Bride Ball Read online

  “They’ll be safe,” he assured her for the third time.

  “I know.” A weak smile pulled up at her lips. “You’re such a good father, Darren. I always knew you’d be.”

  He crouched to her level and laid a gentle kiss on her lips. “And you are an excellent mother to twin daughters.”

  His father bustled in, looking tense. “They took advantage of your absence,” he grumbled. “Just what I’d expect Mora to do.”

  “No swaying the proceedings, Matthew,” Benjamin teased, striding in. He took Darren’s hand for a handshake, cocking his head to one side. “I believe you’re right,” he mused.

  “What?” Darren asked, perplexed by the comment.

  “Your father told me how much you’ve matured in the last year. I do believe he’s right.”

  Darren’s cheeks heated. “I hope so. I truly do. And...I’m sorry for pulling you away from the festivities. If this could wait— I had planned to wait until the end of Kambry’s confinement, the end of Marquita’s, at least.”

  “Don’t be an idiot,” Edward chastised him from the doorway. “We were on our way out to the Lake Serenity house anyway. We’ll simply spend the night here and move on tomorrow, if that’s acceptable to you.”

  “Acceptable? It’s wonderful. Mother was going to invite Alana for a visit anyway.”

  “Speaking of the lady.” Matthew met his wife at the door, taking her in his arms. “Are you well?”

  She smiled. “As well as one can be with Mora underfoot and intent on mischief. Can we get started? The sooner the judgment is rendered and the deal struck, the sooner I can exile that beast from my home.”

  “Please,” Darren requested. The sooner this was over with, the better.

  Edward raised an eyebrow. “One suggestion, cousin.”

  “Yes?”

  “Don’t question anything. Keep your mouth shut and play along.”

  “I concur,” Matthew added.

  Darren’s heart raced at that, but a search of the faces around him gave no clue as to the meaning of it. “If you say so.”

  “I insist,” Benjamin closed the subject.

  “If you insist,” he managed shakily. With a squeeze to Kambry’s hand, he steeled himself for the coming tensions.

  It was the strangest scene Darren had ever thought to see. No. Even his imagination wasn’t this rich and varied.

  Darren stood at Kambry’s side, ready to act as her personal guard, if the need arose. His mother sat on a desk chair pulled to Kambry’s other side, and Matthew stood at her shoulder, looking similarly prepared to protect his wife from harm.

  Benjamin had forbidden Alana from attending, even when she’d begged for the chance to watch Mora get her comeuppance.

  Amber had expressed no wish to see the judgment delivered, which meant Edward hadn’t had to order her away. Darren didn’t question that his cousin would have done so, if forced to it.

  “Is Amber feeling better?” Benjamin asked.

  “Much,” he confirmed. “But I’ve sent her to rest, nonetheless. Mother is sitting with her.”

  “Impatiently waiting news, I’m sure.”

  “Problem?” Darren asked. He hoped the trip to Willowmarsh hadn’t been a hardship for her.

  His father shook his head. “Simply the stresses of the day.”

  Darren relaxed. “We should get this done. Kambry doesn’t need the stresses, any more than Amber does.”

  “I agree,” Benjamin intoned. “We’ve already sent the guards for them.”

  Out of courtesy, the small sofa had been left empty for Marquita. No matter what else she was, she was a woman in confinement.

  She made a show of her fatigue, crossing to the sofa and settling into it with a sigh. Her eyes flicked to the more comfortable chair her sister had been afforded, but she kept silent, proving her intelligence and sense of self-preservation.

  Mora settled beside her, patting her daughter’s hand. She took inventory of the assembled royals and the guards at the doorway. “If we could settle this insanity,” she hinted.

  “Insanity?” Sira countered. “Your daughter threatened the life of another within my home. She threatened violence.”

  “My daughter is a confined woman being denied her child.”

  “A child she’s made no attempt to see in three weeks?” Darren snapped. “A child she ordered taken from her sight at birth and has since relegated to whatever chance might offer her for care?”

  “I knew you’d care for her, Darren.” Marquita affected a wounded person at that accusation.

  Mora wrapped an arm around her. “Marquita is suffering parting depression. Any fool could see that.”

  “A simple blood test could confirm that...or refute it,” Matthew suggested.

  Sira raised an eyebrow. “And death threats are to be taken even more seriously, with proof that the subject is unbalanced.”

  “She’s my sister,” Marquita protested. “Threats of harm or death are common occurrences between siblings.”

  Darren offered Kambry a sideward glance, wincing at her squirm and blush.

  She cleared her throat. “I won’t deny I’ve been threatened before, but never with quite this...vehemence.”

  “You see?” Mora replied. “Sibling squabbles aren’t that unusual, now are they?”

