Page 182 of Warlords, Witches & Wolves

Chapter 26

"Isuppose you will want to marry the girl after all now," Andre du Laq said to Jean-Paul the next morning as a servant poured coffee into their cups. The invitation he’d received from his father asking him to join his parents for breakfast had been written more as a command. Jean-Paul, who'd been caught up in the interrogations all night and had been planning on sleeping for an hour and then bathing and going in search of Imogene, had instead presented himself at the duq's townhouse.

The breakfast, he knew, would be excellent. Normally, it wouldn't have been enough to convince him to appear. But learning what his father's current stance on Imogene might be was necessary if he was to go to Imogene and convince her to give him another chance.

He hadn't gotten near her yesterday. A servant had found him at the barracks and brought him to the emperor's audience room, where a young blond Truth Seeker Jean-Paul hadn't recognized had already been asking questions of the Andalyssians.

Imogene had been standing with the empress, who looked pale and furious, and she had barely spared him a glance before focusing back on the Truth Seeker.

Who was very good at his job and had soon made it clear that the Ashmeiser was in the plot up to his neck despite the Andalyssians' strident protests to the contrary.

At that revelation, the empress had stepped forward and said, "I've heard enough. I believe you all owe Lieutenant Carvelle an apology. But that can come in due course. You can all clean up this mess." She'd waved a dismissive hand at the Andalyssians. "The lieutenant can come with me. We never did get tea." She paused, one hand on her belly. "I will deal with her colonel."

Then she'd looped her arm through Imogene's and left.

Jean-Paul had had the mad urge to run after them before Aristides had said, "She will wait. This will not." Which was true but truth had not made it easier to force his mind to duty rather than Imogene.

But sitting with his father and mother both smiling at him, he wasn't at all certain that Aristides had been right. Or that Imogene would forgive him. He gazed down at his coffee, unable to summon any appetite though he knew he needed food to make up for his lack of sleep.

"Well, Jean-Paul," his mother asked, "am I to have a daughter-in-law at last?"

He grimaced. "I think, Mother, that that is yet to be determined." He swigged coffee.

"She had the right stuff, that one," his father said with a sly smile.

Jean-Paul paused mid sip. "That's not what you said after the ball."

"I've changed my mind. Your mother always tells me the ability to change one's mind is a sign of wisdom. She is loyal to the crown. And brave enough to speak up, even though if she'd been wrong, she would have ruined her career, most likely."

More likely his father's ability to adjust his opinion with a smile and act as though he'd never felt any differently came from years of diplomacy and politics. Would he end up like that, too? He'd prefer the wisdom-based kind of decision-making himself. But he was, at least, not wise enough to try to dissuade his father from his newly found approval of Imogene. He merely rolled his eyes at his father.

"Poison. Cowardly, if you ask me," Andre continued. "If you want to kill a man, shoot him or stab him or something. More cowardly still to go after a pregnant woman." His expression twisted in disgust. "We should set half their damned country on fire."

Andre was clearly fully informed about everything that had happened at the palace. As he usually was. Luckily, Jean-Paul didn't think Aristides would choose violence as revenge. More likely, he'd just make the Andalyssians pay through the nose while he rooted out the heart of the discontent in their country via more subtle means. Diplomacy wasn't always gentler than war.

"But back to your lieutenant," his father continued. "Loyalty, bravery and magic. That's a start. You say she has a brain. We can teach her the rest. And the court will become used to the sanctii, I guess. She's not the only water-mage about." Andre sat back, looking satisfied. Then he smirked at Jean-Paul. "So all you have to do is get her to say yes."

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