Chapter 146: THE FIRST NIGHT AT CONCORD

DIANA’S POV

Mistress Hale had packed jewelry.

Diana discovered this twenty minutes before dinner and considered it an act of betrayal.

Alma disagreed.

"It is a sovereign reception."

Diana pointed to the ring already on her hand.

"That is one ring," Alma said. "People traditionally possess other body parts."

Diana stared at her.

Alma opened a second case. Dark silver earrings lay inside, set with pale stones that matched nothing exactly and therefore, according to Alma, everything. A narrow necklace followed, simple enough not to compete with the dragonstone Diana wore beneath her clothes.

The black gown came next, its silk threaded with silver and fitted precisely to her shoulders. It had been easier to admire in Blackharrow, without a roomful of sovereigns waiting at the other end of the evening.

She wrote:

TOO MUCH?

"No."

Raigoro appeared in the doorway.

"No," he agreed.

Diana turned. Suspicious timing.

His formal coat was black, the Warden insignia at his collar. The man who could return from battle covered in ash was apparently expected to attend dinner looking as though he had never encountered mud.

Unconvincing.

He looked at her gown, then at her face. Diana raised the slate before he could continue staring.

YOU CALLED ME BEAUTIFUL WHEN I TRIED THIS ON. FIND SOMETHING ELSE.

"I wasn’t going to repeat myself."

She waited.

"You look dangerous."

Behind her, Alma made a choking sound.

Diana considered the compliment.

BETTER.

Raigoro offered his hand. Diana took it, and his thumb passed over the edge of the ring he had given her before they left.

The western ceremonial hall had been arranged with smaller mixed tables instead of five separate royal camps. Diana suspected a treaty lawyer had invented the arrangement after a particularly bad century.

Blackharrow sat near the center. Raigoro occupied the chair to her right; Counsel Mael sat two places away. Tavia had been placed across from a Merovian trade official, while Daric’s Belland neighbor already looked weary of military conversation.

A Westmere engineer had somehow been seated beside Julius Renn.

The evening was doomed.

Diana stopped smiling when she saw her place card.

PRINCESS SELENA VALENCE

GRAND DUCHESS OF BLACKHARROW

The letters gleamed in silver ink. She had asked Raigoro not to change the public record until after the summit. This was what that agreement looked like to strangers.

She sat and turned the card slightly away from her plate.

Raigoro noticed. He said nothing, but he left his hand near hers on the table until the first course arrived.

Conversation began with roads, weather, delayed ships, and the ability of diplomats to discuss shortages while appearing to enjoy their soup.

A Belland official asked Diana whether Blackharrow winters were truly as severe as rumor claimed.

WORSE, she wrote.

He laughed. "Then why stay?"

The chalk hovered above her slate. Raigoro made no attempt to answer for her.

I LIKE IT THERE.

"Fair enough." The official turned to ask Mael about road closures.

Diana looked at the words before erasing them.

Blackharrow had once been the place she was sent. Tonight, she had answered without thinking of it that way.

Prince Adrian approached between courses.

Diana knew he was coming because Alma, waiting with the senior attendants along the wall, went quiet. Raigoro noticed the change too.

Adrian bowed to him first.

"Grand Duke."

"Your Highness."

Then the prince faced Diana.

"Your Grace."

He used only her Blackharrow title.

His gaze rested on her face a moment longer than courtesy required. Diana remembered the last time she had seen him: from behind the carved screens above Valence’s Great Hall, while Selena received visiting princes below.

Adrian had been close enough to know exactly what Selena looked like.

Diana picked up the slate.

PRINCE ADRIAN.

"You remember me."

She did, although explaining how would have made matters considerably worse.

VALENCE REMEMBERS MANY VISITORS.

"I imagine it does."

He glanced briefly at Raigoro, then asked whether the journey had been difficult. Diana wrote that the mountain roads were passable. Adrian mentioned Merovia’s delays in moving preserved medicines across multiple inspection points, and Diana answered with what she had seen in Blackharrow’s relief records.

He waited while she finished every line. He never looked toward Alma or asked Raigoro to provide a quicker answer.

Diana might have liked him for that.

Unfortunately, he also knew Selena.

Before leaving, Adrian lowered his voice.

"It has been some time since I attended Valence court."

Diana held the chalk still.

"Long enough that I’ve learned not to ask private questions in public rooms."

Beside her, Raigoro listened without interrupting.

Adrian bowed.

"Enjoy the evening, Your Grace."

He walked away.

Diana waited until he reached his delegation before showing Raigoro the slate.

