This will be fun, p.4
This Will Be Fun, page 4
Elowen hoped to cut deep, and cut deep she had. A glimpse of real emotion burst forth on Vandra’s carefully trained face. The quickest shadow of hurt, gone as fast as it came. Truthfully, Elowen hadn’t even meant what she’d said.
Ten years ago, Vandra had been hired by a rather annoying man named Bartholomew, one of Galwell’s childhood nemeses who wanted to thwart Galwell’s quest. It was a unique job for Vandra. She hadn’t been tasked to kill Galwell, only to inconvenience him so that Bart could rescue Thessia first and be declared Mythria’s hero instead. Vandra found the Four at every turn, adding an extra layer of difficulty to their already difficult tasks. Sometimes Vandra succeeded, throwing the Four off the trail for a day or two. Other times, she failed. Vandra conceded the losses with grace all the same, knowing full well she planned to meet up with Elowen afterward so Elowen could make some concessions of her own. Bartholomew, for his part, never came anywhere close to rescuing Thessia, and last Elowen heard, he hadn’t paid Vandra for her services, either. She was certainly a nuisance to the Four, but she was never a bad person.
Dangerous, on the other hand? She’d always been that.
“Talent is talent, my darling,” Vandra told her, settling right back into her natural cheerful state. “She asked me to do whatever is necessary to get you to the wedding, so long as it didn’t involve violence. Which was irrelevant, of course, because I don’t do violence anymore. Much has changed since last we saw one another.” She leaned in, cupping her manicured hand beside her mouth as if telling a secret. “That should intrigue you, by the way. I am not the woman you once knew.”
Her breath, so close, pricked up the hairs on Elowen’s neck.
Vandra was indeed different from how Elowen remembered her to be. Ten years could do that to anyone, but this went beyond what Elowen would have expected, had she known she’d see Vandra again. She’d always been a bubbly, self-assured person with a flair for spontaneity. The self-assuredness still existed, but the rest of her energy had settled.
She seemed . . . steady. Her emotions didn’t bounce around as quickly as they once had, and her attention remained fixed on Elowen without wavering. It did intrigue Elowen. More than she wished it would.
“Queen Thessia wanted me to use my mind to gather you,” Vandra continued. “So I developed a scheme far wiser than anyone else could ever dare dream up. All it required was advanced knowledge of the subject. The subject being you.” She took a weighty pause. “No one else in Queendom knows you like I do.”
“You don’t know me at all,” Elowen hissed out instantly, fighting to ignore every romantic feeling Vandra threw her way. Just because Vandra no longer worked as an assassin did not mean she’d given up on using her distinct charm to manipulate others. After all, killing bad people was only one small part of her previous occupation. Most of her work involved luring the bad people out, earning their trust only to betray them in the end. Now Vandra was using that gift to get Elowen to attend the wedding, and that hurt.
“Thessia would’ve sent me to get you in the first place,” Vandra explained, ignoring Elowen’s comment. “But too many men volunteered for the job. The one who reached your dwelling? His name is Carl. When he sent an urgent conjuration saying you rejected the invitation, I knew it was my time to shine. You see, I’ve been following you on the Desires of the Night tapestries for years. I knew if I could just lure you out of your little treetop, I could get you to the wedding . . .”
“You’ve been watching my activity on the message tapestries for years? That’s a violation of my privacy,” Elowen snapped, desperate to sound tough when all she really felt was vulnerable. She had worked so hard to stay hidden. She didn’t use her real name on the tapestries. In fact, she’d concocted an alter ego with an entirely different life. Vandra finding her anyway really was a feat. Elowen would have been impressed, if she wasn’t so exposed. And she would have been flattered, if she wasn’t so terrified of letting Vandra get closer to her. Why had Vandra bothered to keep an eye on Elowen at all? They’d both cut each other off with no contact.
“Of course I’ve been reading your messages,” Vandra said. “You’re right to think I don’t know you anymore. But you can’t deny that we once knew each other quite intimately. And I’m being honest when I say I might just want to know you again.”
