He Kept Me as a Spare, But I Married a Prince novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Dinner With the Duke

In the palace Morwen wins the Duke's table with her own words, and a parcel of tea arrives from Graymoor with Brenna's note.

The palace at Hartsmere was built of grey stone, and every window in it faced the mountains.

Lucan walked me up three flights of stairs without a word.

At the end of a long corridor he opened a door.

"Your rooms," he said.

There was a bed with a green quilt, a desk by the window, and a wardrobe the size of the room I had slept in for seven years.

He crossed to a second door in the wall and set his hand on it.

"This opens into mine. It stays shut."

"That was the term," I said.

"It was."

He stood there a moment longer than the conversation needed.

"Miss Ainsley, a wolf has a scent," he said slowly. "Pine, rain, smoke, something. I've been trying since the car, and I can't find yours."

"I've always been dull that way," I said.

"No one is dull that way."

I didn't answer, because I had nothing to say, and he nodded once and left.

At seven a maid came to take me down to dinner.

I wore the better of my two dresses, the blue one I had pressed for the councilor's son.

The maid looked at the seams and then at me.

"You made this?" she asked.

"Yes."

"The stitching is better than the palace tailor's," she said, and I could have hugged her.

The dining hall held thirty people at one long table.

At its head sat an empty chair with a high carved back.

Lucan was at the far end.

Beside him sat a man in his fifties with Lucan's black hair gone iron grey, and a smile that never reached his eyes.

That was the Duke.

Beside the Duke sat a young man with the same jaw, gripping his fork hard.

"So this is the girl from Graymoor," the Duke said, before I had sat down. "The orphan. I'm told she can sew."

A few people laughed politely.

"I can," I said.

"And that her wolf is a rumor," the Duke went on pleasantly. "Alpha Osric wrote to us this morning. Very concerned."

"He says you've never held a shift," he added. "A crown prince's mate runs a household of three hundred and stands before the packs."

"What exactly do you offer him?"

The hall went quiet.

I looked down the table at Lucan.

He had put his knife down and was watching me, and he did not move to help.

I understood then that this was a test too, and that he was letting me take it myself.

"A speech, Your Grace," I said. "I'm told I write them."

"By all means," the Duke said, and gestured with his glass.

I stood.

My knees were not steady, but my voice was.

"At Graymoor I learned that a table doesn't belong to whoever sits at the head of it," I said. "It belongs to whoever kept it fed."

I turned and looked at the empty carved chair.

"For forty years that was the Alpha King. Everyone in this hall has eaten from his table. Tonight he is too ill to sit at it."

Nobody was laughing now.

"So before anyone asks what I offer the prince, I'd like to ask the court to stand and drink to the chair."

I lifted my glass.

Lucan was on his feet before I finished the sentence.

One by one the councilors stood, and then the guards at the walls, and then the young man beside the Duke.

The Duke sat with his glass in his hand and every eye in the room on him.

He rose.

He drank, and he did not look at me again for the rest of the meal.

Lucan sat down slowly.

Under the table cloth, where no one could see, he pressed his knuckles once against the edge of my chair.

It wasn't a touch, and it wasn't against the terms.

I could still feel where his knuckles had been long after we left the hall.

I was halfway down the corridor to my rooms when the maid caught up with me.

"Miss Ainsley, this came for you at the front gate while you were at dinner," she said. "A courier from Graymoor."

She held out a brown paper parcel tied with string.

Inside was a round tin, and under the lid was the dried bitter tea I had drunk every night since I was eighteen.

On top lay a note in Brenna's square handwriting.

Told you I'd send it. Don't skip a night, you know how you get. Love, B.

I stood in the corridor with the tin in my hands.

I had told myself I was finished with Graymoor.

Here it was, folded into brown paper, wishing me well.

In my room I filled the kettle from the sink.

Then I measured out one spoonful and made the first cup.

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