Frowning, Rumpel turned to face his valet.
Quick to explain, Giles moved out from behind the bed and pointed up and down Rumpel’s frame. “She has a good effect on you, sir. Have you not reconsidered at all your stance on the girl?”
Giles was the only one Rumpel could be completely honest with, but that didn’t mean he enjoyed the process. He turned back around to the mirror—it would be easier to talk with a pane of glass between them. “Of course I’ve thought of it. I think of it constantly. Especially these last few days.”
Twisting his lips, Giles spread his hands. “When she first arrived, I saw her as the possibility and hope for the same thing you did, but she’s been good for you in ways I could not have imagined and I find myself grateful to her for it.”
Shaking his head, Rumpel reached for the crushed red cravat and with snappy, jerky movements tied it on. “Sentiment is folly, Giles. Emotions kill. Surely you, more than anyone else in my life, understand that. I cannot be swayed from my cause just for a mere bit of flesh.”
Cocking his head, lips thinning, his servant did not look amused. “She’s more than that to you, and well I know it. You’ve treated her in a way you’ve done with only one other. I did not mean to catch you today—”
Growling, Rumpel rounded, stabbing a finger in the air. “Did you look at her?”
“No, master.” He shook his head firmly. “Once I saw you shift, I made the connection and swiftly turned my gaze and made sure no other would enter the room to see you either. You have my word. But you shifted for her, knowing the dangers you exposed yourself to by doing it. Demone never show weakness except for—”
Scoffing, Rumpel marched to his oak cabinet and pulled out a blue ribbon to tie his hair back with. It was the style for demone royals to always wear their hair long and free and to never cut it, and while he’d held on to most of the old ways, he liked to change things up every once in a while.
“Once, I loved. Dearly. Passionately. I would have done anything for Caratina, and I did. I let her decide my fate and I did it willingly, gladly even. All to make her happy.” He spread his arms.
“She was happy, sir, deliriously so. She adored you, and you did the right thing.”
“Right thing!” He laughed, but not because he took joy from the story. “My father’s avarice hurt our nation, but my abdication destroyed it. My people are in ruins because I walked away. How in the hell was that the right thing? She died, Euralis is gone mad, no…” He shook his head, tying the string in his hair so tightly it stung. “I was a fool then, and I will not be a fool again.”
“All things considered, and I know you lost much, but you saved much. I pledged my soul and my honor to you. Dalia, Zander, Merida—”
“Stop, just stop.” He held up a hand.
But Giles would not be dissuaded from his course. “What you did took great courage and faith. It went against every teaching, every doctrine of the demone, and I for one am grateful, as would Caratina be. She would not have wanted this life for you.”
“Oh please,” he snarled. “Easy for you to say when you lost nothing.”
The moment the words left his lips, Rumpel turned his face to the side. Because it wasn’t entirely true and they both knew it. Giles had lost much. And as hellish as Rumpel’s life now was, his man—at least in the eyes of demone—had lost so much more.
Giles went absolutely still and then he turned back to brushing the coat, using long, methodical strokes. The man had been captain of the royal guard, the most feared and skilled fighter in all Delerium. He hadn’t gotten to be that by being quick to anger, but by being cold, calculating, and intelligently ruthless.
“Forgive me.” Rumpel forced seldom-used words out and then snorted. “Challenged by the Black Death. I find you to be just as terrifying today as you were then, my friend.”
Lips giving a slight, almost imperceptible twitch, Giles said, “I’ve not heard that moniker used in some time. Doesn’t even seem fitting with who I am today. And it’s because of you, sir. I think you should reconsider your use for that girl.”
Scrubbing his jaw, Rumpel exhaled deeply before saying, “Would you? If you had to do it over again, knowing what you know now?”
“My decision,” Giles said, lifting his chin, “would be the same. I see how she looks at you when she believes no one’s looking, how she studies you, tries to learn more about you. She’s not scared of you either. She’d make a fitting match.”