Claiming The Lusty Royal Brat

Chapter 2-1

Chapter 2

Laurelin watched the girl as she made herself comfortable on a couch in the sitting room. She gave a breath of relief as Roland sank down at her side on their favorite doublechair, easing into the comfort of his presence.

“Well,” she said, keeping her voice deliberately light. “What do you think of my daughter, Lady Eleanora?”

“I think she is the most vile, spoiled, wretched, ill-tempered brat I have ever seen, and that if she ever gains the throne, she’ll have a civil war on her handsinside of three years,” Nora said flatly.

A few feet away, Warner choked, then collapsed into a coughing fit. Roland laughed outright.

For her part, she only shook her head with a sad smile. “I fear you are right,” she admitted. “It’s hellish to come home from a war, only to find that the war has followed you home.

“I should never have married Welston. When my father died in the last battle against the Marcadian Mercenaries, I rose to the throne. And every eligible noble both in this kingdom and those that bordered ours flocked to court, hoping to win both my hand and a crown, like flies around a rotting corpse.

“It was Welston who took the prize. He played on my youth and my vanity. With his handsome face and his sweet words and his liar’s tongue, he had me convinced he loved me, and I convinced myself that I loved him. And the council saw only the advantages an alliance with the great trading cities of the Kingdom of Chernavog could bring. Blinded by their greed, they all but shoved me into the marriage circle with Welston.

“Of course, I didn’t need much convincing,” she said bitterly. “The man, damn his dead eyes, had a convincing tongue. In more than one way.

“But as soon as Kitiara was born, he turned away from me, dallying with the other ladies of the court. That, I could have borne, as long as the kingdom was safe.

“But soon he began to grasp for power. He did not want to be prince and consort. Oh, no. He was not content to rule at my side. He wanted the power for himself. Or, at least, the privileges he thought that power would bring. No matter how many times I told him that I could not set aside the law for any man, not even himself, he would not allow himself to understand. He came from a tradition where the monarch’s word was law. He saw my refusal to make him king and co-ruler as a betrayal.

“So when Kitiara had passed the age when childhood diseases were a danger, he struck. I don’t know how he gathered so many nobles to his faction. And I suspect that even now we have not rooted them all out.

“He meant me to die. So sad,” she said, her voice acidic. “A terrible tragedy, the queen being struck by a stray arrow in a hunting accident. But I would have been safely out of his way. And then he could have had himself declared regent until Kitiara was old enough to rule. Or maybe he meant for Kit herself to die conveniently, some time in the future, and he would wed one of his slatterns and take the throne for himself. There were enough dogs hoping for a bone from his table to make that wish come true.”

“How did you escape?” Nora was leaning forward, her dark eyes wide as she drank in the tale.

“Didn’t your father tell you?”

“Well, yes.” She shifted eagerly, caught up in the romance of it all, for once appearing her true age. “But you were there, highness! Father didn’t join your army until months later!”

“Ah.” She smiled at the towering, bear-like man, hovering over his daughter. “Well, it’s a simple-enough story, though it seemed anything but simple at the time.”

“My brother made one mistake,” Roland said. “Actually, he made several. Among which was trying to take a throne which he did not deserve and could not hold. But the worst was confiding his plans to a man who was not trustworthy. Or, at least, his trust was given to me, and not to him.

“My brother and I were never close. And when my older brother, King Hyssel, sent him here on his embassy after Laurelin’s father died, we made sure that we had an informant in his entourage. Neither Hyssel nor myself were under any delusions about Welston’s character. Or lack of it,” he added, as Laurelin snorted. “But we never dreamed he could possibly win her hand. We were actually happy to get him out of our hair, where his drinking and w*****g would not be an embarrassment to the crown.

“So for years Elcarth played a double game. In public, he was an obsequious, flattering toady, just another of the prince-consort’s hangers-on. In private, he kept Hyssel and I aware of what Welston had planned. And when his messenger came pounding up to Herlargir late one night, with news that my brother was planning to murder his queen and seize the throne, there was only one thing I could do.”

“What?”

Roland looked at her, with all the love in the world shining from his eyes. She took his hand in hers, squeezing it, and made plans for later that evening. “Roland was not just a prince of Chernavog. He was a commander in his brother the king’s army. He came with a squad of picked men, all loyal to him. He ambushed the ambushers and saved my life. Instead of a tragic death, I lived. And he brought me proof. Orders, written in my beloved husband’s own hand, which amounted to my death-warrant.

“When I escaped, Welston raised his flag against me. It was civil war.” Her voice fell, remembering those terrible, frantic days, when the only two things she could count on were the amazing man at her side and the constant, sickening fear. “I held the royal capital. Welston had fled before I could arrest him. But he took too many of the nobility with him, and much of the east country rose against me. Seven gods alone know how he had suborned so many of them.

