Something was wrong, Robert realized as he woke in the barn under the brilliant slanting rays of the sun. The cow had not been milked. Or fed. And he had slept far too late. Not that he minded the extra sleep or opposed the task of milking. It was just-the barn had always been his father's domain, and the chores were always done before sunrise, especially during harvest.
Robert scrambled from his pallet, tugged on his clothes, and hurried toward the cabin. He swung open the log door, then stared aghast. A rind of cheese, a basket of eggs, and a heap of green onions crowded the narrow sideboard. At the kitchen table, a squadron of apples awaited execution at the hands of Robert's mother, who was annihilating slabs of salted bacon. Even though porridge was common breakfast fare. "Mother, what is this?" Robert eyed the growing mound of chopped meat.
"I am serving omelets," she said, then spun, despite the sharp knife in her hand, to check the hearth.
Omelets? Since when did his mother know how to make omelets? "Mother, no one expects a palace breakfast. Is father all right? The sun is past up, and the cow-"
"Your father can milk the cow later. I needed him to press the other apples for cider."
Cider? In midsummer?
She carried a thick skillet back over to the table, swept the massacred bacon into the pan, and then hurried over to the sideboard, still not relinquishing the knife. "I thought you should rest, but now that you are awake, can you please go outside and assist Her Royal Highness with the well?"
"She asked you to call her by her name," Robert said.
"Yes, um ...," his mother stammered, snatching the onions and carrying them over to the table. "I will try to remember that in her presence. Now please go help her. She wanted to wash up, so I sent her with some soap out to the well, but I'm afraid that handle might not-"
"Mother." He wanted to tell her that Aurelia did not expect to be treated like a princess.
But a male voice snarled at him. "Robert, attend to your guest."
He turned to see his father laden with a bucket. Mr. Vantauge stepped over the threshold and lowered the container with a thud. The stern expression on his face brooked no argument.
Baffled, Robert retreated out the door and around the cabin's side.
Where Aurelia, her figure bent over, face obscured, was washing her hair.
Water poured over her bare neck and down the long dark tresses, longer without their waves than he had realized. She lowered the bucket, then traced her fingers through the brown wet strands until a white lather gathered beneath her fingertips. A frontier sky, she was beautiful.
Desire flooded Robert's body.
Her soapy hands fumbled for the bucket, and he moved to pour the water over her unsuspecting head. She laughed.
Her laugh was even more beautiful than the rest of her.
The suds drained from her hair to the ground, and she twisted the dark clean tresses with her hands, ringing out a fraction of the water, then stood up, the long wet strands flying over her head, spraying the air, and dampening the back of her smock.
She arched her back.More than beautiful. Then she stretched into the sunlight. "It's so lovely here, Robert. No wonder your parents never wished to return to the palace."
Perhaps he should warn her. "Aurelia, I don't know what's wrong with them, but my parents seem-"
Her hand touched his arm. "Don't worry."
He knew that look, her you-worry-too-much look, often followed by disaster. "I just think you should be prepared," he said.
"Your mother has been working very hard on breakfast."
"I know, but she-"
"It will be wonderful, Robert," Aurelia said.
And perhaps she had some kind of insight, because the extravagant scent of cooked egg, melted cheese, green onions, and fried bacon came floating out the window, along with his name, her title, and an invitation to breakfast.
She hurried to accept, and Robert followed, gaining ground so that they stepped into the cabin at the same time. The steaming concoction on each of the plates at the wooden table would have put the royal chef to shame.
"It smells exquisite," Aurelia murmured.
"I'm afraid we only have apples." Mrs. Vantauge stood, pouring natural cider into each mug, then gestured to her own chair at the table's end. "I'm certain you're used to fresh strawberries."
Strawberries? On the trail?
"Everything looks spectacular." Aurelia glided into the offered seat.
Robert's mother gave a faint smile, then hurried to the now almost barren sideboard and returned holding a basket draped with a blue cloth. "I'm afraid the bread is cold. I'll be certain to bake fresh-"
"Mary," Mr. Vantauge growled from his own chair, "please sit down."
She glanced back toward the sideboard, but its surface was clear, and she lowered herself onto one of the benches along the table's length. Robert waited a moment to make certain she did not spring back up, then allowed himself a seat on the opposite bench.
Mr. Vantauge immediately began to eat, and Robert followed his cue, the omelet's warm, spongy texture tumbling down his throat. Amazing.
His mother lifted her fork but let it hover in the air. "Your Highness ..." She paused, then corrected herself-"Aurelia"-and turned to the young woman who appeared to be having as much trouble as Robert not inhaling the entire omelet in a matter of seconds. "Our son informed us of your expedition. Is it near completion?"
"Oh." Aurelia's fork stilled in mid-bite, then lowered. "We haven't seen the western coast or the Valshone Mountains or-"
"And do you intend to visit all those places?" Mrs. Vantauge's eyes moved to Robert.
His own focus turned to Aurelia.
Until this moment, she had never mentioned any goals beyond the desert. Which had seemed, at the outset, so distant.
"W-we ... I hope ... to see as much as I can," she stammered. He noted the switch from plural to singular. Was she doubting if he would come with her, now that they had reached his home?
"We're traveling to the Geordian next," he said firmly, for the benefit of everyone at the table.
Mrs. Vantauge, still not tasting the masterpiece in front of her, gave a shaky nod, then turned her attention once again to the princess. "And will you travel as yourself or as a commoner?"
"I've found that it's easier to travel as one of the people of Tyralt, rather than as someone above them." Aurelia retrieved a slice of bread, tore it in two, and held out half of it to Robert.
He accepted the half.
His mother's fork clanged against her plate.
But it was Mr. Vantauge who spoke, his voice as harsh as it had been all morning. "And what will your expedition be worth if you refuse to bring with it the authority of the crown?"
