Resenting the Hero (20 page)

He also didn't have the greatest bedside manner.

Karish grinned. He smiled too much, I decided. “You'll miss me,” he promised the healer. “You know you will. I've brightened your days and put a spring in your step. That's why you want me gone. You're holding on to your professional ethics by the fingernails, and you're afraid that if I stay just one more day it'll all break loose.”

For an instant the healer's professional demeanor slipped, and he shot Karish a look of unalloyed disgust. A moment later it was gone. “Any questions?” he asked in a flat voice.

Karish shook his head.

“Good.” Another nod and he was out the door. I had the feeling he would have hurried more if he hadn't thought it beneath his dignity.

“What was that about?” I asked.

Karish shrugged and rose from his chair with less grace than was usually at his disposal. “He wants me so badly it scares him,” he said matter-of-factly, offering a hand to help me up.

I ignored it. He still looked a little fragile, and I was afraid I might break him. “Everyone wants you, eh?” I said, hoping the sarcasm came out clearly enough. While I didn't doubt for a moment that he was right, for him to speak of his appeal so blatantly was too immodest for my liking.

“He does. But he doesn't like my character. Thinks I'm quite a flighty, useless creature. And it disgusts him. How could he possibly lust after someone he doesn't respect? He isn't an animal, after all, but a highly trained professional. So he's angry and confused.”

If Karish felt the sting of McLean's dislike, he hid it well. “So you decided to play with his mind.”

“Not really. I just spoke the truth. It's not my fault his mind and body are in conflict with each other, so he shouldn't take it out on me. If he were a true professional he would handle it better.” Another one of those annoying grins. “Like you do.”

I just looked at him. So he thought I shared the healer's predicament, did he? He couldn't have been more wrong. I didn't despise his character. Not much. And I didn't lust after him.

Not much.

“Going to deny it?” he prodded.

“Wouldn't dream of it,” I said mildly. What would it accomplish? He would believe what he wanted to believe. “Ready to go?”

His smile dimmed just a little.

When we got back to the residence, there was a small, folded piece of parchment with his name on it, left on the shelf in the foyer on which all of our mail was deposited. He opened it and read it quickly. I knew it was none of my business, but I asked anyway. “It's not bad news?” Because I didn't think either of us could take any more bad news.

He handed it to me. It was a note:

 
Dear Taro,

It was signed. A quick count showed about thirty names. Karish didn't seem moved by the tribute. Used to it, I supposed.

There was a second letter for him, a proper letter in a proper envelope. It was sealed with wax, and I remembered seeing that seal before. He slit the letter open, and I wondered if I should leave him to it.

A part of me thought I should accompany him to his suite, make sure he got settled in and had everything he needed. But I wasn't his mother, and it would probably just make us both uncomfortable.

He started swearing. “What's wrong?”

“Another letter from
her.
”

His mother. “Oh.” Yes, I should definitely leave him to it. I thought about escaping up the stairs.

“Can't even fake some interest, is that it?” he snapped.

“Just trying to mind my own business.”

“It is your business.”

All right, so I supposed I should stay. He obviously needed someone to rant in front of, and I appeared to be the only one available. “Only indirectly.” I went to the living room to settle into a chair. He could follow me if he chose.

He chose. “Believe me, she won't let it be indirectly. Not once we're living there. She'll be showing unprecedented interest in my life. And yours.”

I froze. “Once
we're
living there?”

“Aye.” He refolded the letter and crammed it back into its envelope.

“I'm going with you. To find out about this fellow who attacked you. But once he's found and you're the duke, I'm not staying there. I'm not going to live there.”

That seemed to surprise him, which I found odd. Why would he assume I'd stay in Flown Raven? “Where would you go?” he demanded.

“I don't know. Back to Shidonee's Gap. Maybe I will teach at one of the academies.” Horrible thought. “Maybe the council will let me work with my family.” Though I didn't have the slightest interest in doing tradelike things. “Maybe I could be a professional bench dancer.” But again, only if the council allowed it. So none of those were likely.

“Lucky you.” His eyes narrowed. “You can pretty much do as you damn well please, while I have to be hauled out to Flown Raven and live in that mausoleum and deal with—” He cut himself off abruptly. He rubbed his forehead, a gesture of fatigue. “I don't want to take the title,” he said. “Why the hell should I have to? It was never meant for me. That was made perfectly clear through my entire life. They got rid of me as soon as they could find an acceptable reason for it.”

I was the wrong person to be hearing all this.

“They never had the slightest use for me, and now they want me to drop everything and rush over there to be their duke and listen to them verbally slice each other for fun. Taking me away from everything I've worked for. I've earned.” He started pacing, his agitation giving him vigor. I watched him, and I didn't know what to say. He needed someone he trusted to confide in, someone who could give him adequate advice. “She barely knows what a Source is, what I do. She doesn't know what it means that I was posted here. But she doesn't hesitate to order me to leave it all behind.”

The idea of a grown man's mother ordering him to do anything struck me as too bizarre.

“I wish I didn't have to take the title,” he muttered. He stopped midstep. He seemed to think for a moment, and he frowned. “I
don't
have to take the title.” He looked at me. The truest smile I'd seen from him in a good while spread over his face. “Lee, there's no law that says I have to take the title. I can abjure it!”

I said nothing. Yes, he could refuse the title. In theory. That sort of thing had been done a couple of times. But no one liked it when that happened, and there were repercussions Karish had possibly not considered. He would lose his name, part of the legal severance from his family. He would lose his status. And if he even so much as hinted that he wanted the title back, he'd be committing a crime with sanctions like incarceration and execution.

