Prince Harkness had wide blue eyes and long golden hair, and every adolescent girl in the kingdom thought he was absolutely adorable. But he was also three years younger than Kevin and two years younger than the Princess. Kevin knew the Princess objected to marrying a younger man.
Which left Logan of Angostura, son of the Lord High Chancellor and a general in the Angosturan army. He was tall, even taller than Kevin, who was by no means short. Square-jawed, muscular, with broad shoulders—and the epaulets on his jacket made them seem even broader. He normally traveled in the company of highly trained commandos called the Black Guards. Black Jack Logan, his men called him. It was easy to see why. He had black eyes and black hair, cut short to keep the curls under control, and a thick and precisely trimmed black beard. Brighter-than-regulation gold braid covered the sleeves of his black wool uniform, and a double row of medals stretched across his left breast. He wore a collarless shirt with a black silk cravat knotted around his neck, in the military style, and he wore a military sword. His greeting to Kevin was curt, and the dislike showed plainly in his face. Logan had made it clear from the start that he wanted this marriage, and he regarded each competing suitor the way a soldier regards the enemy, as an obstacle to be destroyed or circumvented by the most expedient means. Prince Kevin, for his part, gave no indication that he was in a competition at all. He gave the soldier a cheery smile and respectful bow.
“As I was saying, the proper disposition of troops along the border is paramount in the defense of a country like Deserae.” Logan had been discoursing on military preparedness. He picked up the thread of conversation again. “You don’t want to station all your forces on the outposts. Especially in mountainous terrain like yours. You want to keep troops where they can be rapidly shifted to cover breakthroughs. If you stop them in the passes, they’ll only pull back and try again. To destroy an enemy’s army, you have to lure it onto the plains, where you can maneuver.”
Bigelow looked bored. Harkness had his eyes on a girl in a low-cut gown. But two members of Deserae’s ruling council were following Logan’s words carefully. Baron Ashbury was white-haired, elderly, and stout, and Lord Hepplewhit was white-haired, elderly, and thin. “Lord Logan has been telling us of some of his victories,” Ashbury explained to Kevin.
“Of which he has many,” Kevin said. “Your reputation has spread even to my own country, Lord Logan.” Logan barely acknowledged his words.
“I was thinking that his is the sort of leadership we need in Deserae,” said Hepplewhit to Kevin. “Consider our situation. Bordering on the frontier, we get all sorts of nasties coming over the mountains. And our location makes us a temptation for other countries with an eye to expand.”
It was true. Deserae had a strategic location between two major rivers, and the easiest pass through the northern mountains ended at its border.
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