Page 127 of The Favourite

“No. She is, but that’s partly the problem!” Alisander huffed.

Oswald’s eyebrows shot up into his dark hair. “Forgive me, but does that not indicate it is you who is not acting as he ought?”

“Me?” Alisander was instantly incensed. “I have done naught amiss!”

“You are acting as a husband should?” Vawdrey had the cheek to ask in accents of deepest skepticism.

“I am,” he responded a trifle stiffly.

“Really? Might I ask, by your estimation, what such a thing entails?” Vawdrey’s tone was smoothly enquiring, but Alisander was not fooled for a minute.

“Well, perhaps my marriage is not being conducted along Vawdrey lines,” he responded sarcastically. “No one has tried to nullify our contract so far if that’s what you mean, and neither one of us has raised the issue of annulment!”

Oswald’s eyes narrowed. “Give it time, my dear Alisander,” he muttered. “Give it time.”

“And they had better not!” Alisander retorted. “If they know what is good for them.”

“If you were to get dragged back to the Wes—to Lascony,” Vawdrey corrected himself, swiftly, “then I can assure you, the King would not allow Lady Jane to remain unprotected with such a young daughter in her care. Neither could he permit her to remain married to a foreign subject, disgraced even in his homelands and struck off from official service to his king.”

“If I was banished from these shores,” Alisander interrupted him forcefully, “then I can assure you that Lady Bardulf and our child would not be your King’s concern under any circumstance. They are my concern and I alone would provide for them. No one else!”

Vawdrey paused. “By making them share your banishment?” he asked curiously.

“If need be, yes,” Alisander admitted, his face flushing slightly. “I may have learned to—to care for a select few,” he stressed carefully, as more people sprang to mind than he anticipated. Not just Jane, Celestia, and Robert, but gummy little Bertrand, Anne, and even Wat. “But that has not changed my fundamental character,” he insisted doggedly. “My essence remains selfish, through and through. I would drag all of them into exile with me if needs be.” He considered a moment. “Perhaps you think that is not husbandly behavior. Perhaps you think I should be noble, and give them up—”

“Not really,” Vawdrey interjected smoothly.

“But you see, I am not noble of nature, and I never have been!” Alisander flung at him as if he had not spoken. “And I have no intention of giving up my family now that I have finally found them!”

“Well,” said Vawdrey briskly, “those are the first words of sense that have left your mouth in the past month.” He steepled his hands before him. “I will admit marriage is no small change to one’s status and it can take some longer than others to adjust to the wedded state. However, I will need your assurance, Alisander, that you can fulfill the role of diplomat as well as husband in the future. Otherwise, your continued presence at court is entirely useless to me.”

Alisander glared back at him. “As there are several ineffectual diplomats littering up the corridors of this and every palace known to man, are you quite sure it is not my role of spy that you are dissatisfied with?” he asked pointedly.

Oswald dropped the pretense. “Well, of course, it is, my dear Alisander. Have I not made that entirely clear? You have reported back to your King precisely one-quarter of the information I have left for you to discover this past month. Your performance has been quite abysmal. My method of information dissemination has been almost entirely ineffectual without your link in the chain.”

Alisander spluttered. “Are you actually scolding me for failing to spy on your court?”

“Yes,” answered Oswald forthrightly. “And let me tell you, it is quite outrageous that I am being forced to be this explicit with you,” Oswald chided him. “I am most disappointed.”

Alisander suppressed the impulse to squirm in his seat. “Well, you are not the only one, I daresay,” he admitted at last, covering his eyes with his fingers. Jane was disappointed in him too. He felt … downcast. Most unlike his usual self.

Vawdrey eyed him severely. “If you dare fall into a fit of the sullens, Alisander, I shall banish you myself.”

That drew a reluctant smile from him. “I know that I need to—to make up some lost ground,” he admitted, avoiding Oswald’s perceptive eye.

“Do you think, once you have made up this ground,” Vawdrey said carefully, “that you will be able to embrace your duties in the spirit that you once did?”

Alisander considered this. “I hope so,” he said fervently.

“That is not exactly reassuring,” Oswald sighed. “But I suppose I will have to make do with it.”

“You will admit,” Alisander rallied, “that I have succeeded in getting Armenal to act where the King is concerned, at least. She has caught him on her leash. That was what you wanted after all.”

Oswald’s eyes rolled up to the ceiling as he considered this. “I suppose that is true enough,” he conceded. “Though her present course of action is causing a lot of fuss and bother among the Privy Council.”

“They would all be quite lost without something to shake their jowls about.”

Oswald Vawdrey tapped a finger against his desk. “I wonder …” he pondered, giving Alisander a long, hard look. Then he seemed to give himself a little shake. “I will admit, I have a certain idea on how I can extricate you from this mess of your own making, Alisander. It is a little … radical, but I believe a situation this dire cannot be solved with anything less extreme. I will be plain; it would involve you putting yourself entirely in my hands.”