Oh great.
The child on the lawn looked at her with an almost canine expectation, like Sophie was some half-starved puppy and Charlotte held a steak in her hand. Charlotte stepped down onto the grass, fighting the slow burn of her aching muscles. “Shall we walk?”
*
RICHARD watched Charlotte and Sophie walk away into the forest. The dog with no name trotted after them.
The faint sound of steps came from behind him. He recognized that walk.
Kaldar came to stand next to him, his face thoughtful. “Very pretty, both of them. The two women you care about most.” There was a slight hint of disapproval in his tone.
“I suppose you came by to inform me I’m making yet another grave mistake.”
“No.” Kaldar grimaced. “Yes.”
Richard sighed and motioned to him with his hand.
“I checked on her,” he said. “Do you know who the first ten are?”
“The first ten blueblood families who arrived in Adrianglia.” The cream of the crop.
“They took Charlotte from her family when she was seven and brought her to Ganer College, where she met Lady Augustine al Ran, a direct descendant of the Ran family, who just happen to be one of the first ten. The Lady adopted her.”
“Mhm.”
“Richard, you’re not listening. She formally adopted her. Charlotte’s full name is Charlotte de Ney al-te Ran. If the king hosts a dinner, she can sit at the first table, right next to the royal family.”
Richard turned to him.
“They didn’t publicize the adoption, probably to give Charlotte a fair chance at a normal life. It isn’t even on her marriage license—she signed it as de Ney. I don’t think that moron she married ever knew. But it is in her Mirror file. Do you have any idea how many men would kill for a chance to marry into a first-ten family?”
He had a pretty good idea. “Your point?”
“Princesses don’t marry swineherds in the real world,” Kaldar said. “When people hear her name, they stand up. You’re an Edger, a swamp rat.”
“I remember,” Richard said. “But thank you for reminding me.”
Kaldar ground his teeth. “Let me remind you of something else: when Marissa left, you drank for two months straight, then tried to drown yourself.”
“For the last bloody time, I didn’t try to drown myself. I was drunk and out of wine, and I walked out onto the pier because I remembered I had left a bottle in the boat.” And then he’d slipped and discovered that swimming while drunk was a lot more complicated than it seemed. He’d made it to shore and passed out on the bank from exhaustion, where Kaldar had found him. For some reason, everyone in the family insisted it was a suicide attempt, and nothing he said could convince them otherwise.
“You’re the only brother I’ve got,” Kaldar said. “If you follow through with this plan of yours, she will enter society without you. I’m not faulting your plan—you can’t keep her locked up, and she would have to dip her toe into those waters sooner or later. The reality is, she’s unattached, beautiful, and has the kind of name that will turn every head. The moment she’s announced, they will start circling around her like sharks. These are people who have never in their lives had to worry about where their next meal was coming from. They can rattle off ten generations worth of ancestors at the drop of a hat. They’re a different breed. Someone young, handsome, with the right pedigree and the right amount of money might catch her eye.”
“You are really worried about me.”
A muscle jerked in Kaldar’s face. “When Marissa left, you were still young. A part of you knew you still had your whole life to live. You’re older now, and you’ve lost your head over her. You don’t fall for women often, but when you do, it’s all or nothing.”
“Since when did you become an expert on my love life?”
Kaldar waved his arm around. “It’s obvious. You watch her. You try to make her laugh. If she leaves you, it might break you, and I might not be here to hold your head above the water. I just want you to consider the possibility now, so it doesn’t shock you when it comes.”
“If I need help swimming, I’ll let you know.”
Kaldar opened his mouth as if to say something else and snapped it shut.
“Is there more?” Richard asked. “Out with it.”
“If you marry her, you would become a member of the al Ran family. Lady Augustine al Ran, the woman who adopted her, must grant her approval.” Kaldar pulled a small clear imager cube out of his pocket and handed it to him. “Watch this before you do anything else.”
He walked away.
“Kaldar!”
His brother turned and looked at him. Kaldar was genuinely worried for him. His brother wore his jokes and humor as armor. That he’d dropped it for his sake spoke volumes. When Declan had first approached him with his proposition to hunt down the slavers, Richard never considered what might happen to Kaldar if he failed. Seeing families torn apart had taught him to pay better attention to those who mattered most to him. His brother had a wife who loved him and the support of what remained of their family, but if something happened to him, Kaldar wouldn’t take it well. At the very least, he could give Kaldar the satisfaction of knowing he did everything he could to save Richard from himself.
“We’ll watch it together.”