  “But threats to an innocent child are,” Benjamin offered gravely.

  There was a moment of tense silence.

  “I would never,” Marquita decreed. She shot a look of hurt at Kambry that might have passed for sincere with anyone who didn’t know her well.

  Benjamin crossed the room and offered the decree, signed by the Counselors of the Four Quarters. “According to Princess Amber’s statement, you did. You and your mother both. The Counselors take such threats very seriously.”

  Marquita took it, seemingly stunned. She didn’t read it.

  “Your parental rights have been stripped and guardianship of your child awarded to Darren.”

  Her face darkened and then screwed up in anger.

  “This is outrageous,” Mora fumed.

  Sira rolled her eyes. “Voiced by the one most closely acquainted with the condition,” she muttered.

  Mora shot a mutinous look back, and Matthew moved between them.

  “Based on the testimony Princess Amber has already given, the Counselors were unanimous in their decision,” he informed her. He stressed Amber’s title, as if sending warnings or poking reminders that their former servant by circumstance was now their better.

  “How could they?” Marquita wailed. “I’ve been forbidden to state my side?”

  “You’ve been forbidden nothing,” Benjamin countered. “Well, short of Erika, that is.”

  “It’s unseemly,” Mora complained. “There’s been abuse of power here.”

  Edward stepped in calmly. “No such thing. A child was in danger, and decisive action was taken. It would have taken hours longer, had the Counselors not been gathered for the wedding. Your actions fortuitously coincided with the event.”

  Fortuitously? Darren bit back a snort of disgust. They’d planned their attack for a time when both he and his father were out of the household.

  “I’ve got no recourse?” Marquita cut in. There was a cold edge to her eyes and voice.

  Benjamin sighed. “By law, you have the right to appeal the Counselors’ decision, to plead your case to them personally. A slim chance exists that you might overturn the decision, but an equitable dissolution of the contract with award would serve everyone nicely.”

  Marquita seemed to mull over the suggestion. “It would have to be a formidable award for the sacrifice of my child,” she murmured. “For surrendering my rights to her permanently. At least...four times what is typically awarded for Darren’s station in life.”

  Darren started to protest it as unconscionable. No award was more than triple the typical, and that was in cases of criminal acts.

  Edward cut him off cleanly, when barely a syllable had
passed his lips. “You’d accept that? You’d release Erika to Darren and forfeit all rights of parenthood and of contract for the settlement of four times the typical award for his position?”

  She hesitated, perhaps weighing the chance that she could get more against the chance that she was harming her odds at appeal by agreeing to a price on her child. In the end, Marquita offered her hand in agreement. “Done,” she informed Darren, her eyes narrowed.

  He started to shake his head in refusal, stilling in confusion at the nods from Benjamin and Edward. A glance at his father revealed that Matthew concurred, though the request was scandalous. He unfisted his hand without looking away from his parents and crossed the room to the shrew. His arm resisted raising, but he forced it up and grasped Marquita’s hand, meeting her eyes at last. “Done.”

  Her smile turned his stomach.

  I promised anything. It’s worth it for Kambry and my daughters.

  Benjamin offered Marquita his arm and guided her toward the door. “Forty thousand will be delivered to you within the week,” he assured her.

  Darren snapped his head around, noting his father’s sly smile in shock. Marquita’s protest sent his focus back to her.

  “Forty? It should be two hundred, by my reckoning.”

  Mine as well. But Darren dared not admit it. Whatever his family had come prepared to do to aid him, he would accept with thanks.

  Edward furrowed his brow as if in confusion. “Two hundred? If Darren was Hein Darren, that would be a correct assumption.”

  Darren’s head spun, but he held his tongue, waiting to see how it would play out.

  “He is Hein Darren,” she replied, as perplexed as Darren was himself.

  Benjamin feigned shock, then realization. “You didn’t attend the celebration.”

  Marquita yanked her arm from his. “Of course not. I am in my confinement.”

  “And so obviously debilitated,” Sira offered dryly.

  Mora shot her another warning look. “And what difference would that make, King Benjamin?” she inquired with a cool reserve about her.

  “Why...the announcement, of course.”

  He should have been an actor. Goddess, but he’s playing her well.

  She spoke through ground teeth. “And what announcement would that be?” she played along.

  “Alana carries a son,” he imparted happily. “The blood test was conclusive.”

  “What if she doesn’t produce a viable child?” Marquita snapped. “The queen is rather old to be carrying.”

  Kambry sucked in a breath at the rude and unfeeling comment. It was considered bad luck and bad form to insinuate a coveted child would be delivered less than perfectly.

  Sira was less restrained, glaring down the young woman as if she meant to lay a blow across her mouth. Darren had no doubts the women Sira influenced would hear of this insult and have some punishment of their own for Marquita.

