Page 42 of The Traitor's Curse
But he’d never visited court much, and I hadn’t seen him since he’d come for my father’s state funeral shortly after that hunting trip, first too overwhelmed with shock and grief and then too busy with the business of ruling to take any holidays.
I’d missed him, of course. But even our correspondence had fallen off and become sporadic. Tavius had never been much of a letter-writer.
A light rain had started misting down, and Tavius tossed his reins to a groom and strode quickly for the shelter of the palace, disappearing out of sight.
He’d be at my study door within a few moments, quite possibly without even pausing to let a manservant clean his muddy boots. Tavius had always been loud, brash, and unconcerned with mess and disturbance—usually the cause of it, in fact. Gods, even if I managed to calm him down, it’d be impossible to get any work done with him rattling around the palace and trying to drag me out of my study and into the nearest keg of brandy—and away from Benedict.
Not that I’d manage to calm him down. As soon as he heard about what had happened at the ball last night…
Fuck. I dropped into my desk chair too heavily, yelping as it sent a shock through all the soft parts of my rear, and put my head in my hands. Mattia hadn’t said much, but he’d confirmed, when I asked him, that the palace and the city were abuzz with the story.
Damn it, damn it, damn it to hell. Tavius couldn’t have chosen a worse moment to descend upon me if he’d tried.
“Lucian! Where are you hiding?” Tavius’s voice carried clearly through the study door from somewhere out in the corridor. Double damn it.
I jumped up and practically dived for the door. Mattia had gone off on an errand to Lord Zettine’s office, which meant Tavius—aggressive by nature and a little too attached to his status as the duke’s favorite cousin—would be facing down Benedict’s humorless officers within seconds.
Both of my door guards had their hands on their sword hilts as I burst into the corridor, with Tavius coming to a stop a few feet away, his brows already drawing into a frown and face red with brewing anger.
For a strange moment, he reminded me so powerfully of my father in one of his tempers that my heart gave a skip and I froze in place.
But then Tavius saw me and his face split into a smile, and he looked almost like himself again. Older, of course, with a few harsh lines in his face he’d never had before, but still my cousin Tavius. I shook my head to clear the vision away and stepped forward between my guards, smiling too despite how mixed my feelings were. Tavius and I both had blond hair, and we resembled each other rather strikingly—and he’d inherited his build from his father, obviously, whose height and bulk were similar to my own father’s. So it wasn’t so odd, really, that Taviuscould momentarily remind me of him.
But gods, that had given me a turn that it’d take a glass of wine to recover from.
“Lucian, call off your dogs,” Tavius said. “I’m your bloody cousin, not a threat to your throne!”
“Let him pass,” I said, and the guards hesitated and then drew aside, allowing Tavius to stride forward and pull me into a bear hug that made meoofas all the air was knocked out of my lungs.
For a moment I let myself relax into his embrace, wrapping my arms around his back and giving him a friendly thump, which he returned enthusiastically enough to have me laughing and wincing. Some of my worry melted away in the familiar warmth of his touch and the faint scent of home and family that somehow clung to him, no matter how much time had passed since we’d seen one another.
When I pulled back and looked up into his tanned, ruddy face and the eyes that were so much like mine, I almost felt happy he’d come.
And then that feeling evaporated instantly as he said, “Glad to see me?”
I bit my lip to keep in the automatic litany of apologies that tried to spill out in response to the challenging edge to his tone. He’d invited me to his lodge several times over the last three years, and I’d had to turn him down each time, much to his annoyance—even though he hadn’t made the effort to travel, either. And now he knew perfectly well I wouldn’t be glad he’d come to chastise me over Benedict, but if I said so, he’d turn it around on me.
Damn it, he’d put me on the defensive with four little words. Family could be so fucking overrated.
“Of course I am,” I said, and his eyes narrowed. Ugh. I hadn’t sounded convincing even to myself.
“Are you?” He’d started to redden, puffing up his chest. “What the fucking hell, Lucian? That fucking ass Rathenas? Have you lost your mind? I had to come and talk some sense into you!”
Fuck, I’d forgotten quitehowloud Tavius could be, and how overbearing. They’d be able to hear him halfway across the palace, and there were two pages and two guards standing a few feet away! “Come into my study and talk there, Tavius, this isn’t the place for—”
“I see you’re not denying it!” I winced and couldn’t help shooting a glance at our small audience, who were all leaning forward, unashamedly agog. “We need to get you out of this palace. Away from that bastard. Somewhere you can clear your head and have a bit of fun. If you’ve picked up with him, you’re clearly desperate. Or he’s muddled your mind somehow, because you’ve always hated him as much as I—”
Oh, gods preserve me, the guards would report this to Benedict, I knew they would, and even though I’d always been openly hostile to Benedict in private, and he had no illusions, somehow the thought of him knowing how I’d spent years abusing him to Tavius made my lungs seize up.
“Lunch!” I practically shouted, needing to do anything to head him off until I could get him somewhere more private. And Tavius could always be influenced through his stomach. “We’ll—find some hot punch to drive out the chill. My cooks can send up all your favorites. Roast beef and anything else you fancy. Whatever you’ve heard, I’m sure I can explain it.”
No chance of that, actually, but at least he could rant and carry on where not as many people would hear him. I took him by the arm, trying to tug him away, down the hall and away from the administrative offices. We could go around by a back corridor that would get us to the semi-formal area of the palace where we entertained extended family or visiting dignitaries insmaller groups.
“Fine,” Tavius said, “but I swear to all the gods, you’d better not be trying to put me off!”
He slung his arm around my shoulders, giving me a bruising squeeze, and began to list all the delicacies he expected the cooks to prepare for us on the double, damn it, and without messing about. Out of the corner of my eye I caught Captain Venet practically twitching with the urge to intervene.
“Run to the kitchens, post haste, and order it all,” I muttered to the closest page, almost drowned out by Tavius’s booming voice, and the lad nodded and scurried off, leaving the other to close my study door and remain at his post.
