Her words cut off at Stewart’s expression. He knew that well enough. He’d meant that he did not know what she had been up to and did not trust that she had not been compromised by magic.
Nim could not deny it. In fact, her situation was far more incriminating than merely compromised.
“I am aware that your circumstances were not of your own causing,” he said, “but you should know that if not for my gratitude to your father, you would already be dead.”
Nim swallowed.
His fingers, laden with heavy rings and bent as if they had not healed properly after a break, twitched against the arm of the chair.
Nim wondered how a king might have broken his hand.
“I cannot risk it. Not after everything she’s done.” His green eyes, not at all luminous like Warrick’s, cut through her. “Your father, along with several other trusted advisers among my court, men and women who I held dear, tried to stop her.” He took a slow breath. “You know how they paid. All of them.”
Nim did know. Her mother had died of a mysterious illness, as had Wesley’s mother and others. Nim’s father had been trapped in a cell deep within the undercity, devoured by magic as a sacrifice to the Trust, payment to its queen.
“She took everything from me,” Stewart said. “Everything.”
Nim felt the breath catch in her chest, because the Trust had not taken Warrick. She did not know what that meant and did not understand how having Warrick so close—a reminder of all that had been stolen from him and all that was dangerous to his kingdom—might affect the king. Worse, a question waited on the tip of her tongue, whether he had taken the head of the Trust to bed willingly or been coerced by her magic. Nim bit it back. It would not matter, not when what was done was done. It was better left buried.
Stewart ran a hand over his beard, evidently distracted by his own ruminations. “She mocks me from the safety of her lair,” he said, “after all these years.” When his eyes met Nim’s again, she did not like the resolve she saw in them. “I cannot in good conscience approve the match. Not when I cannot be certain who you are.” His hand returned to its place on the chair, palm covering a carved rose that had worn dull with use. “Even if I know who you were.”
The proper thing would have been to curtsy and leave, but Nim hadn’t been proper in a long time. Besides, it was not as if she could argue his point. She was tied to magic. Her father’s bargain had altered her fate. It had bound to her the king’s heir. “Your Majesty, if I may, why bring me here? If you’d no intention of allowing this, why meet with me at all?” And alone.
His shoulders shifted, bringing him into a posture so much like the portraits she’d seen as a girl, the bearing of a king, sole leader of Inara and all who resided within its walls. “So that you understand, Lady Weston, that with one misstep from you, I will end your life”—his expression was as hard and true as any she’d ever seen—“to protect my kingdom. And my son.”
Chapter 2
Nim stared across a lavishly decorated room, all of it trimmed in rich materials. Her room. In Inara Castle. She never thought she would return, and she’d certainly never believed it would be like it was. It could have been worse, she supposed. The king might have tried to tie her to a bargain. He might have traded her back to the Trust. Nim was going to have to unearth the secrets that had been kept from her and learn how the bindings of her father’s bargain could be unwound. There was nothing but to discover if there was any chance to get free, to save herself from the wrath of a king, under whose roof she found herself.
Her gaze rested on a pair of steel scissors so fine they might have cost more than her entire wardrobe at Hearst Manor.
“Is there anything I can get you, my lady?”
Nim shook herself from her thoughts. Her new maid was pretty, with a round face, dark eyes, and a black dress fitted snugly over her petite frame. Her hair had been drawn back into a tight knot of braid beneath a small cap. “Thank you, Maris, but no.” Nim watched her rearrange a set of finely carved wood brushes on the vanity then resituate the linens in a drawer. “Maris,” she said after a moment, “what is it that you are tasked with, precisely?”
The maid turned to face her. “Only you, my lady.” Her smile was soft and sweet, and the ease of her manner was already working its charm on Nim.
“Me?”
Maris nodded, bringing her hands to clasp loosely at her waist in a gesture that painfully reminded Nim of Allister, the gentleman Hearst’s valet whom Nim had stolen for her own. “Yes, my lady. Whatever you desire, it has been set upon my head to see it done. I will oversee the matter of meals and baths, source your wardrobe, and manage your maids. I am to be available at all hours for your bidding”—she gestured to a door on the far side of the room—“right through that doorway at any time, day or night. I will walk with you through the castle and accompany you, should you wish to leave the grounds. You’ll have guards off the property, but here I am to be your protection.”
Nim tried to school her surprise. It did not work.
The maid’s smile widened. “Lord Warrick requires that all of the lady’s maids are competent in defense to at least some degree and that no lady is left unattended where she might be at risk.”
Because of the others, Nim realized, the women who had been burned at the hands of the Trust. “Thank you,” she said, her voice breathier than she liked. “I appreciate your candor, and I hope that I am not too much of a bother to you.”
“It is no bother at all, my lady. You are my charge.”
She said it as if the duty was an honor, and Nim wondered what the seneschal had told her, what sort of lady the maid thought she was serving. “So,” Nim said slowly, “what is it that we are to do now?”
Maris’s smirk implied that Nim had hit the heart of the matter. “Lord Warrick has instructed me that you are to take time to settle in because you are not to be assigned to your post until you are comfortable and ready to begin.” She shrugged. “Until then, we could take a walk through the gardens, tour the stables, or anything at all that might please you. There’s a ball to be planned for and a gathering of advisers soon. But you are at your leisure.”
Nim pursed her lips. She’d not had much experience with leisure and wasn’t certain she was going to like it. “What, exactly, did Lord Warrick say my post was, again?”
Maris’s eyes crinkled at the edges. “He did not say at all, my lady. But he was very specific in what your uniform should entail.”
Nim bit down her response at the remembered vow he’d made to her, the low growl of approval at the mention of her unfit-for-good-society pants. “Yes,” she managed. “Thank you.”
There was a light knock at the door, and the two women exchanged a glance. “Come in,” Nim said, moving to stand as Wesley edged through the doorway in his own livery as the seneschal’s personal messenger.
His smile was broad and just a little bit crooked. “Nim.” He gave a swift nod toward Maris. At the maid’s blink, Wes cleared his throat and bowed deeply at Nim. “My lady, I am to deliver you to the seneschal posthaste, if it please you.”