Adair Cantlen sat on the floor of the dim cell, the torch light coming through the barred door the only thing keeping complete darkness away. Not that she particularly cared. She sat with her back against the stone wall, her tights-covered legs bent at the knee, her wrists resting on those knees. It had been at least an hour since she'd been thrown into the cell, but Adair didn't care about that either. One place in that house was as good or as bad as another, and as long as she had to be here it didn't much matter where she was kept.
As had become usual over the years, she was being ignored. Young girls were supposed to be demure and ladylike at all times, she'd been told, not ridicule their lessons in proper behavior. When making fun of the nonsense did no good, she'd tried to complain to her father, the duke. Duke Elden had smiled and patted her on the head, hearing not a single word she said, so she'd also stopped trying to complain.
Instead she'd made trouble every chance she had, but even that didn't get anyone's attention. Most of the time her efforts were ignored, and when she'd done something that couldn't be ignored her father took a whole minute or so to inform her that decent young ladies didn't act in that particular way.
She'd finally gotten sick and tired of being the family ghost - and intended pawn - and had walked out with the intention of never coming back, but even that wasn't acceptable. It took less than three days for her father's guardsmen to track her down, and now she was right back where she'd started. Alone and ignored…
The entire area of cells had been very quiet since the guards had closed the barred door and left, but suddenly the sound of footsteps came to destroy the silence. More than one set of footsteps, so either they were going to try to feed her, or -
"Are you ready to be reasonable yet, or do you have to be left in here a bit longer?" her father's voice came after his arrival at the door cut down on the amount of light coming through the bars. "I'm really angry with you, Adair, and I have no patience left for any more of your nonsense."
"It wasn't my choice to come back here, Father," Adair pointed out without turning her head to look at him. "If you hadn't sent your men after me you'd never have had to put up with my … nonsense again."
Duke Elden Cantlen made a sound of annoyance.
"If I hadn't sent my men after you, you'd probably be dead or worse by now," he stated, then turned to whoever had come to the cell with him. "Get her out of there and bring her to my study. I'm going to settle this problem once and for all."
"Yes, Your Grace," came before the shadow of Adair's father moved away. "Right away, Your Grace."
From the hoarse scratchiness of the voice, Adair knew that it was Zinder who'd spoken. Zinder was more of a general bodyguard than a guardsman, someone who wasn't under anyone's orders but the duke's. The man was no youngster, but there were very few younger men who would even consider going up against him. Lean and tough and deadly, Zinder was more a member of the family than Adair.
"Better get to your feet, girl," Zinder's voice came again after the sound of the door being unlocked. "You know I'll drag you if you force me to it."
"Of course you will," Adair answered, making sure not to look at him as she stood up. "You dragged me back to this place, didn't you?"
"Another girl in your boots would consider it being saved," Zinder said, taking her arm as soon as Adair got within reach. "On the other hand, another girl in your boots would never have left to begin with. Do you have to grab every chance coming past to show how different you think you are?"
Adair knew that the question was meant to put her on the defensive, so she simply ignored it along with the man who'd asked it. Zinder waited no more than seconds before he made the same sound of annoyance Adair's father had, and his hand tightened on her arm.
"I'm glad to say the duke wasn't joking about being out of patience with you," Zinder informed her, the hand on her arm already hurrying her along. "If you were mine it would have happened a lot sooner, but the duke makes a more gentle parent than I would. Used to make. You finally put him in a position where he can't afford to be gentle anymore, and that will turn out for the best. For both of you."
The satisfaction in Zinder's voice was too obvious to be missed, but Adair still didn't say anything. Arguing with the man would have been a waste of time, especially with her father waiting. Adair's discussion with him would certainly contain all the arguing anyone could possibly want.
It was the small study Zinder dragged her to, a cozy little room where her father worked when he didn't want to be bothered by the presence of others. The walls were all covered with bookshelves, the desk was on the small side, and there was only a single chair in front of that desk. Adair's father now sat behind the desk with a cup of tea in front of him, and when Zinder pushed her into the room and closed the door behind her, her father looked at her the way he sometimes looked at those who worked for him.
