Then she actually did laugh. “And where are they,” she said, when she could speak again, “these lovers who’ll be driven mad with jealousy over me? They sound unbalanced. I’d like to think I’d have better taste.”
“Judah,” he said.
“Maybe you should post a guard at my door.”
“Hopefully it won’t come to that.”
Her laughter died. “There’s a thing called a joke.”
“I wasn’t making one.” He sighed. “We were hoping to find a solution before now. We should have done things differently, kept you hidden. But we didn’t, and now, like it or not, people expect to see you. Like at the state dinner for the Wilmerians, or the betrothal ball next month. They’re interested in you. Too interested, honestly. If they didn’t see you, they’d talk. Ask questions. As it is, they spin all sorts of nonsensical tales about you and Lady Eleanor and the young lord. Particularly after Lord Gavin kicked out the last nurse.”
The nurses had all been old, tongueless women who sat in the parlor between their bedrooms all night to prevent what the Seneschal called impropriety. When they were seventeen, Gavin had picked the last one up physically, put her in the hallway, and refused to allow another one back in.
“They are nonsense, I hope,” the Seneschal continued.
For a moment Judah thought he meant the nurses. Then she caught up. “They must be, because I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“People think your relationship with Lord Gavin has—transgressed. Inappropriately.”
She blinked. “What, they think we’re in love?”
“Something like that. I’ve never believed it, or we’d have had this conversation years ago.”
“That’s absurd. Gavin is—” She fumbled for the words. “We’re not like that. He’s not. I’m not.”
The Seneschal picked up a stack of paper and moved it a few inches to the left. It occurred to Judah that the man was embarrassed. “I’m glad to hear it. Lord Gavin mostly favors his mother, you know, in both appearance and manner, which is to his benefit. But there does seem to be one way in which he favors his father. So it’s natural, when his appetite for women is well known, that the women close to him would be scrutinized. After the wedding, most of the talk should die down.”
Appetite for women. Judah didn’t like that phrase, as if the women Gavin pursued were so many plates of food placed in front of him.
The Seneschal was still talking. “When we no longer need to have you and Lady Eleanor publicly not hating each other—”
“Elly and I don’t hate each other.”
“—then we’ll arrange for you to miss one court event, and eventually another. In time—”
“I’ll be in complete seclusion,” Judah said grimly. “So why worry about my thousands of lovers?”
“You should be grateful. You could have been in complete seclusion all along. Anyway, don’t be so pessimistic. Maybe we’ll be able to arrange for you to be pledged to a celibate guild, eventually. One of the bookish ones; that would seem to suit you.” He folded his hands on the desk, his eyes hard and cold. “In the meantime, we cannot risk even the suggestion of disloyalty. Therefore, you cannot mix with the courtiers. At all. They have spent their entire lives training in manipulation and intrigue and they will eat you alive.”
Judah was picturing herself in some cold guildhall on a hill, all rocks and sackcloth and arcane rituals with no actual purpose. “You’re the one who put me next to him at the damn table.”
“I am deathly serious, Judah. You have a reputation for doing whatever you want, regardless of what’s right or proper, and we have indulged Lord Gavin by indulging you. Frankly, what you do or don’t do has never mattered, as long as you weren’t physically hurt. But the time for indulgence is past, and now, in this matter, you will obey. I am deathly serious,” he said again.
“How deathly serious can you be?” Judah said. “It’s not like you can kill me.”
“No. We can’t kill you.” Now, for the first time, he smiled: a sad smile, and weary. “How young you are. How little you know.”
* * *
Exiting the Seneschal’s office into a swirl of rushing pages and staff, Judah churned with fury. So she wasn’t supposed to talk to the courtiers; who wanted to? But Gavin, Elly and Theron were too busy to talk much these days. Darid wasn’t supposed to talk to her at all. One day he’d get tired of risking