Hunters

VIII. Obligations

VIII. Obligations 

Nearly a month had passed.

Lecia stabbed a ripe strawberry from her plate and placed it on her tongue. It burst as she bit into it, sweet and wholly strawberry. As she finished the fruit, her fork found a place beside her dish and she frowned.

Light leaked in through the drawn curtains, daytime waking outside the palace. Though her back was to them, she could feel morning creeping up her neck from the windows, summer coming with it. Lecia hated the summer; it was far too hot, especially in the fashions of society.

Vaughan’s lithe footsteps developed from the door, and Lecia felt her heart leap a beat. He’d been off on business for the last week, and although the ability to sprawl across the bed and be free from the constraints of top sheets was refreshing, the loneliness was stifling. Until she’d heard him return, she hadn’t quite realized how fondly she thought of him; they were friends now, their conversations challenging and engaging. As a party companion, she’d never had a better one. Lisette had always been too awestruck by the luxuries that were out of her reach, and too enamored by the godliness of peers who, Lecia found, were lacking divinity. However, Vaughan was apt to whisper grievances in his wife’s ears, making her laugh, and he was—though Lecia was loath to admit it—a fine dancing partner.

“My lovely Duchess,” he said haughtily as she came into view. His tone was mocking, she could hear, but when she turned and saw how brilliantly he smiled at her, the enthusiasm was genuine. “What’s this?” he pointed to the furrow in her brow, close enough to touch her face; she hadn’t had the time to smile, his legs were too damn long.

“I don’t much care for strawberries,” she admitted with a laugh, swiping his hands away. Truthfully, she didn’t; Lecia didn’t like the taste of overly sweet things and much preferred the tartness of under ripe fruit and sour citrus.

“Good,” Vaughan said. “I’m allergic—not deathly so, but enough to get uncomfortable.”

He pulled open the drapes, Lecia squinting as she watched on. She realized that she had never seen him eat a strawberry, but also that she’d never paid much attention to his eating habits at all.

“And here I thought you were invincible,” Lecia gave a disappointed sigh. Vaughan laughed and sat across from his wife at the table. She grinned, taking a sip of water from her glass. “You know,” she said after she’d swallowed, “you never told me about your name.” He nodded and grabbed a grape from the breakfast spread between them.

“I do recall that I changed the topic quite cleverly,” he answered. “But I suppose it’s not all that arduous an explanation.”

Lecia pursed her lips, daring him to try avoiding the subject again. She’d let it go before, not really caring about it overmuch, but also because they hadn’t—she thought—been good enough friends to necessitate a response. Now, however, if the past few minutes were any indication, she was deserving of clarification.

“My mother named me Fychan Eachann Derfeal, Cantington obviously my father’s surname.” He was honest, though there was sorrow in his voice. “My mother was Welsh; she was a servant to my grandparents. When my father came home from university, they fell in love and married in a very unceremonious way. It was all very secret for a time; my father was very cowardly when it came to confronting his own father about the matter. However, when my mother realized that she was pregnant, there was a rush on the honesty bit. Grandfather found out and my understanding is that he threatened to have my mother killed if she didn’t return home with me.

 “Tad, in his greatest display of strength, refused to disown me or invalidate his marriage to my mother. I can only imagine the extent of the gossip on the whole scandal. So, I was born and raised in Wales on my daid’s farm. Martis isn’t far from Gloucester, if you didn’t know, but to the west of the river there’s a small place called Itton where my mam grew up. Little wonder how she made her way to Martis…. The closeness made it easy to travel between the two for sixteen years; I didn’t start the back and forth until she died, and even then it was only for a few months on and off.” Vaughan cleared his throat after eating another grape. “Daid and nain passed the year after we moved into the palace. I haven’t really spoken Welsh since; I haven’t had a need for it. I’ve made sure to keep up the accent. Just the right amount of rebellion, you know.”