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Laurent had many secrets.
As a Prince of royal birth, it was typically unavoidable to have eyes on you at all times with people watching your every move. As a second son however, it wasn’t the most difficult thing in the world to hide yourself in the shadows.
Laurent was a private person. He had a closely cultivated circle, and that just as much included the things he kept hidden from the world, the things that slipped through the cracks of his armor and were allowed inside. They were never to be told, never to be shown to anyone but himself, a hand of cards that were held close enough to his chest so that they remained hidden from the world, just for him to see.
Damen was one of those secrets.
Laurent had long ago lost track of how long this had been going on- how long he had been allowing it to go on. What had started as a simple curiosity had soon turned into an indulgence, and while the rest had been a gradual occurrence, it did nothing to change the fact that it was now like some new aphrodisiac that he had found and didn’t know how to go without.
It had begun with a stroll through the marketplace, as many of his private discoveries did, some in disguise and some with his identity on clear display. It had been important to Laurent since he had been young to have this, some form of normalcy where he could leave the towers and stairwells that at time felt more like a cage than a palace, so he could feel like he was seeing something real. It wasn’t always simple, at times requiring him to sneak away or send false word of an illness that left him indisposed in his bedchambers, but that only made it more fun.
Laurent hadn’t known what he had been expecting to find when he had begun these stolen trips. A book that had not been approved for their library. A delicacy perhaps that had not entered their kitchens, but was just as exotic in its tastes. Even just the sight of children playing, or people wandering without the threat of obligations above their head. They were all possibilities, but the last thing Laurent had been expecting was to find the son of the local blacksmith who made his heart feel more alive than anything outside of his imagination, or his ornamented confines.
It was ridiculous. Laurent had duties, expectations that would trail around him for the rest of his life. He knew it was wrong, the very notion of thinking with anything other than his head transgressive, but that did nothing to stop him from all the days and evenings where he would deliberately hide away with a stranger, who really wasn’t a stranger at all.
The knock sounded outside the door of Laurent’s outer chambers, pulling him out of the trance that had him staring into the hearth like it held the solution to his problems. He hardly felt himself rise, his mind miles away as he walked across the tiled floors and reached out for the door handles, knowing that there was only one person who would appear at his rooms at this late of an hour.
Laurent blinked, straightening his shoulders when he did not come face to face with Auguste.
“Your Highness,” Julien said.
“Yes?” Julien was one of Laurent’s most frequent servants, often clearing his chambers or dressing Laurent when his clothing required the assistance. And then, of course, other forms of assistance. It was not uncommon for him to appear at Laurent’s door.
“My apologies for the late intrusion,” Julien said, low enough to not disturb the echoing corridors. He was reminded again of the late hour. “I was told to have this brought to you.”
He produced a small parcel, and it took a moment for Laurent to realize that it was not a package but a book. It was small, thin, and one that he had already read.
Laurent glanced up from the cover, his thumb on the italicized title, the golden lettering embossed. “Who sent you with this?”
Julien lowered his own eyes, minutely enough that a quick moving insect could have caught his eye, and it was the tracing of Laurent’s finger that brought it to the side where he felt the tattered corner, the fraying edges of old paper. Laurent’s copy from the palace library had been in impeccable condition, and Laurent could feel understanding rise up in him as abruptly as he felt the flush coating his cheeks.
“Thank you,” Laurent said, altering his grip on the door handle. “That will be all.”
The sound of the door closing was reverberating, the planes of his back and shoulder blades flat against the wooden surface. Laurent’s breaths were labored as the fire crackled, his heart moving with each snap. Laurent didn’t need to open the book to know what he would find there, just like he would find in an abundance if he opened the drawer of his bedside table, hidden beneath documents and useless papers.
The letter was wedged in carefully between the first two pages, the handwriting as neat and precise as ever, so familiar that Laurent thought he could emulate it with closed eyes and a quill in his hand.
They didn’t always come this way, the correspondences often changing in deliverance and secrecy. They had been wedged in between slices of bread with his breakfast, hidden in stacks of documents, once even left in the stables where Laurent’s favored horse slept. It was typically Julien who acted as deliverer, having proven his loyalty time and time again so that Laurent’s trust had been granted, if not tentatively, but he secured himself with the assurance that the letters were never returned, and Laurent could not be held accountable for receiving offerings from ambitious suitors. This certainly wouldn’t be the first, even though Damen was anything but another suitor.
The garden in the eastern village, by the old statue of Bayard.