"I want to know right now what idiotic thoughts were in that black-haired head of yours when you ran away," he said, his light gaze locked to her face. "Did you think I was joking when I said a royal command was involved? When the king issues commands, a duke obeys just like everyone else."
"Since I'm not a duke, it wasn't something I had to worry about," Adair pointed out, making no effort to sit in the chair in front of his desk. "And I didn't run away, I simply left the way I'd been planning to do for quite some time. You had no right to drag me back here, and I demand to be released to go my own way again."
"Go your own way," he echoed, shaking his head as he leaned back. "You have no more than a limited amount of gold and silver, took two changes of clothes, and one horse. If you were running away with a man I could at least understand the effort, but you went alone. Where did you intend to go, and what did you expect to be able to do to support yourself when you got there? Do you have any idea?"
"Where I go and what I do is mine to decide," Adair stated, still refusing to be put on the defensive. "I certainly don't fit in here, something that was pointed out to me more than once during my life. If I want to go looking for a place where I do fit in you have no right to stop me."
"There is no such place," her father countered, the words slow and deliberate to match his stare. "Women are required to be and do certain things in this life, and you've refused to be and do any of them. All you'll find elsewhere is the same things you claim to dislike here, and when that happens, then what? Will you run away again, starve because you've run out of gold and silver and don't know how to earn any more, or simply end up taken to please some lout of an outlaw? What will you do, Adair?"
Letting the demanding questions simply slide past wasn't easy for Adair, but somehow she managed it. She'd already asked herself the same exact questions, but the answers she'd come up with weren't something she cared to share with her father.
"I can't ignore a royal command, Adair, and neither can you," her father said after taking a deep breath. He'd used her silence to calm himself, just the way he usually did. "Every duke in this kingdom has been commanded to send a daughter of marriageable age to the palace, and you're the only daughter I have. If I sent one of your brothers instead, I think the king and his sons would notice."
"Since I don't ever intend to marry, what would be the point in my going?" Adair put, tired of waiting for the threats to start. "Both you and the king can issue commands until you're blue in the face, and that still won't mean I have to agree. You can have me executed, but you can't force me to agree."
"Whether or not you mean to marry has nothing to do with the matter," her father returned, still much too far from losing his temper. "There are six dukes in this realm, and not all of them are as content with their place in life as I am. Some of them want a more active say in the ruling of the kingdom, and the way they hope to get that say is by having one of their daughters married to one of the king's three sons. Since we don't yet know which of the three princes will be named heir, those discontented dukes are willing to gamble that the prince who marries their daughter will ultimately rule the kingdom."
"But the king refused to simply order his sons to marry," Adair added, letting her tone show how bored she was with hearing something she already knew. "He also refused to allow just the dukes who want more power to send daughters. He ordered all the dukes to send daughters, and now the princes get to choose who they'll marry. It would have been more interesting, not to mention more fair, if the daughters got to choose."
"But that's not the way the world works," her father pointed out - again. "In this world men get to choose their brides, but that's not the grand freedom for all men that you seem to consider it. The princes will have only six women to choose among, and they will have to marry one of the six. The three women not chosen will simply be sent home again, to resume their lives where those lives were interrupted."
"Which means it would be foolish for me to waste time going there," Adair pointed out. "I haven't seen the king's sons much since we were all children, but they don't like me any more than I like them. Since it's already established that I won't be chosen, why don't I just - "
"Adair, close your mouth and listen to me," her father interrupted. "I'll admit I gave you your own way much too often while you were growing up, but this is one time you can't have your own way. If I had another daughter I'd send her instead, but I don't have another daughter so you're the one who has to go. And if you're so convinced you won't be chosen, what have you got to lose?"
"Time and my sanity," Adair stated. "I hate all the rigmarole involved with royalty and nobility, and I see no reason for subjecting myself to any more of it."
"Just because you don't see a reason doesn't mean there isn't one," her father countered, a faint gleam now in his eyes. "If you stop this nonsense of trying to run away and start to behave yourself, I'm prepared to offer an … incentive. Since you expect to go back to searching for what you think you'll find, won't the search go easier with lots of gold in your pouch? I'm even willing to include a couple of guardsmen in the deal, men who will take orders from no one but you. I will, however, first require the promise that if you don't find what you think you will, you'll turn around and come straight back home. So what do you say?"
