The Gypsy King (36 page)

“He confessed—”

“Because you had him
tortured
!” exclaimed the king.

Gritting his teeth with the strain of keeping his heavy head from bobbing and his rage in check, Mordecai hesitated, trying to figure out how best to handle this most unwelcome development. He had not realized that the increasingly strong-willed young king even knew Pembleton's son, let alone knew him well enough to bestow blessings upon his doomed infant. This, in itself, was cause for concern because it spoke to the fact that he
was losing control of the king—a thing that he could not allow to happen until such time as he'd gotten himself named and accepted as heir to the Erok throne.

After that, control of the king would not matter— because the king would be dead or as good as.

“Of course I had him tortured,” flared Mordecai in a sudden, carefully calculated display of irritation. “Do you think he'd have confessed if I'd brought him a cup of tea and a loaf of fresh bread?”

“No, but—”

“Is this the thanks I get for safeguarding your kingdom lo these many years?” demanded Mordecai, as the cow placidly began to deal the cards into two piles. “For toiling ceaselessly on your behalf, asking nothing for myself?” The cow snorted quietly. Mordecai just barely resisted the urge to order her beaten to death on the spot. “Do you think I like getting blood on my hands?” he continued hotly. “Do you imagine for one moment that I enjoyed driving scores of your poorest subjects from their pestilent slum—or that I took pleasure in the hideous screams of those who chose to burn to death rather than leave their pathetic hovels?” The already-pale king grew paler at this. Leaning forward, the Regent twisted the knife a little deeper. “These terrible things were approved
by
you and done
for
you, Majesty—and yet I, alone, willingly carry the burden of responsibility for them. And you show your gratitude by accusing me of—what? Working too diligently? Being too thorough?”

The young king looked at his Lord Regent—not with the eyes of a boy suffering with the sudden knowledge
that he'd had a hand in the deaths of innocent people, as Mordecai had hoped, but with the shocked eyes of a young man who'd just gotten his first fleeting glimpse of the way things really were.

“You know that I appreciate all that you've done for me and my realm, Your Grace,” said King Finnius slowly. “Nevertheless, you erred in your treatment of young Lord Pembleton, and I would not have you do such a thing again without my express permission.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Mordecai saw Moira nod approvingly. Clasping his hands together to keep from reaching for her throat, he swallowed his rage at the insults being heaped upon him, staggered to his feet and stiffly bid the king a pleasant day recuperating. Stifling a wet cough with the sleeve of his nightshirt, the king replied that he would not be spending the day recuperating. Mordecai—who always felt most at ease when he could somehow arrange for the king to be beyond the influence of the great lords—tried to convince him that he needed rest in order to fully recover from the fits brought on by the smoke from the burning slum, but the young man would not be dissuaded.

“I am going to make an appearance on the Grand Balcony and then I am going to spend the afternoon in the garden. Moira thinks the fresh air will be good for me and also that it is important for those of low and noble birth alike to see for themselves that I'm entirely recovered from last night's fit,” he explained as he surreptitiously watched his bovine nursemaid pick up one pile of cards, deftly arrange them in her hand and begin studying them.
“Besides, Lord Atticus sent word that he has an early birthday surprise for me, and though I am not especially fond of the man himself, I am
very
fond of surprises.”

Mordecai smiled thinly, thinking of the surprise he had in store for the king someday very soon and how he'd like nothing better than to deliver it himself—in the form of a poisoned dagger plunged directly into the boy's royal heart.

“You are smiling, Your Grace,” said the king, who was studiously ignoring the pile of cards at his fingertips. “Do you like surprises, too?”

“Oh, yes, Highness,” said Mordecai, smiling more broadly still. “I certainly do.”

The image of the young king gasping for breath as his life's blood drained away buoyed Mordecai's spirits for a spell, but by the time he was halfway to Lady Bothwell's chambers, he'd plunged into a foul mood once more. At once a soft-hearted fool and a hard-nosed ingrate, the king was getting more difficult to manage by the day. And now he was accepting “surprises” from Atticus? This was even more deeply disturbing than the revelation that young Pembleton had been known to him, for Pembleton was a dead nobody and his father was a broken man, while Atticus was very much a somebody and his father, Lord Bartok, was anything
but
broken. The Bartok clan coveted the crown almost as much as Mordecai did, and if ever they were to get close enough to the king to start
whispering against Mordecai—even if they were to do nothing more than whisper the truth!—there was no doubt in Mordecai's mind that his plan to be named heir would be utterly and completely ruined.

But it is not ruined yet
, he thought, smoothing his hair and straightening his robe as he took the final, lurching steps toward the door of Lady Bothwell's chambers.
It is not even close to—

The sudden sound of laughter from the other side of the door caused all thought to fly from Mordecai's mind and the blood to drain from his face.

Because it wasn't just laughter that he heard—it was rich, seductive,
masculine
laughter.

“
Open—that—door
,” hissed Mordecai, in a voice so terrible that the two poleaxe-wielding guards nearly knocked heads together in their haste to leap forward and fling it open.