It was Elowen’s turn to ignore the comment. There was no need for Vandra to lay it on this thick. “Is your plan to kidnap me against my will?”
“It would be lovely if you’d consent to it,” Vandra replied. “It would make things so much easier for us both, as this is ultimately in the name of a joyful affair. I love weddings myself. And you and I both know you don’t have any other options. You need the monthly salary.”
Elowen looked down at her sack of Domynia costumes, now useless. “Let’s get on with it, then,” she said, outmaneuvered. “Go ahead and take me.”
Vandra let out a gasp of delight. “You’re really letting me kidnap you?”
“I am,” Elowen replied. She was not the hero Mythria believed her to be, and frankly, she never had been. That had always been Galwell. Elowen was just a tagalong sibling who followed her brother everywhere, even straight into a realm-saving quest. When she was younger, she’d been less aware of her own limitations. She was willing to try things even when she wasn’t sure she’d be successful at them. That was no longer the case. Elowen possessed no ability to outsmart a woman as cunning as Vandra. Not without sufficient preparation. She had walked herself right into a trap, and in that moment, she had neither the time nor the energy to come up with a way out of it.
Beaming, Vandra threw Elowen over her shoulder, a move that resulted in Elowen staring directly at Vandra’s perfectly full rear end. What a view.
What a situation.
3
Clare
For the third time this month, Clare Grandhart recognized neither the bed in which he woke nor the woman who slept next to him. When his eyes fell on brassy curls splayed on white sheets, his heart leapt.
Beatrice?
No. He remembered now, the feeling not unlike falling from his horse. Last night had not gone at all the way he had hoped. Two days ago, when he’d heard Beatrice de Noughton was divorced, Clare had used the revelation to push past the grudges they held against each other—hers callous and unjustified, his entirely reasonable, of course—and do what he knew the queen’s wedding invitation demanded. He jumped on the first wagon to Elgin.
When Beatrice met him bitterly on the stairs, he let his worst impulses grab hold of him. They were easier than . . . whatever other feelings she might provoke in him. Feelings she certainly would never share, never even entertain. Very well—he could un-entertain them the same way. If Beatrice wished, they could exchange remarks like they were crossing swords.
Had he expected she would run into his arms after so many years apart?
Ghosts, no.
Had he thought the years of silence between them might have resulted in Beatrice missing him even a little?
Possibly.
He shouldn’t let her rejection sting. Clare was no stranger to Beatrice’s disdain. He had everything he could possibly want—fame, wealth, companionship both sexual and friendly, a lovable eagle named Wiglaf. So what if one woman in all of Mythria despised him!
She was his decade-old—no, he would not say heartache. Beatrice was his decade-old headache. How dare she hate him, when Clare’s callousness or promiscuity was nothing compared to the way she’d wounded him? It wasn’t the end of the realm, especially to someone who had literally faced down the end of the realm.
And yet . . . to Clare, it might as well have been.
He hadn’t expected the knifelike urge in him the moment he saw her. How much he wanted her, even when he couldn’t forgive her. How desperately a part of him hungered for her forgiveness, her pride, her care. He wanted her to be the living proof that he was worth loving.
He needed to put her out of his mind. Focus on everything he did have. Like the lovely lady currently in his—or someone’s—bed. With hungover effort, he connected the naked shoulders half exposed from the coverlet with the woman who’d refilled his drink after Beatrice had walked into the night. He’d been hurting. She’d promised to distract him.
They’d had fun. Or, she’d had fun. Clare Grandhart always made sure his partners had fun.
Him, on the other hand . . .
He exhaled, hating the discontent quietly pervading his chest, spoiling the golden morning.
It wasn’t this lady’s fault, of course. It was him. It was Beatrice. It was how he had everything except what he wanted. Who he wanted. It was how, in ways he could not fully understand, he’d started to feel he was only playing the character of Clare Grandhart, protector of Mythria and one of the Four.
He was forgetting his lines more and more these days. Which wasn’t good, not when he clung on to one consolation every day of his unexpected life.
