Page 35 of The Rake and the Cake

“Oh? And in what way am I so deficient?”

“You need someone to care for. Because you won’t care for yourself enough to do all the things I know you’re capable of in life; you’ve long since given up on that. Oh, it’s my fault—and your mother’s, I know. We didn’t prepare you for anything useful, but we rather enjoyed growing up that way. You’re different, like Aunt Florinda.”

“The mad hedge witch who lives alone at the edge of the Emberleigh forest in spite of her royal blood and fortune?” Not exactly the comparison Brook would hope for.

“Yes,” he replied easily. “Except she’s not mad, no more than you or I. She just wanted to do something more important to her than governing or stewarding or all the other things we nobles are useful for. And there aren’t many, I’ll tell you.”

Brook snorted out a laugh. The sensation relaxed her, so her shoulders slumped and she slid further down in the chair.

Papa went on, “I watched you come into your magic with no guidance, no teacher. I watched you squander your curiosity on fling after fling and shiny thing after pretty object.”

“As in elves, or actual objects?”

“Yes,” Papa said. “And I admit, I hoped that in your search for someone to pretend to marry you, you might come across someone who’d actually inspire you to find your own important thing. Even if you didn’t marry them, you’d know who you wanted to be for the next few decades. You’d stop floating aimlessly.”

“I’m not aimless,” she lied.

“Pleasure is an aim, but perhaps not a sustainable one.” He smiled wryly.

“Well, let’s hope it wasn’t Aisling,” Brook muttered, cheeks flaring hot.

“I thought it might be. She had you waking up and going to work. Not that work makes the elf, of course, but it was lovely to see you eager like that.”

“Eager to do something productive, you mean.”

“Britheue.” Papa almost never called her by her real name. Not unless he was cross or frustrated. But his face was calm, his eyes wide and dark, dancing with the firelight. “You cannot truly love another until you love yourself. But you have to want to, and if this Aisling can show you how, then I’ll be happy.”

“I love myself,” she protested.

“You’re forty-one, sweetling. An elf fully grown.” Papa smiled. “It’s time to decide who you want to be. And if that’s someone that makes your mother angry, so be it.”

“Oh, you say that now. Before it was, Well, fall in love, or at least pretend to!”

“That would be the path of least resistance. But if you insist on creating your own resistance, there’s not much I can do about that.”

She snorted. “I’ll travel again.”

“Yes. You could.” Papa picked up his book again. “Or you could find Aisling and discuss why, exactly, you’re here instead of with her tonight, and make it better. And perhaps have a traveling companion.”

“You’re infuriating.” She drank the rest of the wine in three gulps, set it down, and headed out of the inn.

And if she was looking for Aisling, it wasn’t because her father told her to. So there.

But Aisling’s stall was empty, and there was no one in her wagon at the campsite. So Brook went back to The Webbed Foot, drank another glass of wine—this time by herself—ordered a bath for tomorrow, and went to bed.

The next morning, she dressed her bath with sweet-smelling, luxurious oils, and had a real, proper soak. As she washed her hair, she had nothing else to do but think, and so she did. And she still couldn’t understand what had happened with Aisling yesterday morning. As a seeker of pleasure, as her father so gently put it, Brook was very good at detecting her fellow rakes. The type of elf who was looking for a fun roll in the hay, not a partner to inspire them to new heights, to help them find themselves, or whatever nonsense Papa was talking. She recognized her own.

Aisling wasn’t like her. Aisling was focused and intense, a bright light in the darkness that attracted Brook like a campfire on a cold night. She’d told Brook, she’d said it without prompting, that she didn’t mind Brook “distracting” her from her work. And she’d certainly been eager enough the other night, once they’d finally gotten past what Brook had then assumed was their final stumbling block.

Was it really possible that an elf like Aisling would throw a lover like Brook away like that? Even Brook wasn’t that heartless with lovers when…

Well, she had run from Sunny. But the poetry. So much poetry. She cringed thinking of it even now, goddess bless that ridiculous elf.

Was this how he’d felt when she’d abandoned the market without so much as a proper goodbye? When she’d disappeared right before his eyes the other day in a clear attempt to avoid him? At least Aisling had the stomach to tell Brook to go away; Brook hadn’t even had that much decency with Sunny.

She deserved this. She deserved a taste of her own physick.

But she still fucking hated it.