Page 14

Chapter fourteen

Alexander

Alexander stared out the window, where the snow was coming down harder than it had yet this year, and grimaced. It was going to be a cold night.

Fortunately, he didn’t have to go out in it.

He turned back to his papers and frowned at them. He’d undertaken writing a will when he realized he had no idea what the sorcerer was going to do after he refused to marry the man’s daughter. The task of allocating all his assets was tedious, and he was tired of it.

There was a rap at the door and Jenkins opened it.

“There is a man to see you, my lord,” he said stiffly before a young man in a servant’s outfit pushed his way through the door.

“Hello, my lord, I’m here to see Beatrice,” he said.

“And who are you?” Alexander asked, frowning at the intrusion.

“I’m Dietrich,” he said. “I’m sure Beatrice has told you about me.”

Oh, this was Beatrice’s friend, the one she’d said was likely to come looking for her if he didn’t tell them where she was. “Oh, right,” Alexander said. “She did. Jenkins, would you show him to the library? I believe that’s where she is.”

“She’s not there, my lord,” Jenkins said. “I was thinking perhaps she was here with you.”

A chill ran down Alexander’s spine. “What do you mean she’s not there?” he asked, standing and pushing his chair back forcefully. “She was there. Where did she go?”

“I don’t know,” Jenkins said.

Someone cleared their throat behind Jenkins. “I might know,” Guinevere said. “She said she wanted to go for a walk to clear her head.”

Alexander glanced back outside, and the chill down his spine turned into something worse. “She’s out there?” he asked. “And you didn’t see her?” he asked Dietrich.

Dietrich, who looked as scared as Alexander felt, said, “No, but I’m going to go look for her.”

“Me too,” Alexander said, hurrying for the foyer with Dietrich.

“There’s no need, my lord,” Dietrich said. “I will find her. You needn’t go out in the storm.”

“As if I’m not going to go look for my wife,” Alexander growled.

“Your wife?” Dietrich asked, his voice harsh.

Alexander grimaced. He had forgotten he’d left that part out of the note he’d sent to town. “She’ll explain when we find her,” he said as he grabbed his coat from Jenkins. “But yes, she’s my wife.”

He looked over at Dietrich. “Is that a problem?”

Had Beatrice had an understanding with this man and neglected to tell him?

Dietrich shook his head. “Not a problem, as long as she’s happy and you don’t hurt her,” he said. “I suggest we find her because if we don’t, I might have to kill you.”

Alexander grinned. If Dietrich was a friend of Beatrice’s, enough of a friend to suggest killing a noble on her behalf, then he would be worth having around to look for her.

“I understand,” he said. “Let’s go find her so she can yell at both of us for going out in the storm.”

Dietrich grinned. “It sounds like you understand Beatrice pretty well,” he said, as the door opened and an icy blast hit them in the face. Before Alexander could say anything, Rose scampered out between his legs into the storm.

“Get back here, Rose!” he growled at her.

“I think she wants to help you look for her,” Guinevere said, her voice carrying a hidden meaning that he wasn’t sure he understood.

But then realization hit him. Rose wanted to use her dragon senses to find Beatrice.

He looked down at the kitten, then over at Dietrich. “You might as well,” he told the kitten. “We’ll take whatever help we can get.”

The kitten chirped and, in the blink of an eye, had transformed into her dragon self.

Dietrich blinked a couple of times, then nodded his head. “I think I like our odds better now,” he said. “Let’s go find her before it gets worse.”

They made their way into the storm, following Rose, who flew on tiny wings with no hesitation or sign of slowing down. They walked quickly—the snow had already passed their ankles and was growing higher with every minute. The two men walked side by side, their arms brushing against each other occasionally, a reminder that the other was there and hadn’t been lost to the snowstorm.

All they could do was follow Rose and hope that she could find Beatrice, because he couldn’t see more than a few feet in front of them.

They walked in silence aside from an occasional call for Beatrice, the unspoken need to find her, and fast, taking over their every step. Alexander’s heart was filled with fear at the thought of losing her.

It felt odd to feel so strongly about her. He had only known her for a couple of years and had only been married to her for three days. It shouldn’t make his heart stop beating to think about the fact that hers might have already stopped.

He shook his head to himself—he couldn’t think like that.

She had to be alive.

They trudged through the storm for what seemed like an hour before the dragon started making new noises and zoomed ahead at a speed so fast, there was no way they could keep up. They began running anyway. Hopefully they were staying in a straight line and not getting lost in the storm themselves.

Wouldn’t that be a story for everyone if, in trying to find Beatrice, they ended up frozen themselves?

But then through the storm, he could see a dark shape wrestling its way through the snow in slow but steady steps.

It had to be her.

Alexander somehow forced himself to run even faster, and when he was close enough to recognize his wife’s face through the blowing snow, her blue lips and pale face signaling just how cold she was, he opened his arms wide, and she stumbled into them, collapsing against his chest.

“You came for me,” she muttered into his chest.

“Of course I did,” he said, wrapping his arms around her so tightly he worried he might break her, as if she were a frozen icicle that might snap in two at the slightest breath.

