I Accidentally Slept With My Future Brother In Law novel · Chapter 14 of 32

Chapter 14: Names

"He's betrothed to me," I said through the grate.

"I'm aware," said Blanche. "That's why he hasn't asked yet."

"Has he said anything?"

"He came to my door an hour ago and stood in it for a full minute."

"And?"

"And then he asked whether the new drainage had worked in my fern case." She smiled. "I said it had."

In the morning they took me down to the great hall for the inquiry.

The Duke sat in a carved chair below the dais with a clerk at his elbow.

Father sat in the front row in a fresh plum waistcoat, looking brave and wounded.

The court packed the benches behind him.

"Elinor Pellow," the Duke said. "You are charged with putting poison in the King's cup."

The great doors at the end of the hall opened.

Nobody announced anything.

The King walked in.

He was in a dressing gown of dark red wool over his nightshirt, and he walked slowly, with a stick.

Alistair was at one elbow.

Bertrand was at the other, holding his silver watch.

"Majesty," he said. "You shouldn't be out of bed."

"I've been out of bed for twenty minutes," said the King. "It's taken me nineteen of them to get down the stairs."

He sat down on his own throne for the first time in a year and closed his eyes for a moment.

Then he opened them and looked at me.

"Morning, tea," he said.

"Majesty."

"Cousin." He turned to the Duke. "What's she done?"

"Her pot made your taster sick, Majesty."

"Did it?" The King tapped his stick on the step. "I drank three cups out of that pot yesterday morning. I'm sitting on a throne."

"My taster woke up last night," the King went on. "He's a sensible man. He says his cup was handed to him outside my door."

"Full. After mine was already poured."

"A sick man's confusion," said the Duke.

"Then we're both confused." The King looked down the hall at Father. "Sir Oswin. You found poison in your daughter's box."

Father rose and bowed. "With a heavy heart, Majesty."

"The box you'd locked in your own chest."

"She stole the key, Majesty."

"Off your watch chain. While you slept in it." The King's gray brows went up. "You sleep very soundly for a man with a heavy heart."

Father went red to his whiskers.

"The inquiry's closed," said the King. "Miss Pellow is free. Somebody give the girl her box back."

A clerk came down the steps with my mother's kit in his arms and put it in mine.

I held it against my chest and couldn't speak.

"And nobody is marrying anybody this week," said the King. "The wedding goes back to midsummer, where it was first written."

Father started forward. "Majesty, the contract..."

"Sir Oswin," said the King. "Sit down."

Father sat.

I walked out of the great hall the long way, up the middle, with my box in my arms and my head up.

Some of the ladies from the yellow drawing room nodded to me.

A man in green silk said "whore" under his breath as I passed.

I stopped and looked at him until he found something interesting on the floor.

In the long gallery that evening I met Bertrand coming the other way with a stack of ledgers.

He stopped.

So did I.

"I'm going to your brother," I said.

"I assumed so." He shifted the ledgers. "Third door past the window bay. The guard on that stair is the one who sold you to my cousin."

"Is he still on it?"

"No," said Bertrand. "He's guarding a lighthouse now. Good night, Miss Pellow."

He walked on.

Alistair opened his door before I knocked.

His rooms were full of books stacked on chairs and maps pinned to the walls.

There was a small brass spirit kettle on the hearth, and a blue tea set with one cup mended.

"My mother's," he said, when he saw me looking. "Sit down. I'm making you tea."

"You'll cook it."

"I won't. Watch."

He lit the spirit lamp, warmed the pot and waited.

Then he poured, just off the boil, and handed me the mended cup.

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