforms all the time. His wife was rarely seen in public, a semi-invalid whose existence he ignored while relentlessly pursuing Inos. His only topics of conversation seemed to be his military career and his unparalleled success at massacring gnomes in a previous posting. He was so detestable that even Aunt Kade could rarely find a good word for him.
So what had provoked this summons? Inos wondered, as she curtsied to the spiteful old relic on her raised chair, to the ponderous duke, stiffly bowing; curtsying less deeply to the egregious Yggingi; and there was another man, standing by the window, looking out at the—
Andor!
The world stopped.
It was Andor, really Andor. She knew that godlike profile even as he began to turn. He was wearing the same blue doublet and white hose he had worn the first time they met, but now also a long cloak of cobalt velvet trimmed with ermine, sweeping down to silver-buckled shoes. He turned slowly, to look at her, ignoring her aunt and everyone else. His dark eyes fixed on her alone.
Man as man should be.
He was thinner, paler… a terrible ordeal? Disaster, or some superhuman suffering, bravely borne? And not over yet, perhaps, for there was vast trouble or sorrow in those unforgettable eyes—none of the bubbling gaiety whose memory she cherished so dearly.
He paced over to her, while she attempted a smile of welcome and carefully did not gawk like a moron. He took her hands and bowed over them. His eyes had already spoken volumes—regard, pleasure at seeing her… deep sorrow?
Sorrow?
And finally he said, “My Princess!”
“Sir Andor!” She could say nothing more. His princess! Oh, yes!
Finally Andor acknowledged Kade, swooping her a bow.
“Sir Andor!” She beamed. “How nice that you can rejoin us!”
And the old harridan on the high chair had not missed an iota of that reunion, not a crumb.
“Be seated, ladies!” she croaked in her thin, antique voice.
Unable to stop staring at Andor, Inos allowed him to lead her to a chair and then watched as he walked over to sit opposite her, gracefully swirling his cloak out of the way as he sat. Kade and the other men had found chairs somewhere.