woman's appearance. Ingrid's looks hadn't been aided by the weeping she must have done since the news of her betrothed's death. Still, he could scarcely summon a twinge of pity for her. She could only be crying for the lost opportunity, not Quinn. To Guerrand's knowledge, she and Quinn had not met in recent years, if ever. Ingrid looked up just then, across the vast hall, as if she felt his assessing eyes on her. Guerrand nodded briefly, a grim, stiff gesture, and looked away.
Despite the milling crowd, Cormac and Anton Berwick were conspicuously absent. No doubt they had retired to Cormac's study to smoke cigars or sip port, or whatever noblemen did when they felt 'uncomfortable.' That was the most passionate word Guerrand could come up with to describe Cormac's emotion regarding their brother's death. 'Inconvenienced' also came to mind, but nothing approaching grief.
That's not quite true, Guerrand had to correct himself. Several times in the past few days, he had caught Cormac's eyes on him, vaguely angry, yet not focused on the present, as if his thoughts were far away in time and space. Guerrand recalled the look his brother had not even known he witnessed: it said clearly, 'Why the useful one, and not you?'
Guerrand winced, but not because of Cormac's incredible cruelty. That did not surprise him. He flinched because he could see how the thought might occur to persons far more charitable than Cormac. He was, in his own estimation and in all senses of the phrase, less useful than his noble younger brother had been. His worst crime, if a malaise of the spirit could be called that, was that he had no idea what he could do to rectify that situation.
At that moment, Cormac DiThon was trying to find, in the haze provided by good port wine, a solution to a situation of his own. He'd been suffering from a burning ache, low in the belly, since the news of Quinn's death. The gentle sloshing of the port soothed his stomach in a way brandy could not, and its ability to narrow the senses dimmed the edges of the pain. Drink could not, however, make his problems disappear, no matter how many opportunities he gave it.
Damned inconvenient, Quinn dying before the wedding. It was a minor annoyance that his half brother had met an ignominious death at the hands of bandits, rather than in the blazing glory of battle more suited to a cavalier. That mattered little to Cormac, because it seemed to matter not at all to the copious mourners who had been trooping through his castle for days. Quinn had been well liked, that was obvious. It was the reason he'd been an easy sell when Berwick had come looking for a titled son-in-law.
Stonecliff had been within Cormac's grasp. The conversation he had just concluded with Anton Berwick had done nothing to bring it near again. Yet Cormac refused to let its return slip away so easily. He could not afford to buy the land back-if anything, his finances were worse than when he'd sold it to Berwick.
'Damn those bandits!' Cormac cursed aloud. No matter what he did, or how hard he worked, the fates seemed to conspire against him. How many times had the answer to his problems been within arm's reach, only to be pulled away at the last instant? When his father had arranged his marriage to Rietta, Cormac had believed he was getting a handsome woman of high blood whose name and demeanor would raise his own standing. Instead, he got a supercilious, stiff-necked shrew who was raising their daughter Honora in her own disdainful image and assailing their son Bram with stories of pompous Knights of Solamnia, but who seemed at the same time too much like Cormac's own wastrel of a brother, Guerrand.
Then again, when Rejik died and Cormac had at last become lord of Castle DiThon, he'd believed he actually had a chance to get ahead. He had hoped to pay off the gambling debts he'd run up in expectation of his inheritance. But he discovered soon enough that there was barely enough money to keep the castle running, and little more. Cormac's own creditors had forced him to sell off lands, among them Stonecliff.
Once again, the fates prevented him from getting what he wanted. Cormac slammed the port glass to the desk a little harder than he'd intended. The stem snapped from the pear-shaped bottom, splashing the dark red liquid onto his hand. Growling in irritation, he wiped his hand on the thigh of his breeches.
'You'll ruin the only suit that still fits you, Cormac, and you can't afford another, unless it's of that dreadful brocatelle the merchants are passing off as genuine brocade.'
