Private Dicks (28 page)

Esmour tensed at that, but he said nothing. It was not his place to speak unbidden to a prince, no matter what he had once whispered to Amabel in the dark of their bedroom. Instead, he only asked, "Has a suitable position within the household already been arranged for me, then, Highness?"

Teigh shifted slightly in his seat and stared at the fireplace, and Esmour fought against the urge to stand and go to him, smooth the lines from his forehead and ease that troubled frown. Those days were past, and they had been a lie, and he only wished that he would get that through his head so his heart could stop wishing for something that never had been.

But the longing would not die. He had been happy in those days, when a handsome merchant had given him a glance, when that man, who had loved him despite everything—

Who had not loved him at all, who had only seduced him to get what the Crown wanted, who had ordered him put in penance bracelets and made him a Royal Inquisitor. That he was good at it, so good he was called the King's Lymer for his ability to find and follow any trail, was no consolation. He would rather be a criminal again, working toward being an honest citizen for his merchant lover, than the king's favorite scent hound.

He was drawn from his thoughts when Teigh replied, "A clerk in the employ of the Ashby Seneschal died of illness recently. They need to replace him, but the qualifications are more expansive than usual because Ashby deals with a great many foreign merchants. He requires a clerk well versed in multiple languages, reading and writing as well as speaking, who is also comfortable with foreign currencies, customs, and legal documents. I can think of no other Inquisitor so perfectly suited."

"As you say, Highness," Esmour replied.

"He does not retain the clerks on the premises; they are expected to obtain their own lodgings in the city. That works out well for us, since we will be working from very different directions on this assignment. You will be spending most of your time in the castle, obviously. I will be in the city, learning what I can from that direction."

Esmour knew he was going to hate the answer, but he asked the question anyway, simply to have done with it. "Might I know our disguise, Highness, that we will so easily be able to speak throughout the course of the investigation?"

"I think you have already guessed that I am resuming my spice mongering ways. This time around Master Amabel will be arriving to peddle his wares with a spouse at his side—a spouse who is highly qualified to take up the position of clerk in the Lord's household."

"No," Esmour said flatly.

Teigh turned away from the fire to look at him, brows shooting up in surprise. "What did you say?"

"I will do the job, I have no say in that, but I will not pretend to be married to you. I will go to gaol before I crawl back into your bed for any reason,
Amabel
. Even on pretense—even if pretense was the only reason we ever fucked."

He almost thought he saw Teigh flinch, but attributed it to wishful thinking and a trick of the light. Teigh had never cared about anything, but catching him and the band of robbers for whom he had worked. Esmour was the only one stupid enough to have genuinely cared. He clenched the fingers of his right hand, and the way his wrist suddenly seemed to ache had nothing to do with the heavy cuff weighing it down.

"You have no choice in the matter," Teigh replied. "The arrangements have been made; we are expected at Castle Ashby in six days. Be prepared to depart at dawn, Inquisitor."

Esmour bowed his head again. "Yes, Highness."

"Give me your wrists."

The words made Esmour look up in surprise and accidentally catch Teigh's gaze. It was like a solid blow to his gut, staring into those green eyes.

"You have such beautiful eyes, like emeralds."

"Are you using bits of bad poetry to sweeten me, Esmour?"

Esmour flushed. "No—I am just—just clumsy with words. I did not mean to offend you."

Amabel's teasing smile faded and was replaced by a soft, fond one as he grasped Esmour's wrist and tugged him close to kiss him. "I am sorry. I mean to tease, not wound. You say it so sincerely, I want to listen to you compliment me all day."

"Spoiled brat."

"But yours."

Esmour flushed at the memory and dropped his gaze.

"Give me your wrists," Teigh repeated. "You cannot go on this assignment with the bracelets. Do not think, however, of running away."

Refusing to respond to that, Esmour stood up and presented his wrists, hoping the dark was enough to hide the one thing he had never wanted Teigh to see. He might not have had much pride left, but he had a scrap of it and would not simply surrender it.

