The Prince of Secrets by A. J. Lancaster

Author:A. J. Lancaster [Lancaster, A. J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780473467647
Publisher: Camberion Press
Published: 2019-01-20T16:00:00+00:00

A quarter of an hour later, just as Wyn had decided which field to suggest to Hetta for a drainage experiment, Marius appeared. His hair now lay mostly flat, though one curl had escaped his ministrations and bounced untidily next to his right ear. He wore a dark grey morning suit with a salmon pink tie and carried a hat, which told Wyn that he’d at least half-committed to carrying out Wyn’s errand.

Their eyes met. Marius came in and shut the door with a snap.

“I’m angry with you,” he said without preamble.

“Good,” Wyn said. This brought Marius up short, and he halted a few feet from the desk where Wyn was seated.

“What do you mean ‘good’?” he demanded. Like Hetta, the grey of his irises tended to lighten when he was agitated. Right now they were as pale as frost.

Wyn stood with a slight wince. “It means you care.”

“Of course I care! She’s my sister!”

“I meant that you still care about me,” Wyn clarified. “I comfort myself that our friendship cannot be irreparably broken, if I still have the power to hurt you so.”

Marius glared at him, fists clenched. “Don’t try to make me feel guilty.”

Wyn allowed the point with a nod. “You shouldn’t feel guilty in your treatment of me. I have deserved it wholly. You trusted me with your own secrets while I hoarded mine. You welcomed me into your family and I have repaid you by endangering them. And now I court your sister in secret, as if I am ashamed of her. I have caused a great deal of trouble.”

“What am I supposed to do with that? Punch you in the face?”

“You may, if it will make you feel better,” Wyn said with a slight smile.

Marius’s eyes flashed. “What will you do if I tell you to stay away from her?”

“Probably not stay away from her,” Wyn admitted. “Are you sure you don’t wish to punch me?”

“Don’t tempt me,” Marius said darkly.

“I love her,” Wyn said, a soft relief coming from finally being able to say the words aloud, even if they were not to the person he most wanted to say them to. “I know you have good reason to doubt that sentiment, but please trust me when I say that there is nothing you can do or say that would make me more determined to do right by her. I am already determined to the utter limit of my capacity.”

Marius’s lip had curled at the word ‘love’. “Love is for fools, Wyn.” His shoulders slumped.

The hairs on the back of Wyn’s neck rose—it was eerily close to the old fae saying: Love is for fools and mortals.

But this was not about him. Wyn dared to reach out and rest a hand briefly on Marius’s shoulder. “Don’t let John’s shadow leave a permanent mark,” he murmured. John Tidwell had been Marius’s recent lover. It had ended badly.

Marius shook him off. “That has nothing to do with this!”

“And you are fortunate you aren’t bound to speak no falsehood.

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