you never apologize for anything unless you’re too drunk to remember your position.” Now he brings his prince the cheese and pulls a stool closer to the fire, studying Javier in the red-tinted light. “Is she pregnant, then?”
“Fuck,” Javier says, and for long moments can think of nothing else to say. “Fuck, Mar, you’re not even supposed to know I’m swivving her.”
“My lord prince,” Marius says so diplomatically Javier knows the next words will be insulting. Nor does Marius disappoint. “Just how fucking stupid do you think I am?”
“I don’t think you’re stupid,” Javier protests, and it’s true. “It’s only—”
“Only that when our royal friend sees fit to pursue one of our women that we’re supposed to politely glance aside and notice nothing. Sometimes I envy Eliza, Jav. At least you don’t look to her paramours.”
Javier, distracted, demands, “Liz has lovers?” and then, offense managing to work its way through wine, adds, “You’re cruel tonight, Marius. It’s not like you.”
“I think I may have earned it, Jav,” Marius says, so softly that guilt burns hot through Javier’s blood. It’s an unfamiliar and unwelcome sensation, and it’s the one that drove him first to an excess of drink, and ultimately to Marius’s doorstep.
“I’m going to ask her to marry me.” There has to be a better way to couch it, but the words blurt themselves out, not out of viciousness but desperation. And Marius pales in the ruddy light, shock widening his pupils until there’s nothing but darkness in his eyes.
“Oh, my lord prince.” The whisper has edges. “Do I not deserve better than that?”
Javier closes his eyes against the pain in Marius’s question. “You deserve far better than I,” he replies, and can’t bring himself to look on his friend again. “So does she, and for being friend to a prince neither of you will get it. I won’t marry her. I can’t. But she’s Lanyarchan, and even the threat of a fresh alliance between my mother and that country—” It’s too much to tell the merchant’s son, but Javier can find it in himself to say no less. Marius does deserve better, and the only offering he can make is the hard truth. And Marius is silent in the face of Javier’s faltering, so quiet the prince is forced to open his eyes and gauge his friend’s expression.
There is pain there. More than Javier ever wanted to cause the few people in his life whom he trusts implicitly. Pain and weariness and worst of all, acceptance. Wouldn’t it be better for Marius to rail and shout, to hit him and stand his ground against Javier’s desire?
No. The answer comes too fast. For all the friendship shared, Javier is still a prince and Marius still a merchant’s son. He can’t throw himself on Javier in outrage even when Javier most richly deserves it. Worse still, the witchpower would never allow it to happen, even if Javier should steel himself to cower and brace against the blows he so richly deserves. His power would work to protect him instinctively, either through the shielding that he and Beatrice have discovered or through the part of Javier that is, and will always be, royalty. No one may lay a hand on a prince, and even if Javier might school his conscious mind to other ends, the core of him would lash out and bend Marius to his will. Better that Marius hold in his betrayal and let it show in smaller ways than clear insubordination and threats.
“So you will act at last,” Marius finally whispers. Javier isn’t expecting that, and finds himself staring through the darkness at his friend. “Does she love you, Javier?”
“I don’t know. I hope not.”
“Do you love her?”
Only because he owes this man so much, in the form of Beatrice Irvine, will Javier answer that question. He closes his eyes, savoring the words as he speaks them: “I don’t know. I hope not.”
“I do,” Marius says steadily. “Love both of you, and see no way for this to end happily. But then, that’s not the point, is it?” He needs no more answer to that than he might need answer to the colour of the sky. He stands, gesturing toward the food Javier still holds. “Eat, my prince. You’ll need to be sober if you’re going to ask a woman to marry you.”
Javier, unusually obedient, tears at the bread with his teeth, its aroma suddenly heady. For a few minutes he does nothing but gobble down the tender savory