Adair was too surprised to say anything for a moment. She hadn't been able to put together all that much gold and silver before leaving, but hadn't let herself wonder just how long the amount would last. She'd had no choice about leaving right away, so she'd decided that the amount would have to be enough. And traveling all alone was taking a risk…
"Until right this minute I never thought much of politics and what people are willing to do to play the game," Adair finally said with a shake of her own head. "I want the gold, but I'll have to think about whether or not to accept the guardsmen. Did you want me to leave for the palace right now?"
"No, you'll be leaving in the morning, properly dressed and riding in a coach," her father answered, a hint of satisfaction in his expression, then the expression changed. "But if you're accepting my bribe, there will be something else required of you. I'm tired of looking like a doormat where my daughter is concerned, so you'll also have to be punished for running away. And don't tell me again that you weren't running away. That's what your actions looked like to everyone, and in this instance it's appearance that counts."
"What if I decide not to let myself be punished?" Adair countered, disliking this little extra her father had thrown in. "I didn't do anything to deserve being punished for, so - "
"Didn't do anything?" her father echoed, and now a touch of outrage colored his words and hardened his stare. "You call disappearing without a word nothing? Do you have any idea how I worried until you were found and brought back safe and sound? No, of course you don't have any idea, not when you've never spent five minutes thinking about anyone but yourself."
He seemed to want to say more on that subject, but the duke was a man who prided himself on his self control. He swallowed his anger, then took a deep breath.
"Whether or not you accept my offer, you'll still be punished," he said then, not the least doubt to be seen in his eyes or expression. "For this you don't have the option of refusal, and I won't even listen to argument. Zinder will take you to the new apartment I've had prepared for you, and you'd better know there will be guards outside your door. I'll see you in the morning before you leave."
At one time Adair might have been tempted to say something else, but these days she really did hate to waste her breath. Zinder opened the door when his name was shouted, and then he had her arm again and was taking her someplace else.
The someplace else turned out to be one of the inner apartments of the house, large, beautifully furnished rooms that had not even a single window. Two guardsmen already stood outside the door, and Zinder opened that door and pushed her inside. When he closed the door again she was alone, in a more comfortable cell than the earlier one but still a cell.
"The stone and bars were more honest," Adair stated, fairly certain that Zinder was listening at the door, then she went and sat down in a chair. There was nothing else to do in that place, there was never anything else to do…
Which meant it was only a minute or two before Adair stopped being able to avoid thinking about what her father had said. It was his opinion that Adair thought about no one but herself, and to a certain extent that was true. With no one else thinking about her, what choice had she been left with? But the part about his being worried about her…
That part almost made Adair want to cry, but not for the obvious reason. She hadn't expected her father to worry because she hadn't expected him to notice she was gone, and that was the part which brought her close to tears. The only reason her father had noticed was because of the king's command, otherwise he probably would have simply enjoyed the peace and quiet her being gone would have produced.
So there was only one thing she could do now, and that was to make absolutely certain no one decided to choose her as one of the brides. She'd agreed to go through with the idiocy everyone was demanding, but the way she went through with it was still no one's choice but hers. When she got back she would take her father's gold but not his guardsmen, and then she would never have to see this prison of a house again…
* * *
Mayne Toram, prince of his father's house, sipped tea in the sitting room of the apartment Duke Elden had given him. When word had been sent to the king that there might be a delay in getting Duke Elden's daughter sent to the palace, Mayne's father had asked him to find out what the problem was. Since the duke's girl was meant to be one of the ones chosen by him and his brothers, Mayne had known the matter was serious.
And when he'd arrived, Mayne was very glad no details had been sent to his father about the problem. King Rodick wasn't a man who accepted opposition at all gracefully, most especially not from a slip of a girl with a mind of her own. If Mayne's father had found out that Adair had run away… To say the roaring would have deafened everyone in hearing would be an understatement.
