The Third Son (11 page)

Damien’s aunt
had died a few months ago, and his father, who had loved the woman fiercely, had been drowning his sorrows in drink ever since. 

“Well we are glad to have you, as always,” Serge said cheerfully.

“Good morning, Auntie Alexandra!” Nicolai bellowed, deliberately using the form of address detested by the queen.

“Nicolai,” she said in a clipped, abrupt manner, with a slight incline of her head. Her blue eyes narrowed on the nephew she so disliked for reasons none of her sons understood. They knew that Alexandra had loathed Nicolai’s mother and for that reason did not like Nicolai either.

“Excuse me, I find I have lost my appetite.” She stormed from the room with a regal swish of her skirts, leaving the men to relax in the absence of her overbearing presence. 

“I am also here because I received your message about the attacks on Adare,” Nicolai said, once Alexandra had cleared the room. “I figured you all might need me here.” 

Serge nodded. “As you can see, we have severely increased our security.”

“And because we have reason to believe that this plot involves the royal family and not just father, your chambers will be guarded as well,” said Lionus, leaning back in his chair and folding his hands over his abdomen. “Only a select group of servants will be allowed to attend you.”

“Please tell me that voluptuous maid Lillian is among the chosen few. She is so very well endowed.”

Serge laughed. “You’ll have to practice your seduction well, cousin. She has eyes only for Damien these days.” 

Nicolai chuckled, clapping Damien roughly on the shoulder. “You devil, you!”

Damien shook his head. “Seduce away, Nicolai. I have not sampled the girl’s charms and have no interest in doing so.”

“Ah,” Nicolai said knowingly, raising a blonde eyebrow. “The fair Davina. Shall we be making an honest woman of her one of these days?”

Lionus snorted, rolling his eyes in agitation. “I should certainly hope not.” 

Rather than defend Davina as he usually would, he merely shrugged. “I think not. In fact, I have decided that the time to end our association has come.”

“It’s about damn time,” Lionus muttered.  

Ignoring his brother’s rude comment, Damien signaled Jarvis for another cup of coffee. “Back to the matter at hand,” he said sharply, stabbing at Lionus with a piercing glare. “The three prisoners still have to be questioned again. We have to make time for that.”

Serge nodded. “I was thinking that we could slip away from the dinner party for a few minutes tonight. All of the guests will be occupied and no one should miss us for too long. We could question them then.”

Lionus nodded. “A fine idea. I’ll speak to the captain of the guard and tell him to have the prisoners brought to us.”

“I hope you don’t mind if I join you,” Nicolai said between bites of scrambled egg. “A fourth perspective could be helpful.” 

“Of course,” said Damien. “This is a family matter and concerns you as well.”

“Once you’re settled in your room you may wish to rest if you are going to attend the luncheon this afternoon,” Lionus said, in command as usual.

“A capital idea. I should like a bath as well and perhaps Lillian to scrub my back!”

“Well then,” said Damien, rising to his feet. “I will see you all at dinner this evening.”

He strode quickly from the room, his step lighter than it had been in months as he contemplated an afternoon spent with Esmeralda. 

****

Tristan had loved Esmeralda as long as he could remember. Their parents had been long-time friends and they had grown up together.
O
ne day, he wasn’t exactly sure when, he’d turned around and she had become a woman. Her eyes beguiled him, her sumptuous mouth tempted him and her lithe body set his blood to boiling.

He had waited with increasing impatience for her to return his love, knowing that the events surrounding her father’s death had made it hard for her.
Tristan
had been there to discover her as she lay, beaten and brutalized on the side of the road beside her father who was already dead. He’d taken her in his arms, cradled her to his chest and whispered soothing words in her ear as he’d carried her home. He had been there for her every day since, and still she treated him like a brother or a cousin.

Now he sat at the table in her small kitchen, watching her roll out dough for pastries. Her hands were dusted with flour and her feet were bare but to Tristan she was radiant. Her simple white blouse tucked into a yellow skirt was plain and serviceable, but to Tristan she might as well have been wearing a silk ball gown.

“Everyone is talking,” he said, voicing his concern over her newfound friendship with the prince. “You must know what this will do to your reputation. People will think that you intend to become his next mistress.”

“You know how little I care about what people think.”

“And what of his intentions? Do you think that they are honorable?”

She plopped a basket of green apples on the table in front of him and handed him a sharp kitchen knife. “As long as you’re here in my kitchen you can make yourself useful.” 

She was deliberately dodging his questions. Tristan seethed, taking up the knife and slicing into the skin of an apple. “I only say these things because I care about you,” he said, nearly pleading with her. “I am only trying to protect you.”

Esmeralda stared distractedly through the window, as she had been since Tristan arrived. Her hands stilled over the dough she was rolling with her flour-covered hands and rolling pin and her eyes took on a dream-like quality as she watched the path winding by the house. Tristan gritted his teeth in frustration.

“Esmeralda, are you even listening?” 

Esmeralda started and moved away from the counter, turning her attention back to Tristan.
She sat next to him at the table, dusting her floury hands off on the apron tied about her waist.

“I know you are only looking out for me. I appreciate it. Really, I do. You have always been such a loyal and faithful friend, Tristan.”

Tristan winced inwardly at the word “friend”. How he longed to whisk her up the stairs to her bedroom and strike the word “friend” from her lips forever. “I will always be here for you,” he said, meaning every word. He had waited for so long for her, he would wait out whatever feelings she thought she had toward the prince. When he broke her heart, Tristan would be there to pull the pieces back together.

Esmeralda stood abruptly at the sound of horse’s hooves rumbling down the road. She rushed to the window and
from where he sat, Tristan
made out a figure on a massive black horse trotting toward the cottage.

