Valentine watched him go, relished doing so for he was quite the specimen, and she did it replying, “I enjoy being at your service.”
He stopped at the door to the room and looked back at her, now fully smiling.
“You enjoy being paid,” he retorted, a teasing note to his voice.
“That too,” she agreed.
He shook his head, lifted a hand and bid, “Farewell.”
Valentine said nothing. She simply stood where Frey left her and watched the door, pleased that things were progressing so well and so swiftly with Franka and Noc, even without her meddling.
But now she had an actual invitation to meddle, and Valentine looked forward to doing just that.
Thinking of meddling, she turned her attention from the door to her crystal that lay on its bed of emerald velvet.
She moved to it, drifting her fingertips across the orb, watching the smoke swirl inside, her mind taken not only from Franka and Noc but also what was in that very house upstairs waiting for her attention, and Valentine directed her thoughts to what was in the sphere.
She again wafted the tips of her fingers across the crystal and watched the smoke change direction and a new vision formed.
She should not dally. If left to their own devices, it would never happen simply due to location and circumstances. She further couldn’t court either of them finding another.
She’d done her research. She’d been thorough. She knew she’d made the right decision. There was nothing further to do.
Except find the perfect time.
And then intervene.
In fact, with the plans she had for Franka, it might be agreeable that they work together to see Valentine’s other scheme to fruition.
An excellent idea.
She snapped her fingers and the wisps in the crystal disappeared.
She then looked at the clock on the mantel.
Frey had arrived a quarter of an hour after she’d given her instructions. He had not stayed long. If she wished to make her test a more onerous one, she’d wait another half hour, or longer.
But thinking what awaited her, Valentine found uncharacteristically that she didn’t wish to wait even a minute longer.
No.
She was quite keen to see the results of how her instructions had been carried out.
Thus, it was time to see to things.
And this Valentine walked leisurely to the door to make her way to what awaited her in her bedchamber in order to do.
* * * * *
Franka
“There you are.”
I turned at my brother’s voice and saw him sauntering into the room.
I turned back to the window where I was staring out at the snow-covered back garden of the palace, concocting elaborate schemes of packing up Josette and myself, finding Irene and making a clandestine escape.
Alas, I feared if I attempted any of the many maneuvers I’d dreamed up in the hours that had elapsed after dinner, the queen herself would order me found. She’d likely send her son-in-law after me and we’d be on the run for, my guess, a day and a half before we were dragged back.
I sighed at the window.
“It’s very late, Franka, and I wish to join my wife in bed,” my brother said, and I could hear now he was close. “But I didn’t want to do so without making certain you were over your pique from earlier.”
That made me cut my gaze to him and arch a brow. “My pique?”
He grinned. “Surely even you,” his eyes slid to the window and back to me, “after hours of brooding can’t still think a voyage across the emerald waters is a good idea.”
I looked back to the window, suggesting, “Perhaps we can cease discussing this topic.”
“Perhaps that’s wise,” he murmured.
He said nothing more.
I continued giving him the cold shoulder, doing so getting colder and colder myself, standing at the window.
“Franka.” I heard from closer. “It was only worry that made me react that way at dinner.”
This was true.
It was also irritating in the extreme mostly because it was true.
“It’s been my whole life you looked after me,” he went on, his voice quieting. “Now, it’s my turn.”
Even more irritating because he was so bloody endearing.
And he always had been.
“I’ve left it too late, but at least now I have the chance,” he finished, and I finally turned back his way.
“I don’t need looking after, Kristian.”
“I know, Franka. But I still desire that privilege.”
I shifted so I was fully facing him. “Brother, the beauty of what’s happened is that now we can both live our lives without bothering with such nonsense.”
His face grew hard in a way that most assuredly did not suit him.
And yet it very much did.
At least it suited the new Kristian.
“As your brother, it’s always been my job to look after you, it’ll always be my job and it’s not nonsense. Until now, I’ve failed. From now I will not. It’s my time and I’m taking it.”
I studied him but was careful not to show how intently I was doing so in order not to make him uncomfortable.
I did this for some time before I noted gently, “You’re much changed.”
“As are you,” he replied.
I nodded my acceptance of that.
“Do you…” I subtly cleared my throat and started again, “I went to see them in jail.”
His head moved in an abrupt and uncomfortable manner. “Cousin Frey informed me of this.”
I lifted my chin and carried on, “I found before doing that I was not quite at peace with how things had changed.”