This will be fun, p.8
This Will Be Fun, page 8
“What line did you use that worked on the likes of her?” he inquired.
Clare said nothing, despite very, very much wanting to. Bragging, he intuited, would do him no favors.
“He said,” Beatrice answered flatly, “‘Are you a time-walker, because I see you in my future.’”
The bandits nodded, suitably impressed.
Clare bowed his head in modest gratitude. “Not strictly speaking a lie, since here we are,” he said. But when he glanced to Beatrice, he found her unamused. Sobering, he cleared his throat. “It’s not my fault you walked away from our . . . encounter thinking something I never said.”
“Encounter?” Beatrice exploded. “Oh, like I’m some woodland sprite—”
“You do sometimes sound like one—”
“WE SLEPT TOGETHER!” she shouted over him.
Clare swallowed. He saw the outlaw’s scarred eyebrow rise. “Perhaps now is not the time—”
“Oh, no.” She rounded on him fully, stabbing one finger into his chest. “You do not get to bury this conversation just because these enterprising outlaws have decided to capture us. How convenient for you!” She stepped closer. “I’m sure you’d rather run. It’s what you do.”
Finally, his pride escaped him. “Fine!” he returned. “You want to get into it? Let’s get into it, Beatrice!”
He couldn’t help saying her name. It was like sucking on sour candy.
He welcomed the chance to finally “get into it.” On the Four’s quest, they’d only ever danced in circles around the subject of their first liaison. Neither of them had wanted to discuss it, not when they knew the quest might cut their lives short, nor when their relationship on the road started to grow fonder despite their inauspicious start. What they had started to build was too fragile.
Now, however, they were survivors. Survivors who hurt each other.
Clare felt grimly ready for the fight. Eager to expose old wounds to the light of day. “We slept together and I made you no promises,” he continued. “Yes, I snuck out in the morning but I had work to get to, which you know very well.”
“It sounds like there may have been fault on both sides,” the outlaw ventured.
Clare flung his hand in the man’s direction. “Yes! Exactly!”
“Then answer me this honestly.” Beatrice’s voice dropped into its deadliest register yet. “If said work hadn’t been the job Galwell hired you for, which neither of us knew would bring us into close contact for months, would you have ever tried to contact me again after our night together?”
Every one of the outlaws halted. Clare noticed a few eyes behind the iron masks exchanging glances of genuine interest.
In the hush descending over them, Clare sighed. He hated it when this happened. Frustrating or not—hating him with what he maintained was profound injustice or not—she was right.
He had met Beatrice at a tavern. He was only in town for one night before he took on a dangerous but exciting job for Galwell the Great, who needed someone who could lead him and his two companions to the Grimauld Mines to retrieve the Orb.
Clare was one of the few Mythrians who had ever escaped Grimauld with his life since its ill-fated excavation had uncovered the ghastly Orb Weavers, once dwelling undisturbed in the darkness under the mountain. Northern Raiders had captured him while he was pursuing a job and hauled him into the mines to be devoured. He had escaped, barely.
His fellow bandits—his friends, the only ones he’d ever known then—had not.
Galwell the Great, a nobleman’s son whom whispers of legendary magic followed, heard rumors of one of Grimauld’s only survivors. He hired Clare, who couldn’t have cared less what magical object Galwell sought in the mines. Reckless and restless with grief, Clare spent the night before joining Galwell’s expedition with the gorgeous woman he’d noticed in the local tavern—Beatrice.
He had left with the morning light, his custom with women in his youth. Only when he reported to Galwell did he discover one of the young nobleman’s companions whom he was about to lead into Grimauld was none other than his attempted one-night stand.
With inquisitive outlaws surrounding him, Clare both wanted to explain himself and feared the same. He’d received nothing from Beatrice except spiteful silence for the past decade. He did not know if his heart could withstand her rejection of the real reason he fled from their wondrous first night.
Cowardice decided for him. He would make no such confession. “We can’t know what we might have done in the past . . .” he muttered instead.
