The draft horses copied Fidele and chewed on their hay, but the hot tempered carriage horses snorted and tossed their heads when Severin climbed down from the loft.
Severin took a wooden bucket of brushes and carried it to Fidele’s stall. He set about grooming the gelding while Elle coaxed the barn cat to her side.
“There is something comforting in being with animals,” Elle said. “It might be that they do not try to boss you, like so many people are prone to doing.”
“I doubt you lack that particular trait—otherwise you would not buck heads with Emele as often as you do,” Severin said. He stopped brushing his horse for a moment and raised his eyes to the hay loft.
Elle scratched the cat under the throat. “Perhaps, but it doesn’t mean I don’t find the quietness of animals to be soothing.”
When Severin left Fidele’s stall and stopped in front of the grain bag she sat on, Elle raised her eyebrows at him.
Severin shook his head at her before he raised a thick finger to his cat muzzle.
The barn cat sniffed Severin’s leg before growling. It hissed and retreated to the stall partition, flattening its ears as it watched Severin.
Severin grabbed a pitchfork and crept to the hayloft ladder. His ears flicked as he held the pitchfork like a javelin. After a few heartbeats he thrust it into the hay.
Oliver leaped out from under a cover of hay, casting strands of dried grass everywhere. He lost his balance and tipped over the side of the loft. Severin caught him midair and deposited him on the ground, holding the stable boy by his coat collar.
“Oliver? What were you doing up there?” Elle blinked.
“Emele or Bernadine?” Severin growled.
Oliver hung from his collar for a moment before making his eyes wide behind his mask and batting his eyelashes. He set one hand over his heart and girlishly fanned his face with his other hand.
“Emele,” Severin said, releasing Oliver.
Elle looked back and forth between Oliver and Severin. “What about Emele?”
“She charged Oliver with spying on us,” Severin said. “That woman is nosey beyond her years. I am surprised she has not left my services to open up an intelligence agency.”
“But that would mean she would have to leave Marc.”
“It has not escaped my notice that you seem fixated on the interpersonal relationships of my staff,” Severin said as Oliver shifted his eyes between Severin and Elle.
“It’s amusing. Emele bullies me into doing whatever she wants, but she goes helpless at the first sign of Marc,” Elle said.
“Must all your sources of amusement involve pushing your nose into business that is not your own?”
“Mostly, or it wouldn’t be half as fun.”
“In any case,” Severin said, once again grasping Oliver by the scruff of his coat when the stable boy tried to slip off unnoticed. “The relationship between your ladies maid and my chief gardener is of no concern at this moment.”
“What are you going to do to Oliver?”
“I haven’t yet decided,” Severin said, looking down at topic of discussion.
The groom uncomfortably swallowed.
“Let him go,” Elle said. “No harm was done.”
“That is hardly the point, nor is it at all satisfying.”
“I don’t see the use in punishing Oliver when Emele is the real root of discontent,” Elle said.
“Does Bernadine know you were sent to watch?” Severin asked the mute stable boy.
Oliver shook his head.
Severin’s lips pulled back in a toothy, frightening smile. “In that case you will inform her of the task Emele gave you.”
Oliver gulped but bowed when Severin released him. He hung his head as he plodded to the stable door, slipping out into the howling wind.
“Bernadine will be mad?” Elle asked.
“Bernadine does not get mad, she gets cross. She will be cross that she hadn’t thought of the idea first, and then feel that it is her duty as the chateau dictator to lecture Emele for impeding on us,” Severin said.
“All parties involved are thus punished, and Oliver will be unlikely to make himself available for future spying missions. An admirable job as usual, Your Highness.”
“You are a quick study, Intruder,” Severin said with a fanged grin that was less toothy than the sly one he had given Oliver.
Elle smiled as Severin returned to Fidele’s stall. It was funny how a title Severin previously used to draw a line of separation between Elle and everyone else was now almost a term of endearment.
Chapter 8
A Discussion of Princes
Severin frowned in the gloom of his study as he read the latest missive from Lucien. His half brother mostly wrote of court antics and the newest laws their father had passed. Ranger reports were too delicate to discuss through courier. That intelligence had to be discussed in person.
