Page 31 of The Most Unsuitable Prince (Another Arranged Marriage #8)

“How are you feeling after today?”

Rupert glanced up as Winter came in carrying a tray with a large coffee pot and two mugs.

“I thought you’d appreciate some quiet time to think,” Winter said as he put the tray on the side table. “I can stay and keep you company or…”

“Stay. Please.” Rupert was tired of thinking alone.

His morning excursion hadn’t gone anything like he’d imagined it would.

What had been more annoying was when they did get back to the castle, Rupert was immediately intercepted by his father’s footman with a message asking him to take a meeting that afternoon, while Winter and his two men disappeared to his quarters, presumably to get rid of the gryphons they were carrying in their pockets.

“Did you want to talk about it?”

Rupert patted the seat next to him and was pleased when Winter came over and immediately sat down, leaning against him in that casual way that made Rupert feel special.

“I’m not sure what I’m meant to be thinking, to be honest,” he said, trying not to sound grumpy about it. His brain had been frantically trying to process everything. But it had been a lot in one day, and Rupert had been struggling.

“I was desperate to show I could be useful to you in capturing the gryphons, and then Pippin had to save me. I had no idea my horse wouldn’t cope, but then it makes sense in hindsight.

I’d never seen a gryphon before, let alone a flying one.

I should’ve realized the horse wouldn’t know what to do either.

” He sighed. “That animal can face down the biggest boar, but that gryphon was more than he could fathom.”

“They are quite magnificent in the air, aren’t they?” Winter chuckled softly. “So totally different from the plodding sedentary creatures you see them as on the ground.”

“It was fascinating and terrifying all at once. Clearly, my horse had more sense than I did.” Rupert rubbed his head.

He still couldn’t believe that all his horse wanted to do was run away.

Which again, in hindsight, was the right idea, but still unexpected at the time.

“I just...I felt so unprepared, and I ended up causing more trouble for you than being a help.”

“There were some good points.” Rupert realized Winter was trying to be fair, which was sweet and went a long way to helping him feel better.

“For future reference, that attacking stance with your sword is not something I would have recommended. I clearly didn’t explain how a gryphon would respond to a blatant threat.

“If we were facing something like a wolverine or even a werebear, then in those situations I would say yes, have your sword ready at all times, because those creatures are particularly vicious. Both wolverines and were-creatures are extremely territorial, and even if they’ve recently moved into a new area, they will defend their right to be there with every means at their disposal. ”

Werebears? Rupert imagined they might be bigger than the boars he typically hunted.

“Every creature is different, but if you remember the basics that most creatures simply want to live and raise a family with others of their kind in an area that meets their needs, it makes it easier to predict how they’re going to respond to being moved because most creatures don’t enjoy it.”

“That applies to people, too,” Rupert said. “I’d probably be miffed if I were being moved on when I’d found somewhere to call home.”

“Exactly, but if you were being moved on, for whatever reason, you would understand if someone came to you and said they were relocating you to a different location and why. It’s not easy to explain to a creature that we’re actually moving them for their own good, especially if they are close to a village.

It probably never crosses their mind that people might panic if they bump into a creature while foraging in the woods – a creature they’ve only heard about in stories. ”

Sighing, Rupert nodded. “As future king and consort, we definitely don’t need that sort of panic among the people. Especially concerning creatures that scare horses. You and your family must be doing amazing work to help keep these creatures hidden.”

“We have an advantage.” Winter nudged Rupert’s shoulder, sporting one of his carefree grins.

“Most creatures don’t want anything to do with us anyway.

Hey,” he added when Rupert smiled. “It was nice of you to thank Pippin the way you did. I was trying to warn you to let your horse just have his head, but I guess you didn’t hear me? ”

“All I could hear was the blood pounding in my ears. Pippin saved me, and I would be a fool to ignore a huge gesture like that.” Twisting in his seat, Rupert rested his arm along the back of the love seat, his fingers grazing Winter’s shoulder. “How do you deal with the disconnect?”

“I’m not sure what you mean.”

