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With a long sigh, Lawrence rolled over and settled in among the pillows. His heart was still pounding, but he was getting his breath back finally. Earstien, how long had it been since he’d done anything like that? Years. Decades, maybe. Certainly back before he married Veronica, Earstien rest her soul. Poor Veronica. Lovely girl, but not exactly a snow leopard in the bedroom.
Across the room, Flora sat primly at an inlaid maple desk by the window, already going through her morning correspondence. If it weren’t for the fact that she was wearing his shirt, no one would have guessed she’d just had sex. She wasn’t sweaty, she wasn’t panting. Her gorgeous long red hair wasn’t even slightly disheveled. A minute ago, she’d been all over him, wild and wanton. How had she recovered so quickly?
“Maybe I’m getting old,” he thought. Except that she was older than him. More than a decade older, actually. You could see it in the sharp lines of her face, and the way the sinewy muscles of her arms and legs stood out. The powders and creams couldn’t hide the wrinkles, and he knew she dyed her hair. But even so, she was beautiful.
Lawrence looked down at his middle-aged paunch. Smaller than it used to be, thank Earstien. He was getting back in fighting shape, but it was blasted hard work. A lot harder than it had been when he was in his twenties or thirties. Well, at least now he had an incentive to improve himself.
A slight click from beside the bed, and a hidden door in the maple paneling opened, admitting a mousy little servant girl in Byrne livery, carrying a basket with yet more letters. Lawrence grabbed the comforter and pulled it frantically over himself, but the girl didn’t seem even slightly disturbed to find her mistress entertaining a male guest who was not Duke Hugh. That served as a subtle reminder that a great many other men had been in Lawrence’s position before. And no doubt there would be others after him. For now, though, the affair was pleasant. The fruits of victory, as it were. A sign of the success of the new Sigor-Byrne alliance.
“Thank you, Mindy,” said Flora, taking the letters from the servant, and handing her a different stack. “These are ready to go out.” And with that, the girl disappeared as quickly and discreetly as she had appeared.
Lawrence sat up and started looking for his trousers.
“Oh, look at this, dear,” said Flora, holding up one of the letters. “You’ll want to hear this one. It’s from Lauren. She and Wallace have arrived, apparently.”
“Huzzah. Good for them,” he said, pulling a sock out from under a nearby bureau.
Flora’s youngest daughter was on her honeymoon now at Rambler Wells, one of the smaller and more private of the Byrne family’s many, many estates. Lawrence wasn’t really sure he wanted to hear the letter. If Lauren had written it, then it was probably full of all sorts of adolescent silliness. And he still wasn’t quite sure how he felt about the marriage.
Behind him, he heard a sigh, and a light tap as Flora set down her quill. “Lawrence, you’re not still mad about it, are you?”
“Mad? Me? Whatever gave you that idea?”
Light footsteps, and he heard the soft thump as she landed on the mattress. “Come back over here, darling.”
He turned and looked at her, stretched out and smiling. His shirt unlaced in the front. Those long, long legs. How did a woman so small have legs that long? He dropped the sock and went back to the bed. The mattress groaned as he crawled in next to her.
She kissed his hand and held it to her cheek. “Listen, dear. I know you had this idea that Lauren ought to marry Edwin. But I’d already been talking with Bishop Urcard and Wallace. And you know we need the church with us. I need the bishop on our side.”
“But Lauren would have been queen,” he pointed out. He had thought that would be incentive enough—marrying the rightful king and heir to the Sigor dynasty.
“Lauren is a lovely girl, but she’s not cut out to be queen. Meredith Barras is a much better choice.”
Meredith was one of the daughters of the Duke of Pinshire. As far as Lawrence could remember, she was considerably more practical and grounded than Lauren Byrne. Then again, birds were more grounded than Lauren.
“I suppose the girl might do,” he grumbled, “if Duke Roger ever gets his ass moving and joins us here.”
Flora kissed him again. “Edwin’s too young to be married, anyway,” she said. “Give him some time to be a young man. Let him chase dancing girls and tavern wenches for a few years.” She tapped Lawrence’s nose. “You know what your problem is, dear?”
“Not enough dancing girls and tavern wenches?” he asked.
She slapped his chest. “No, your problem is the opposite. You need a wife, darling.”
“I had one.”
“Yes, but the time for mourning is long past. Your little girl, Helena—she’ll need a mother.”
Helena was with his sister, Queen Rohesia, under house arrest in Rawdon. He didn’t like thinking about her in these circumstances. It made him too sad. He hadn’t seen her in three years, poor thing.
“I’m not sure I want a new wife if I can’t have you,” he said. It was a stupid thing to say, but it felt right.
“Silly boy,” she laughed. “You’re very flattering, but you know I’m far too old to give you an heir. We don’t want the earldom of Hyrne to die out, do we?”
She slid a leg over one of his and gave him a sultry pout—the same look she’d given him the very first time they had gotten together like this. A look of definite purpose. He suddenly had the notion that she hadn’t brought up this topic entirely at random.
“Let me guess. You have a candidate already picked out.”