Clare Grandhart was a hero.
He held on to the idea when everything he wasn’t caught up with him. If he wasn’t the man he hoped he would be—horseball player, healer, father? Never mind. He was a hero. If he wasn’t sure he was happy?
If Beatrice didn’t want him? Fine. He was a hero.
If he wasn’t good enough? If he wasn’t loved?
It didn’t matter. He was a hero.
He needed to be a hero, especially with the anniversary coming up. He needed to make up for Galwell’s absence. Galwell was who Mythria deserved. He was the brave one, the gallant one, the kind one. The one people followed.
The one people loved.
Clare knew he was a badly drawn copy, but he was trying. It was why—as Clare had nearly confessed in inelegant, fumbling phrases—he had made his way to the de Noughton manor. Inventing noble reasons for forgiving Beatrice in order to pretend he didn’t want to, deep in his wounded heart. Galwell would have forgiven her, Clare reasoned. He would have put his friends first, his queen first.
And then Clare encountered Beatrice herself, and his desire deepened. The unbidden, insatiable need to prove himself to her, even while he could not forget every reason he had to hate her. He didn’t know why the esteem of the woman he’d devoted the decade to resenting meant everything to him, no more than he knew how the realm’s magicians had mastered sending conjurations from coast to Mythrian coast.
He just knew, if he could prove himself to Beatrice, the woman who’d once known him best, he might finally feel like the hero the rest of the realm deemed him.
He wrestled the familiar feeling down. He’d dealt with worse. Dragons, nightwalkers. What was a little existential uncertainty? What he needed was something at which Clare Grandhart excelled—distraction. Perhaps he could spend the day with—
With . . .
Fuck. He was forgetting more than his lines now. He looked down, focusing on the woman’s pretty freckled shoulders, her curly hair. Horrible realization opened up in him. He could not remember her name. He was mortified. Morgana? No . . .
While at heart he knew himself best suited to the role of dashing rogue, Clare valued the women he slept with. He never considered them just people to fuck. He learned their names, where they were from, what they enjoyed reading or what sports they followed. Forgetting this woman’s name was damning proof he wasn’t himself.
Isabella? No. Velaria? No.
He was frustrated with himself. How goddamn often would he make the same mistake? Leaping into other women’s arms when the one he wanted left him heartsick?
“Good morrow,” his companion said sweetly.
“Mm,” he returned.
With his mortification mounting, wisdom he recalled from debauched drinking evenings with friends from his banditing days entered his head.
If you can’t remember her name in the morning, take her to the brewshop. She’ll give them her name to call out for her order.
“Morning brew?” he suggested.
The woman paused just long enough to imply she might be interested in morning something-else. When Clare pretended to be sleepily oblivious, guilt gnawing his insides, she smiled.
“I’d love to,” she purred.
Only a little relieved, Clare dressed himself, lacing his tunic while the woman wrapped herself in the elegant dress hung from the wooden hook on one wall of the room. “I assumed you would sneak out with the morning light,” she commented.
Following her to her door, he scoffed. “Most of the rumors about me are wild exaggerations. I’ve even been known to make brunch on occasion,” he said.
In moments like this, he found it unnervingly easy to put on the charm. A half-grin, a rolled-up sleeve, a hand run through his hair. Mixing truth with what felt like lies. He’d perfected the moves over the years, using them to hide from the mistakes he made a decade ago.
Of course, his looks didn’t hurt. Or didn’t help, depending on how one viewed things. Clare Grandhart was well over six irons in height, sculpted of lean muscle checkered with scars over which women liked to run their fingers. His sweep of golden hair was deceptively cheerful to his enemies, charming to his romantic pursuits. His crooked smile was legendary.
It worked now. Her cheeks flushing with delight, his companion laughed while she led him out her home’s front door.
The greenery surrounding Elgin’s small homes hurt his eyes in the morning light. The village was not large, and he had walked its main roads on his way to the de Noughton party. He couldn’t keep himself from imagining Beatrice here, wearing her usual smirk, in Elgin’s shops or on the same roads.
