Eli took another step back as Lord de Rue moved forward, into the rain. He was a lovely man, beautiful and delicate, but there was something almost sinister in the way he moved that put Eli in mind of a colorful snake rearing back to strike.
“I don’t know what your intentions are for Sabre, and I don’t care,” Lord de Rue said. “You can save a thousand orphans fromroot cellars and it won’t matter, because Sabre has been through enough, do you understand me? And you come here calling yourself Arthur? Looking like that?” He gestured at Eli’s face, and Eli touched his own cheek, bewildered. “You even wear your hair like Arthur de Valois’ portraits, and you flash that sword around and keep Sabre up at night thinking he’s going mad?—”
“I look like him?” Eli stepped backward into a puddle. He’d never thought he looked anything like his father. His mother had always gone on about how different they were, how glad she was to have a child that was hers. Now Sabre’s husband thought Eli was some lovestruck admirer playing with his mind?
“Don’t feign innocence.” Lord de Rue pushed Eli further back. “You know what you’re doing. Sabre may be too kind to say it, but you’ll find I’m not very kind at all. You can handle whatever new crisis you’ve concocted yourself. If you don’t, you’ll learn just how cutting my displeasure can be.”
“Sabre can handle his own affairs,” Eli said.
Eli gasped as Lord de Rue slapped him, hard. Heat bloomed over Eli’s right cheek.
“How dare you?” Lord de Rue struck him again, and Eli, who had fought more hunters than he could count, who’d survived wolf attacks and knives slashing through flimsy shelters in the woods, staggered back like the helpless child he’d been when it all began. “How dare you try to take the face of the one member of Sabre’s family who ever loved him?”
Eli stared at Lord de Rue, with his beautiful face and elegant clothes, his warm, comfortable house casting a faint glow on his shoulders.
“Get out,” Lord de Rue said.
“You don’t know anything about his family,” Eli said, raising his voice as the wind whipped around him. Rain stung his eyes, dashing the tears away as they came. “You don’t know what it was like! You weren’t there!”
“You’re mad,” Lord de Rue said. “You can’t possibly understand what he’s lost.”
Light flooded the street, and footsteps sloshed in the puddles as Eli drew back. He’d been a fool to come there. Lord de Rue was right to think Eli was obsessed, he was intruding on Sabre’s life, and he had only selfish reasons for it. He stepped back, blinking away tears.
“I’m sorry.”
“Laurent?” Sabre’s voice called out through the rain, and footsteps sounded near the door of the House of Onyx.
“Just go,” Lord de Rue said. He looked tired, his lovely hair hanging limp over his velvet suit. “Leave him be.”
A shadow appeared over Lord de Rue’s shoulder, and Eli fled.
The sun must have been rising behind the storm clouds, because a gray light filtered through the rain and washed out the colorful gardens and bright buildings as Eli ran back up the street toward the rental house. He had to find another way to deal with Olivier. They could tie him up outside the guard station, but that would just mean he’d be released and they’d be blamed for temporarily kidnapping a member of the nobility.
Sabre didn’t need to resolve it, though. Lord de Rue was right. Olivier had bothered him enough—tormented him, if Olivier’s comments the other night were true. What right did Eli have to force Sabre to confront Olivier when he clearly wanted to keep his head down? Why would he make Sabre watch Olivier rant and rave about him, bringing back memories of…of Olivier with a rope around Sabre’s neck…
Eli slowed to a halt in the middle of the street.
A small carriage had stopped in front of the townhouse. There were no crests or symbols on its door, but the horses were clearly well cared-for, and the man who stepped out of the carriage was dressed in the livery of the palace. He glanced upat the house, then saw Eli standing in the street and made a gesture.
Eli approached him, wary. The palace couldn’t know that he and Rey had a noble tied up in their bedroom. That would be impossible. “Morning.”
“Good morning, sir.” The man bowed, stiff and overly formal. “Are you the gentleman who resides in this house? The one who calls himself Ser Barrow?”
“I suppose.” Eli hunched his shoulders a little. “And?”
“I’ve come on behalf of Duke de Mortain de Guillory,” the man said, as though he were reading off a card. “To escort you to your scheduled appointment.”
Appointment? Eli almost told him he was mistaken, then it struck him.
It was dawn.
Isiodore de Mortain had requested a duel.
Wasn’t Isiodore responsible, in some way, for what Sabre had been through? He could have stopped Emile’s sentence. He could have reasoned with him. Instead, he let men like Olivier have access to Sabre in a pleasure house, all because Eli and his mother had conspired against the king. Olivier was his creation.
Hisfault.
The townhouse leaned against the gray sky at Eli’s right, wind making the curtain on the second floor flutter.