Cormac looked up to see his wife Rietta strolling into the room. Her presence caused his mood to sour more than the wine spill had. 'Can't a man have some peace in his own castle?'
'Not during his brother's funeral.'
Through eyes just beginning to fog with port, Cormac considered his wife. In her late thirties, Rietta had that tight-lipped, smooth-skinned look of a woman who never smiled much for fear it would cause wrinkles. Her severity was emphasized by wearing her dark, thin hair in a tight chignon covered by a strong veil of lace netting. She was too thin for Cormac's taste, her bosom a sunken thing thankfully covered by the long gorget she wore around her neck. Rietta's silent, lithe grace brought to mind a cat, a black, sneaky creature that appeared only when she wanted something and left bad luck in her wake.
'You left me alone to deal with all those wailing old women from the village, not to mention Dame Berwick and her toothsome daughter.' Rietta shivered. 'If you ask me, Quinn escaped a fate worse than death with that one.'
Cormac thought he knew such a fate firsthand, even thought of remarking on the pot calling the kettle black, but Rietta never seemed to catch his irony, especially when it was at her expense. He was definitely not in a mood to joust with her. 'If you've come just to pull me back into that dank abyss with you, I've more important things to deal with now.'
'It's bad enough that scalawag sister of yours hasn't blessed us with her presence,' sniffed Rietta as if Cormac hadn't spoken. 'What will everyone think if the lord himself isn't there to greet the mourners?'
Cormac poured himself a new glass of port and tossed it down in one gulp. 'They'll think I've gone on with the business of running a vast estate. I made an appearance and accepted more condolences than I could stomach, anyway.' He gave her a sly look. 'However, they
Rietta was too smart to rise to the bait. 'I watched you leave with Berwick. What have you done with him?' She glanced about the room artlessly, though it was obvious the other man was gone.
Cormac sighed heavily. 'We finished our business, such as it was, and he left. I assumed he'd returned to the great hall.'
'You've not given up on getting back Stonecliff already, have you?'
'Through marriage, yes. I can see no other lawful option, since Quinn had the ill-timed bad luck to be slain.' Cormac fiddled pensively with a dry quill pen that lay on his desk. 'More's the shame that he induced in me a brilliant idea for using Stonecliff to recover the family fortunes. It would be a perfect place to establish a fortress from which we could extort a toll on the vessels that traverse the river, including Berwick's own ships from Hillfort.' Cormac sighed again and tossed back more port. 'But it's not to be.'
With a disapproving eye, Rietta watched his drinking. 'As usual, Cormac, you're not using your head.'
'I endeavor to, whenever possible.' Cormac's perpetual scowl at his wife deepened. 'Should I infer from your tone mat you have the answer that has eluded me?'
'As usual.' She strode to his desk and removed the nearly empty bottle of port to a distant shelf. 'And, as usual, it's right under your cherry-red nose.' He scowled again at her inference. 'Propose another union between the families.'
'Of course I thought of that, but you can't possibly mean Honora,' Cormac said. 'You have loftier ambitions for your daughter than to marry her into a merchant family.'
Rietta raised one thin, dark brow. 'Don't be absurd.'
'I know you look forward to the day, but you can't mean to offer up Kirah,' he said, tapping the desk with the quill. 'Even if she weren't too young, her marriage would mean that I'd
'Ingrid,' Rietta corrected. 'You're right. Bram is out of the question. He's going to become a Knight of the Rose, like my father, and his father before him, and-'
'Yes, I know, like all male Cuissets, back to Vinas Solamnus,' interrupted Cormac in an unflattering imitation of Rietta's own haughty voice. 'A bunch of pansy-assed, overdressed, magic-wielding charlatans.'
If Rietta had had any respect for Cormac, his words might have angered her. They didn't. 'You're such a peasant, Cormac. But that's an old argument I don't wish to pursue now.' She straightened her skirts needlessly
