I opened my eyes and looked at him. This time I had the face to go with the head shake. Not here. Not now.
Galen smiled, but it was a private smile. The kind of smile a man gives you when he's sure of you and knows that only a little privacy stands between him and your body.
He folded his fingers over the edge of the elastic band and started rolling the hose down my leg, carefully, slowly.
A voice came from behind us, "The princess seems to have already made her choice." It was Conri, never one of my favorite people. He stood tall, dark, handsome with eyes like melted tricolored gold. "With all due respect, Your Highness, you give us a promise of flesh, then we are forced to sit and watch while another claims that prize."
"Meredith does seem to have been a busy little bee among all you lovely flowers," Andais said. She laughed, and the sound was derisive, joyous, cruel, and somehow intimate. It made a flush creep up my face as Galen slid the hose down my leg and off my foot.
He moved to one side, letting Fflur kneel over my ankle. He raised the hose to his face, brushing the sheer, black cloth against his mouth, as he stared at Conri.
Conri had never been my friend. He was one of Cel's childhood friends, a loyal supporter of the one true heir.
I watched the rage in his gold eyes, the jealousy, not of me as a person, but me as the only female they had access to. You could feel the tension in the room, growing, swelling, like the pressure before a storm. The white ladies always seemed to respond to great tension or great change in the court. The ghosts whirled around the edges of the room, swinging in a spectral dance above the floor. The more excited the ladies became, the more agitated they were-and the greater the events unfolding. They were like prophets that only predicted seconds ahead.
What can you do with seconds of warning? Sometimes much. Sometimes nothing. The trick was that you had to see the danger coming to stop it. Seconds to see it and stop it, and I was too slow, too late, again.
Conri's voice bellowed out, "I challenge Galen to death."
Galen started to stand and I caught his arm. "What do you hope to gain from his death, Conri?"
"To take his place at your side."
I laughed. I couldn't help it. The look of sullen rage on Conri's face at my laughter was chilling. I pulled Galen back down to kneel at my side. Fflur chose that moment to tighten the bandages, and I had to breathe out before I could speak.
"Is Galen Greenhair a coward then?" Conri scoffed. He had moved from his chair, off the dais, to the floor.
I parted Galen's arm, keeping him with me. "You never did have a sense of humor, Conri," I said.
His eyes narrowed. "What are you talking about?"
"Ask me why I laughed."
He stared at me for a second or two, then he nodded. "Fine, why did you laugh?"
"Because you and I are not friends. We are very close to enemies. I don't sleep with people I don't like, and I don't like you."
He looked puzzled.
I sighed. "I mean that if you kill Galen, that won't get you a place in my bed. I don't like you, Conri. You don't like me. I won't sleep with you under any circumstance. So sit down, shut up, and let someone talk who has a chance in hell of sharing my bed."
Conri was left standing, open-mouthed, and lost as to what to do. He was one of the most courtwise of all the guards. He sucked up to Cel expertly. He flattered the queen within an inch of propriety. He knew which nobles to treat well and which he could ignore or even treat badly. I'd fallen into the last category, because you couldn't be Cel's friend and be mine. Cel wouldn't allow it. I watched Conri's face as he realized that he hadn't been quite as courtwise as he thought he had. I enjoyed his embarrassment.
But he rallied. "My challenge stands. If I cannot share your bed, then I don't want Galen to have you either."
My hand tightened on Galen's arm. "Why fight if you know you don't get the prize?" I asked.
Conri smiled, and it wasn't pleasant. "Because his death will cause you pain, and that will be almost as sweet as your body next to mine."
Galen rose, sliding away from my grip on his arm. He started down the steps, and I was afraid for him. Conri was a cruel, brown-nosing bastard, but he was also one of the best swordsmen in the court.
I stood, hopping because I couldn't bear weight on my left foot. Rhys caught me or I might have fallen. "I am still the reason for this duel, Conri."
Conri nodded, watching Galen walk toward him. "Indeed, you are, Princess. Know that when I kill him, I did it all for spite of you."
Then I had one of those moments of desperate inspiration, a brilliant idea born of panic.
"You cannot challenge a royal consort to a death duel, Conri," I said.
"He is not a royal consort until you are pregnant," Conri said.
"But if I am actively trying to have a child with him, then he is my royal consort, because we have no way of knowing if I am with child at this second."
Conri turned to me, shocked. "You have not-I mean -"
The queen laughed again. "Oh, Meredith, you have been a busy, busy little bee." She stood. "If there is even a remote chance that Galen could have fathered a child upon my niece, then he is indeed a royal consort until proven otherwise. If you slew him and she was with child, and you had deprived this court of a fertile royal pair, I would see your head rotting in a jar on a shelf in my room."
"I don't believe it," Cel said. "They have not had sex tonight."
Andais turned to him. "And was there not a lust spell in the car when they were alone in the back of it?"
The blood drained from Conri's face in a wash, leaving him pasty and sickly looking. The look on his face was enough. The lust spell had been his doing. Though few sidhe in this room would doubt who had told him to do it.