I’ll be waiting for you.
The letter was simple, promising, just like the man that was waiting for him. It wouldn’t be the first time, but it was certainly the first time this late, deep enough into the night that it would be some different kind of game, something new that Laurent had not yet perfected the art of. The recognition of the book’s content returned to him, pages and passages and lines, and he felt his chest contract with each one.
It was a choice, and no choice at all. Laurent knew as he felt the warmth of the paper and traced the ink under his fingertips that his mind had been made up the instant Julien had been given the book.
The guards didn’t move as Laurent’s door came open behind them, and Laurent didn’t bother to address Jord by his name. He had an astute ability of knowing when Laurent’s commands were directed to him or not.
“I am not to be disturbed until morning,” he said, watching as acknowledgment flickered through Jord’s eyes. “No one but Auguste is allowed entrance.”
A short nod was all that he received, and all that he needed. With the letter stashed in one of his side pockets, Laurent turned to eye his wide balcony, overarching tree branches at all. It had been quite some time since he’d last tested the sturdiness of the roots, but Laurent was not above the challenge.
It was going to be a night of risks.
There was a chill in the air that evening, crisp enough that one was aware of it without needing to seek a warm reprieve. The leaves had finally begun to fall that month, Laurent’s most anticipated season of the year, and he heard the crunches of orange and red and yellow beneath his boots as he made his way below overhanging branches, around the circular fountain, towards the center of the shadowed landscape.
The statue of Bayard was eye-catching in its size, though the dark granite was well hidden under the cover of night. Fixed on a raised base, the bay horse was reared back on its hind legs, mid charge. Four men were mounted on top, swords in hand and helms concealing their eyes. The story of Bayard was well known throughout Vere, one of the classic legends that spoke of the spirited horse that adjusted its size to his riders.
Damen rose the instant Laurent’s approach was audible, bringing the top of his head unnaturally close to one of the men’s outstretched swords. Laurent stopped a few paces away, facing him. He felt it, again, as strong as in his memories. The sensation of his stomach falling away from him despite being sturdily upright.
“Your Highness,” Damen said.
“You and I both know you take liberties,” Laurent said. “Don’t stop now.”
Damen smiled. “Laurent.”
He was dressed as he usually was when Laurent saw him; his boots scuffed, his white linen shirt loose and untied at the collar. He rarely ever wore a jacket, though Laurent wasn’t sure if it was because he didn’t feel the need to, or because he couldn’t find one to accommodate the tree trunks he called arms. Laurent was equally in his usual state of dress, save for the hooded cloak that was concealing his hair.
He pulled the book out of one of the cloak’s inner folds. “This is yours.”
It seemed even smaller in his hands. Damen looked down at the title, as lingeringly as Laurent had. “I take it you’ve read this before?”
“I have,” Laurent said.
“And you came.”
The wind whistled around them as Laurent’s cloak billowed, disturbing one of the larger curls falling onto Damen’s forehead. Laurent’s hands remained at his sides. “I did.”
He was smiling again. It was softer, this time. Different. Laurent didn’t need to look into the fountain behind them to see that he had the same expression on his face.
Damen stepped forward. “Where is your horse?”
The Alba was well known throughout Veretian literature, the book of old lyrical poetry renowned in the northern kingdom for centuries. The epics all differed, though they were all a variation of poems describing the longing of lovers who, having passed a night together, must separate for fear of being discovered. The theme of conflict between love and responsibility was undeviating.
They had ridden out together, Damen’s own horse having been tethered to a tree not too far off from where they had met. Laurent didn’t ask where they were going, his mind on the rattled state Auguste would be in if he were to enter Laurent’s empty chambers as he rode behind Damen, keeping their horses close together.
Their points of destination had always been uncreative, rarely breaking the habit of sticking to their usual hiding places behind the marketplaces. They tended to be unglamorous, old alleyways or unpopular sections of the square where they could only focus on each other. They usually went far enough from the capital that most people couldn’t even spot Laurent with full confidence, and while his altering disguises tended to keep the prying eyes off of him, they had never been truly alone. There was a certain freedom that came with solitude, with anonymity, and Laurent had yet to experience that. Both with himself, and with Damen.
It was an unidentifiable amount of time before they began to slow, turns and roads beginning to blur into each other. Damen had led them through so many different hills and patches of rocky land that Laurent had long since stopped trying to guess where they were going, and simply watched the way his body moved fluidly with his stallion as he took them farther and farther away from everything.