Because Adair Cantlen was very much a part of the plan the king had come up with to teach his overstepping dukes a lesson. Only two of the dukes were trying to push themselves forward and grab for more power, which left four dukes unquestionably loyal to their king. One of those four had proven to be unquestionably loyal, and the remaining three were intelligent, capable supporters King Rodick was certain he could count on.
So the king had commanded all his dukes to send their daughters, but privately had arranged that his sons would marry the three daughters of his three supporters. The two errant dukes would find their daughters out in the cold, and themselves along with the girls. If the two then decided to try an uprising, they would find themselves opposed by four other duchies as well as the king's own troops.
And my father probably means to goad those two into trying to rebel, Mayne thought with amusement. After the dust settles down the rebels will be gone, and my father will have large estates to give the two of his sons who aren't chosen as his heir. A neat solution where one problem's answer also solves another problem.
But Duke Elden's girl had almost messed things up by running away. If it had become necessary Duke Rayl's daughter could have been substituted for Adair, but then there would have been no reinforcement of the bond between Duke Elden and his king. Part of that reinforcement was to be six months worth of freedom from having to pay taxes to the crown, something that would allow Elden and the other dukes the necessary gold to back their king with troops. As far as Duke Rayl went, the man enjoyed fighting so much he would be willing to do the paying himself in order to indulge his greatest passion.
Also, Mayne had to admit that he would have been disappointed if the substitution had had to be made. Adair Cantlen had grown up to be a beautiful woman with her black hair and bright black eyes, but there had always been something more to attract Mayne to her. They hadn't really gotten along as children, but the older Mayne got the more he began to value Adair's differences. All the other girls and women around him were exactly the same, only their faces making it possible to tell them apart.
But to go so far as to run away… Mayne felt the urge to shake his head at such foolishness, that and put the girl over his knee to teach her better. Riding off all alone could have gotten her captured or killed, and just the fact that the gods kept a special eye on fools had most likely been the only thing that saved her…
A polite knock came at his sitting room door, and when Mayne called out permission to enter it was Duke Elden himself who walked in.
"How is she?" Mayne asked as the duke bowed to him. "Was she hurt in any way?"
"Apparently the gods protected her," Duke Elden answered sourly as he walked to the sideboard to pour himself a cup of tea. "Other than the fact that she's in need of a bath, she's completely unchanged. Unfortunately. But she's agreed to go to the palace in the morning."
"How did you manage that?" Mayne asked, feeling how high his brows had risen. "If you're actually a mage, my father will be doubly delighted."
"Using magic is unnecessary when you know how to use words," Duke Elden answered, his tone still sour as he turned with his cup of tea and carried it to a chair near Mayne's. "She knows nothing of the additional arrangements His Majesty has made, so she believes she has no chance at all of being chosen as a bride. I used that belief to tell her that if she cooperated and went to the palace, when she was rejected and sent back to me I'd finance her … trip away from home."
"And you're unhappy about having lied to her," Mayne observed, having no trouble at all in seeing the truth. "But you're acting for her own good, after all, and that has to count for something."
"I have no idea if anything I do counts in any way at all," Duke Elden said with a sigh after sipping at his tea. "Maybe if her mother had lived things would have gone better with Adair. I've never had any idea what to say to her or do with her, so most of the time I just pretended she was like every other girl child and ignored what didn't fit into that matrix. I was a coward, I admit it, but that won't be true this time."
"You seem to have made some sort of decision," Mayne commented, trying his best not to intrude too badly. "My first urge is to mind my own business, but since Adair will be the wife of either me or one of my brothers as soon as we sign the contracts I'm afraid that anything having to do with her is my business. Can you tell me what your decision involves while ignoring my nosiness?"
"As you pointed out, Your Highness, you're not just being nosy," Duke Elden replied with a very faint smile. "And it might even be best if my daughter becomes your wife before she leaves here, since it makes no sense to hold off with signing the contracts. The marriage ceremony itself is a mere formality and a custom that doesn't even have to be observed, so my daughter won't ever be coming back to this house… Damn, I think I've made a liar of myself."
