Carling and Beacher followed him, Carling fretting, Beacher staring in shock at the king.
They both went into deep bows, with Carling adding, “Your Majesty.”
“Rise,” Tor ordered.
They did and Carling instantly looked to Satrine.
“I’m fine, Carling,” she said gently.
He relaxed.
“Carling, Satrine’s houseman, and Beacher, one of her grooms,” Loren introduced. “That one”—his lip curled as he stared at the man who Marlow had forced to his knees—“I don’t know.”
The man moved his wide-open mouth, but not his stunned eyes from Tor, as he mumbled, “Buttersnatch, my king.”
“An informant of her father’s, milord,” Beacher added.
At this detail, spots formed before his eyes, he waited until they dissipated, then, very slowly, he turned to the love of his life.
“Okay, I see you’re mad,” she said swiftly.
“Mad?”
“Angry.”
“I know what mad means in this instance, darling. Though the word does not do justice to what I’m feeling right now. However, the other definition of it is what you are for being in the presence of one of your father’s delinquents.”
She kept speaking swiftly. “Right, we had a plan—”
“Who is ‘we’ in this scenario?” he demanded.
“I’m omitting names to protect the innocent,” she returned.
“Like the two innocents in this room with us who are on your staff? Both, I’m relatively certain, men so devoted to you, they’d throw themselves in front of runaway carriages in order to save you?” he inquired.
“I would do that, Your Majesty, with pride,” Carling announced, addressing Tor, his back ramrod straight. “She’s the finest lady in the realm, outside her mother. Er…present company excluded, my other Majesty,” he finished with his eyes on Cora.
Loren wasn’t sure, but he thought he heard Farah actually snort with amusement.
True was looking at his boots but not hiding his smile.
Lahn and Tor were grinning widely.
Cora and Circe appeared about ready to collapse in laughter.
Loren didn’t find anything funny.
He crossed his arms and invited his bride, “Let’s hear this plan, my dearest love. Me and the rulers of three great realms are agog with interest.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“Have I shared yet I’m not a fan of sarcasm?” she asked.
“Not yet,” he answered.
“I’m not a fan of sarcasm.”
Right then.
Right.
He was done.
“Are you out of your mind?” he roared.
“Honey—”
“In an alley in the fucking Quarter with the likes of that?” He pointed a finger at Buttersnatch.
“He’s not ‘that,’ he’s a man, Lore.”
Loren turned to Marlow. “Did you search him?”
Marlow reached behind his back and came around, tossing a straight razor onto the floor a few feet in front of Satrine.
“Oh dear,” she mumbled, staring down at it.
Loren decided it was time she discovered what he’d been learning about Winnow Dupont.
“She’s ordered kills on all of us. By all of us I mean you, me, my father and your mother,” he informed her.
Eyes huge, she looked from the razor to him.
“And you’re attempting to shirk your guard and meet in an alley with someone who undoubtedly would not mind collecting one of those bounties,” he stated.
“I didn’t know about the bounty part,” she said.
He scowled at her.
Then he tipped his head back and scowled at the ceiling.
“How much do you feel like continuing breathing after all this is done?” Marlow asked.
Loren turned to his friend to see he was addressing Buttersnatch.
“A lot, milord,” Buttersnatch answered the floor.
“How does she get word out, all the way from Lincstone?” Marlow demanded.
Buttersnatch kept his knees but twisted to look up at Marlow.
“I usually—”
“If you think you’re getting paid, you piece of shite, think again. You can talk in front of your king, or you can talk somewhere else. That being where I take you and you’ll tell me what I want to know just so I’ll finish it, put you out of your misery and make you stop breathing,” Marlow promised.
Buttersnatch swallowed.
“Talk,” Marlow whispered ominously.
“It ain’t ’er,” Buttersnatch said.
“Explain,” Marlow ordered.
“The madam. It ain’t ’er. ’E wants it thought it’s ’er. But she’s scared as piss.” He turned to Cora and the queens. “Sorry, miladies.” Back to Marlow. “’E’s scared the knickers off ’er, ’e ’as. She don’t want no more trouble from ’im.” He then jerked his head to Loren.
“And so these kill orders came from…?” Marlow demanded.
“From ’is lordship. Derryman.”
A charge shot through the room, this coming from Satrine.
“My father ordered my mother killed?” she asked.
Buttersnatch turned to her and nodded. “And you. And your lord. And ’is da.”
“Darling,” Loren said quietly as Satrine, unsurprisingly appearing struck, stared at the man on his knees.
“He ordered my mother and me killed,” she pressed.
“Yes, milady,” Buttersnatch confirmed.
“He brought us here, used and imprisoned us, we had to learn to fend for ourselves,” she stated.
“Tor,” Loren heard Cora whisper.
“I know, my love. Later,” Tor whispered back.
“And now he wants us dead, taking with us the two men who made us safe here. Made us a family,” Satrine finished.
Buttersnatch watched her closely, then nodded.
She turned to Loren. “Can you take me home, honey?”