Laurent began to lean back in his saddle when he saw Damen slow to a stop, his fingers curling instinctively around his reins, tugging. Damen had already dismounted when Laurent had made it through the final overhanging saplings, his eyes raised to Laurent as Laurent’s roamed the area around them.
The valley was wide and stretched far at their sides, the trees surrounding the clearing they had entered like a fortress, concealed by the span of stars above them. It was a mild slope that led the muddied grass into the long body of water, the surface rippling in lines of fractured moonlight. In the center of the display, a crimson red blanket with a tumble of pillows strewn across.
“This is,” Laurent dismounted, “optimistic.”
Damen took Laurent’s hand in his. There was nothing presumptuous about the display, Damen never having tried anything more than that with him, but the comfortable surety of the gesture had Laurent turning his palm into his.
“The possibility was worth the blow to my pride.”
Laurent’s laughter was short. “Your pride is the last of your issues.”
Damen’s returning grin was in the gleam of white teeth in the dark, and the responding tug to Laurent’s wrist. “Come.”
Laurent sat with his feet tucked under his knees, Damen across from him with one leg crossed, his other knee pulled up to his chest with a forearm wrapped around it. His cloak hung on a nearby branch.
“So what you’re saying,” Damen said, “Is that you’ve snuck away before?”
“Of course,” Laurent said. ”You know this.”
“Other than for me,” Damen said.
Warmth flooded through Laurent’s stomach, hot and curling. He reached into the basket that Damen had set between them, pulling out another berry. “Yes.”
Damen pulled his own grapes off the vine, bringing two to his mouth. He watched Laurent as he chewed. “Should I be jealous?”
“I would delude my palace tutors when I was younger so I could go riding,” Laurent replied. He sucked the bright red juice off his finger, the taste of cherry on his tongue. “Are you in the habit of being jealous of horses?”
Damen laughed, looking off into the landscape of the water beside them, tipping his head back. His laugh was like the comforting rumble of thunder; it was one of the things Laurent was going to miss most.
“Does anyone know?” Damen asked. He leaned his weight forward, onto his knee. “You never told me.”
“Yes.” He didn’t specify what he was referring to, and he didn’t have to. Laurent riffled through the basket, pushing things aside as he sifted through all of the options Damen had brought him. “Auguste does.”
He found a pastry wrapped in linen cloth, the cinnamon smell tickling his nose as soon as he unraveled it with his fingers. He looked up to question Damen’s silence, seeing that he was being stared at.
He lifted the croissant. “Would you like half?”
“Auguste,” Damen said. “Your brother?”
Laurent nodded.
Damen blinked. He looked at Laurent like he had not yet received a reply, then looked into the trees like the crux of the matter lied there. He blinked again.
“Is there a problem?” Laurent asked.
“No,” Damen turned back to him. “No, I- I’m just trying to imagine what he would think of me is all.”
Laurent ripped into the pastry. “He’s not displeased.”
“What?” Damen said.
Laurent considered how else to phrase that. “He wasn’t disapproving.”
“What?” Damen said.
Laurent took a bite. He took another bite, trying not to smile around the flaky dough. When he failed, Damen’s eyes widened further.
“Damen,” Laurent said. “Do you really think he would let me gallivant around with someone he didn’t know and not get curious?” He lifted the remaining piece in his hand. “Where is this from? It’s very good.”
“My mother bakes them,” Damen said. “And I never met the Crown Prince.”
“Let me ask you,” Laurent said. “Where do you think I received my affinity for disguises?”
It was silent for a few seconds. At the lift of Laurent’s brow, Damen blew out a breath, shaking his head before looking up, incredulously.
“I met the crown Prince,” he said, this time a statement.
“Should I feel affronted by how awe-struck you seem?” Laurent asked. “I’m still a Prince.”
Damen lowered his eyes so they were back on Laurent, remaining there. His demeanor had immediately reverted to its calm warmth, like that was his default expression. Laurent felt the pang, and determinedly, ignored it. There would be plenty of time to focus on that. For now, he was here.
“You know,” Damen said, suddenly closer. “That you have always been much more than that to me.”
It was an effort not to lean in, a physical thing that was holding Laurent back. He could feel the warmth emanating from Damen’s fingertips, just shy of brushing his on the shared blanket.
“And you?” Laurent asked. He could feel how incongruous it was, how much more Damen deserved. “Does anyone know?”
“I told Nikandros, earlier today.”
