Page 96 of The Exquisite Torment of Loving Your Enemy
“Your colleagues keep intercepting me. If you’d told me you were celebrating Tristane’s escape, I wouldn’t have come.”
“Really? You expected me to tell you? Last time I mentioned Tristane, I ended up in a wardrobe.”
“Well, you ended up in one anyway.”
“You might’ve mentioned that you were going to help Tristane escape. Are you mad? You p-put yourself in danger.” Mordaunt’s drinks were catching up to him; he was beginning to slur his words. “You have no idea what she’s capable of. The thought of you alone in a cell with her—”
“You’rethe one who told me only Tristane could tell me what I wanted to know,” said Aurienne.
“I didn’t expect you to go larking off for a tête-à-tête with her. What you wanted to know wasn’t worth risking your life.” Mordaunt, focusing on Aurienne’s face with difficulty, asked, “What did Tristane tell you?”
“That this is a much larger problem than anticipated. Three of the Tiendoms are involved. Dumnonia, Kent, and Mercia.”
“Woden’s balls.”
“We found nothing at the asylum to connect them to the Pox.”
Mordaunt pressed his fingers into his hair with an uncharacteristic lack of concern for what it did to his coiffure. “This makes no sense. Wellesley worked for Wessex. He had the Pox in his cellar.” He grew drunker as they talked. Sullen among the shadows, he added, with bizarre irrelevance, “S-stop flirting with Lirain.”
“I wasn’t flirting with her.”
“You were. I saw you. She will sleep with you and only leave you alive if you performed adequately.”
“In what world would I not perform adequately?” asked Aurienne, offended.
Mordaunt eyed the cow. “Who is this?”
“How many drinks have you had?” asked Aurienne.
“Three, so s-spare me the lecture. Why did you come?”
“To thank you for tipping me off about the asylum. I brought a present and everything.”
“The best gift you could give me would be to stop throwing yourself into danger. Go home, and don’t come back to Rosefell without my explicit inv-invitation.”
Something was the matter with Mordaunt. The slurred speech. The agitation. The confusion. Something beyond drunkenness.
An incapacitating agent?
Mordaunt told the cow it was beautiful.
Aurienne kicked open the wardrobe and dragged him to a nearby room, which looked like it might be his study.
“The waystone,” said Mordaunt. “Go home.”
“I don’t think so,” said Aurienne. “Where’s Mrs. Parson? Something’s wrong with you. Summon your deofol.”
Mordaunt raised his hand and summoned his deofol with difficulty.
Following which he vomited liberally upon the carpet.
“What’s the matter with him?” asked the wolf as Mordaunt redecorated.
“Drugged, I think,” said Aurienne. “Get Mrs. Parson, quickly.”
The wolf with worry in her golden eyes, vanished.
At the far end of the study, a silver trolley stood, glimmering with crystal bottles. Aurienne strode towards it to see if anything there would be of use to Mordaunt.