"A leader is not defined by a crown," Aurelia replied, rephrasing one of Robert's statements to her-a quote Robert himself had retrieved from his father.
Mr. Vantauge stood abruptly. Plates slid and cider splashed. Robert's mother rescued the pitcher, though a beech-wood bowl of apples rolled onto Aurelia's lap, then tumbled to the floor. His father paid no heed. Instead, he stormed from the cabin.
Robert rose, furious. But two hands from opposite corners captured his wrists.
"I need your help," his mother said, pointedly handing him the pitcher.
Aurelia's eyes focused on the still open doorway, a dangerous look on her face.
He started in front of her, but she tugged him back.
"Stay here." And with that, she strode after his father.
Chapter Thirteen.
LOVE OR DEATH.
"LET HER GO, ROBERT." HIS MOTHER CROSSED IN front of him and shut the door.
"Mother, you don't know-," he started to say. Aurelia might feign strength, but she was more than capable of being damaged.
"No, Robert, you're the one who doesn't know." His mother's blue eyes met his. "And it's time you did." She ducked her head, though her thin shoulders remained straight. "Perhaps too late, but there's nothing any of us can do about that now."
"About what?"
Mrs. Vantauge plucked the pitcher from his hand. "You realize this charade of hers can never last. The rumors have been up and down the Gate for months. Even here, your father and I heard about you traveling north. With her." She tilted the pitcher over the nearby cider bucket.
His stomach sloshed along with the pulpy gold liquid, the fear that had stalked him from Fort Jenkins confirmed. If the rumors were that rampant, sooner or later they were bound to reach the palace. "Does Father think the assassins will follow her across the Gate?"
"Your father isn't worried about her, Robert." His mother set the emptied pitcher onto the table. "He and I are worried about you."
"She's the one in danger, not me."
"You are in at least as much danger as she is." His mother eyed the fallen apple wedges and crouched down, rapidly beginning to pick up the fruit. "Robert, she is a princess."
"I know that, mother." He bent to help, retrieving the overturned bowl.
"But you don't seem to understand what it means." She thrust a bench to the side. "It's not something you can ignore. Or pretend doesn't exist. And you can't help her pretend either. Sooner or later, she's going to realize she can't run away from who she is. And she will go back." The blue eyes looked up at him. "Have you asked yourself where you will be then?"
He had, more times than his mother had any right to know. And he had come to one conclusion: it did not matter. Because he would not, and could not, do anything differently. He couldn't not be in love with Aurelia.
"I'm aware of who she is," he said softly. "She is a person who deserves to be treated like one."
His mother snatched the bowl from his hands and carried it to the opposite side of the table. "Your father used to believe that about the king."
Robert stood, his shoulders stiffening. She had no right to compare Aurelia to her father.
His mother lowered the bowl to the table, her head down, obscuring her face, then rested a hand on the back of her husband's chair. "Brian was raised for his position," she said. "As a son of the Vantauge family, there was never any question that he would serve the king. Your uncle, of course, inherited his father's place, but both boys were raised to believe it was a duty, and an honor, to support their ruler."
The stiffness drained from Robert's shoulders. He did very much want to understand his father's relationship with the king. "But Father changed his mind. Why?"
His mother's face paled. "Because of me."
The pull to know the truth drew Robert closer. "Tell me what happened, Mother. Why did we really leave the palace?"
She sank down into her husband's chair. "I wanted your father to tell you before you left, but he was so upset, and ... I wasn't strong enough to talk about it."
Strong enough? Was Robert asking too much? But if he had learned one thing from his failure at the palace, it was that he needed to understand the forces controlling his life. "Please tell me," he said, taking her hand.
She stared across the room at the blank wall beneath the loft. "I came to the palace when I was fifteen. My parents had passed away from a fever, and I moved to live with my grandfather, Colonel Lorance. You have no memories of him, do you?"
Robert shook his head. As long as he could recall, he and his father had been his mother's only family. "He was a soldier?"
"A lord by birth, but he served the former king in the cavalry and always preferred his military title. He taught your father how to ride."
Robert had known that his mother came from an aristocratic background and had married down, as Chris put it, but he had never known any real details.
"They became very close," she continued, "and that is how I met your father; Colonel Lorance introduced us. He thought Brian had potential and believed that, despite your father's upbringing, he could learn to make up his own mind."
Robert bristled at the idea that his father had ever needed to be taught to form his own opinions.
"Brian admired Colonel Lorance very much, but your father wanted, more than anything, to prove his own worth, and he was so, so proud of being named royal spy."
Of course he was. No one had managed to fill Mr. Vantauge's role at the palace since. Including his son. Robert slowly released his mother's hand and made his way over to the hearth.
"But the royal spy works for the king, Robert, not for himself."
Yes, well that was a lesson he had learned the hard way. Crouching down, he stirred the gray cinders with a metal prong.
"And the king ..." She stopped.
"Isn't always worth supporting." He said the treasonous words for her.
"You've learned that lesson," she whispered. "I was afraid you might."
His gaze turned of its own volition to the sword now hanging on the wall beside his parents' bed. "How did my father learn it?"
"The king was worried about a group of people who were gathering to protest poor working conditions. He wanted to know who was behind the meetings. Your father was assigned to find the ringleaders."
Again Robert stirred the cinders, watching them swirl. He knew the story could not end well.
"Colonel Lorance tried to convince your father that the people were doing nothing wrong. He showed Brian the drudgery of the children hired by bricklayers to pour clay. Your father agreed that the situation was bad, but he believed if the people behind the meetings talked directly to the king, they could make their points heard; and Brian didn't support their secrecy. He found out the names and gave them to His Majesty."
Her voice stopped. Robert looked up to see her lips moving with no sound coming forth.