The Queen's Price

FIFTY-THREE

Watching Kieran ride up to the cottage gate, Butler created a ball of pale witchlight, figuring this wasn’t a conversation to have in the dark.

“Saetien isn’t coming tonight?” he asked when Kieran dismounted.

“She says not,” Kieran replied. “She spent the morning at the Sceltie school, helping out the instructors while Shelby had his lessons, and she worked with the foals in the afternoon.”

“And now she’s packing her trunks to go home?”

“No. She’s been reading Morghann’s journals, and she’s thinking hard about something, but she’s keeping it all to herself.” Kieran studied him. “Anything I should know?” He hesitated. “Anything her father should know?”

“I fulfilled my side of the bargain,” Butler replied.

“But she didn’t get an answer.”

“Not the one she wanted, no. But she hasn’t asked the right questions.” His turn to hesitate, because this was emotionally boggy ground. “Your mother might have some of the answers. Not the ones Saetien came here to find, but some answers.”

A flash of temper. “That’s private.”

“It is.”

Kieran looked away and swore softly. “Do you think it will do any good?”

“I don’t know. But I would prefer to leave the girl without answers than to see Lady Eileen heartsore because of this.”

“So would I, but that’s not up to us.”

Butler smiled. “When you’re dealing with a strong-willed witch, it never is.”

“Come with me,” Eileen said after the evening meal.

Saetien followed the woman to the library. She’d read all of Morghann’s journals—at least the ones that Kieran had provided. Since those had included a few of the years after Wilhelmina had left Maghre, she kept tripping over journal entries that included news about Jaenelle Angelline. Or Jaenelle and Daemon and how happy they were to be together. And how happy Morghann was to spend time with a woman who had been one of her closest friends since childhood.

Everyone was so happy to be around Jaenelle Angelline.

Except Wilhelmina Benedict.

Eileen looked at the journals carefully stacked at one end of the table. One finger drew patterns on the wood. Finally, she sighed and called in another stack of journals. “I don’t know if these will help you, but you’re welcome to read them—but you’re not welcome to discuss them with anyone but Butler.”

Saetien moved closer to the table. “Why? What are they?”

“Wilhelmina’s journals.”

She stared at Eileen. “Why would you have Wilhelmina Benedict’s journals?”

A smile that held a hint of sorrow. Maybe even shame. “I can trace my maternal bloodline back to her. She was an old woman close to the end of her days among the living when she told one of her granddaughters that she was Jaenelle Angelline’s sister, that they had been estranged for many years because she couldn’t accept the truth about what Jaenelle was and what she had done. She couldn’t love a monster, so she’d kept the truth of their connection a secret.

“In time, that granddaughter passed that secret on to her granddaughters—and it became a family secret passed down from one generation of girls to the next.

“My family lived in Tuathal or in towns near the capital. One day a group of friends invited me to come with them to a horse fair. Grand horses that came from the best bloodlines. And there were kindred horses as well, although ‘acquiring’ one of them was usually tricky since it wasn’t the humans who made the final decision. I knew I was descended from Wilhelmina, but I didn’t know where Wilhelmina had been before she’d arrived in Tuathal. No one remembered the name of that little village. Then I arrived in Maghre with my friends and had the strangest feeling that I had come home.”

Eileen smiled, but her eyes were bright with tears. “Imagine the shock of walking around this village, seeing the Sceltie school for the first time and driving past Angelline House, which is still what it’s called. Imagine the shock of rushing out of a shop and almost running into Daemon Sadi—and realizing who he was after the young Warlord he was with kept me from tumbling into the street.”

“Lord Kildare?” Saetien guessed.

“Yes. Kildare. I looked into his eyes and knew I would marry him or never marry. Lucky for me, he felt the same.”

“What did your family say?”

“Well, I was marrying a man who could trace his bloodline back to Morghann and Khardeen, so they couldn’t say he was unsuitable. One of my uncles—may the Darkness cherish him and keep him away from the rest of us—came to Maghre to dissuade me from marrying a man who understood so little about being aristo that he mucked out stalls along with his hired help. I wouldn’t yield, so my family insisted on a handfast, figuring I’d tire of country life before the year was done. Kildare’s family held a dinner the night before the ceremony—and Daemon Sadi was a guest. My uncle’s face turned the most peculiar shade of red and my parents didn’t say a word all evening, especially after the Prince indicated he would be at the handfast.” Eileen sighed, a contented sound. “Meeting Kildare and living in Maghre were the best things that could have happened to me.”

“Does my father know you have a connection to Wilhelmina?”

“He knew before I said anything, and the only thing he said when I told him was ‘Jaenelle would have liked you.’ ” Eileen looked at Saetien, then pressed a hand on the stack of journals. “I don’t know if these will help you, but this gives you an idea of who Wilhelmina was during the years she lived in Tuathal.”

“Have you ever seen Witch? Do you think you could . . . accept . . . her?”

“Accept her? I don’t know.”

“She’s back now. At the Keep. What do you think she’s like?”

Eileen gave Saetien a long look. “I think she’s as terrifying as she is grand. But then, the same can be said for your father, which is why I think they were well matched.”

Saetien waited until Eileen left the library before she sat at the table and opened the first journal. Would the journals tell her anything? Or was Butler right and she was looking at the wrong sister in order to find the answers?