“I thought he knew?”
“He knew there was someone,” Damen clarified. “And that it was a complicated situation. I think he assumed it was some Lord’s daughter.” He rubbed a hand across the back of his neck, uncharacteristically bashful.
Laurent had to smile. He loved the rare moments where Damen looked like that, like his bravado slipped away and he was someone young and nervous, not always as sure of himself as he seemed.
He leaned back on his palms. “How is Kastor?”
They continued to speak, the words flowing between them as easily as they always had, as natural as the first day when Laurent had entered Damen’s father’s shop and struck up a conversation with him about iron forging, anything to stay a little bit longer. He remembered the way Damen had looked at him when he had first walked in. It wasn’t that different from the way he still looked at him, now.
They spoke the way they always had, unmasked and unfiltered; transparent. Damen had never shown Laurent anything less than respect, but there was also a lack of timid deference that Laurent felt like a breath of fresh air. It was a reprieve to talk like this, to share his thoughts and to often have them challenged. To hear someone else’s stances and to offer his own feelings, his honest feelings. It was something he had only ever had with Auguste, but he had been born with that. Damen was found, and it splintered something deep in Laurent to know that that would soon be lost.
Laurent brushed his thumb along his right card, his nail covering the eight of hearts. Somewhere between a conversation over Damen’s most previous time visiting family in Akielos and Laurent’s experience with the Vaskian Empire, Damen had pulled out a well used deck of cards, beginning to deal them in both of their directions before Laurent could even question the game. It had only taken the placement of a few cards for him to realize that it was the same one he had taught Damen weeks ago, behind an inn in Vibet.
“I’ve been practicing,” Damen had said after winning the first round, sweeping them up in his hands.
That had been three rounds ago. Now, Laurent placed two cards down, covering the ones Damen had set in front of him. Damen shifted the way he was sitting, stretching one leg out and bending the other, rearranging his cards.
“Is it true the Empress keeps cheetahs tied by her throne?” Damen asked, sweeping away the four cards to the discarded pile.
“Leopards,” Laurent replied. “Two of them.”
Damen looked a bit surprised by that, though not entirely displeased. He placed a card down. “Have you been to the mountain clan?”
“They don’t have much use for me, so no,” he said, straightening them out with thumb and pointer finger before lifting his eyes to Damen. “You, however.”
Damen frowned. “What does that mean?”
Laurent placed his own eight next to the eight of spades Damen had dealt, pushing them both to him, smiling. “Your move.”
Damen’s frown deepened. He looked at his hand, the matching cards and then back at his hand, scoffing when he collected them and added the to his set.
Laurent dropped down his remaining card, shaking his head slowly when Damen was forced to pick that one up as well. “And here I thought you were practicing.”
“You’ve had twenty years of practice,” Damen said, tossing his cards at Laurent and pushing the rest to him. “I’ve had a month.”
It had gotten late, far later than Laurent would have stayed up under regular circumstances. He could feel the need for sleep tugging at his eyelids as he shuffled the cards. “Again?”
“Again,” Damen said.
“You’re not serious.”
Damen nodded, rubbing a hand down his face, any disparaged sound muffled as his fingers passed his mouth. “All those times I thought he kept showing up at our shop to work up the nerve to speak to me, and the whole time he was just hoping Pallas would be there.”
Laurent laughed again, unable to help himself. He was charmed despite himself, delighted by how peeved Damen still seemed to be over a childhood crush that had led to nothing. He lifted his head a little, bringing his forearm under his cheek. “Did that happen often?”
“No,” Damen said, the flat tone possibly more convincing if he had more practice at deception. “And stop looking so amused.”
Laurent was more than amused. He was besotted, a fact that he should have been used to by now, but felt anew every time they were alone.
“Tell me,” Damen said. “What’s the most original thing you’ve received from an admirer?”
He pondered that, thinking back on the range of advances he had endured throughout his life. Laurent was no stranger to hopeful suitors, ambitious courtiers and men of high birth who tried their hand at winning Laurent’s affection, both though an assortment of gifts with no real consistency to poetic waxing that had barely caused his pulse to flicker.
“When I was eighteen, a nobleman visiting the palace for a traditional feast had a glass toy shaped to match his cock made for me,” Laurent said.
Damen, who had one hand bent behind his head so he could gaze up at the sky while the spoke let out a choked off sound, the abrupt turn of his head startling another laugh out of Laurent. “You’re not serious.”
