A Brother's Price

Whistler’s shoulder to keep her from going. “I’d like to talk to you. Have— can Summer and Corelle take care of him?”
    Eldest studied her with ice-blue calm, then nodded. “We should talk.”
    Good-nights were said, the younger Whistlers went off to their rooms, and Ren led Eldest to her study. Ren poured out brandy, offered good cigars, and then said, “You seem angry at me.”
    Eldest Whistler spoke slowly, obviously choosing her words carefully. “Shall I say that I was disappointed when I learned what liberties you had taken with my brother?”
    “Corelle saw us, then,” Ren guessed.
    Eldest nodded. “And told the first moment it was useful to her to do so.”
    “I’m sorry,” Ren murmured.
    “This sponsoring of Jerin. It’s your idea, to make amends?”
    “In part.” Ren considered and decided. “I love Jerin. It would make me happy to marry him. If I had been born Eldest to another family, I wouldn’t have left your farm without a marriage contract.”
    “But we’re too far beneath the princesses of the realm,” Eldest said bitterly, almost spitting the word “princesses.”
    “Except for a quick dalliance.”
    “Perhaps not.”
    Eldest looked up sharply, and then frowned. “You toy with me.”
    “No. My first husband was politically a good choice. Keifer was also a spoiled, self-centered, manipulative brat. He played my sisters against one another to get his way. He threw fits, threw food, threw dishes, pouted, cried, and withheld sexual services. The public appearance at the theater was typical of his refusal to listen to common sense.”
    “1 would have spanked him,” Eldest murmured.
    “I wished my sister had, often. Perhaps she would be alive today.” Ren sighed. “Keifer was everything that Jerin is not, including a bloodline that traced back twenty generations. I have asked my mothers to allow a marriage between our families. To be frank, without Prince Alannon’s blood, they would have never agreed to consider Jerin. I don’t know if it’s enough, though, for them to decide in favor of a marriage.”
    “I see,” Eldest Whistler said, face controlled against any emotion that she might have been feeling. A soldier’s face. How many generations before that military stamp would breed out?
    “My mothers thought it would be unfair to raise your hopes for a royal match,” Ren said. “I thought you should know, so you can keep it in mind when the offers for Jerin come in.”
    A trace of a smile flitted across Eldest’s face. “You don’t want us to accept any offer before you can make yours.”
    “Yes.”
    Eldest stood swirling the brandy in her glass, considering, and finally sighed. “And how long must we wait?”
    Ren hesitated before saying, truthfully, “I don’t know. I know your family made a good first impression. I know that my mothers are now convinced of your royal bloodline. I know that I love Jerin. and that Odelia is most likely favorable to a match. Lylia is just old enough to marry, and anxious for her wedding night. She’ll be swayed by Jerin’s beauty alone, I think. Trini suffered at Keifer’s hands, and will probably not endorse any man, which my mothers well know. Halley—if she’s to be found, if she’s alive—she’ll be the difficult one to sway; she was not happy with our first marriage.”
    “So the rumors are true; Princess Halley is missing.”
    “For months.” Ren sighed. “She has never dealt well with the murder of my sisters. At midwinter she said not to worry about her, that she’d be gone for a while, then vanished.”
    “Can you make an offer without her?”
    Ren shook her head. “I don’t think I can. Halley is much better Eldest material than I, and so her word carries much weight with my mothers. They might decide to wait for her to reappear.”
    Eldest Whistler sighed, and was long silent. “We will let you know of any offers we receive, and give you a chance to counter them, but we can’t wait forever. We need Jerin’s brother’s price a week after his birthday. We’ve made arrangements to buy the mercantile at Heron Landing from the Picker sisters, and they’ve given us only until then to buy it, else we pay a penalty.”
    Two months. Ren nodded, feeling sick. Halley had been gone for eight months. Sixty spare days did not seem enough time.
    “Excuse me,” Eldest murmured, “but I should go and tend my family. They’re still unsettled, this being a new place and all.”
    “Of course,” Ren