The Falcon Throne (The Tarnished Crown Series) by Karen Miller Read Free Book Online Page B

garderobe.”
    Grefin’s answering smile was tinged with relief. “Given into temptation, you mean.”
    “Oh, go fuck yourself,” he suggested. “Better yet, fuck your wife.” When his brother only stared, uncertain, he shoved. “
Go
, Grefin. I might sting over the Green Isle but if you think I’d throw myself from the top of the Croft for losing it, you’re moonshot.”
    “So…” Grefin stood. “I’m forgiven?”
    Balfre blinked. Forgiven? For capitulating to Aimery. For taking what wasn’t his. For thinking he could speak on anyone’s behalf but his own.
Forgiven?
    Grefin really was moonshot.
    Maybe in a year, when–
if
–Grefin kept his word, and the Green Isle’s stewardship passed from his brother’s unlawful hands to his. Maybe then he could find it in him to forgive the day’s betrayal. But not now, with Grefin’s presumption of pardon so glibly thoughtless, so
arrogant
. So like Aimery he could spit.
    “Yes,” he said, smiling, as the dragon-talons clutched anew. “You’re forgiven.”
    The smile lasted until the outer chamber’s door closed behind his little brother. Then he staggered to his feet, snatched up the bottle of brandy and poured what remained of it down his dry throat. Choked. Gasped for air.
    “Fuck.
Fuck!
”
    He was too angry to stand, had to rage about the luxurious chamber that served only to remind him of what he didn’t possess. In every castle of Harcia it was the same, he and Jancis and her mewling daughter granted the apartments that had belonged to Malcom. He held no castle of his own, outright. A clutch of manor houses, yes, with villages and farmland yielding him wealth. After Aimery, before Grefin, he was the richest man in Harcia. But it didn’t make up for his lack of moat and drawbridge and keep.
    Grefin would have a castle, now he was Steward of the Green Isle.
    The thought had him smashing the emptied brandy bottle onto the floor, sent him hunting for a fresh one. But then he stopped, panting. What was the point? There wasn’t enough brandy in the duchy, in the
world
, to numb his rewoken, all-consuming pain. He needed a living distraction, something soft and warm. A woman.
    “Jancis!” he roared. “Jancis, where the fuck are you?”
    He found his wife in the nursery, clad in unbecoming tawny wool, holding her swaddled brat of a daughter and talking with a servant. “Get out,” he told the girl. She picked up her linen skirts and fled.
    “My lord,” Jancis whispered, standing with the brat’s crib between them. “I heard. About Hughe, and the stewardship. I’m so sorry.”
    Oh, but she was a colourless shadow, his wife, with her pale hair and pale skin and eyes like watered glass. So thin, so flat-chested, sunlight almost passed right through her. No wonder he struggled to sire a living son. Aimery was to blame for that. From misplaced loyalty to one of his nobles, Aimery had cradle-promised him to Jancis, and when Malcolm died forced the wedding upon him. After two sons miscarried he’d begged his father on both knees for release, but the old fulmet wouldn’t let him put the barren bitch aside–even though her father was dead by then and couldn’t be offended. So he was yoked to her until Aimery was bedded for good in his own coffin.
    He could feel the brandy in his belly, burning like dragon-fire. “How did you hear? Who told you?”
    “I was with Mazelina in her apartments. We heard the servants gossiping.”
    Fucking servants. He should rip out their tongues. “And?”
    “And what?” his wife said, tears rising. “I don’t understand.”
    Held tight to her uninspiring breasts, the brat wriggled and cooed. Jancis started to look down, then stopped herself.
    “And do you have a fucking opinion?” he demanded. “Or is that too much to ask?”
    His insipid wife’s pale cheeks washed pink. “I think it’s wrong that Grefin’s made Steward. Why did Aimery do such a thing?”
    “Don’t you mean
How am I to blame
, that Aimery