“It’s him!” she cried, with a radiant smile. Tristan
frowned
as he watched Esmeralda look down at her clothing in despair, then take off toward the staircase. “I can’t see him looking like this,” she mumbled to herself as she climbed the stairs quickly to her bedroom. 

Tristan banged his fist on the table in agitation, and then thundered through the front door, unwilling to stay and watch Esmeralda make a fool over herself over a pompous, spoiled prince. He approached his horse just as Prince Damien drew near, pulling his horse’s reins to slow her.

“Good morning,” he said as he jumped down from the mare’s back, tying her reins to the tree that Tristan’s stallion had been tied to a moment before. “You must be Esmeralda’s dance partner. Tristan, is it?”

Damien extended his hand to Tristan but he ignored it, his black stare focused on the prince’s face. The man was downright pretty but Tristan wondered if the he ran any deeper than what was on the surface.

“Yes,” he said, his voice dripping with venom. “I am a very good friend of Esmeralda. She is special to me, and I warn you not to harm her. If I find out that your intentions toward her are anything but honorable, royalty or not I will spill your blood and prove that is red just like mine!”

Without another word
,
Tristan mounted his horse and thundered off down the road, leaving a stunned Damien watching him from the yard.

Damien rapped lightly on the door to the cottage, still puzzled over his encounter with Tristan. It would seem he was in competition for Esmeralda’s affections. Nothing else could explain the force of the man’s words or the cold glint in his eyes when he’d threatened Damien. The incident was forgotten when the door swung open to reveal a woman who could be none other than Esmeralda’s mother.
She
was the very image of her daughter, though her face was distinctively more mature. The same honey colored eyes that Akira and Esmeralda possessed twinkled cheerfully as she curtsied to him, then stepped back to allow him entrance.

“Welcome your grace,” she said as she closed the door behind them. “I am Raina, Esmeralda’s mother. I have heard so much about you.”

Damien wasn’t so sure it would bode well for him that Raina had heard a lot about him. That would all depend on the source. But her smile was kind and genuine as she led him into the sitting room.  

“Esmeralda will be down in moment,” she said, taking a seat in an armchair once he had seated himself. “It is an honor to have you visit our home.”

“The honor is all mine,” he said sincerely, in awe of the mature woman’s timeless beauty. His father had often spoken of his favorite Gypsy dancer, a woman who had graced the palace many times with her presence. Sultry and elegant, his father had called her, an astonishing combination. Putting his father’s description together with Esmeralda’s stories about her parents, Damien knew he was sitting across from the Golden Dancer herself. “My father speaks very highly of you.”

Raina smiled, a faraway look in her eye. “His majesty is very kind. I have not danced at the palace in ages and still he remembers. He has always been most kind. How is he faring these days?”

It saddened him to tell Raina of his father’s progressing illness. “He will not live much longer I fear,” he said once he’d told her of Adare’s health. “At least that is what the doctors have said.”

“How sad,” she said, reaching across the small space between them to envelope Damien’s hand in her warm one. “I will send up a prayer for him.”

Damien nodded his gratitude.

“Ah, here’s Esmeralda,” she said, gesturing toward the staircase. 

She stood at the foot of the stairs, lovely in a simple teal dress. The garment was without adornment save for a row of ornate buttons down the front.
Esmeralda
wore beaded jewelry at her neck, wrists and ankles and a simple pair of matching slippers. She was radiant. He took her hand and kissed it quickly, resisting the impulse to linger on her sweet smelling skin.

Raina sank back into her chair, taking up a needle and what looked to be the beginnings of a dress, conveying her intention to stay as chaperone but maintain a certain distance. Esmeralda led him to the kitchen where she had been before he arrived.

“You cook?” he asked as she took up her apron once more and continued rolling out dough.  

“I do, but I love baking more. Today I am making apple tarts.”

Damien was impressed. He had never known a woman who could cook. Most women of his acquaintance were at home at this very moment, entertaining callers over tea. They were dressed in expensive muslin and lace and discussing mundane subjects over treats baked by a hired servant. They probably did not even know where the kitchen was located in their own home and would never be caught holding a rolling pin or wearing an apron.

“What a coincidence,” he said. “I happen to adore apple tarts.” 

“Well then, you won’t mind working for them,” she said pointing at the abandoned apples and knife on the counter beside her. “Tristan was helping me, but he left.”

Damien removed his beige coat and draped it over a chair before rolling up his white shirtsleeves and joining Esmeralda at the counter. He lifted the large knife in one hand and a large apple in another. Esmeralda laughed at the lost expression on his face.

“What’s this? The prince has never sliced an apple before?”

He shrugged sheepishly. “Madame, I have never had to prepare a meal. Until recently I had never even been in the kitchen at Largess Hall.” 

“Well there’s a first time for everything.”

He watched her peel, slice, and core an apple before trying it on his own. She showed him how to roll the dough flat and cut it into squares, and how to mix the apples with sugar and cinnamon and fold them into the little pastry squares. Nearly an hour later, they and the kitchen floor were covered in a light dusting of flour, but the neatly folded tarts were ready to go into the oven.

“So, your friend Tristan seems very protective of you,” Damien remarked, trying to sound casual, but determined to discover the complete nature of Tristan and Esmeralda’s relationship.

Esmeralda sighed, sliding a glass of lemonade in front of him and grasping her own with both hands. “He has been that way since my father died. His parents were friends with my parents and we grew up together. He has been my friend for a long time.”

Damien sipped the sweet lemonade and continued carefully. “The way he warned me away from you when I approached the house made me wonder if there wasn’t more to your friendship.”