The outlaw leader winced.
His men readied their swords as if to say, You’re dead either way, friend—until Beatrice held up a halting hand.
“No,” she said. She rounded on Clare. “Answer. The. Question.”
Clare Grandhart was, once more, speechless.
The iron masks surrounded them, swords stayed for the moment. He would likely die with the woman who captivated his dreams hating him, never knowing the full truth.
He would not, however, die with lies on his lips.
“No,” he finally mustered, feeling much like he had when those raiders hauled him into the mines, presumably never to return. “No, I had no plans to contact you.”
Beatrice did not sneer. She did not rage.
Instead, the strangest calm seemed to fall over her. “Thank you,” she said.
“But we didn’t really know each other then, Beatrice,” he added, desperate for her to see the truth. He didn’t like the look in her eyes. Didn’t want to imagine what lies she was whispering to herself using his honesty.
“Oh, I knew you perfectly after that morning,” she said, her voice unnaturally smooth. “You’ve proven me right over and over. At the funeral. Yesterday.”
He winced, hating the comparison.
“What I did . . . after the funeral,” he ground out, grimacing at even the reference of his infraction, “was not the same. My actions were wrong. But they were nothing next to what you did.”
He felt it now. The dangerous calm of closing in on the real fight, the unforgivable fight. Their relationship had progressed despite the unfortunate misunderstanding of their first meeting. On the road with Galwell and Elowen, it had flourished, even, into passion and perhaps something more.
It had never recovered from what happened at Galwell’s funeral. If the past decade was any indication, it probably never would.
“Tell me my feelings were unfounded,” he went on. His words were a challenge, one he desperately wanted her to rise to. To fight with him, and work out how they’d hurt each other so they could begin to heal.
He did not, however, have the chance. Because they were surrounded by outlaws. While his feud with Beatrice had escalated, Clare had failed to notice he and she were no longer holding their captors’ interest. Well, Ghosts forgive them for getting into deeper context instead of sticking to scribesheet gossip! Honestly, did criminals have no respect for emotional honesty?
Nevertheless, Clare could not find it in him to resent the men holding him captive—for he had once stood in their place himself. Growing up with nothing on the Vast Plains, he had survived on petty banditing, constantly confronting and raiding from other like men.
When the masked men lunged forth, thinking them distracted, he had only one embarrassingly unhelpful thought. I’d rob myself if I were them. He was no longer them, though. He was—
“STOP.”
The voice Clare was startled to hear ring out was Beatrice’s. He looked over, finding her menacing their foes fearlessly, hand outstretched, holding—
His quill?
Glancing down, he realized the implement must’ve been jostled loose from his pockets when he caught up to her. Beatrice stabbed the feather forth threateningly, so startling that the nearest outlaw slipped on the road, feet flying out from under him, depositing him in the dirt.
She glowered. “You mean to murder us and sell our possessions for money,” she presumed to the group’s leader.
He narrowed his eyes. “Murder isn’t a word we like, ma’am,” he replied.
“Me neither,” Beatrice returned. “Do you know who you’ve just threatened? This is Clare Grandhart of the Four. Hero of the realm. Face of Spark’s Sport Potions. Mythria Magazine’s five-time winner of Sexiest Man Alive.”
“Six-time, actually,” Clare supplied. Past the guilty pleasure of Beatrice knowing of his accolades, he noticed hesitation commingling with curiosity in the eyes he found peering through the iron masks. The outlaws had not recognized him, he knew then. Men like these didn’t spend much time in cities, so he understood why they could not identify the heroes on sight. But even those living in the grasslands had heard the songs of the Four.
“Only three living souls know what deadly magic Clare possesses,” Beatrice continued. “Would you like to make it six? For, oh—how long would you say?”
She looked to him.
He could hardly comprehend what was happening. Of course, he knew what she was doing. They’d performed this old ploy on enemies in the past with unmitigated success. Hearing her invoke it now—well, it was the second time lately his heart combined hope and Beatrice in the same cauldron.