He held still while Teigh unlocked the bracelets with a key kept around his neck. When he was done, Esmour tried to withdraw—but at the very last, Teigh grabbed his wrist again, clamping down tightly when Esmour tried to jerk free and running a thumb over the band tattooed around Esmour's right wrist. "What is this?" Teigh demanded.

"A fool's promise," Esmour choked out, all his bitterness and anguish slipping out for one brief moment before he managed to regain control of himself. He drew in a sharp breath, burying the pain again, and finally pulled his wrist free, hiding his arm within his cloak.

Teigh looked as though he wanted to speak more of the tattoo, but in the end he said only, "See that you are waiting for me in the ward by dawn, Inquisitor. You are dismissed."

"Yes, Highness," Esmour said, and fled. Back out in the hall, a guard waited to escort him to a spare room, the privacy one of the few luxuries of being an Inquisitor. Esmour sat down heavily on his bed, and buried his head in his hands, ignoring the way they trembled.

Not again. He could not be that close to Amabel—to Teigh—again. Three years after Teigh had betrayed him, broken him, Esmour was still struggling to stop loving him. He would not be able to endure the proximity that came with pretending to be married. He would never keep his sanity living such a pretense. How was he supposed to pretend at what he had once most wanted in all the world and not succumb to it? He knew he would only find himself shattered beyond repair at the end of it all.

Esmour wanted to scream or pick a fight. He wanted to find a way to undo the night they had met—

Except that was not true. What he wanted most was for those months to have been real. For any part of Amabel to have been real. For every touch and whispered word to have been meant. He closed his eyes against the deep ache that washed through him. Why did he still care? Teigh certainly did not; if not for the fact he was an Inquisitor, Esmour doubted Teigh would even remember his name.

Esmour hated him, but he hated himself more for still loving the bastard.

His eyes stung as he looked at his wrist, the tattoo wrapped around it in black ink: a lover's band, a promise of eternity. A promise he had planned to surprise his lover with that very morning, when he confessed he was a robber, but was leaving that life behind forever to live an honest life with Amabel.

Only to be arrested and told his lover was none other than Prince Teigh, Chief Royal Inquisitor. That he had fallen for the oldest trick in the book and the Amabel he loved was only a master of disguise who felt nothing for him but contempt.

Removing his boots, Esmour stretched out on the small bed allotted to him and wrapped his cloak around him to catch what little sleep he could in the few hours left before dawn.

*~*~*

The townhouse where they were to stay was remarkably fine for its age. Esmour was surprised it had survived nearly ten years, given that fires were the bane of cities and most houses had to be rebuilt nearly every year.

He pushed the door open and stepped inside, lingering in the anteroom a moment before stepping through the door into what would soon be Amabel's spice shop. He looked around the disordered room where trunks and chests and crates had been delivered, but not sorted. Amabel—Teigh, he corrected himself angrily—clearly had not yet arrived. Esmour did not know if it was better or worse that he had arrived first.

He nodded to the guards hired to watch over the costly spices, giving them a hard look that said they had better not try any thieving themselves. Leaving the shop, he returned to the anteroom and went through the second door that led to the steep, narrow stairs.

The solar was sparsely but well appointed, a bench and dismantled trestle table against one wall, the fire already lit. That was promising; it meant there was a good chance of a hot meal that night. Esmour walked across the solar and stepped into the kitchen, where two servants were busy at work preparing the very meal for which he had hoped. He slipped out again, not wanting to disturb them, and returned to the stairs to continue up to the next floor.

A bed had already been put in place, long enough and wide enough to accommodate two grown men, still smelling of the dried flowers that sweetened the straw mattress stuffing. He moved close enough to run his fingers over the smooth, costly linen, heat pouring through him as unwanted memories assaulted him: Amabel taking Esmour to bed for the first time; the heat of his mouth as he had devoured Esmour's, his calloused fingers running possessively over Esmour's body as tunics and hose were hastily discarded.

They had remained in bed for hours, rising only because there was a shop to run and Esmour had needed to slip away to do a job that, by that point, he no longer wanted to do. Every smile and touch and kiss Amabel gave him had just made the sudden desire to be an honest man stronger.

