Page 34 of The Favourite

She clutched her book. “I paid some visits,” she said hollowly. At his querying look, she added, “To Celestia and to my sister’s servant, Ayleth, and … and to my sister’s grave.”

“Very dutiful,” he responded. “How did you find them? Well, I trust.”

“Ayleth is still plunged in deepest mourning,” Jane said quietly. “She barely leaves her room, and I could scarce draw above ten words from her, though I tried.”

“And the child?”

She did not answer for a few moments. “She—she looked small and terribly vulnerable to me,” she confided in a rush, and he saw some color mount her cheeks.

“Is that not customary for the young? I understand kittens cannot even open their eyes for over a sennight after they are born.” She stared at him. “I forget who told me that,” he said with a wave of his hand, though that was a lie. He knew full well who had told him. It was funny how much Henri had been on his mind all day.

Jane lowered her gaze and made a great show of opening her book. “I suppose,” she said after a moment staring at the title page, “that it’s just the fact … well, she will be depending on us to protect her.”

“Again, quite customary, as I understand it.” She looked up quickly at that. “Children usually look to their parents for such things, do they not?”

Jane swallowed audibly. “Do you really not find such a thing daunting at all?” she asked in a hushed voice.

“What thing? Babies?”

“Parenthood,” she corrected him firmly.

He tipped his head to consider. “I think it is just that you take your duties very seriously, Jane, whereas I choose to take mine lightly.”

Instead of replying, she turned her face aside and stared at the fireplace. “Perhaps so,” she whispered.

He should let it drop. Clearly, something was troubling her, but that did not mean there was an obligation on him to pry for its source. “Something weighs heavy on your mind?” he heard himself say.

“I am troubled,” she admitted. He lifted his brows but waited for her to continue instead of dismissing her fears. “My uncle, he is a consummate schemer,” she continued haltingly. “That is why I agreed to the Queen’s proposal. I do not want my niece to be used as a means to further his own ends.”

“Your daughter, you mean,” he interrupted. The gods knew why, but it was galling that she believed his offer of marriage originated with the Queen. She would never know how he had pulled the strings, but even so.

“Yes, that was what I meant,” she said flushing. “My daughter.” Even the way she said it was awkward and unconvincing.

Alisander gazed at her. “Why do you struggle so with this?” he asked curiously. “You simply need to state something with confidence and then it is simply so. It is not hard.”

Jane stiffened. “Merely saying something out loud, does not make it so.”

“It is the first step in doing so,” he shrugged. “At least, I have always found it to be.”

Jane regarded him a moment indignantly. “When?” she asked suddenly. “When have you ever found that to be the case? Can you cite me, even one example, from your own life?”

Alisander considered a moment. “An example? Let me see … Ah yes, after my brother’s execution,” he replied, snapping his fingers.

Jane gasped. “What?” she asked faintly.

“King Wilhelm asked me if I bore him any grudge for the execution of my family in front of me and the razing of our ancestral home to the ground. I answered him promptly, “Of course not, Your Majesty. As a loyal subject, I know it was your perfect right.”

“King Wilhelm of the Western Isles executed your family in front of you?”

“Oh yes,” he agreed evenly. “Or rather, he invested one Sir Reginald Hervey with the authority to do so. Sir Reginald was the King’s highest representative in our region at the time. I really don’t know why you Karadokians persist in calling it ‘The Western Isles’though. Its true name is Lascony.” He pulled a face. “Actually, I might have a small suspicion why.”

“Why?” Jane faltered.

“Well, personally, I think it is because none of you wish to acknowledge it is an independent nation of its own ruling. Instead, you persist in some ancient myth that it was once some outlying part of Karadok—”

“I meant why was your family executed?” she interrupted him, pointedly.

“I just told you, Jane.” When she continued to gaze at him in bewilderment, he added, “My older brother, Henri, went against the authorities. He committed an act of treason by withholding our estate’s tribute that year. There had been a drought, and there were various other contributing factors locally, that I will not bore you with. He thought his duty lay, not in paying the King’s taxation, but in protecting the interests of our land and our dependents. Two of my cousins were also implicated in the insurrection, and an uncle on my mother’s side.”