Two Dark Reigns (Three Dark Crowns #3)(32)

“He is,” Billy agrees.

“He certainly is,” says Arsinoe.

“Isn’t that the sort of boy that you would like someday, Billy? A fine boy and a fine woman to raise him.”

Arsinoe snorts unintentionally, and Christine’s pretty smile falters.

“Perhaps you should go and dance as well, Miss Arsinoe. That is, if there is anyone here who is willing.”

“Perhaps I should knock you on your—”

“I’m willing.” Billy extricates himself from Christine’s grip and slips his arm around Arsinoe’s waist. “And as for a son, Christine, I think I would prefer a little girl. With a smart mouth. And who only ever wears trousers.”

They walk away together, and Arsinoe cannot resist looking back. Christine’s entire face has turned red with fury.

“Well,” Billy says nervously. “What are they doing?”

“She looks like she’s about to scream.” Arsinoe laughs. “Your mother is not going to be happy about this.”

“My mother will get used to it. She’ll have to be content with my agreeing to go to school in the fall.”

“To school?”

“Yes,” Billy says. “I should have told you sooner.”

“Tell me now.”

He nods and turns them away from the dance floor to find someplace quiet. It takes a while, on an estate the size of the governor’s, but finally the sounds of the party are muted, and they stop on a soft knoll of grass between the stables and the carriage house.

“This is nicer.” Arsinoe plops down onto Billy’s jacket after he spreads it out for them. “Some of those people were staring at me so hard, I thought their eyeballs were going to pop past their lids.”

“Here.” He hands her a glass of champagne he had taken off a tray as they passed. “It’s not ale, but it’s better than nothing.”

She stares intently at the bubbles.

“Do you think it could be poisoned?”

“It isn’t likely.”

“What a pity.”

“I didn’t think your gift worked here,” he says.

“I don’t think it does.” She downs the glass in one gulp. “Still a pity.”

He sits down beside her, and for a moment, they recline in the comfort of each other’s company. Alas, it does not last long.

“You understand why I have to go to school,” he says.

“Yes. Of course. It’s what’s done here, isn’t it? Go to school and then into business with your father.”

“Unless I’m disinherited,” Billy says, and laughs without much humor.

“Do you think that’s why he hasn’t come back?”

“No, actually. The fact that he hasn’t come back makes me think I have hope. If he’s staying away to punish me, then that’s a good sign. If he was going to disinherit me, he would just come home and draw up the papers.”

“Are you and your family really going to be all right?” Arsinoe asks. “About the money, I mean.”

“Yes. No. I don’t know.” He grins ruefully and sets his champagne in the grass. “It’ll be fine. I’ll figure it out somehow.”

“I wish I could give you all this,” she gestures to the estate. “But I haven’t got it. You went to the island for a queen and a crown and came back with two extra mouths to feed. For Goddess’s sake, I’m borrowing your clothes.”

“And you look much better in them than I do. Listen. Don’t worry. My father’s an arse, but he won’t stay gone so long that he ruins us. If there’s anything you can rely upon, it’s his sense of self-preservation.”

“I’ll admit, I sort of dread his return.”

“It’ll be all right. But in the meantime, I’ll go to school to please Mother.” He touches her chin. “I promised Joseph and Jules that I would take care of you, didn’t I?”

Arsinoe jerks loose.

“Jules should never have asked that. She was just so used to looking after me that she couldn’t leave without someone else to take over. You should have said no.”

“I would never have said no, Arsinoe. Jules didn’t really need to ask.”

“But maybe then she would have stayed.” Except now that she is here, Arsinoe knows that Jules could never have come to the mainland. The constraint and the ridiculous rules would have driven her mad. And what would have become of Camden, had Jules’s gift weakened? She would have become a wild thing, no longer a familiar, in a place where she would have been hunted, or put in a cage.

“Junior, could you ever have belonged on the island?”

He raises his brows.

“I don’t know. For you, maybe.”

“But you would have been waiting, to come home.”

“Is that what you’re doing? Waiting to go home?”

She shakes her head. There is no home for her on Fennbirn, either. “It’s just . . . very different here. There’s a lot to get used to.”

Billy wraps his arms around her and pulls her down beside him. She rests her head on his shoulder and throws her leg across his.

“I miss Fennbirn, too, you know,” he says. Then he pauses before asking in alarm: “Do you think the Sandrins have eaten my chicken?”