He balled his hand into a fist, jerking away from the bed. He could not do it—could not pretend to be married, to be a happy spouse, to act as though he cared—because he would slip and forget it was an act. He was not strong enough to remember that it was an act.

Mercy of the heavens, he wished he knew how Teigh managed the artifice so well. Esmour was an accomplished liar, a talented deceiver, but he did not possess Teigh's ability to pretend affection.

Abandoning the bedchamber, wishing his memories and feelings were as easy to leave behind, he went up the stairs to the next level to inspect the servants' quarters. Satisfied with the house, he returned to the ground floor and dismissed the guards, then went to inspect the stable and storehouses. Satisfied with the grounds, he went back out front to retrieve his horse and lead it through the gate to the stable, rubbing it down and feeding it before returning to the house.

Going upstairs to the solar, he encountered one of the servants. "Good day, mistress."

The woman swept him a curtsy, bowing her head low before looking up to meet his gaze. "Gods grant you good day, sir. Be welcome in your home."

"Thank you," Esmour replied. "All seems well. What is your name, mistress? What are we having for supper that smells so fine?"

"Rebeka, sir. I believe that is the hare you smell. I hope it will please. May I bring you anything?" Seeming to realize he did not expect her to hold still, she went to pull out and arrange the table, then set the bench before it. Going to a chest in the corner, she opened it and pulled out the linen cloth to cover the table, then began to pull down dishes from the cupboard where they were stored. All very fine materials; Teigh had chosen a modest house, but had not hesitated to fill it with quality. The floor even had rugs, ornate, heavy things seldom seen outside the house or castle of a lord.

Sometimes, Esmour felt as though he lived in a dream. He had been a simple thief living in a one-room house with three other men, most of his time spent poaching in the woods, helping to rob travelers, or running strange errands for Tomas.

How had he come to a place where he trod on costly rugs and seemed to all appearances a prosperous man? Even when he was not working, he was a knight with a generous stipend who reported directly to a prince.

He could not believe, even after three years, that his life had changed so drastically.

The sound of noise downstairs made him tense, and dread grew in his gut when he heard boots pounding on the stairs. A moment later the door opened and Teigh stepped in, dressed in the clothes of a modest but wealthy merchant.

Esmour noticed a jewel in his ear and suddenly could not breathe around the lump in his throat. Teigh wore the emerald stud he had gifted to Amabel more than three years ago. It had been his payment for a job, lifted from a lord who had been arrogant enough to travel alone late at night. He had not realized Teigh had kept it. Why had he kept it? Why was he suddenly wearing it?

"Good day, husband," Teigh greeted, crossing the room to give him a kiss. Esmour tensed, but the fingers that dug into his arm warned him to behave and he reluctantly permitted the kiss, responded to it briefly. He hated that Teigh still tasted the same: warm and sweet, completely at odds with the hard lines of his body, the firm set to his mouth. "I see you accomplished your errands before I; all is well at the keep?"

"Aye," Esmour said. He sat down while Rebeka finished setting the table and poured wine from the silver pitcher at his elbow into two ornate silver cups. "My lord was too busy to see me today, but I was instructed to go tomorrow before the market opened."

Teigh nodded and smiled in thanks for the wine. "My permits are set, and all is paid for and ready to set up the shop and open for business the day after tomorrow. I think we will do well here."

Esmour managed a smile and drank his wine as Rebeka came out with a large, handled bowl of soup and a loaf of bread. Leaving Teigh to start on the soup, Esmour cut the bread into slices and passed some to Teigh. In exchange, Teigh handed him the spoon.

The soup was delicious, the best Esmour had eaten in months. The inns and houses where he frequently lodged during his travels often left something to be desired, and he was never invited to dine at Teigh's table, of course. He was rarely invited to dine with other inquisitors on the rare occasion he crossed paths with them; many were displeased that Teigh had enlisted him rather than arrested him, even if he did wear penance bracelets.