He couldn't really want to give up being the Duke of Westsea. Going to Flown Raven, being a duke, it would be a change, and maybe he didn't like that, but once he got used to the idea, he'd love it. Who wouldn't, all that money and power and prestige?

Karish was watching me. I hated it when he did that. “Lee, I will refuse the title,” he said.

“I heard you the first time.”

“But you didn't believe me.”

“Of course I did,” I lied smoothly.

Karish knew it was a lie. “You will believe me.”

I nodded. I was too depressed to say anything.

Karish, on the other hand, was thrilled. He was glowing. He really thought he was going to refuse the title and be happy about it. He really thought he could stop being Karish and not care.

It wasn't that simple. A family was more than a collection of annoying relatives. It was part of a person's identity and their only real connection to the rest of the world. No one could cut that connection without doing great damage to themselves.

As for him not wanting the title, that was ridiculous. For the first eleven years of his life he had no doubt been taught that the duchy was the only prize worth having, a prize he would never possess. Some part of him had to want it, and once he was back in Flown Raven, surrounded by his own kind of people, the coronet held before him, he would step into place.

And I couldn't think any less of him for it. It would be only human of him, and it would be, in a way, his duty. The impact it would have on my life, that I would find it devastating, was irrelevant.

Chapter Sixteen

A Runner tracked me down to Aiden's house, where she gave me the news that Karish had been abducted. People had seen four men assault him and toss him into a carriage that was driven away at a neck-threatening speed. Neither the men nor the carriage had been recognized by anyone, and there had been no further word of their whereabouts. That was all the Runner said, before suggesting that I make an appearance at the Lower Western Runner Headquarters and running off on other business.

I could claim with all honesty that I never fainted. I had always been healthy, my clothing had always been loose, and I had never been one to indulge in hysterical fits. But standing there in Aiden's doorway, staring at the space in which the Runner had stood, my vision went black, my mind shut down, and for a moment I wasn't quite sure where I was.

“Dunleavy?” I heard a voice say. “What's happened?”

The voice seemed very far away, yet it grounded me a little, helped my mind return to the then and there. “Karish is missing.”

“What?”

“Karish is missing.”
Want me to go for three?

He'd just gotten home. He'd had no chance to get better. Why did these things keep happening to him?

Aiden, now able to walk without relying on a crutch, put a hand on my shoulder. “You'd better sit down,” he told me. “You look like you're about to drop.”

I was not. I was in perfect control of myself. Shields were trained to be calm in difficult situations, not fall apart. However, it was very early, and I hadn't had much sleep the night before, with one thing and the other, so my legs were a little weak. So I sat down.

My hands were shaking. I stared at them, alarmed. They weren't supposed to do that.

I snarled, suddenly irritated. “Idiots!” I spat. “Why would they deliver news like this with so few details? Heartless bastards!”

“I'm sure they had their reasons.”

“I'm his Shield!” I snapped. “You don't palm off this kind of message to a man's Shield. Irresponsible, insensible, incompetent, clueless little
bureaucrats
!”

He sat down beside me, a little too close. “I'm sure you'll learn more when you get to Headquarters.”

His mild tone was getting on my nerves. “Aye, I'll learn more, if I have to carve the information out from their tiny little brains.” I jumped to my feet and strode to the door.

Aiden followed me. “I want to go with you,” he said.

I froze for a moment. I kind of wanted him there, for the company, but I was afraid that if he were there being all supportive I might fall apart. I would hate that.

“I know you don't need me there,” he said in a flat voice. “And I know this is Triple S business. But I'd like to come. Will you let me?”

That tore it. If he had gone all demanding and strong and insisted on coming, it would have been easy to refuse him. But he had asked, so I had to let him go. I nodded.

I hadn't been told how long ago Karish had been taken. Still, I was expecting Karish's horde to be at the Headquarters before me and was surprised to see no familiar faces. So while the message I'd received had been far from satisfactory, it appeared that I had been the first to get it. That made me feel a little better.

I could be petty sometimes.

As soon as we arrived, one of the Runners offered to escort me to the captain's office and asked Aiden to take a seat somewhere. “I don't know how long this will take,” I said to him. “You don't have to stay.”

He shrugged. “I've got nothing better to do, and I need to rest a little, from the walk.” Ah, that was right. We had moved a little fast. I hadn't given a thought to his leg. “Don't worry about me. I'll try out some of my repertoire on the rogues. That'll be fun.”

I was reluctant to leave him, but I couldn't admit that. I followed the Runner to the office. After a swift knock he opened the door and let me in, closing the door behind me.

Upon my entrance an elderly man rose from behind the desk, holding out a hand. “Captain Mulroney,” was his introduction. “Are you Shield Mallorough?”

“Aye, sir.” I shook his hand.

“Please take a seat, Mallorough.” Mulroney took his own advice and settled back behind his desk. “And let me assure you than I am aware of the danger you're in right now. I promise you we will find Lord Shintaro, and we will find him soon. No one's going to lose their life over this.”

Sure. I'd believe that once we had Karish safely back, thanks. “Please, sir, can you tell me exactly what happened? The message didn't give me many details.”

“We haven't got many details, yet,” Mulroney admitted. “Obviously,” he gestured at me, “he's not dead. He would be, if murder were the goal. But it's too early to say what the goal might be. For now, we just want to talk to as many of Lord Shintaro's acquaintances as we can. You and the other Pairs and his friends. Would you be able to give us any names?”