Лорел Гамильтон - A Kiss Of Shadows

"I will step down," she said.

Now I knew she was toying with me. It was all some game. It had to be.

"You once told my father that being queen was your entire existence. That you loved being queen more than you loved anyone or anything."

"My, you do have a long memory for eavesdropped conversations."

"You always spoke freely in front of me, Aunt, as if I were one of your dogs. You nearly drowned me when I was six. Now you're telling me that you would abdicate the throne for me. What in the land of the blessed could have changed your mind so completely?"

"Do you remember what Essus's answer to me was that night?" she asked.

I shook my head. "No, my queen."

"Essus said, 'Even if Merry never takes the throne she will be more queen than Cel will ever be a king. "

"You hit him that night," I said. "I never remembered why."

Andais nodded. "That was why."

"So you're unhappy with your son."

"That is my business," she said.

"If I let you elevate me to coheir with Cel, it will become my business." I had the cufflink in my purse. I thought about showing it to her, but I didn't. Andais had lived in denial of what Cel was, and what he was capable of, for centuries. You spoke against Cel to the queen at your peril. Besides, the cufflink could belong to one of the guards, though I couldn't fathom why, without Cel's urging, any of the guard would want me dead.

"What do you want, Meredith? What do you want that I can give you that would be worth you doing what I ask?"

She was offering me the throne. Barinthus would be so pleased. Was I pleased? "Are you so sure that the court will accept me as queen?"

"I will announce you Princess of Flesh tonight. They will be impressed."

"If they believe it," I said.

"They will if I tell them to," she said.

I looked at her, studied her face. She believed what she said. Andais overestimated herself. But such absolute arrogance was typical of the sidhe.

"Come home, Meredith, you don't belong out there among the humans."

"As you reminded me so very often, Aunt, I am part human."

"Three years ago you were content, happy. You had no plans to leave us." She settled back in her chair, watching me, letting me stand over her. "I know what Griffin did."

I met her pale gaze for a heartbeat, but couldn't sustain the look. It wasn't pity in her glance. It was the coldness in it, as if she simply wanted to see my reaction, nothing more.

"Do you really think I left the court because of Griffin?" I didn't try and keep the astonishment out of my voice. She couldn't honestly believe I'd left the court over a broken heart.

"The last fight the two of you had was very public."

"I remember the fight, Auntie dearest, but that is not why I left the court. I left because I wasn't going to survive the next duel."

She ignored me. In that moment I realized that she would never believe the worst of her son, not unless forced to beyond any shadow of doubt. I couldn't give her that absolute proof, and without it, I couldn't tell her my suspicions, not without risking myself.

She kept talking about Griffin as if he were the true reason I'd left. "But it was Griffin who began that fight. He, the one who was demanding to know why he wasn't in your bed, in your heart, as before. You'd been chasing him around the court for nights, and now he pursued you. How did you effect such a quick change in him?"

"I refused him my bed." I met her eyes, but there was no amusement in them, just a steady intensity.

"And that was enough to make him pursue you in public like an enraged fishwife?"

"I think he truly believed that I'd forgive him. That I would punish him for a while and then take him back. That last night he finally believed that I meant what I said."

"What did you say?" she asked.

"That he would never be with me again this side of the grave."

Andais looked at me very steadily. "Do you still love him?"

I shook my head. "No."

"But you still have feelings for him." It was not a question.

I shook my head. "Feelings, yes, but nothing good."

"If you still want Griffin, you may have him for another year. If at that time you are not with child, I would ask that you choose someone else."

"I don't want Griffin, not anymore."

"I hear a regret in your voice, Meredith. Are you sure that he is not what you want?"

I sighed, and leaned my hands against the tabletop, staring down at them. I felt hunched and tired. I'd tried very hard not to think about Griff and the fact that I'd see him tonight. "If he could feel for me what I felt for him, if he could truly be as in love with me as I was with him, then I would want him, but he can't. He can't be other than what he is, and neither can I." I looked at her across the small table.

"You may include him in the contest to win your heart, or you may exclude him from the running. It is your decision."

I nodded and stood up straight, no hunching like some kind of wounded rabbit. "Thank you for that, Auntie dearest."

"Why does that fall from your lips like the vilest of insults."

"I mean no insult."

She waved me to silence. "Do not bother, Meredith. There is little affection lost between us. We both know that." She looked me up and down. "Your clothing is acceptable, though not what I would have chosen."

I smiled, but it wasn't a happy smile. "If I'd known I was going to be named heir tonight, I'd have worn the Tommy Hilfiger original."

She laughed and stood with a swish of skirts. "You can purchase an entire new wardrobe, if you like. Or you can have the court tailors design one for you."

"I'm fine as I am," I said. "But thank you for the offer."

"You are an independent thing, Meredith. I've never liked that about you."

"I know," I said.

"If Doyle had told you in the western lands what I planned for you tonight, would you have come willingly, or would you have tried to run?"

I stared at her. "You're naming me heir. You're letting me date the Guard. It's not a fate worse than death, Aunt Andais. Or is there something else you haven't told me about tonight?"

"Pick up the stool, Meredith. Let's leave the room neat, shall we?" She glided down the stone steps to walk toward the door in the opposite wall.

I picked up the stool, but didn't like that she hadn't answered my question. There was more to come.

I called after her before she got to the small door. "Aunt Andais?"

She turned. "Yes, Niece." There was a faintly amused, condescending look on her face.

"If the lust charm that you placed in the car had worked and Galen and I had made love, would you have still killed him and me?"

She blinked, the slight smile fading from her face. "Lust charm? What are you talking about?"

I told her.

She shook her head. "It was not my spell."

I held my hand up so the silver ring glinted. "But the spell used your ring to power itself."

"I give you my word, Meredith, I did not put a spell of any kind in the coach. I merely left the ring in there for you to find, that was all."

"Did you leave the ring, or did you give it to someone to put in the coach?" I asked.

She would not meet my eyes. "I put it there." And I knew she'd lied.

"Does anyone else know that you plan to rescind the order of celibacy where I'm concerned?"

She shook her head, one long black curl sliding over her shoulder. "Eamon knows, but that is all, and he knows how to keep his own counsel."

I nodded. "Yes, he does." My aunt and I looked at each other from across the room, and I watched the idea form in her eyes and spill across her face.

"Someone tried to assassinate you," she said.

I nodded. "If Galen and I had made love and you hadn't lifted the geas, you could have killed me for it. Galen's fate seems to be incidental to it all."