Page 47 of The Second Marriage
“I’ll drink some.” Sejun sighed, gusty and wine-scented. “I found no traitors for you. They chose not to announce themselves to me.”
“I didn’t expect you to uncover any elaborate conspiracies tonight. Just to talk to people, get to know some people, see what connections you can make.”
“I did talk to many people. And dance. Nirav invited me to some—I don’t even know what. I didn’t know the word he used. Some type of gathering. There will be food involved, I think. So that’s good. As you know, I like to eat.”
Taral smiled at him. “You enjoyed yourself, I hope. I didn’t mean to send you off to an evening of tedium at my behest. You should be able to have some fun while we’re in Banuri.”
“I liked the dancing.” Sejun looked at him for a moment, his gaze wandering from Taral’s eyes down to his mouth. “Jaysha spoke to me.”
Taral’s heart froze into a solid block of ice. “I’m afraid to ask you what he said.”
“He wanted to tell me that he doesn’t hate me for marrying you. More or less.” Sejun swiped at the hair on his forehead, pushing the strands back into a disheveled tangle. “It was the most awkward conversation I’ve ever had. I didn’t have the least idea what to say to him.”
“I’m sorry,” Taral said, cringing. “I hope you know I didn’t ask him to say anything to you. In fact, I wish he hadn’t.”
Sejun frowned at him. “Well, I know that. I probably shouldn’t have told you. I’m not thinking.” He reached over and took Taral’s hand, and pressed a sloppy kiss to Taral’s knuckles. “He didn’t offend me. I may have offended him. We’ll see how he greets me the next time we encounter each other.”
Taral hated to think of Sejun and Jaysha—what? Yelling at each other in the corridors of the palace? Fighting? Jaysha knew how to throw a punch, although Taral would be shocked if Sejun did. But it wouldn’t come to that, surely. Although he also hadn’t thought Jaysha would approach Sejun in public.
Sejun groaned and stretched his arms above his head. “I’ll have the world’s worst hangover in the morning. I’m sorry I woke you. I’m so sweaty.”
Taral kissed his cheek, flushed with wine. “You should bathe. Then come to bed. I don’t mind being woken. I’m glad to hear about how your evening passed.”
“Bewilderingly,” Sejun said. “All right.”
Taral lay down again and watched with heavy eyelids as Sejun undressed and washed himself. Sleep weighed heavy on him; he would be back into his dreams before long. Sejun shook out his robe and draped it over a chair to dry overnight. Then he blew out the candle and joined Taral in bed.
Wrapped in the darkness, with Sejun’s hand curled around his hip, Taral said, “My heat is late.”
Sejun’s silence went on for so long that Taral wondered if he had fallen asleep. Then Sejun said, “Is it?”
“Well—a day or two. But usually by now I’ve begun to notice the signs, and instead I feel nothing.”
“You think you might—” Sejun’s voice broke. “You might be pregnant?”
“It’s possible,” Taral said, and then abandoned the rest of his sentence as the bond erupted with Sejun’s emotions. Taral was so unaccustomed to sensing anything at all of what Sejun felt that he was struck dumb by the sudden outpouring of Sejun’s unbridled joy.
Sejun’s hand tightened on his hip. “A baby?”
“It’s too soon to say for sure,” Taral cautioned. “More likely it’s just that the travel has me off schedule. I won’t be certain for quite a while yet.”
Sejun’s joy continued unabated, but his voice was calm and even as he said, “Yes, no need to get excited yet. We’ll know more in a few days, I imagine.”
He was only agreeing with what Taral himself had said, and yet Taral found that he was disappointed by this tepid response. Sejun’s placid demeanor didn’t accord with the elation Taral could feel through the bond, and he wondered why Sejun was restraining himself even in his inebriation. Did he think Taral wouldn’t want him to be pleased?
“We should sleep,” Sejun said, and even as he spoke he was closing off the bond, retreating into himself, and soon Taral could read nothing from him at all.
Taral lay awake as Sejun’s breathing slowed and his hand loosened and dropped away. He thought of the hurt in Sejun’s voice as he accused Taral of wishing he had managed to marry Jaysha instead. He tried to put himself into Sejun’s place and imagine what Sejun might be feeling. From comments Sejun had made, he saw himself as immature and flighty, or had been made to see himself that way by the people he loved, which made Taral think less of his family. Jaysha was a few years older than Taral and had mastered his princely demeanor, an impenetrable veneer that made him seem shiny and flawless as fine lacquerware. Did Sejun compare himself to Jaysha and think that he came up short?
Taral prayed that wasn’t so. He didn’t expect Sejun to be anything like Jaysha, nor want him to. They were different people, and he liked Sejun as he was: vibrant, cheery, always ready with a joke or a wry comment. Taral had liked Jaysha’s seriousness when he was young, but now that he was too serious himself, Sejun’s easy nature suited him.
He feared that his lingering attachment to Jaysha had harmed Sejun in more ways than one. If Sejun was trying to suppress his genuine reactions because he thought that was how to please Taral, he was wrong. Taral hated to think that he had dimmed Sejun’s bright light in any way.
Beside him, Sejun sighed in his sleep. Taral pressed a kiss to Sejun’s shoulder and drew the blanket up over them both.
CHAPTER22
The first day of formal negotiations had been, in Taral’s opinion, a complete waste, and the second was not proving to be much better. Even with an interpreter to translate the proceedings into Dirang, he found it hard to follow the long speeches, which seemed to meander from one topic to another and then concluded without ever presenting a clear position. Much of the rhetoric relied on references to historical or possibly literary figures Taral wasn’t familiar with.