Prince of Ravens

Norwood did not bother to reply. He strode out the front door, with his guard a step behind him; Jack watched the old noble climb up into his waiting coach in the street outside before Edelmon closed the door behind him.

Jack muttered a vile oath under his breath and gave the study door a good kick. “This is a catastrophe,” he snarled.

Edelmon cleared his throat by the front door. “To what address shall I forward your things, sir?” he asked.

“Nowhere!” Jack shouted, waving his arms. “I have until the end of the tenday, and I’ll be damned if I vacate the premises an hour before I must.”

“I can make inquiries with various property owners and reliable brokers, if you like,” the valet said. “Or, if you prefer, I can obtain sailing schedules and book your passage. Travel broadens the mind, or so it is said.”

Enough was enough. “Is my breakfast ready yet?” Jack demanded.

“I believe the cook has just set it out in the dining room, sir.”

“Then that is all, Edelmon.” Jack stormed off to the dining room, where he found his customary breakfast awaiting him, and threw himself into his seat. Somehow he had lost his appetite, and he glared at the plate of eggs and ham in front of him for a long moment before taking a piece of toast and buttering it angrily. His prospects were not all that poor, really; he still had several thousand crowns of Norwood’s reward to his name, and of course turning in the Sarkonagael could easily double his fortune. Giving up Maldridge would not hurt too badly, although there was no denying that he had become rather fond of the place and enjoyed the lifestyle of a gentleman of leisure. A couple of thousand crowns would buy him a fine house in a good neighborhood, along with a servant or two, although of course it would not be so grand as the manor he now inhabited. No, the most galling development was clearly Norwood’s severance of any possible continuation of his association with Seila. Setting aside his deeper designs on the Norwood fortune, he liked Seila and wasn’t ready to give her up without a fight.

He gave a cursory glance to the correspondence waiting for his attention, wondering if he should even bother to accept any more invitations. How long would it take for the well-heeled folk of Raven’s Bluff to drop him once word got around that he was no longer welcome at Norwood Manor? Or would Marden Norwood simply denounce him as a fraud outright, in which case not only would the nobility have nothing to do with him but he might actually find himself the object of the civic authorities’ attention? Was that what Norwood meant by a world of troubles, or was the old lord willing to employ sterner measures to get his point across?

“I might have to take up a life abroad whether I want to or not,” Jack sighed.

He spent the next hour pushing his breakfast around on his plate and trying to distract himself with the morning’s handbills, to no avail. So it was that he found himself slumped in his chair, staring straight ahead with his head in his hand, when Edelmon knocked and entered the room.

“Oh, what now?” Jack said.

“A young lady is here to see you, Master Jack,” the valet replied.

Jack sat up sharply. “Is she armed?” Myrkyssa Jelan was almost certainly out of Sarbreen by now, and although he was reasonably sure that she would respect the unspoken truce by which he’d left her with the means to make her escape, there was always the chance that she entertained a different view of the business in the Temple of the Soulforger. He’d beat her to the prize fair and square, but perhaps she was a sore loser. An angry Myrkyssa Jelan was about the last thing he cared to see on his doorstep at the moment.

“Ah, no. I should have been more specific. Lady Seila Norwood is at the door.”

“I was wrong,” Jack muttered. “That is the last person I wanted to see now. She is doubtless here to tell me exactly what she thinks of me before storming off, never to be seen again.”

“Shall I tell her that you are-”

“No, damn it.” the rogue answered. Seila was a more generous soul than her father; she might see things differently than he did. And even if she didn’t, at the very least Jack wanted to make sure she heard his side of the story, too. “I might as well have done with this.”

He dropped his napkin on the table and marched out to the foyer to meet his fate, steeling himself for the worst. Seila waited for him there, pacing in a small circle exactly where her father had stood an hour before. She looked splendid in a burgundy dress; when he entered the room, she simply looked up and met his gaze for a long moment before saying softly, “Oh, Jack. What a mess you’ve made of things. Why in the world would you make up a noble title? In some lands you’d be executed for that sort of chicanery.”

Jack briefly considered bluffing his way through the conversation by insisting on the veracity of his claim, but reluctantly discarded the ploy. He might be able to keep Seila in doubt for a time, but sooner or later she would have to decide whether she believed him or her own father. Worse yet, if he tried to carry on the claim and failed to win her over with his a show of earnestness, she would be through with him. No, it was better to put the best face on the matter that he could, and hope that her affection for him was strong enough for her to set aside his misbehavior.

“I am sorry,” he said at last. “I never meant for the whole thing to go so far. It seemed like a harmless enough game when we were both prisoners of the drow, and when we reached the safety of your father’s manor, I suppose I just didn’t know how to set the story straight.”

Seila folded her arms and fixed a stern gaze on him. “All you had to do was tell the truth. Was it that difficult, Jack? And is that even your name?”

“Yes, Jack is my name; Jack Ravenwild.” He hung his head in a show of shame, thinking quickly as he assembled his play. “Seila, I have never met anyone like you,” he began with a note of uncertainty. “Men of my station do not associate with ladies of yours. I was afraid that once the truth was known, I would be shown the door, and I might never see you again.”

“Do you think I am so ungrateful that I would allow my father to treat you like a servant when I owe you my life? Is that really what you think of me, Jack?”

“It isn’t your gratitude that I doubted, Seila. Tell me truly: If I had admitted my common birth, would we have been allowed to spend so much time together in the last couple of tendays?” Seila did not answer immediately; Jack pressed his point. “You told me the day of the party that your father intends for you to marry well. How long would he have tolerated the presence of a … distraction … like me?”

Seila sighed and looked away. “Not for long,” she admitted. “But if my hand is my father’s to give away, then my heart is my own, and I am not quite finished with you, Jack Ravenwild.”

Jack’s heart gave a small skip, and he smiled. “I am pleased to hear you say so, but I’m afraid your father’s instructions to me were very clear on that point.”

“Well, he might not have the final say in the matter.” Seila turned to Jack, then took two brisk steps and kissed him very soundly. Jack found his arms circling her slender waist as he drank deeply of her perfect lips until she gently reached up and pushed him back to arm’s length. “For now, do as my father says,” she said. “I will see what I can do to bring him around. We can still correspond with care, and we may find occasion to see each other. In fact, I hope I can persuade you to join me at the opera tomorrow night.”

“The opera?” Jack asked.

“Tomorrow night, a new production opens at the Rundelstone Opera House; the Ravenaar Opera is playing The Fall of Myth Drannor,” Seila explained. “Everybody who is anybody will attend the opening, of course. My family has a box with a good vantage; you’ll see half the nobles of Raven’s Bluff in one sitting.”

“Ah, you hope that I will spot Fetterfist for you.”

“It’s the only thing I can think of that might win you some small credit with my father at the moment.”

Jack smiled. “And I thought you intended to defy your father simply for the pleasure of my company.”

“Well, I think that with some care my father won’t have any idea that I am defying him. He has other business tomorrow and won’t be in attendance, but he will not be surprised if I go in the company of a friend or two. The box is private enough that no one else should notice exactly who is with me.”

“I have ways of not being seen when it suits me,” Jack replied. “Perhaps I could go in the guise of one of your many suitors-say, that Skyhawk fellow?”

Seila laughed and shook her head. “For Leira’s sake, no! He is very likely to be there, and might notice himself sitting with me. Some other guise, if you please.”

“Very well, I should be delighted to attend the opera.” Perhaps they’d spot the slaver, and perhaps not, but it