“The base was encrusted with sapphires,” Laurent recalled. “I believe he delivered it with some comment about my eyes.”
The scandalized look that passed over Damen’s face never ceased to astound Laurent, Akielon roots and all. He quirked an idle brow.
“Veretians,” Damen said. “I’ve lived here for nearly a year and I’m still not accustomed to it.”
“Actually,” Laurent said. “He was Patran.”
Damen laughed, open and carefree, the force of it leaving him quickly like he hadn’t been expecting it himself. The chasm in Laurent filled, even as he felt time slipping away.
“Tell me something,” Laurent said, some time later, after they’d luxuriated in the silence of the night and the sweep of stars above them, and had both been bold enough to inch close enough that their sides were touching.
A secret, he wanted to say. A desire. Anything that would be just his, something from the night that he could take with him, other than his memories.
Damen was quiet in his consideration, the sides of their fingers touching when he said, “I wanted to be a pirate, when I was young.”
It wasn’t what Laurent had been expecting. “A pirate.”
“Until I was eleven,” Damen said. “I think it was all that time growing up around the water. I was fixated on the idea of traveling the ocean, exploring the kingdoms. I even convinced Nikandros to be my second in command.”
The visual of it made Laurent happy. It suited Damen, the endlessness of it all. “What happened?”
“Reality,” Damen said. There was no hesitation this time.
“I used to dream of being a commoner,” Laurent said, because he understood reality, and because it was a night for sharing, for honesty. “When I would go with my mother and her guard to the markets and see the kids play, or when my tutors would dictate what I had to learn. I thought it would be- simpler.”
Damen listened like he always did, his eyebrows set in a considering line as he took the information in. Laurent watched as he absorbed whatever it was that he had taken from that, and was able to see the exact moment Damen chose to speak.
“I had always been content with who I am,” he said, carefully. His chest was a solid, unmoving line. “I’m not ashamed, but it was only until recently that I began to dream about being more.”
Lauren nodded slowly. He understood growing ambitions. Respected it. “What made you wish for a higher status?”
The blanket-covered grass was soft under Laurent’s side as he turned. It was silent enough that he could hear the wind rustling the trees, water lapping against the edge of the riverbank. Damen was still looking up when he said, “the rumors spreading throughout the villages that the Prince would be receiving his marriage suitors.”
Hearing the words finally be spoken was like igniting a flame, hovering a candle over what the two of them were doing, what the two of them knew the night meant for them. Laurent was never one to ignore his reality or suppress his circumstances, he was aware of his fate and what it meant for the two of them every minute of the day. The only times he could forget, pretend to forget, was when they were together. Thinking about Damen was far different than being with him. And when he was, nothing else seems to penetrate.
It was Laurent who touched Damen, fingers curling against his wrist. If this were a real courtship and not a fantasy, he would lift his palm to his mouth. When Damen looked back at him, Laurent slid their fingers together.
“You are more,” Laurent said. “To me.”
Fingers closed over his knuckles. Laurent felt the weight of everything he wanted to give and everything he wanted to take looming over them like a fog, one that he feared would never dispense. He could have anything, and yet he had nothing, because the one person he wanted to share it all with was someone he would never be allowed to have.
Damen’s hands were one of Laurent’s favorite things about him. He’d shown up to his shop before just to watch him work, his fingers long and calloused, the backs covered in faint white scars shaped like crescent moons. He’d watched something as strong as iron bend to his bidding, reshape into something new and different, reformed from his touch alone. When Damen’s hand cupped the back of his neck, Laurent thought he understood.
Damen’s mouth pressed hard against his, searing where Laurent might have expected tenderness. It was precisely what Laurent felt, like anything short of gripping hands and the passage of charging breathes between their lips wouldn’t quite shape up to what the two of them needed. Laurent’s own hands moved to link around Damen’s neck, and he allowed the push that brought him onto his back, the shift of bodies that had Damen moving on top of him, kissing Laurent until he couldn’t remember anything but the way they fit together.
Laurent laughed that night.
He laughed more than he could ever remember from one person alone, to stories of Damen as an impish child to a roguish teenager. More than once he wiped under his eyes, grateful for the seclusion and the distance they had from the rest of the world, not having to worry about waking others form the sound of their happiness.
He told his own stories, things that he kept to himself or for Auguste, the only other person he trusted. He told Damen things that he knew would make him smile, things that would make him gape at Laurent in surprise or prop his cheek on his upturned palm, always prompting Laurent for more.