“Yes, I do, in fact. I have another unmarried daughter, as it happens.”
It took him a few moments to understand what she meant. The answer was obvious, but at first he wondered if this was a subtle way of initiating him into a Byrne family secret that he’d never suspected before. It had always been his understanding that Flora had taken great care to ensure that all her children were legitimate. Then he realized the answer to the riddle, and he let out a snort of laughter. “What? You mean Morwen? She’s a nun, for Finster’s sake.”
Flora shrugged, and the open collar of his shirt slipped down over her shoulder, exposing the tops of her breasts. “She’s a nun, yes. But the Bishop of Keneburg owes me a favor now, and I’d bet he can get her released from those silly vows. What do you think?”
“I think you have a very strange sense of humor.”
“It’s no joke.” She toyed with the laces at the front of the shirt, letting it fall open a little more. “You know, there are a lot of people who say Morwen looks exactly like I did at her age.” She snuggled closer, and her voice dropped to a low purr. “You remember me in my twenties, don’t you, darling?”
He did, as it happened. He had been a page boy the first time he’d seen her. A page boy, and then a squire in the service of old Brandon Dryhten, Duke of Leornian. “I doubt you remember me from back then,” he said, with a touch of sadness.
She smirked. “Did I give you wet dreams, Lawrence? Did you pleasure yourself while thinking of me?”
He had, in fact. He wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of knowing it, though. He was a grown man now. A father and widower. A member of his nephew’s privy council and Captain General of Myrcia. He wasn’t a panting little pimply-faced page boy anymore. But Flora could see the truth in his eyes, and she rolled over, giggling.
“Oh, you did, didn’t you? Oh, how delicious.” She abruptly stopped and moved back over to snuggle against him. “Think about it, though. All your fantasies can come true if you marry Morwen.”
“This is...a very odd proposal,” he said, as she slid her leg between his and started rubbing up against him. He was already half-hard again, and the aches and pains in his back from the last time were fading from his mind.
“Just think about it, darling.” She pushed him back and straddled him, dragging her fingernails lightly over his chest.
She was starting to remove the shirt, when there was a frantic hammering at the bedroom door. She kept moving, hips still flexing, grinding herself against him, and called out, “One moment. What is it?”
From the hallway, there was a man’s voice, panting like he’d been running. “Your grace, I beg your pardon, but I have news from his grace, your husband.”
Flora stopped, then climbed off Lawrence. She peeled his shirt away and tossed it to him. Then she grabbed a long velvet robe from the back of a chair and wrapped herself in it. Lawrence found his pants and started pulling them on. He still hadn’t laced them up, or gotten his shirt entirely straight, when Flora called out, “Come in.”
A dusty soldier with a bristling red beard came in. His eyes swept the duchess up and down, and then found Lawrence, half-dressed by the bed. The man blushed.
“Your report, please,” said Flora sternly. “You said you have a message from his grace.”
Unlike every other duke in Myrcia, Duke Hugh only held his title by courtesy from his wife. The Byrne family were old Kenedalic nobility, and the rules of succession worked a bit differently for them. At the moment, Hugh was leading Keneburg’s armies in Flora’s name, though Flora herself had won considerable renown as a soldier in her time. Even on the field of battle, Hugh stood in her shadow. Being her husband was a thankless task, all in all.
The messenger drew a scroll from his pouch and handed it to her. “I was told to wait for a reply, your grace.”
Flora cracked the seal, unrolled the message, and read it silently. Her face fell, and then her eyes widened, and her jaw dropped. An expression of genuine alarm.
“What’s happened?” Lawrence asked, finally lacing up his trousers.
“Keelweard is under siege,” she said softly. That was a northern city, and yet another ally in this war against the Gramirens. “While we were all down here, twiddling our thumbs and celebrating a wedding, Broderick the Black took his army across the river and surrounded the city.” She smacked the scroll against her palm. “Fucking Broderick Gramiren. Fuck him!”
Her anger, as he knew, wasn’t entirely because of the military setback, or because of the potential political implications. She’d been the Gramiren king’s lover before he threw her over. And that, more than anything else, was the reason she was on the Sigor side now. Perhaps it wasn’t the noblest reason for turning one’s coat, but Lawrence couldn’t complain. Especially since he was the one enjoying Flora’s renowned favors now.
But there would be no more time for that today. He pulled on his boots and went over to her desk, where she was writing out a reply to her husband. He caught the words, “Summon the levies,” and “prepare for an immediate march.”
“If you’ll pardon me,” he said, “I think I’d better go see to my own troops. And probably tell the king what’s going on.”
“Ah, yes. Edwin,” she said, looking up and nodding. “I think he was at the archery butts with my Andras this morning. I think we’d best have a full council meeting, don’t you?”
“I suppose we’d better. I’ll go find Caedmon.” He turned to go, but at the door, he looked back and blew her a kiss. He didn’t care if the messenger saw it. Let people talk. He and Flora Byrne were going to save Keelweard, and they were going to defeat Broderick the Black once and for all. And then maybe he might think about the lovely young nun who looked exactly like her mother had.