A Beast's Tale

Chapter 76

"It took me two hours to get out of it!" Yves was yelling further down the hall. His back was to me, and although every strand of his honey-blonde hair was in place and every bit of his maroon attire was crisp and clean, he was far from composed. I saw his fists clenched at his sides. In front of him was Clavis, doubled over with laughter, but I knew Yves' face was bright red with anger.

"Ha ha! Two hours?" Clavis clutched his stomach, gasping for air. "It wasn't even for you! It was for Cyran!"

"Gee, thanks," Cyran said. The redheaded knight had his arms crossed over his chest and was doing an admirable job of maintaining a straight face. A twitch at the corners of his lips betrayed his amusement at Yves' expense.

"This is serious! I missed Ivetta's carriage because of you, and—" Yves froze, an accusing finger trembling in the air between him and Clavis. Gilbert had rounded the corner beyond them.

He smiled a serene smile, his cane thumping against the carpet with every step toward the scene. "Go on," he said. "Because of Clavis, you missed the little dove's carriage, and there was nothing to prevent me from boarding in your place. He he. What sort of awful things are you imagining I did to her?"

Yves' hand dropped to his side again and curled into a fist. "Well... I..."

"I have to thank you for that, Clavis. The little dove has told me I'm not allowed to be mean to Yves, so I was prepared to put up with him, but this worked out much better for me." Gilbert's blood-red eye settled on Yves. His smile vanished. "I didn't have to stomach looking at him the entire time."

"What do you have against His Little Highness?" Clavis asked, wiping tears from the corners of his eyes. Cyran frowned.

"Nothing before today. It's his family I hate. The Kloss family is full of filth and corruption." Gilbert's eye shifted to me as I stopped beside Yves, and his smile returned. "But his negligence could have resulted in harm to the little dove if I hadn't been there to pick up the slack, and that's reason enough for me to hate him personally now. Right, Chevalier?"

Yves winced and dropped his gaze to the floor, shoulders slumping.

"There was no negligence," I replied. "I have multiple safeguards in place, and she has stated she prefers him as a traveling companion. She also wanted me to correct a misperception." I turned my head and my gaze away from Gilbert to Yves, dismissing Gilbert's accusation with my words and my body language. "She wasn't crying."

Yves lifted his head, his brow furrowing. "But... she had her face in her hands, and her face was all red..."

Clavis snickered. "Sounds like somebody embarrassed her by teasing her too much."

Yves' deep blue eyes flew wide open. "What were you doing in the bathroom with her, Chevalier?"

Clavis burst out laughing. I let my lips turn up into a smirk.

"And you let me think—I told you to hug her because I didn't want to get her dirty!" Yves drew himself up to his full height, which was two inches shorter than me. "How could you take advantage of the situation like that, Chevalier? I thought you were better than that! I hope you apologized to her!"

"For hugging her?" Clavis had doubled over again, propping his hands on his thighs to support himself. "Why—ha ha—would he apologize for that?"

Yves spun to face Clavis. "And you call yourself a 'gentleman. You're paying for the fabric and notions to replace that outfit, by the way. I just finished it yesterday, and the materials were not cheap."

"Should I just—ha ha—save time and buy it in—he he—brown?"

Yves growled and lunged at Clavis, who straightened and sidestepped him in a single smooth motion, letting Yves fall face-first on the floor. Clavis was off and running before Yves had clambered to his feet. They were my two brothers who paid the most attention to their appearance, but there they went: Clavis, with his thick midnight-blue hair styled and smoothed by pomade, running backwards a few steps with his thumbs in his ears and his tongue sticking out before he turned around and sprinted away; and Yves, with his blonde hair already disarrayed and his dark pink cape streaking behind him as he gave chase. It was a comedic act I witnessed at least once a week.