Chapter 20
Sweet Dreams
“ T abitha? Are you here, dear?” Lady Sabine’s voice carried through the shop and up to the loft where Tabitha was still in her cot—even with the sun shining through the cracks of the shuttered window. How late had she slept? She tried to untangle herself from the blankets, but a pair of arms held her back.
A man lay beside her, his hair untied and covering half his face. “Too early,” he groaned, still refusing to open his eyes or surrender his grip on his bedmate. Tom. Leo. Her husband, though they were both fully dressed outside of removing their boots and top layers of winter clothing.
If she remembered correctly, they had both been a bit shy about their new arrangement and had done nothing but hold and kiss each other even after she had taken his ring and stood for the matrons and local magistrate to approve the union.
And it was just as well because she couldn’t quite believe they were married at all.
They had returned to Castletown on the same night as the royal wedding, and naturally, Tom had seemed eager to attend—at least covertly as a hooded member of the open crowd the princess and her ogre-slayer had gathered. But Tabitha had refused to go with him. Her aversion to crowds and the kings’ men had not abated; she had no desire to be a princess, but more than that, she had promised herself that once she brought Tom home, she would allow him full freedom to choose what his new life would look like.
He had to have the chance to make that choice without her.
She had forced herself to watch him walk away, even though it had been pure agony.
But during those few hours of separation, she had become certain that if Tom chose to leave the castle and return to her, then she would want him by her side—always. And, yes, she should have known her prince would be far too noble to agree to something like that without a legal wedding, but to come home carrying a ring, declaring his twin desire to disavow his former title and marry Tabitha before a single night had passed?
Tabitha had a great imagination, but it was far more than she had ever dreamed.
“Tabitha?” Lady Sabine tried again.
“Stay,” Tom said, even as he surrendered his weak grip on her middle. “Maybe she’ll go away.”
Lazy cat. Even in human form, some things never changed. She shook her head but gave him a fond smile. “I’m sorry, your highness, but normal shopkeepers can’t afford to turn their best patrons away. It will only take a moment.”
“Fine,” Tom said, rolling over in defeat. “You may go.”
Oh, may she? He was a former cat, a former prince, but she couldn’t let that pass. They were married. She pushed off the cot and sank deeply into an exaggerated curtsey. “Thank you, your royal grumpiness.”
He didn’t move, still showing her his back, but gave a low rumble of approval, almost like a purr. “Cheeky minx.”
Tabitha smiled as she straightened her dress and tiptoed around her cats to the loft’s ladder. “Lady Sabine,” she said in greeting as she started to climb down. “How was the princess’s wedding? Was the dress to your liking?”
The lady and her maid had already made themselves at home in the shop, laying out a whole line of dresses on the till. “It was perfect. I got so many compliments. And Lord Declan! That rogue!” She made a show of delighted horror over whatever scandalous thing her new admirer had done before continuing. “You must redo all my dresses. Everyone wants a bit more color for the coming spring—it’s a new age with our new prince and princess and everything back the way it should be.” That was when Tabitha reached the ground floor, and Sabine looked up from her dresses. But the lady only spared a glance at Tabitha before focusing on another figure at the top of the loft ladder. “Prince Leopold?”
His hair still untied and his shirt untucked, Tom gave the lady a tired and resigned sort of smile. “Hi, Sabine.”
“But you’re—and why?”
He shrugged in a lazy and somehow noble way that seemed to say that his actions shouldn’t be questioned. He slid down the ladder, skipping over several rungs with a fluid grace, to stand behind Tabitha before she could do anything but stare.
Perhaps she should have warned him to stay hidden. Perhaps he had not realized he would be recognized so easily, but now that he was caught, he had no issue flaunting himself.
“Well, weren’t you just saying how talented my wife is? Why shouldn’t I have claimed her as my own?” He put his arm around her with his easy sort of pride. “You know I always had a thing for fashion, and I can’t have any of you thinking you discovered her talent before me. Now why don’t you settle your business and be on your way? We’re newly married and have plenty of our own business to attend to.”
Light, that was bold. They had only shared a chaste night together, but at the thought of the “business” of most newly wedded couples, Tabitha felt the heat rising on her cheeks just the same.
Having Tom here, hearing him speak . . . Well, she was still getting used to it.
Tom the cat had been simpler. More predictable.
Tom the human seemed liable to light her world on fire, and it thrilled and terrified her in equal measure. Even Lady Sabine took the pointed hint. “Yes, yes, of course your highness.” She gave a startled sort of bow and stumbled over herself to finish her orders quickly. But by the sly looks she kept exchanging with her maid, she was thrilled with the new piece of gossip she had discovered.
No doubt about it, the whole of Castletown would know of the missing prince’s whereabouts before the day was over.
“Sorry,” Tabitha said to Tom once the lady and her maid had departed. She still wasn’t sure if Tom had initially intended to be recognized. “I should have warned you—your sister has been sending me noble clients.” He had been missing for seven years. A client from the village might not have recognized him right away. But a noble client with her mind stuck on the royal wedding she had just attended?
Impossible.
Tom rubbed the stubble on his chin, still completely unbothered. “Makes sense. But it doesn’t matter. Someone would have found out eventually.”
That was true enough. Tom had used his legal name in the wedding ceremony, and he had gone to the castle to see his sister’s wedding before returning with the ring. They couldn’t have kept him hidden in the loft forever, and it really had been only a matter of time before news of his reappearance spread, but how were they to manage it?
They couldn’t live a life separate from the castle if the persistent crowds came to follow them here.
“We could move,” Tabitha offered. “Go to one of the other Borderland Kingdoms where you won’t be so easily recognized.”
Tom shook his head. “This is your shop, Tabs. I could never ask you to give it up for me.”
“Why not? You gave up a castle for me.” And in that light, any protest either of them might make seemed patently absurd. “It’s just a building, and I’ll still have all the same skills I had before. We can establish another shop wherever we end up.”
Tom frowned. “It wasn’t just for you. You know that, right? I wasn’t always a good person as a prince, and after everything . . . I want a new start just as much as anything else.”
Tabitha nodded, marking the subtle pain in his expression. She didn’t know exactly how much he remembered from the Fae Realm, but whatever scars he carried might not be so easily mended. It was something she could understand perfectly.
This was the life they both decided they wanted right now, and they would have to rebuild things together at their own pace. No one should expect him to want the same things he wanted when he was younger, but truly, he hadn’t just given up a crown for her.
He had given up everything. “And your family? How did they respond?”
“Father . . . Well, I think he still thought he was looking at a ghost, so he didn’t say much. But Ainsley was the one to give me the ring from our mother’s collection, even before I said I intended to marry you, so I imagine she approves.”
“Your sister gave you the ring?” Tabitha looked at the ring again—a cat’s eye with diamonds. She loved it from the first, and now she knew for certain what gift she wanted to give her husband in return, before they sold the shop and left Castletown behind.