Pleasure and Purpose Read online

  "I have a year to take one. If at the end of it I'm still unwed, you can try to wrestle my crown from my head again, Devain. But until then, I would see my lord father." Cillian stepped off the dais, his every joint aching but irrepressible lightness trying to bubble up from inside.

  "Wait." The tallest priest spoke, rising. "There is yet the matter of your faith." Cillian had been weary before, but the brief respite had lifted him. "What of it?" It wasn't the response the priests had been looking for. The tallest spoke again, calmly.

  "Do you have any?"

  Devain shot them a glowering, thin-lipped stare, and Cillian thought perhaps the man had overstepped himself with the priests. "It's been documented the prince doesn't attend Temple services aside from holiday gatherings."

  "This is ludicrous!" Edward spoke up from amongst the milling lords eager for their suppers. "The king himself never set foot in Temple, as it's well-known, and he's been on the throne for years! You have your results, Devain, accept your loss and let the man go see his father before it's too late!"

  Cillian met Edward's eyes at last. Edward didn't return his smile at first, all thorns and bristles on Cillian's behalf. Cillian teased him into one, finally, tiny but real. Just like across the schoolroom when both were meant to be paying attention to the teacher but instead were plotting how they'd spend the cash in their pockets.

  The priest moved between Cillian and Devain. "A man can have faith without ever attending a formal service, and he can worship every day without having any faith at all. But a king without faith cannot sit upon the throne of Firth. "We've not yet been so hobbled we can't prevent that. The Temple has final say in any appointment. Simply because my brothers haven't found it necessary to deny any doesn't mean we can't do it. You can read the Law of the Book and see what I say is true." Devain's grin split his lips back and turned his face into something monstrous. He made a small, reaching gesture with his hands as though grabbing the imaginary crown off Cillian's head. The priest didn't pay any attention to him, his focus on the prince.

  "So I ask you again, my lord prince. Do you have faith?" It was no simple question to answer, and Cillian didn't try.

  "You were sent a Handmaiden. The Order doesn't send Handmaidens to those they don't deem worthy." The priest ticked off a list on his fingertips while his brothers watched, quiet. "But what sort of man is unable to find solace even when assisted by one of the Order?"

  "A man unfit to rule," Devain began, but the priest's upheld hand silenced him. Cillian faced the priest, sewing together his reply from words he plucked one by one from his mind. He knew many reasons why Honesty had been unable to complete her task. Why he'd sent her away from him before she could. And why he didn't deserve for her to try. He had many answers for the priest, who now waited with his head tilted, listening for Cillian to speak.

  Even so, Cillian didn't know what he meant to say when his mouth opened. But then Bertram appeared in the doorway.

  "My lord. Your father. He's gone."

  And Cillian found he need say nothing at all.

  You don't have to go." Erista's father leaned heavily on his cane, breathing hard. He was too proud to ask her to slow the pace or even take a break, but Erista did it anyway. "Sit with me, Papa."

  She arranged her skirts around her ankles and made room on the stone bench for him. Their seat at the top of the garden path gave her a clear view to the ungroomed meadow below, where young Eslan practiced some sort of swordplay with his mentor. Taller than she by half a head, he had her eyes set in the features of his father's face. It had startled her upon seeing it, for she'd forgotten how he'd looked, her first love. Eslan mingled the best of them both, though he didn't know it.

  "You don't have to," her father repeated.

  "Of course I have to." Erista's voice stayed steady. She watched her son learning to be a man. "How can you look down there and see what I see and not understand that?"

  "We could tell him the truth."

  She turned on the bench to look at him. "Now? After all this time? You've raised him as your own son, not as grandson. You told him his siblings all died. He thinks I'm a distant cousin come to stay, not your daughter returned from the grave. The boy has lived his entire life being fed a lie. What purpose could it serve to tell him the truth, now?" Her father sighed heavily and slouched. "I'm growing older. Your mother, too. What will happen if I die before he's ready?"

  She found more pity in her heart for him. The man had lost two sons, after all, to accident and illness. Yet she couldn't forget he'd lost his daughter, too, and by choice. "The fact I'm all you have left is no good reason for me to do what you wish."

  "How about for mercy's sake?" Her father gave her a solemn, piercing look. Erista didn't answer. Time had passed and she'd found a large measure of forgiveness for her parents, but there would always be a space between them.

  "But to a madman, Erista?"

  Her father's anguished tone turned her head.

  "Cillian's not a madman."

  Her father shook his head. "Only a madman would advertise the position of bride as he would for a new chatelaine."

  He would have to, Erista thought. He only had a year to find a wife or be deposed without any effort from Devain at all. "There are women aplenty who will overlook his past for the position he offers."

  "But to send a mailing to every noble house in the closest hundred miles! It smacks of desperation at the very least. Low breeding. What sort of woman is he seeking, that would answer a call such as this?"

  One like her, or so Erista hoped. She'd never told Cillian where she'd lived. Who she was. It might be foolish of her to think he was trying to find her, but she'd been foolish before. Eslan, smile wide, raised his sword and turned to them. Sunlight slanted across his face. There was no way Erista would ever do anything to take the smile from it. Honesty had ever served her well, but not this time.

  "You could have a kingdom as fine as any right here," her father said. She leaned to pat his hand, then turned back to the sight of Eslan now back to battle with his teacher. She looked around the garden and to the fields where the orchards had once stood. She'd never regret returning, but this was no longer her home.

  "It's not his kingdom I desire," she said, and for that her father had no answer. The Princess Erista Bellor," announced the footman, stumbling over the pronouncement of her name. "Formerly of Bellora."

  That drew the attention of every eye in the room. Erista straightened. She'd faced scrutiny often enough, but it had always been easier to withstand when wearing a Handmaiden's gown. Looking at her in uniform, most people saw her function. In more fashionable clothes, they saw her as a woman.

  Woman I began, and woman I shall end.

  She lifted her chin to face them all.

  Cillian's court was different than his father's. "Women had been allowed to join, and Erista straightened further. How many of them had come for her same reason? How many vied for the seat beside him?

  "Approach the king and present yourself," said the footman, as though every day trembling, anxious women arrived and had to be reminded of protocol. Perhaps they did.

  Erista moved forward on silent slippers, gliding carefully toward the dais at the end of the room. Cillian hadn't even turned his head at the sound of her name. He spoke idly to the man next to him. Edward Delaw, she saw, and was glad to witness the easy way the men smiled and laughed.

  Cillian didn't look up until she'd dropped to a low curtsy in front of him, her head bowed. When she looked up, she watched his expression slide from boredom to surprise to wariness. It stopped short of the joy she'd hoped to see.

  The room had been abuzz with talk but slowly fell quiet as Cillian stared. Erista held the curtsy for longer than necessary, her eyes locked with his. Her head swam at the sight of him, his red-gold hair shorter and worn loose around his shoulders. He was still so lovely.

  "You're here," he said finally, and all the tension she'd been holding whooshed out of her in a sigh. 1 am.