HE KNOWS.

"Probably."

HE KNEW SELENA.

"Yes."

Adrian had kept his suspicion private. Whether he would continue to do so was another matter.

Raigoro moved her water glass clear of a passing servant. He offered no reassurance he could not keep.

When dinner ended, Diana could have returned to Blackharrow’s rooms. Instead, she followed the other delegates into the central gallery, where quiet music softened the sound of too many people discussing tomorrow’s session.

A Westmere engineer approached with a question about Household Relief.

"I understand your office reopened a support claim because a delivery receipt was wrong. Did you find a forged signature?"

Diana wrote:

THE SIGNATURE WAS VALID.

The engineer frowned. "Then what was wrong with the receipt?"

WE ASKED THE FAMILY WHAT ARRIVED.

He read the answer again.

"So the paperwork agreed with itself, but the people waiting for the shipment said something different."

Diana nodded.

"Westmere has been checking quarry handoffs against duplicate signatures," he said. "Perhaps we ought to ask the receiving workshops what actually reached them."

YES.

He thanked her and went to find his colleagues.

Diana wished that conversation had lasted longer.

Raigoro joined her as the gallery emptied.

"Ready?"

Diana took his hand.

By the time she reached Blackharrow’s assigned rooms, diplomacy had become physically attached to her hair.

The first earring came free easily. The second had apparently developed political ambitions.

"You survived five Crowns," Alma said, working at the clasp. "I’m less certain about the earrings."

YOU ARE VERY COMFORTING.

"I work hard at it."

The clasp finally released. Diana slipped off her shoes while Alma removed the first pins from her hair. The fourth caught, and Diana made the mistake of pulling it herself.

Pain tugged sharply at her scalp.

Raigoro appeared in the doorway from the adjoining sitting room, his council report still in one hand.

"What happened?"

Diana pointed at her hair.

Alma looked between them and put down the remaining pins.

"I just remembered that I am needed elsewhere."

Coward.

She left before Diana could object.

Raigoro set the report aside and came closer.

"May I?"

Diana turned her back to him and lifted the loose hair away from the trapped pin. He worked it free with careful fingers, then placed it on the dressing table.

"Dangerous," he said.

THE PIN?

"You."

Diana preferred that answer.

"You were not slow tonight," Raigoro added.

I WAS SLOW.

"Some people were impatient. That isn’t the same thing."

Diana gave him a look.

"You made Belland wait until you finished your answer. And that Westmere engineer left with a different question than the one he brought."

HE ASKED THE WRONG ONE.

"He did. You made him notice."

She erased the slate with unnecessary force.

Raigoro laughed openly. The sound surprised her enough that she looked up.

"What?"

Diana refused to write that she wanted to hear it again.

"You also said you like Blackharrow."

She stopped erasing.

YOU WERE NOT SUPPOSED TO NOTICE EVERYTHING.

"That seems unlikely."

"Did you mean it?"

Diana had already answered that question tonight. Rather than write it again, she set down the slate, crossed the space between them, and kissed him.

Raigoro’s hand settled at her waist as he kissed her back. When the kiss ended, neither stepped away immediately.

Months ago, being alone with her husband had meant measuring his mood and the distance to the door. Now she stood barefoot before him with half her hair loose, deciding whether to move closer because she wanted to.

She wrote:

DO NOT SMILE LIKE THAT.

"Like what?"

YOU KNOW.

"I don’t."

Liar.

Diana kissed him again to end the argument.

When she stepped back, she wrote:

THAT WAS ALSO AN ANSWER.

"To what?"

Unbearable man.

They moved to the sitting room. Raigoro reopened tomorrow’s report, and Diana sat beside him rather than opposite. Their shoulders touched as she read the first page.

The Gate came first. Then the Crowns would discuss their support obligations, the damaged wardstone, and the questions neither Blackharrow nor the other kingdoms could answer alone.

Diana reached the middle of the page before fatigue defeated her. Her head settled against Raigoro’s shoulder.

He stopped turning the page.

She stayed where she was, and after a moment he continued reading.

Probably not asleep.

Some time later he said, "Bed."

Diana opened one eye and reached for her slate.

RUDE.

"Accurate."

She considered objecting. Accuracy did not deserve that much effort.

Raigoro closed the report. On their way past the dressing table, he retrieved the forgotten hairpin and placed it with her other jewelry while Diana watched.

Tomorrow Odran and Maerissa would sit in the council chamber, and Diana’s credentials would still carry the wrong name.

Tonight, Raigoro was beside her.

Concord Hall could wait outside the door for one more night.