The ruse required he hide the emotion. He shrugged one shoulder. “Three seconds,” he replied laconically.
“Excruciating death in three seconds?” Beatrice repeated. “Impressive, Grandhart.” He knew her words were for show. Still, they . . . made him feel things.
Fortunately for them, they made the outlaws feel other things.
The eyes behind the iron masks grew nervous, postures stiffening with ill-concealed fear. Clare glared. He knew how this went—knew how he would have reacted in his own cutpurse days.
“Or,” Beatrice entreated, her voice now sounding more sweet pumpkin-gingerroot cream than venom, “Clare could use this quill to sign your swords. Then you could sell his signature for far more farthings than the junk on this wagon.”
Startled out of his shadow play–worthy show of ferocity, he glanced over. Beatrice smiled invitingly, enticing their erstwhile performers.
Her freckled cheeks. Her chestnut eyes. Her smile.
His heart nearly exploded.
The outlaws exchanged glances. “How do we know you’re really Grandhart?” the outlaws’ leader posed. His men hummed in recognition of the perspicacity of their commander’s question.
Clare had no response to the query. In his daily life, it never came up.
Beatrice, however, faltered. Her smile changed into a reluctant grimace. Clare could only watch quizzically as she pulled from her skirts—a rolled-up magazine? With unhidden embarrassment, she unfurled the shiny parchment. Good Ghosts, he recognized the cover she displayed for the outlaws. He’d noticed it in newshandlers’ shops yesterday.
Claretrice—as in Love as Ever!
The men looked from magazine Clare to real Clare. Without the faintest hesitation anymore, one stepped forward, reaching eagerly for the quill.
Clare grabbed the magazine, which Beatrice rendered freely, like she wanted nothing more to do with the damn thing. Where had she gotten this? he wondered with no meager interest.
Then the first enthusiastic bandit ventured up to Clare, quill in hand. While Beatrice strode past him in satisfaction, headed for the wagon, Clare called on muscle memory he found, if he was honest, readier than that used for swordfighting. When each iron mask presented their scabbard or satchel, he did his usual, swooping the name Sir Clare Grandhart onto each piece with spirited but recognizable penmanship.
Only in the idle task did he feel the quiet emergence of complicated feelings.
In truth, Clare’s magic wasn’t deadly. It wasn’t even useful. In fact, it was embarrassing, so embarrassing he never told Galwell or Elowen or Beatrice what it was—despite nightly prying. Somehow, their joke of naming outrageous gifts he could have had changed into rumors, murmurs starting to spread of Clare’s unspeakable gifts. They’d realized it was only in their interest to feed the whispers.
Beatrice revitalizing their old ruse reminded him of how keenly he’d hidden his laughable powers from them. Yet . . . it reminded him there were parts of their quest where they’d had fun together. They’d . . . become friends. They’d found undeniable passion with each other. They had even kissed, deeply, with desperate need, the night before they went into battle. It was the greatest kiss of his life.
He’d felt hope then, too. Until everything had gone to shit. Still, they had a history. One he hadn’t stopped thinking of in ten years.
One she evidently remembered, just like he did.
She’d revived their ploy like it was second nature, he couldn’t help pondering. The idea occupied him through his signatures, lingering with him while he returned to the wagon. One of the wheels was broken, and Beatrice was mounting an elderly woman onto one of the wagon’s horses.
Only when she’d sent the creature off following the other horse—on which rode a young couple seemingly in the middle of a shouting match—did he realize something.
“There’s no horse left for you,” he remarked.
He felt Beatrice reining in some sarcastic reply. With powers of observation like those, Sir Grandhart, you should join the Secret Guard.
He was disappointed. Everyone knew sarcasm was flirting’s little cousin.
“They’re going to be screaming at each other all the way to Devostos,” she said stonily, nodding in reference to the departing couple. “I’d rather walk.”
“Ride with me,” he proposed. Heroic chivalry would not let her go unaccompanied, part of him remarked. You really want to ride with her, reminded another.
