Page 86 of Untempered
“That depends on what else is in play.” Ylva leaned forward. “What else do you have in play, Audrey?”
She looked at her chessboard with a curiously blank expression, and I was back staring at Kadan’s broken body, hearing Darrius’ efficiently summarized plans. “Nothing,” she said softly.
CHAPTERTHIRTY-THREE
CHAY
“A smart man might hope for the best, but he’ll be prepared for the worst.”
~ Barloc’s Wisdom, complied by F. Bergsoniir
Ihalf-shoved Audrey’s noble self out the door, keeping myself between the poverty-stricken Southerner and the sad-faced duchess-in-waiting.
“Smooth,” I said through my teeth, my heart aching for the Wuurgard heir as I dropped the bar over her door. One of these days, I’d forget to lock her in. It might even be an accident.
“It’s true,” she told me. “If I had any allies or power, I wouldn’t be sitting around playing chess.”
“Well that’s lucky, then, because your strategy is dreadful,” I snapped.
She threw up her hands and stormed off toward her rooms. “I want to make things right, but I don’t know how!”
The depth of rage in the words sparked answering frustration in me. I’d seen this dance many times before. My mother had thrown her hands in the air, too, after we’d been whipped. “Why didn’t you stay away from him?”she’d ask us.“What am I supposed to do now? You know what he’s like when he’s in a mood.”
“Ah, of courseyouneed to have discovered the answers for them to be right,” I said to her back. “Far be it that you actuallyspeakto theaffected parties!”
“Oh, yes, they all want to speak to me,” she bit out. “I can’t even get a look from Kaelson, much less a meeting with him, and he’s basically on my payroll now that the Acting Steward is nine-tenths dead and Smythesson isn’t far behind. I expect folks in the city who despise my father can’twaitfor an audience with me!”
“Why the fuck would they want an audience with you?” I asked, genuinely confused by this woman’s brain.
She spun and leveled a finger at my nose. Her whiskey eyes burned. “Don’t make this sound simple, you cur, because we both know I can’t toss money and power randomly out the window of a carriage as I go past and expect it’ll help.”
I flicked her finger out of the way. “Why not?”
“One,” she said, getting out a finger, “powerisn’t something that one can throw, much less catch, and two, how do you think the guards would treat the folks who scooped up that wealth?”
I hated that she had a point. “That required you to count on your fingers? You can’t keep two arguments straight?”
“I don’t keep much straight,” she said, giving me a derisive look up and down. “Thanking the Wife.”
Laughter wedged in my chest. If she expected me to care that she had a crush on our prisoner, she was sorely mistaken. I’d figured that out from the get-go. But before I could respond, she pressed one hand over my mouth and tangled the other in my sword belt, dragging me back into the shadows. Frozen, I felt the pressure of her fingers over my mouth, the pressure of her hand on my belt at my hip, and her breath at my ear. Heat flooded my body. I held myself still, resisting the urge to turn into that warmth, her attention on the hall leading toward the kitchens.
Two sets of rapidly approaching steps were a welcome distraction from the fact I hadn’t been so close to anyone in what was clearly far too long.
“Jillian,” a man called. “Stop it. I’ll just come by tonight.”
A woman, basket in her arms, slowed at the point where the hall we were in joined the one they traveled on, positioned between both passageways.
My heart beat heavily. I knocked Audrey’s hand off my face, and she shot me a look that would’ve made her servants weep. I just ignored her.
The woman was dressed for the kitchens, and from the flush in her cheeks and the tendrils of sweat-dampened hair sticking to her temples, she hadn’t been gone long.
“Winn, I haven’t anything to spare.”
Winn stopped close to her, a middle-aged man with a neat tabard in the colors of the guard. “You always say that. You know if I have to chase you, it gets worse.” He held out his hand. “Give it to me.”
She took half a step back, clutching the basket to her chest, and the guardsman’s hand settled on the wicker, preventing her from taking flight.
Audrey was on the move before I could act, her eyes on the man.
