“The Dowager took us in, without question,” he said. “She must have known we were fleeing, that we might bring trouble upon her. The news of the massacre had not crossed the channel yet, but we told her who we were, what the cost would be to shelter us. And she let us sleep in safety; she clothed us, fed us, and sent for a physician to heal my son. And then she gave us each a purse of coins, and told us to split up and set down Valenian roots, that the day of reckoning would come soon if we played our cards wisely, patiently.”
He poured another cup of cordial and rubbed his temples. “We did as she advised. We took Valenian names and went our separate ways. I settled in Beaumont, became a reclusive lawyer, hired a master of music to instruct my son to become a passion, to make Luc appear as Valenian as possible. Morgane settled in Delaroche, and Kavanagh went south, to Perrine. But we never lost contact. And I never forgot the kindness of the Dowager. I repaid her, wrote to her, let her know that I owed her a mighty debt.” His eyes flickered to mine. “So it looks as if she was right; the cards have finally aligned.”
I helped myself to the decanter of cordial, only because I felt the weight of that hope. He needed me to find the stone. And what if I couldn’t do it? What if the plans fell to ashes again?
“Father,” I breathed, meeting his gaze. “I promise you that I will do all that I can to recover the stone, that I will help you achieve justice.”
He drew his hand through his auburn hair, the gray gleaming as silver in the candlelight. “Amadine . . . I do not plan to send you to Maevana.”
I all but spurted on my cordial. “What? I am supposed to retrieve the stone, am I not?”
“Yes and no. You will tell us how to find it. I will send Luc to retrieve it.”
This did not please me. At all. But rather than fight with him, after he’d so generously opened his painful past, I sat back in the chair. One battle at a time, I told myself.
“We had an agreement,” I calmly reminded him.
He hesitated. I knew it was because he was terrified of seeing something happen to me, of sending me to my death, or perhaps something worse. His wife had died in his arms, on a blood-soaked field of failure. And I knew he was determined that my fate would not follow hers. Hadn’t I already seen him respond violently when I was threatened? And I was not even his daughter by blood.
This must be the Maevan in him, which I had also seen in Luc. Maevan men did not tolerate any threat toward their women.
Which meant I needed to become more Maevan. I needed to learn how to wield a sword, how to set these stubborn men in order.
“Our agreement was for you to have a voice in the plans, which I fully intend to see done, and for you to bestow the stone to the queen,” Jourdain replied. “We said nothing of you going to Maevana and retrieving the stone.”
He was right.
I choked back a retort, washed it all the way down with cordial, and then said, “So who is that man? The stranger?”
“One of my faithful thanes,” Jourdain responded. “He served me when I was lord.”
My eyes widened. “Does it alarm you that he found you here?”
“Yes and no. It means I am not as hidden as I once thought,” he said. “But he has been searching for years. And he knew me very well. He knew how I would think, how I would hide and act far better than Lannon’s cronies would.”
There was a soft rap on the door. A moment later, Luc peered in, saw me sitting before Jourdain, the cordial in our hands, the emotion still bright in our eyes.
“Dinner at Laurents’,” he announced, gaze roving from Jourdain to me, back to Jourdain with countless questions.
“Amadine will accompany us,” Jourdain said.
“Excellent,” Luc stated. “Liam is in the kitchen, having his fill of Pierre’s cooking.”
I took it that Liam was the thane. But who was Laurent?
Before the inquiry could even flicker over my face, Jourdain said, “The Laurents are the Kavanaghs.”
There were a lot of names to keep up—Maevan names hidden within Valenian names—but I began to draw a lineage in my mind, a tree with long branches. One branch was MacQuinn, who I would continue to call Jourdain for protection. One branch was Laurent, who were the long-hidden Kavanaghs. And the last branch was for Lord Morgane, who I had yet to meet and learn his alias.
“Do you need to freshen up before we depart, Amadine?” Jourdain asked, and I nodded and slowly rose.
I was about to pass Luc on the threshold when I paused, helplessly turned back around. “I thought the Laurents had settled in another town.”
“They did,” Jourdain responded. “They moved here not long ago. To be closer.”
Closer to the heart of the plans that had unexpectedly changed with my arrival.
I mulled on all of this, the excitement threading through my heart, my stomach, my mind. I washed my face, changed my dress—Jourdain had been true to his word and procured me new clothes—and then tamed my hair in a braided crown.
Jourdain and Luc were waiting for me in the foyer, and wordlessly, we stepped out into the night and walked to the Laurents’ town house.
They lived three streets east on the edge of town, a quiet sector, far from the market and from curious eyes. Jourdain didn’t bother with the bell; he knocked, four times fast. The door opened at once, and an older woman with a linen wimple and a ruddy face let us in, her gaze hovering on me as if I might be dangerous.
“She is one of us,” Jourdain said to the chamberlain, who stiffly nodded and then led us down a narrow corridor to the dining room.
A long, oaken table was lined with candles and scattered with lavender, the plates and pewter glasses glistening as morning dew. An older man was sitting at the head of the table, waiting for us. He stood when we entered, a welcoming smile on his face.
He was white-haired and tall, broad-shouldered and clean-cut. He might have been pressing late sixties, but sometimes it is difficult to tell with Maevan men. They age faster than Valenians, with their love of the outdoors. His eyes were dark, gentle, and they found me at once.
“Ah, this must be your passion daughter, Jourdain,” he said, extending his large, scar-ridden hand to me.
That’s right; Maevan men shook hands. It went back to fiercer days, to ensure your guests were not hiding blades up their sleeves.
I smiled and let my hand rest in his. “I am Amadine Jourdain.”
“Hector Laurent,” the man replied with a bow of his head. “In another time, I was Braden Kavanagh.”
To hear the name come from his lips gave me chills, made the past suddenly seem closer and clearer, like the days of queens were gathering in my shadow.
But I didn’t have time to respond to him. A soft tread came up behind me; a lithe figure brushed my shoulder to stand beside Hector Laurent. A young woman, not much older than me, her hair a wild tumble of dark red curls, her freckles as stars across her cheeks. She had doe eyes—large and brown—and they crinkled at the edges as she tentatively smiled at me.
“Yseult, this is my daughter Amadine,” Jourdain introduced. “Amadine, allow me to introduce you to Yseult Laurent—Isolde Kavanagh—the future queen of Maevana.”
SEVENTEEN
A SWORD LESSON
How did one greet a Maevan queen?
I didn’t know, and so I fell back to my Valenian upbringing and curtsied, my heart pounding wildly.