“Absolutely not,” she said.
Clare paused. What, he pushed himself to wonder, would Galwell do?
He grabbed his horse’s reins. Instead of mounting up, he fell into step with the woman whose very memory enchanted him.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Walking with you,” he replied cavalierly. “We have to talk and we’re going to the same place. On foot, it should be—oh, five days?”
No sliver of sunshine passed the storm clouds in her expression. “Just ride your horse, Clare.”
“A gentleman would never ride while a lady is on foot. Isn’t that your taste these days?” he pried. “Gentlemen?”
The same laugh, mirthless. “You’re no gentleman,” she assured him.
He hid his smile. She couldn’t quite manage to make the reply sound insulting. “A lot can change in a decade,” he replied.
“Not that much.”
“Let’s see,” he went on convivially. Was he . . . enjoying himself? Was he flirting? Were swordplay and signatures not the only muscle memories waiting in him? “I adopted a pet eagle,” he started. “His name is Wiglaf. He likes rabbit and salted grawk. I also bought a boat. My favorite color is now green. It used to be blue, as you know. My shoe size went up a half. Isn’t that strange? Nevertheless, you know what they say of shoe sizes. Oh, and I have this ringing in my ears when it rains—”
Beatrice humphed loudly in frustration. However, she did not stop walking. Inspiration coming to Clare, he unrolled the magazine he’d pocketed earlier.
He whistled—one of the many popular songs written in his own honor—while he flipped to the pages he wanted. Claretrice—as in Love as Ever!
“‘Eyewitnesses from the event confirmed what every Mythrian has long suspected of our favorite famous questing couple,’” Clare read out loud. “‘With soul-deep glances and longing heat in their every moment in each other’s company, every observer, casual or committed, could confirm, without doubt, the yearning love Claretrice share has endured—’”
“Ghosts eat me!” Beatrice’s outburst rang out over the road. She snatched the magazine from his hands and promptly hurled the parchment into the forest.
Clare could not help grinning.
“We’ll ride the damn horse,” she declared.
Pleased with himself, he mounted up with swift ease, sitting near the back of the saddle. When Beatrice stepped near, her eyes like dark lightning, he offered his hand to help her up.
She ignored him, straddling the horse herself with the unpretentious confidence he’d known her for.
Once she was up, he found her ass nestled right between his legs.
Perhaps this was a very foolish idea, he noted to himself, dazed. Oh, what the decade had done for her. Every curve was like magic. They sneered while they invited, reminding him how far out of reach she was even when she was literally pressed up against him.
Which she was. In fifteen years of valiant deeds, Clare Grandhart had escaped wild gryphons with gashes running the length of his shoulder. He’d ridden days down mountainsides while hunger racked his insides.
Yet this was the most punishing ride he’d ever suffered on horseback.
Their bodies bumped together with every uneven bit of road. Her hair danced in his face, her warmth unbelievably close. They mocked him with memories of how he used to drift off with her smell just feet away—he didn’t sleep well once in the months they traveled together, tortured by fantasies. Every one of them returned to him now.
He wondered if he knew now how his old friends felt, ripped into pieces in the darkness under the mountains.
Despite the visceral desire building in him with every sway of her hips, he reminded himself to be a gentleman. Their history was double-sided. She’d rejected him because he was a thief and a lout.
He was a hero.
The instinctive voice in his head reminded him why he was really here. For her. Perhaps he could prove he wasn’t the reckless rogue she remembered.
He wanted to try. Which left him—saying nothing, ignoring the ferocious firmness in the front of his pants. No more flirting, either, damn you, he chastised himself. He hadn’t forgiven Beatrice. Nor would he, he imagined. He had nothing to do now except suffer.
Heroically, of course.
His eyes scoured the landscape for relief until—finally. Given Clare would’ve probably stopped in the Forest of Vrast for some release from the journey’s uncommon rigors, the roadside inn emerging past a curve in the road was frankly idyllic. “We should stop here for the night,” he said.
