Page 57 of Tusk Love

Of course. The jewelry would have been the first to go when the coffers started running out.

“Heavens, Guinevere, you look a fright!” Betha declared in a strident tone that contained no trace of her daughter’s sweet lilt. “What has happened to you?”

“And where in blazes is the—” Illiard caught himself, finally registering Oskar’s presence as the butler discreetly took his leave. “You’re not one of the guards I hired.”

As Illiard’s and Betha’s gazes fell on him and hardened with suspicion, Oskar set the trunk down on the ground and opened his mouth to explain, but Guinevere spoke first. Her voice quavered at certain points, and she had difficulty maintaining eye contact, but she told them everything—everything within reason, anyway. Oskar felt that she was rather embellishing the role he’d had in their continued existence in the material realm, while downplaying hers. Or, to be more accurate, that of her wildfire spirit. She divulged nothing about the presence that Elaras had sensed, and Oskar was quick to realize that she didn’t want her folks to know that she’d studied magic, however briefly. He was of the opinion that theyshouldtell Illiard and Betha and pressure them to provide answers to the mystery that had been hounding their steps across Wildemount. But Guinevere wasn’t ready, and of course Oskar would follow her lead, even if he had his misgivings.

He watched her parents like a hawk as they listened to their daughter’s harrowing tale of survival. They were visibly alarmed when she got to the part about the mercenaries—Illiard, in particular, looked around wildly until the sight of Lord Wensleydale’s guards hanging around the periphery of the sprawling gardens soothed him—but that was the height of the emotions that they showed. It was an alarm that eclipsed even the concern they expressed for their only child’s well-being. Then again, Oskar thought sardonically, she’d made it to them, her dowry safe and sound, and that was the important thing.

“I cannot believe you lost Bart and Wart, Guinevere!” Illiard groaned. “Those two beasts were as children to me.”

“I know,” Guinevere whispered, her shoulders hunching like she was trying to make herself smaller.

“She didn’tlosethem,” Oskar snapped. “The bandits are solely to blame.”

“Yes, the bandits, who nearly took my most prized possession because you—” Illiard rounded on Guinevere, but at that moment she tugged imploringly at his sleeve. A mute, desperate gesture, the kind given by a child who had rarely known love but was still reaching for it. He flinched at her touch, and Oskar wanted to punch something. Preferably the other man. Right in the face.

“Father, please,” Guinevere said, “what’s in the trunk? Why does the Spider’s Web want it? Oskar and I have carried it all the way from Druvenlode to Nicodranas. We have risked our lives for it. And, before that, it sat in the corner of my room all those years. I think—I think I deserve to know.”

The way her parents gawked at her, Oskar could tell that this was the first time Guinevere had asserted herself in a long, long while.

Betha was the first to recover. “I never!” she huffed. “Such impudence. You’ve picked up some rather deplorable habits on your little adventure, I see.” She glared at Oskar like it was all his fault.

But Guinevere held fast, ignoring her mother, looking her father in the eye. Eventually, a flush rose to Illiard’s pale cheeks. “It’s jewelry,” he said, sullen and defensive. “A whole bunch of them—a matched set. Very valuable. I won them in a round of cards shortly before you were born. The chap who bet them was a sore loser and he tried to call me out, but I won fair and square, and the whole den can vouch for that. Maybe he nursed that grudge these last two decades and hired the mercenaries to track me down and get it all back.” His flush deepened at the skeptical expression on Oskar’s face. “I may have boasted about your dowry, girl,” he admitted to Guinevere, scratching his head. “Once Wensleydale signed the papers, I took myself down to the Withered Bird and had a pint too many. Bought several rounds for some sailors, too, and I maybe told them things I shouldn’t’ve.”

Betha was apoplectic. “This!” she screeched at her husband. “This is why we hardly have any money left! Why you couldn’t afford to hire more guards for the trunk! You mismanager, you utterfool,lettingtotal strangers leech off you—and not only that, but also running your mouth off about the Parure—”

“I was in high spirits, wasn’t I?” Illiard roared. He jerked his head at Guinevere, who shrank back. “Never thought we’d be able to marryheroff, what with—”

“What’s the Parure?” Oskar interrupted, because he had the unsettling premonition that, were Illiard to finish his train of thought, once again denigrating Guinevere with the effortlessness of habit, Oskar would beat him to within an inch of his life.

Betha blinked at Oskar several times, her fury momentarily thrown off-kilter by his question. “The—a parure is the term for a matching set of jewelry.”

“That’saparure,” said Oskar, his eyes narrowing. “What’stheParure?”

“It’s—it’s just what the original owner called it,” Illiard scrambled to reply.

Oskar didn’t like this one bit. He knew guilt when he saw it. He knew the hunt, too. Guinevere’s parents had the tense look of prey run to ground.

Before he could call them out on it, however, a new voice echoed through the gardens. A deep, cultured voice, the kind that could only have been a product of generations of voices that expected the orders they gave to be followed.

And that voice said, “Idobeg everyone’s pardon! I was out riding.”

Fitzalbert, Lord Wensleydale, strode toward them with an air of quiet, unshakable confidence. He was a tall, trim man in his late thirties, with piercing blue eyes and thick blond hair streaked with hints of silver. He wore a frock coat of emerald-green wool over a cashmere waistcoat and a crisp white shirt, as well as buckskin breeches and spurred boots of such handsome leather that, were they ever to gain sentience, they would surely kick Oskar for daring to be in their presence.

Guinevere’s parents instantly changed their attitudes.

“Oh, it’s quite all right, Lord Wensleydale!” Betha trilled. She gingerly nudged Guinevere forward. “Permit me to make known to you my daughter, Guinevere, here at long last!”

Guinevere dipped into a graceful curtsy. When she came back up, Wensleydale’s blue eyes widened as he beheld her face, and he broke into a dazzling smile.

Wouldn’t you know it, Oskar thought sourly, hedidhave all his teeth. And hewasn’ttoo old.

In fact, he looked like a fucking prince from a fucking fairy tale, and Guinevere was smiling back at him, and,fuck,Oskar had to get out of here at once. He should have left as soon as they got to the estate. It wasn’t as though she needed him anymore.

But…no. He couldn’t leave her yet. Not when her parents were acting suspicious about the trunk’s contents. Of course, it was highly likely that his low opinion of them—one that had been formed before they even met—was coloring his view of the situation, but he had to confirm that first.

He would make sure that Guinevere was safe here, and then he would go.

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