“That disconnect where one minute we’re out chasing gryphons and for me, making a fool of myself, but then within seconds of being back in the castle, there I was fronting a meeting with two of the councilors who simply wanted to talk about next year’s taxes.”

Winter’s eyes widened. “You didn’t let them raise the rate, did you?”

“Definitely not. I am well aware of my father’s views about taxation, and I happen to agree with them. I think a couple of people who are supposed to be advising my father are positioning themselves around me, hoping I’ll heed their counsel when…you know.”

Rupert was glad he was spending more time with his father – and yes, he was surprised about that too. But there were some things he wasn’t ready to face just yet.

He knew it was going to hurt when his father was gone.

It had been thirty years since his mother had died, and Rupert still lived with the hurt he’d felt at that abrupt change in his life.

Knowing his father was ill and having Winter by his side, Rupert hoped he could hold himself together when the inevitable happened.

In the meantime, he had more immediate problems, but instead of facing them alone, he now had Winter to talk to.

“I’m beyond grateful for your man Pippin, saving me the way he did.

He kept a calm head, and he acted quickly…

I’m truly impressed. But I found myself overwhelmed about it too, and I can’t stop thinking about it. ”

“More details, please, Rupert dear. What was overwhelming about it? It was only the other day that you were saying that you wanted to have that sort of support, to be part of a team. Pippin would have done the same thing for me, or for Sigmund, or for one of the guards, and he would have expected that we would have all done the same for him, if the need arose. It’s what part of being a team is all about.

You’re part of our family now, remember? A member of our team.”

Nodding, Rupert idly twirled one of Winter’s curls around his finger.

His husband had wonderfully soft hair that gleamed in the soft lamp light.

“I know it’s what I’ve always wanted. I just didn’t realize how much of an impact it would have on me on the inside, when I sampled what that was like.

I’m jumbled up, thankful for Pippin’s actions, but also knowing that it was my stupidity at the time that led to him putting his life in danger for me.

I’m probably not explaining this very well… ”

“You’re explaining things just fine.” Winter was always kind to him, which was a little overwhelming at times in itself.

“You could have yelled at me,” Rupert persisted, feeling he should be fair as well.

“I expected you to yell at me. It wasn’t until after I’d done it that I remembered I wasn’t supposed to draw my sword like that or to make any direct attack on the gryphons.

You’d already said that they needed to be treated calmly so they could be captured more easily.

“And by the goddess, when I saw you sitting there on your beautifully calm horse while that gryphon was coming toward you… My darn horse wouldn’t even let me get near you because it didn’t want to go near the gryphon. My horse had sense, but yours was coping just fine and I…I…”

“I would never yell at you in front of other people,” Winter said firmly. “And that’s not just because we’re married, or you’re a crown prince. I would never disrespect you or any member of my team that way. If I have something negative to say, that’s always done in private.

“But Rupert dear, my heart was ready to jump out of my throat when I saw you racing toward a lumbering gryphon with your sword out, raised above your head like a barbarian warrior? You made a very dashing hero figure, but in that case, it wasn’t called for. I will tell you when it is.”

“Thank you.” I think. Rupert didn’t mind being called a hero figure, even a misguided one. “But how…”

“I trust my team,” Winter said simply, meeting his eyes with a smile. “You’ll feel the same over time, I’m sure. But in this instance, I knew that if I could keep the gryphon focused on me that Pippin or Sigmund would have gotten behind the gryphon, completely unseen.

“You may have noticed that the flying form of a gryphon has a surprisingly narrow face, and their eyes and nostrils are both facing forward. It means their senses are limited in respect to anything that’s behind them.

By getting the gryphon to focus on me, your horse could calm down, and one of my men could capture the gryphon, which was a benefit for the gryphon because I was already holding it’s mate in my hand. ”

“See, even you saying things like that sound so surreal,” Rupert admitted. “You were carrying what is, in its normal form, a massive creature that outweighs a half a dozen horses, and you were holding it in the palm of your hand.”

“That’s the joys of magic,” Winter said. “A lot of what we do is reliant on what magic can do.”

Rupert remembered something else. “Like the puff of fire that didn’t burn anything, you mean? That was a distraction device?”