Vincen had given the only chair in his little room to her, and sat instead on the edge of the bed. His hair was still unruly from the pillow. He scratched his cheek, fingernails against the roughness of his two-day beard.
“He sounds like he’s agreed,” Vincen said.
“Oh, he’s not so dim as that,” Clara said. “If he’s taken, he will claim that he was drawing the conspirators into the open so that Geder can destroy them before they act.”
Vincen’s forehead furrowed.
“He might actually be doing that. He might have sent word to the Lord Regent already. And the letter that we sent. If Ternigan is loyal to Palliako—”
“Then no harm done,” Clara said. “Geder will have the conspiracy exposed from both sides, and while it may confuse him, he won’t know who we are, and he may very well distrust Mecilli and Ternigan just a bit because the question was raised and the players aren’t obvious. But, my dear, if you knew Ternigan, he’s loyal to whatever direction the wind is blowing. I have very high hopes for this.”
“Still. It’s odd that he took so long to answer, isn’t it?”
“I expect he was hoping things would progress without him. There’s nothing more charming than having all the heavy work done before you offer to lend a hand, don’t you think? Then you get all the goodwill of having offered without the bother of actually doing anything.”
“I suppose that would be the most pleasant mix,” Vincen said with a chuckle. Clara dropped Ternigan’s letter onto the bed beside him and put her hand on his leg just above the knee. Vincen leaned close and kissed her.
With practice, they had become better at it. At first, she had expected that all men would be identical to Dawson, and so discovering the ways that the little differences in the length of an arm or the angle of a jaw made the physical act of love different was actually something of a revelation. It seemed like every time she and Vincen lay down together, she would find that something else she had thought universal had in fact been an idiosyncrasy of her husband and herself. The way that Dawson’s feet would sometimes curl around her own, Vincen’s did not. The small shudder that had passed through Dawson when he reached his climax, Vincen didn’t show.
She had thought that her mourning was done, and for the most part, it was. Exploring Vincen Coe, and more to the point, herself in the context of Vincen, didn’t leave her melancholy. Quite the opposite. But while she would never have said as much, she also felt she was coming better to know who Dawson had been by the contrast. And to learn more about him, to have that small new intimacy with her husband was a gift she hadn’t expected, and all the more precious for that.
Sometime later, when she rose from the bed, she took a moment to retrieve Ternigan’s letter. The page had been bent at the corner, but was otherwise undamaged. Vincen pulled himself out of bed as well, stretching like a satisfied cat.
“We’ll need to have this delivered to the Lord Regent in a way that can’t be followed back to us,” Clara said.
“Mmm. Any thoughts on how you’d like that done?”
“Well. Do you know any couriers that you particularly dislike?”
“I can find something,” Vincen said, laughing low in his throat. “Just let me find my clothes.”
“Don’t hurry,” she said, and then waved away his leer. “I only meant that I have some work still to do here. You may dress if you wish.”
She turned up the lamp and took out her paper, ink, and pen. She held the pen in her left hand, which muddied her letters and made the script look unlike her own, yet still, she thought, passably legible.
Lord Regent Palliako
For reasons I cannot at present reveal, I am passing on to you now two letters which have come into my possession. First is the copy of a message covertly sent by Ernst Mecilli to Lord Marshal Ternigan. The second is his reply. I trust you will take the actions needed to protect yourself and Prince Aster.
A friend
She waited for a long moment to let the ink dry. It wasn’t until she went to fold the letters together that she realized she’d used the same paper for her own letter and the alleged message from Mecilli, but after consideration, she let the matter pass. She’d said that the message was a copy, so one might expect it to have been copied on the same paper.
She sewed all three pages together with a blank sheet at the back on which she wrote, Exclusively for the Eyes of Lord Regent Geder Palliako with her left hand. By the time she was done, Vincen was dressed and his hair combed. Clara gave him the packet and three silver coins from her purse.
“Well, then,” she said. “Shall we bring down a tyrant?”
“Anything, my lady,” Vincen said, and his voice made the words only half a jest. “So long as it’s with you.”
Will you be going on the King’s Hunt again this winter?” Clara asked as she and her son walked through the house toward the winter garden. All around them, the servants were bustling through the halls and corridors. It made her realize again how small Lord Skestinin’s manor really was. Sufficient for a man who spent most of his summers with the fleet, but if he were ever to retire from the position, he’d need to expand. Or else find other rooms for his daughter and son-in-law.
“No, not this year,” Jorey said. “We talked about it, Sabiha and I. I think it would probably help my standing at court more to winter with her and her father.”
“Ah,” Clara said nodding. “So how far along is she, and when were you going to tell me?”
Jorey had the good sense to blush.
“Almost two months, and I was just working up to it,” he said. “If you’d given me until we actually reached the garden, we were going to tell you together.”
“That’s sensible,” Clara said. “I’ll pretend not to know a thing.”
“Mother, I love you, but you are the worst woman in the world at keeping a secret.”
“I suppose I am,” Clara said as they reached the doorway. “I’ll do my best.”
The winter garden made her miss her own solarium. The glass roof and walls had been designed to let in light and hold what little warmth the sun could offer. In the depths of winter, it was as unlivable as any room, but it gave a week or two in the winter and another in the early spring when she could have the illusion of sitting comfortably in the outdoors. It struck her for the first time how decadent it was to have an entire room made for such a small span of time. And still, she missed it.
Sabiha sat under a bench beneath a willow. The wall crowded the tree, but the effect was still lovely. For all her tarnished reputation, Sabiha Skestinin really had been a fortunate match for Jorey. When she stood, there was no mistaking her condition. Second children always did show earlier. Clara looked at the girl’s belly, then at her eyes, and then they were both grinning and weeping. Clara folded the girl into her arms and they stood there for a long moment while Jorey shifted his weight from foot to foot.
“Well done, my dear,” Clara said. “Oh, well done.”
“Thank you,” Sabiha said.
Clara drew her back down to the bench, but kept her hand. Jorey used a wide block of granite as a stool. He looked proud and content. The darkness wasn’t gone from his eyes, but it was lessened. Clara couldn’t help recalling Dawson strutting through the house when she’d first been sure that she was pregnant with Barriath. The memory held no sting.
“So Jorey tells me you’re going north for the winter,” Clara said. “I assume this is why.”
“Father will insist anyway,” Sabiha said. “This way he won’t have to come down and pry us away from the hunt.”
“Would he really do that? How wonderful of him.”