He would never know peace, would he?
The village didn’t suit her, in his opinion. The Beatrice he had known was social, vibrant, even unruly—someone who preferred her wine from seedy taverns, not stuffy estates.
She should have lived somewhere like—for instance—Clare’s home in the flourishing city of Farmount. Clare had moved there after saving the realm, knowing he could make his living handsomely by lending his name to vendors who wanted his endorsement. Weaponeers, drinking halls, fancy cigars. Perhaps this made him shallow—well, no news to him. Beatrice had told him years ago he would never be noble, not like Galwell, the first man she ever loved.
She was right.
Elgin did, however, have what he was looking for this morning. Recognizing the street they were on, Clare directed them toward the brewshop. The heads of passersby swiveled in his direction. Whispers started. Glances of lust or envy from men and women.
Unsurprised, Clare nodded respectfully in return. Even existential dread aside—not to mention his hangover—he couldn’t muster more enthusiasm for the renown.
“Pardon me, sir,” came a small voice next to him.
Clare paused. He was used to recognition, especially from children like the one standing in his square-shouldered shadow, holding—
“I, um,” the boy started. “My father said you could, um, sign my collectible Clare Grandhart card.”
Clare smiled. Now this part of fame, he genuinely liked. Making people happy. Inspiring the young.
What was more, the request in itself delighted him. Clare had, in his youth, collected Hero Cards with the painted likenesses of great Mythrians. There were points on them, skill levels, so on. You could play games, engaging your cards in pretend combat with other collectors. It was one of the greatest honors of Clare’s life when he was notified that the card craftspeople were putting Clare Grandhart cards into circulation. “Your card,” he repeated. “Yes, I would be honored.”
With a flourish, he produced from his tunic the thick-nibbed quill he was never without. In handsome letters over his likeness, he enthusiastically inked the name everyone in Mythria knew.
Sir Clare Grandhart
“Now,” Clare went on, his smile conspiratorial, “if you’ll pardon me, good sir, I’m with someone this morning.”
The crowd, of course, followed his cue to glance at the violet-eyed woman. Like he expected, she preened, enjoying the secondhand fame. Good, he said to himself. It was the least he owed her in return for his dreadful issue with her name. Clasping her hand in his, he returned her smile. He was determined to prove to her he was decent.
The noble pleasure of this resolution offered him only moments’ relief, until his companion asked with poorly feigned innocence, “So, what are you doing next week?”
He stiffened. He understood instantly the intent of the question, one he’d heard from the lips of plenty of lovely women. Clare Grandhart didn’t do second dates. He wasn’t suited for second dates—not with Beatrice, not with the woman he’d woken up with this morning. He could only pull off the performance of noble hero for so long before those close to him saw through to what he really was. Not good enough. One fun, drunken night was all he was worth.
“I travel to Queendom for the festival, of course,” he replied, grateful for the honest excuse.
His date’s eyes lit up. “I’ve always wanted to see the festival in the capital.”
“You should attend,” he replied hastily. “I’ll unfortunately have no time to myself, but I would be very happy to see you in the crowd.” Once more, not a lie. Just a ploy. Keep the door ajar and people will glimpse enough to never want to come all the way in.
Or so he hoped.
Fortunately, they had reached their destination. Forcing the winningest smile he could muster, Clare held open the door for her. He followed her in, the spicy smell improving his mood instantly.
Harpy & Hind was Clare’s favorite brewshop. Everyone’s favorite brewshop, really. In the years since their founders first set up shop in Queendom, the women had expanded their enterprise, opening up nearly identical locations of their shops in villages everywhere in Mythria.
While every brewshop could craft the usual varieties of dark brew, foamy milkbrews, or sugared brews, Harpy & Hind was known for the creative whimsy of their concoctions. Pumpkin brews, nut-spice brews, holiday flavors. Right now, however, the promise of their delicious potency was not what drove him. In moments, he would know his mystery woman’s name.