The duke had put his cup aside to rub his eyes with both hands, a sign of distress Mayne had never seen the man display before. The display kept Mayne from commenting about the duke's suggestion, something he'd been about to do.
"It's just come to me that I never really knew my daughter and now I never will," Duke Elden said, the words almost muffled as he continued to cover his eyes. "I know that what I'm doing is the best thing for her, but I also know that she won't agree. I aged years until I got word that my men had found her unharmed and were bringing her back, and when I spoke to her a short while ago I told her she'd be punished for the worry she caused. But how can I even try to think of a fitting punishment when that's the last I'll ever have to do with her?"
"You aren't sending her off to be killed, man, just married," Mayne pointed out, trying to lighten the older man's mood. "She may yell and scream and stamp her feet, but she will survive becoming a wife a lot more easily than running off on her own."
"Yes, I know, but I'd always expected to send her away already married," Duke Elden returned with a sigh. "This way it feels as if she's just running off again, and I hate the way that makes me feel. If you're all that set against marrying Adair I can understand your hesitation, but if you're not…"
"You know, you're making a very good point," Mayne said slowly, examining his own feelings as well as taking the duke's into account. Upsetting one of his father's loyal supporters for no real reason was not a good idea… "I'm not at all disturbed at the idea of taking Adair for my wife, so if it makes you easier in your mind for us to sign the contracts now there's no reason not to do it. And I also think she needs to be punished for what she did, so if you'd like me to I'll take care of the matter. After all, the girl is my problem now."
"Is that really the way you want to start your life with her?" Duke Elden asked, finally taking his hands away from his face. "Giving her a punishment she insists she doesn't deserve?"
"If she were any other female I'd talk to her instead, letting her know that what she did was unacceptable," Mayne responded without the sigh he felt on the inside. "From what I hear about Adair, though, almost everyone in this house has tried to talk to her at one time or another and she's paid absolutely no attention to them. It's going to take more than words to get her attention, and once I have it I'll find a different way to keep it."
"You're attracted to her," Duke Elden said as he stared at Mayne. "I had no idea this was anything but a political arrangement for you, but this actually makes matters worse rather than better. Adair told me she has no intention of ever marrying, and hearing that she wasn't even told about it much less given a choice…"
"She's probably just frightened, the way a lot of young girls are," Mayne soothed the duke when the man's words simply trailed off in distress. "She'll settle down once she finds out what marriage is all about, and then we'll be able to get on with our lives. And yes, I am glad I'm the one she'll be married to, and I hope you feel the same way."
"Truthfully, Your Highness, I don't know whether to be delighted or to pity you," Duke Elden admitted, his expression showing he wasn't joking. "I love my daughter dearly, but I have no illusions about what she's like. She said herself that she never fit in here, and I seriously doubt if her being at court will be any different. If I may ask, what do you intend to do to her as punishment?"
"For running off and risking her life, I'm going to put her over my knee and spank her bottom hard every night for a week," Mayne answered, making no effort whatsoever to hide his intentions. "That should take her through the week of 'getting to know one another' my father has decreed for the ladies and my brothers and myself, and by then she'll have learned to listen when I speak. When I tell her she's come to mean something special to me, in no way a lie, she ought to be ready to settle down."
Duke Elden parted his lips as if about to say something, then a headshake indicated that he'd changed his mind.
"Really, Duke Elden, everything will work out just fine," Mayne assured the older man with a smile. "Why don't we see about signing those contracts now, and later you can tell your people that there's nothing improper going on when I visit Adair. You said you were keeping her guarded, so there's no reason not to start her punishment tonight."
"You know, Your Highness, it's come to me that I might be a lot luckier than I realized," Duke Elden said with a sigh behind the words. "If the choice about any of this was mine to make, I'd probably either go crazy trying to decide which way to go or settle on the wrong option. But none of this is my choice, so I don't have to worry about cowardice when I rejoice. Let's go to my study and take care of the contracts there."
Mayne felt the urge to stare at the other man, but instead simply stood up and followed him out of the room. As soon as the marriage contracts were signed Adair would be his problem for certain, but that was nothing to worry about. After all, how much trouble could one small girl possibly be…?