  Benjamin’s jaw tightened, but he didn’t reply to the snub.

  Edward did. “How joyous that her doctor disagrees.”

  Marquita didn’t respond, leaving Darren to wonder if she was oblivious to the fact that she’d angered him or uncaring of it.

  Edward continued in a matter-of-fact tone that put Darren on edge. “After Amber’s...reaction to the stresses of the day, the doctor insisted on a few tests between the ceremony and the celebration. The sonogram was conclusive; both of my children are male. Moreover, Amber was found to be in impeccable health, as were my sons,” he added before Marquita could insinuate that it wasn’t the case.

  Benjamin cut in. “It would be highly unlikely that we’d lose two of the three young heirs...and that Amber would prove unable to carry again. With two heirs in Edward’s generation...or Goddess forbid, two in the next, if there was some unforeseen circumstance, Matthew is not Hein. He has been officially recognized as Duke Matthew Willowmarsh.”

  Matthew tipped his head to Mora. “Since there is no possible way for me to accede to the throne, I publicly announced my new status, in advance of the births that will push me away, and the Counselors acknowledged it.” He paused only a second. “With my new status, Darren was reduced to the Honorable Lord Darren Willowmarsh.”

  Darren bit at the inside of his mouth, holding in laughter at the shock on Marquita’s face.

  “So, you see,” Benjamin offered with a sad smile and a sigh. “You are mistress to a lord, one day to accede to Duke, we hope. Your settlement, as agreed before all these witnesses, will be based on Darren’s current status, that of a lord.”

  Mora’s face went so tight in anger, it appeared it would crack beneath the creams and powders. “I assume Kambry will be offered the same settlement and be free to move on to a position suitable to a lady of standing?”

  Darren opened his mouth to protest that a lord of a line to be Duke in his time was hardly beneath the daughter of a Duke...or perhaps to the presumption that Kambry meant to leave him, simply because her mother and sister were upset.

  Kambry didn’t give Darren a chance to spout out whichever won the race to his lips. “I’m accepting whatever contract Darren offers, Mother.” She knew what that contract was, but she played innocent of it well enough.

  “You are the daughter of a Duke,” her mother thundered. “You could make a coveted position.”

  “I have the only position I covet.” There was something soft and loving beneath the steel of her words.

  Darren smiled and took her hand laying a kiss on her knuckles. “The position is yours...only yours.”

  “I won’t spend another night in this house,” Marquita grumbled.

  Sira’s face erupted in a vicious smile of victory that announced she’d just been gifted what she’d been waiting for. “Vincent will see you back to Oakmarch...or wherever you intend to go. You can take what you can carry this night. The rest will be sent along for you.”

  Marquita gaped at her. “I am a confined woman,” she protested.

  “And you wish to leave. You are an adult and no longer under contract with my son. If you wish to leave, leave in comfort. If you wish to stay until the end of the confinement, you may do so in the quarters assigned you and under guard.”

  Mora placed an arm around her shoulders, guiding Marquita toward the door. “Come. Giselle will prepare you a soothing tea and help you to bed.”

  Edward snorted. “Giselle and Coraline are the servants I engaged for Lady Reanne. Unless Reanne orders them to pamper you, I would highly suggest you use a portion of your settlement to engage a servant of your own.”

  The two women turned to him, their mouths moving as if they had words they couldn’t lay tongue to.

  Edward’s expression left no doubt that he was serious. “In fact, I believe I’ll send Reanne’s favorite corporal along. They so enjoy visiting together.”

  Darren gave up and howled in laughter. And the guard will make sure Reanne is safe from any plotting and threats the duo might dare to send her way.

  About the Author

  Brenna Lyons wears many hats, sometimes all on the same day: president of EPIC, author of more than 80 published works, columnist, special needs teacher, wife, mother... In addition, she’s a member in good standing of ERWA, TELL, MWW, RWU, WPM, IWOFA and Broad Universe.

  In her first seven years published in novel-length, Brenna has finaled for eleven EPPIES, three PEARLS (taking Honorable Mention second to NY Times Bestseller Angela Knight), two CAPAS, a Dream Realm Award and has taken Spintetingler’s Book of the Year for 2007.

  Brenna has been termed “one of the most deviant erotic minds in the publishing world...not for the weak.” (Rachelle for Fallen Angels Reviews) She writes milieu-heavy dark fiction, mainly science fiction, fantasy and horror (in 21 established worlds plus standalones), poetry, articles and essays. She teaches classes in everything from POV studies to advanced editing, networking to marketing. Brenna loves talking to readers and can be reached via her site at http://www.brennalyons.com.

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  Brenna Lyons, Bride Ball