“It went back and forth for months, both of us maneuvering for position. I pray every day that I never see such a time again. I never knew who was loyal and who was a traitor. Every day seemed to bring word of another vassal who had joined Welston’s side. And it didn’t help,” she added, “that Welston was telling anyone who would listen how I had murdered Kitiara, how I had taken Roland as my lover, and that the poisoned seeds of our unholy union were growing in my womb.”

“To be fair to my brother,” Roland said with a smile, “some of that was actually true. I mean, we were lovers,” he grinned, ignoring Nora’s startled gasp. “And you were pregnant. And I can’t blame your subjects for being shocked when they learned we were sleeping together. After what happened between you and my brother, I never expected you to take another member of my family to your bed. You northerners are far too repressed. You need to adopt some of our ways. Love is meant to be shared, not chained like a prisoner.”

“You hush,” she ordered, giving his shoulder a playful shove. “And close your mouth. You’ll catch flies,” she said to the girl. “If you spend any time at court, you’ll hear the same about me. Or worse. I took him to my bed willingly. And I have never regretted a moment of it. But it didn’t help my cause at all with the more…conservative members of the nobility and the priesthood. The queen taking her husband’s brother as her lover! They must have thought the world was coming to an end!

“Anyway, in the spring I marched out, with what army I had left. I wanted to end it, one way or another. I couldn’t bear the thought of us marching around all summer, burning crops, destroying the kingdom I loved. At the very least, I knew I had an excellent military advisor,” she said, smiling at Roland.

“We held the high ground; Welston had the larger forces. We had gone through all the diplomatic niceties, where I offered him his useless life if he would surrender, and he had given me the choice between a convent and the headsman’s axe if I was taken captive, when this huge man came pounding up through the rear of our lines, riding a horse almost as big as he was, and knocked down half a dozen of my guards, shouting all the while that he just had to talk to me.”

“Papa?”

Warner shrugged. “I did what I had to do. If Baron Kyren had been allowed to stay where he was, he could have ripped the heart out of Her Majesty’s army.”

“You know,” Laurelin said, narrowing her eyes. “You never told me how you found out that he was intending to betray me.”

“No,” he said, meeting her gaze calmly. “I didn’t.”

She held his eyes, waiting for him to go on.

“This…person,” he relented at last. “The one who told me. There would be consequences, if it were known where the information came from. Not everyone had reason to love your father, majesty. Or you. There is still quite a bit of ill-feeling about some of the decisions he made. And many parts of the kingdom were neglected during the first years of your reign.”

“I know,” she sighed. “My father, may the gods be good to him, was not a perfect man. And he was poorly advised at the best of times. I am trying to do better.

“So why didn’t you betray me?” she asked, ignoring the girl’s outraged gasp.

“I swore an oath,” he answered simply. “Poor country knight I might have been, and titleless, but I was no traitor. When your majesty was crowned, I swore to hold your honor as my own. I could no more go back on that than I could slit my own throat.”

“And that, my friend,” Roland said, for once completely serious, “is why you’re a baron tonight.”

“To make a long story sort, Lady Eleanora, your father kept one of my one-time allies from changing sides in the middle of the battle. After I had the bastard thrown in chains, Sir Warner joined the ranks himself as a common soldier. And when the leader of his force fell, it was a simple knight who raised my standard and broke the enemy’s charge.

“We won. My traitor of a husband died on the field. The kingdom was saved. I wed Roland, gave birth to the twins a few months later, and prepared to live happily ever after.

“Until I slowly began to realize that my heir combined the worst traits of both her father and myself. Over the last several months, my daughter, who was sweet and fair-spoken, albeit with an impulsive, headstrong nature, has transformed into a foul-tempered monster, obsessed with rank and privilege and scornful of her inferiors. And a princess, Lady Eleanora, has nothing but inferiors. The courtiers are already making jokes about the Royal Brat. Another year or two, and she may be beyond saving.”

“And what happens,” Roland said, leaning forward intently, “when the council is divided, when some of them seek to use Kitiara for their own ends, and some seek to pass the succession along to Linessa or Ashkelon? We have already weathered one civil war. And that was against a foreign usurper. What will it be like if it is sister against sister? Sister against brother? The entire land will weep.”

“That is why,” Laurelin said, hating the words, even as they emerged from her mouth, “we are here to ask a very large favor of you, Eleanora.”

“What?” The girl looked from them to her father and back again. “A favor? Me? Why?”

“We have thought and thought. And Roland and I have come to the conclusion that it is time to renew a very old tradition.

“We wish for you to be the Heir’s Companion.”

From behind his daughter, Warner uttered a muffled oath. She ignored him, and the way his face paled, and concentrated on the daughter.

Her face was wrinkled in perplexity. “The Heir’s Companion? What’s that?”

“People lie to royalty, child,” she said sadly. “They lie to curry favor. Or to avoid punishment. Or to hide their crimes. Or out of simple fear of what would happen if they contradicted me. By the seven gods, I could walk out of this palace into the heart of a howling blizzard, and if I said it was a beautiful, sunny day, half the damned court would nod their heads and tell me how wise I was.