“I can’t believe it,” she said through chattering teeth. “But how did you find me?”

“Your husband’s dragon found you,” a dry voice said, and Beatrice gasped and lunged out of his arms.

“Dietrich!” she cried, throwing herself at the other man, and Alexander had to fight the urge to throttle him. “Why are you here?” she asked, letting go of him.

“Walk and talk, my girl,” he said, wrapping an arm around her waist and turning himself around. “Let’s get you back.”

Beatrice slipped out of Dietrich’s grasp and turned to Alexander, which gave Alexander an immense amount of satisfaction. She closed the distance between them and walked by his side as they followed Rose toward home.

“I thought the girls of the Northlands were done needing me to rescue them from snowstorms,” Dietrich quipped.

“Technically, Sophia wasn’t from the Northlands,” Beatrice pointed out. “And I was on my way home.”

“Oh, so it’s home now?” Dietrich asked. Alexander could hear the question in his voice.

“It is,” Beatrice said, and Alexander couldn’t help the grin that swept across his face. Eldenwilde was her home now. Her home was with him. It was a simple declaration, and yet it meant everything. He tucked her into his side, pulling her close and wrapping his arm around her shoulders.

It was purely for warmth, not at all because he wanted her closer.

“And when were you going to inform us of this fact?” Dietrich asked. “It’s not every day a man learns that his little sister is now a lady.”

“Did Thea not tell you?” Beatrice asked.

“No, she did not,” Dietrich said dryly. “She told me that you were at Eldenwilde and had been for three days. One would think you would send me a note telling me directly.”

Yes, it was surprising that she would message Thea but not her own brother.

But no, that didn’t make sense. When he’d hired her, she had told him her only family was her father.

“I didn’t know you had a brother,” he said to her.

Rose began chirping up ahead, and Beatrice chuckled through chattering teeth. “I think she’s telling me that she knows he’s not my brother,” she said. “When my mother left, Dietrich’s mother Danise became like my own, and Dietrich became a brother to me. My father didn’t know how to raise a little girl, so I spent most of my time with them.”

It made more sense when she put it that way. “Yeah, we’re not blood-related, but she’s the only one who gets away with treating me the way she does,” Dietrich teased, his voice barely loud enough to be heard through the whistling wind.

Alexander was glad to hear that she hadn’t lied to him, but he was even more glad to hear that she thought of Dietrich as a brother. Although the fact that Dietrich now knew they had a dragon could pose some problems. He’d just have to make sure the man knew to keep quiet about it.

Magic was illegal, and while dragons weren’t technically…they hadn’t been seen since magic was legal in Galamere. He had no reason to share Rose’s existence when she tended to keep herself in her kitten form, even if she was currently leading their way back home in flight.

The rest of the walk back to Eldenwilde was spent in silence, though Alexander kept looking down to check on his wife. At one point, she looked up at him, and even though she looked as if she was about to freeze solid, she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

He didn’t want to admit it, but he was falling for Beatrice. What was he supposed to do with that information?

The lights of home shone bright through the snow. When they reached the front steps, Rose transformed into her kitten form, fluffing out her coat.

“Thank you, Rose,” Beatrice said, leaning down to pet her and stumbling over a step.

Alexander’s grip on her shoulder tightened and he kept her from falling flat on her face. “We can thank her later,” he insisted, guiding his wife up the final stairs toward the door.

The moment they walked through the door, Jenkins was waiting with a pile of blankets and immediately sent a maid for hot tea.

Dietrich and Rose hung back as Alexander undid his wife’s wet cloak, then swooped her up into his arms and carried her into his study, where the hottest fire he’d ever seen blazed in the fireplace. She let out a surprised whoop, throwing her arms around his neck, and he grinned down at her.

He hadn’t realized how fun it could be to pick up one’s wife, but he suddenly wanted to do it more often.

The tension of the search began to melt along with the snow currently coating his hair, sending cold drops sliding down his neck.

She was safe.

Jenkins hurried into the study after them with the blankets, followed by Mrs. Jenkins, as he placed Beatrice in the chair that had been pulled up next to the roaring fire.

“You all needn’t make such a fuss,” Beatrice said, and there was a chorus of voices instantly informing her that they had every right to make a fuss and she should not have gone out in the storm. “I didn’t know there was going to be a storm,” Beatrice protested. “If I had, I wouldn’t have gone.”

“You shouldn’t have gone anyway,” Alexander said as he knelt down and began to unlace his wife’s boots. This was the second time in three days that he’d done so, but this time, he didn’t feel the urge to pass off the task to a maid.

He unlaced her boots and set them aside before he reached for the top of her sock and began slowly pulling it down off her foot. She was so cold that she was trembling, which made pulling the wet sock away from her skin harder than it should have been, but he went slowly and gently so he wouldn’t hurt her.

He finished with one foot and reached for her other foot, carefully doing the same on the other side. Her feet were so cold. He began rubbing them, and she winced in pain. “I’m sorry,” he said. “We have to get them warm.”

Guinevere arrived with dry clothes for Beatrice, catching his eye from the doorway.

“Everyone out,” he announced.

Everyone looked at him in surprise, including Beatrice.