Now he was back to counting coppers and needing a new place to live. If the bitches had found him at the shop, it wouldn’t be long before they found his lodgings. Whether he opened the door or barricaded it against them, the result would be the same. He would be shunned by the other tenants, and the landlord would want him gone before a respectable place to live became smeared with a reputation for being a kind of brothel.

A quiet knock. Dillon’s pulse raced until he recognized the psychic scent of the man on the other side of the door. Filled with relief, he rushed across the room. His father was here, responding to the letter he’d sent. He was going home for Winsol.

He’d barely opened the door before his father slipped into the room.

“Cold out there,” his father said.

“Yes. Well, it’s Winsol.” Unease began to replace the relief when his father wouldn’t look him in the eyes. “Let me take your coat.”

“No, no. I won’t be long.”

“Of course. I’m all packed.”

His father looked at the trunk and the box of gifts. “Ah.”

“Sir?”

“I’m sorry, Dillon, but we can’t have you staying with us over Winsol.”

The room spun once. “What?”

“Some of our social engagements are with families of quality. Those are important connections for your brothers.”

“All right.” Dillon swallowed bitterness. “I don’t have to attend any parties or—”

“Just you being in the house might give some people the wrong idea.” His father’s voice took on a wheedling tone. “You understand.”

“But it’s Winsol.” It wasn’t about going to parties. It was about taking quiet walks and being with family. “If I can’t come home, where am I supposed to go?”

His father smiled sadly. “If it was my decision . . .”

Except you haven’t made a decision in a lot of years, have you?

“We have to think of your brothers,” his father added. “We have to protect their reputations.”

Dillon felt something break inside him. Felt some part of himself die—and wanted to inflict an equal amount of pain.

“Like father, like son,” he said quietly.

His father looked puzzled—and nervous. “I don’t—”

“I can count, Father. Early baby?” Dillon shook his head. “I don’t think so. I think my being born seven months after you married Mother proved to everyone that you were doing more than cuddling before the marriage contract was signed.”

His father paled.

“While it might have proved sufficient vigor to sire offspring, it also showed a lamentable lack of restraint.” Dillon smiled. “How much did your father pay her father to get that marriage contract signed so that your actions wouldn’t smear your brothers’ reputations?”

“Now see here!”

Bluster without power. Why hadn’t he realized that until now?

“If a whisper were to start in certain circles that your moral weakness was a flaw you had passed on to your sons—all your sons—what do you think would happen to those promising invitations?”

“You wouldn’t!” His father stared at him. “You would ruin your brothers?”

“If you had stood up for me the way your father stood up for you, would we be having this discussion?”

His father sputtered. Dillon smiled and waited.

“You’re no son of mine.”

He’d expected that verbal thrust and blamed the sentiments of the season for the words hurting so much. “In that case, sir, let’s discuss what your sons’ reputations are worth to you.”

 

* * *

 

* * *

Dillon counted the gold marks. One thousand in the first envelope. That was the one his father had brought as “compensation” for his not being allowed to come home. The three thousand gold marks in the other envelope had arrived an hour ago. Which of his uncles had been tapped for the loan? Didn’t matter. His uncles had sons, too, and four thousand marks wasn’t a high price to pay to keep the reputations of all the males in the family from getting dirty. A scandal from a generation back shouldn’t have caused that much worry, so maybe his brothers and cousins weren’t quite as pristine as his father wanted him to believe.

He’d find a quiet village and use a different name. He could be a young widower whose cherished wife had died after a swift illness that the Healer was unable to identify in time. He could take those quiet walks and avoid people. He could purchase a stack of books and spend his evenings reading. He could smile sadly when invited to participate in festivities. He could do that.

And no one would wonder why he wore loneliness like a heavy cloak.

 

* * *

 

* * *

Surreal stood beside Daemon as he listened to another Province Queen struggle to find things to say in order to keep his attention a little while longer. He gave no indication that he knew why these women were struggling or why women whom he’d been on good terms with a year ago now looked like they wished to do nothing but rub themselves against him.

She could have told them to be careful of such wishes.

Since the Province Queen had to deal with Daemon in his role as the Warlord Prince of Dhemlan, she would be cautious. She would be wary. And she would wonder if the Prince was meting out some subtle form of punishment.

Lately, Surreal wondered the same thing.

Despite his insistence that the sexual heat was leashed, it continued to smother her, made her helpless and desperately needy—and resentful. An hour ago, he’d humiliated her by arousing her so fiercely that she’d come when he’d done nothing more than brush his fingertips across her palm. No matter how hard she’d tried to hide her response, she was sure everyone in the room had recognized what had happened. Some of the women might have thought it was terribly romantic to be so consumed by a lover, but it wasn’t romantic. Not anymore. Now it was just terrible. And the cruelest part was the baffled look he gave her, as if he didn’t know what he’d done.

She hadn’t been paying attention to the words, but she heard the sharpness in Daemon’s reply and knew the Queen’s unwitting—and, most likely, unwilling—sexual interest had honed his temper.

“Let’s dance,” she said abruptly, slipping her arm through his. “If you’ll excuse us, Lady?”

“Of course.” The Province Queen looked relieved, as if she’d been pulled away from a steep cliff that had been crumbling beneath her.