The sight that greeted them was worse than Mordecai could ever have imagined. Lady Bothwell—
his
Lady Bothwell, future mother of his true-begotten half-noble son, the noblewoman on whose behalf he'd just that morning sent General Murdock on a mission of great import!—was in the arms of a half-naked slave, her back pressed up against his bare chest as though she were nothing more than a common whore. And she wasn't debasing herself with just
any
half-naked slave—this beast was a study in masculine perfection. Broad-shouldered and battle-scarred, long and lean, he was all hard muscle and raw sensuality, the kind of animal that drew females like flies to honey. That, alone, would have been more than
enough to make Mordecai want to see him slow-dipped in boiling oil, but one look at the brute's face caused the Regent's displeasure to multiply a thousandfold. For his skin was as smooth and unblemished as Mordecai's own, his features as finely chiselled as Mordecai's own, his teeth as straight and white as Mordecai's own and his eyes as blue as Mordecai's own eyes were black. The slave did not resemble the Regent in any way, but there was no denying the fact that he was at least as handsome as Mordecai was. Perhaps … perhaps even
more
handsome in his way, for he was much younger than Mordecai, and there was something in his eyes, something that seemed somehow familiar—

“Your
Grace
!” exclaimed Lady Bothwell. Leaping out of the slave's embrace with a haste wholly unbecoming a lady of her station, she dropped into a low curtsey.

The female servants who'd been standing around doing nothing, like the useless drabs they were, likewise curtseyed. The beast bowed deferentially, but with a grace that inflamed Mordecai almost beyond reason.

Wordlessly, the Regent shuffled into the room, indicating to the bumbling guards that they should follow with their poleaxes at the ready.

“Lady Bothwell,” he said icily, as the full weight of his stare fell upon the bowed head of the handsome slave. “What is the meaning of this?”

For a moment there was nothing but silence. Then, to Mordecai's utter astonishment, instead of cowering or begging forgiveness for her gross lewdness, Lady Bothwell began to laugh—a lovely, light-hearted sound that caused
Mordecai's heart to clench most painfully. “Forgive me, Your Grace, but I think you are referring to
this
,” she giggled, pointing at the beast, “and I think that you thought you'd found me in the embrace of a half-naked man.”

“Well,
yes
,” spluttered Mordecai, who was so unused to people failing to quail in terror before his towering anger that he hardly knew how to react.

Lady Bothwell laughed again—and again, Mordecai's heart clenched. “Your Grace, this creature is not a
man—
he is a
eunuch
,” she explained with a dismissive gesture in the brute's direction. “He has belonged to my dear husband since long before we married, and he was with me when my caravan was attacked outside the city walls. Last night, the two New Men who discovered him trying to return to my service kindly delivered him to me. He slept on the floor by the hearth—far better accommodation than he is used to or deserves—and just now he was reminding me of the particular technique my husband wishes me to use when drawing a bow.”

Mordecai's gaze dropped to the bow in Lady Bothwell's hand—which he hadn't noticed up to that point—then up to Lady's Bothwell's face, then over to the eunuch's face. It was too handsome by far—just as his body was too perfect by far—but where it truly counted, it seemed that he was a mutilated nothing.

Still.

His presence in Lady Bothwell's chambers offended Mordecai, as did the fact that when the bandits attacked her caravan, he'd obviously abandoned his mistress in
favour of saving his own worthless hide. That alone was reason enough to have his face carved up like a summer squash, to have his pretty blue eyes put out, to have one of his hands removed, to have—

“To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit this fine morning, Your Grace?” asked Lady Bothwell.

Mordecai was jolted back to the moment by the sound of Lady Bothwell's voice—and by the thrilling revelation that she found his visit a
pleasure
. Folding his arms across his withered chest to keep from preening, he said, “As it happens, my lady, I've come to invite you to spend the day with me. I cannot offer you a spectacle such as you enjoyed yesterday”—he paused to chuckle appreciatively at the memory of Lady Bothwell staring at the fresh, headless corpse of young Pembleton and asking if there was more entertainment to be had—“but I thought we might sit in the garden. You could read to me, and sing and dance and play the lute for me, and speak to me of the many things I should like to know about you.”

To his delight, Mordecai saw Lady Bothwell's face flush like a girl being courted for the very first time. His delight was abruptly extinguished, however, when she said, “Oh, Your Grace, I should have enjoyed that very much, but I'm afraid that Lady Aurelia has already invited me to go hunting with her and the other ladies of the court.”

“Lady Aurelia? Lord Bartok's daughter?” demanded Mordecai, irritated not only by the fact that the ripe, young Lady Bothwell had been invited to do something that his crippled body would never allow him to do, but also by the fact that she'd been invited by a
Bartok
.

The high-and-mighty bastards were everywhere!

The flicker of surprise that flitted across Lady Bothwell's face at the mention of Bartok's name was immediately replaced by a look of contrition. “I did not think to ask whose daughter Lady Aurelia is, Your Grace,” she murmured meekly. “I'm sorry if I've displeased you by accepting her invitation. Shall … shall I send word that I'll not be joining her and the others?”

For a long moment, Mordecai said nothing, only savoured the fact that Lady Bothwell not only appeared entirely content to miss out on the excitement of the hunt in order to spend quiet time with him but also appeared entirely willing to be ordered about as he saw fit.

Verily, it was as though they were man and wife already!

“You need not send word to Lady Aurelia,” announced Mordecai magnanimously, wondering how long it would be before he'd have the pleasure of seeing Lady Bothwell standing before him wearing nothing but the dead queen's silken undergarments. “Take your enjoyment as you will this day, my dear, and this evening, you may join me for supper and … amusements in my private chambers.”

“Yes, Your Grace,” replied Lady Bothwell, who was
clearly
overcome by the prospect. “I shall look forward to it.”

TWENTY-NINE