The Girl He Sold Returned as the King's Mate novel · Chapter 4 of 24

Chapter 4: The Cuff

Alaric was still at his desk at midnight, with his coat off and his sleeves pushed to the elbow.

A stack of border reports sat at his left hand, and he had read about half of them.

"You're not asleep," I said from the door.

"You're not either." He set down his pen. "Beryl says you pulled a man out of a barge hold with a scalpel in one hand and a bottle of bitterroot in the other."

"The scalpel stayed in my sleeve."

"Beryl said you threw a rope."

"It worked."

His mouth tilted, the way it had when he laughed at me for sewing his shoulder with a bad needle.

I shut the door behind me and stayed against it.

"Crispin Ponsonby came to my clinic tonight," I said.

Alaric went still.

"He offered a sealed confession if I'd drop the hearing. I said no."

"Good."

"He said one more thing on his way out. He said to ask my mate why the Crown never looked for me."

The lamp on the desk hissed softly.

Alaric looked at the lamp and not at me.

"I can't answer that," he said.

"Can't, or won't?"

"Can't. My father's private files are sealed in the old vault under the east tower, and the seal only breaks for the sitting King. I've never opened it."

"Why not?"

"Because I was twenty-five when he died, and I was glad he was dead," he said. "I didn't want to read what he kept."

He pushed his chair back.

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