When there was no more talking, nothing left to share that they hadn’t already given each other, Laurent pulled Damen into him and gave him everything else he could, wanting Damen to be his first if fate would not allow him to be his only. It was his choice, and it was something that could never be taken away from him. If there was one thing that he wanted Damen to know, it was that Laurent would have always chosen him.
It was with the sun slowly rising, flashes of purple beginning to peak over the trees and streak throughout dawn that Laurent settled against him, Damen’s face pressed into his hair as they stole a few hours of sleep in each other’s arms.
Getting back inside the palace proved to be a bit more difficult, climbing always harder than dropping, though it was nothing that Laurent wasn’t capable of. He’d done this enough as a boy to know where to place the tip of his boot, what vine to grab a hold of and how to hoist himself up. It took slightly longer than leaving had, though that could have been accredited to the contrast of motivation the two held.
When Laurent finally reached his balcony, it took nothing more than the swinging of his leg and one final push to bring himself over, the sound of his boots touching stone soft despite the fact that there was no one around to hear it. Judging by the sun’s point in the sky and the silent sounds of the courtyard, the palace would soon be coming to life. He knew from his message to his guards that no servants would have entered in his time gone, the thought of his chambers remaining empty for a little while longer a slight reprieve to everything else.
Laurent entered the main chamber, setting the cloak he had come back in down on a reclining couch. His hands moved to the collar of his jacket so he could change back into something fresh, not seeing any point to disturb his made bed for the small amount of rest he would get. He looked away from the bedroom door as he pulled out the first lace, Auguste waiting patiently at his table with a book in his hand.
“It was about time.” He shut the book. “I was beginning to worry.”
Laurent pulled the jacket off, setting it down on the backrest of another chair. He saw no point in fabricating some explanation, the fact of what he had done seeming fairly obvious. He took the seat, stretching one leg out as he regarded his brother. “Have you been here long?”
“I lost track,” Auguste said. “But I was able to catch up on my reading.”
Laurent nodded. He looked at the book, having read it a while ago. “What do you think?”
“I think,” Auguste said. “That you need to be more careful.”
“I was,” Laurent replied. “No one caught me.”
“I did.”
Laurent didn’t bother pointing out that anyone with permission to enter Laurent’s chambers would have seen that he had clearly snuck out somewhere.
“I wasn’t hiding from you,” he said instead.
Auguste smiled. It was small, very unlike his usual smile that seemed to light up half the kingdom. Laurent looked down.
“Well?” Auguste eventually asked. “Was it worth it?”
Laurent could hear that he was asking as a brother, not his Crown Prince, but that didn’t make him want to discuss it any more. At least not now, when the wound hadn’t even managed to form a scab.
“You know very well I don’t do anything that I don’t think is worth it,” Laurent said. The surface of the table needed cleaning, and he was quite thirsty. He really should let his servants enter.
“I must say, brother,” Auguste said, his head tilting to the side. “You’ve been handling everything with grace.”
Laurent thought of the mud stains on the back of his pants, the twigs and leaves that Damen had picked out of his hair. He had spent most of his morning rolling around the grass with his tongue in someone’s mouth, and there hadn’t been anything graceful about it.
“Yes, well, I’ve already considered telling your Vaskian Empress that you prefer Kempt,” Laurent said, matching his brother’s blue eyed gaze. “But that would hardly nudge father’s resolve.”
“You know how father is,” Auguste said, just like he did any time the topic had been broached. Twelve suitors; three from each province, twelve that Laurent didn’t care to hear another word about. “All tradition, no reformation.“
Laurent didn’t say anything to that. He had said all that was left to say on the matter, and he hadn’t been lying when he said he didn’t expend effort on futile things. There were only so many traps he could think his way out of.
“But father will not be the reigning King when you marry,” Auguste continued. “I will.”
Laurent looked up.
“Which was exactly what I told him last night, a conclusion to our many conversations this past week, right around the time you snuck off with your lover.”
Laurent didn’t respond. He found that it was quite difficult to speak when his heart was pounding between his lungs.
“What with my first heir already on the way and Torgier and I already seeing eye to eye over our consultations, it was only slightly less disputatious than you would think.”
“Auguste,” Laurent said.
“It was good practice for when I will be negotiating over things far less precious than my brother,” Auguste said, rising from his armchair. “Now. I’ll need your wits at my side during my meeting today with Lord François. Shall I have it scheduled before your trip to the markets, or after?”