Page 94

“I see,”

was all Juste said the next morning, after Remin had laid out the bones of this story.

His face was as placid and thoughtful as always.

“I suspected something like it.

Her Grace has too many gaps in her knowledge, even for a child prisoner.”

They walked together along the road the Third Company had just finished leveling off by the river, with the sun peeking over the distant mountains and a chilly breeze off the water.

It seemed a little unfair that Juste was so unperturbed by the revelation when Remin was still trying to wrap his own head around it, and everything it meant.

There was much that he bitterly regretted, but more than anything else, the words poisoned sweet kept ringing in his ears.

Ophele thought that was what she was, one of her father’s double-edged gifts, and it stung because Remin had thought that.

More than once.

But stars, he’d never told her that, had he? No one would be so cruel as to say such a thing to her, would they?

But he and his men had said those words in front of her, and she was smart enough to make the connection on her own.

Why hadn’t he seen it? Should he have forced the truth from her sooner? He had known there was something wrong, but he had never imagined this.

Her painful shyness, her gift for invisibility, the way she flinched when spoken to, even the way she was so good at deflecting questions.

Every time he remembered how frightened she had been that he might strike her, it made him furious.

“Risking harm to a child of the stars should be unthinkable,”

he told Juste, shoving the anger down for the time being.

“I never thought we’d have to remind the citizens of the Empire of that, but there must be some way we can prepare the field.

The Emperor acknowledged her before the Court of Nobility.

She is an Agnephus.

To lay hands on her…I can’t believe anyone would do that. It’s a sacrilege.”

“In many ways,”

Juste agreed gently.

“I would have thought, after the attempt on the Emperor’s life, that no one would dare.

But she is right, we should not make that assumption.

It’s a pity she doesn’t look more like her father.”

“It is not,”

Remin said, revolted.

“It would underscore her heritage.”

Juste waved this away.

“I have maintained ties with our singers, at least.

I suppose we shall do what I purposed to do months ago.

It is nearly winter, after all, and people will be huddled about their fireplaces, searching for new songs to sing.”

Remin had a nasty suspicion he knew what Juste was going to propose.

“You make an unlikely romantic hero,”

the other man acknowledged, glancing up at the glowering Duke of Andelin.

“But it will serve many purposes.

We will tie her to her father, and then tie her to you.

She is your bridge back to society, my lord.

I will have my singers write songs of the redeeming love between two people who should have been enemies. It will sway their sympathies, and when the time comes for you to make claims against her heritage, they will see that it is for her sake, and not your own.”

“Ugh,”

said Remin.

It was a bizarre and distasteful thought, to use his feelings for Ophele this way, and know that it would work.

Why should anyone care about the state of his marriage or whether he loved his wife? But he and Juste had strategized this sort of thing before, and Remin knew from hard experience that the stories people told themselves mattered.

At least this was a kinder story than most of the ones they told of him.

Being renowned as a lover was better than being a butcher.

Marginally .

And the Emperor would hate it.

“Very well,”

he said reluctantly.

It was also a better story than the one about how the Exile Princess had been abused by her guardians; he would not broadcast her pain for any price.

“But we will find a way to claim injury from House Hurrell,”

he added, his voice hardening.

“Is there a provision in the Temple for discretion on such matters? And what is this business about House Hurrell leaving Aldeburke?”

“Miche says they were gone when he arrived.

Darri is investigating,”

Juste replied.

“I will see what the Temple Writ has to say about such complaints.

Enough time has passed that a little more will make no difference, and I will see that the Temple hears our minstrels, too.

Perhaps their music will work a little magic upon the clerisy.”

“Miche would like that,”

Remin said wryly.

If only he had known sooner, he would have sent Miche to clean house at Aldeburke.

And not for the first time, he wished Miche were here now.

Juste was a good friend, but even his consolation was strategic.

“He should be back soon,”

Juste noted, following Remin’s thoughts.

“It’s convenient that he’s bringing a library.

With your permission, my lord, I would like to take charge of the duchess’ education.

We cannot afford to lose a single day.”

“I was going to ask you anyway,”

Remin agreed, brightening.

The rest of the walk was much more pleasant, discussing the many things she would need to learn, and a number of agreeable surprises.

When he went back to the house, Ophele was still where he had left her, curled up around a pillow in the center of the bed and so deeply asleep, she didn’t even twitch when he sat down beside her.

Juste had warned him that she had not appeared to be sleeping well, while he was away.

At least he knew why.

Gently, Remin brushed her hair back from her face, noting the faint white line of a scar by her eyebrow and wondering how it had come to be there.

Anger was easy.

Of course he was angry; angry that anyone would dare to hurt her, angry with himself that he hadn’t guessed it, and furious that such things could be allowed to happen on principle.

But he wasn’t Juste, to eternally be asking why.

Anger was a burning brand: useful as a goad, but the longer one held onto it, the harder it was to let it go .

Looking at her, he felt his anger fade.

So often he had likened her to a garden, the rich and lovely soil of his planting, his place of perfect peace.

He had wanted to protect her, to build high walls around her so she would never know any of the terrible things in the world.

But it had been too late for that before he ever met her.

Maybe what she needed instead was for him to make a safe place for her and help her grow, as he did everything else in his valley.

He found that he liked the idea.

They would both grow, in the years to come.

There was no such thing as a finished person.

Remin knew he had changed because of her, and they would continue to tend each other and grow together all their lives.

He thought maybe that was what it meant, to be married.

And that was just about the finest thing he could imagine.

“Wife,”

he said, brushing her cheek with his fingers.

“It’s time to wake up.”

He would have been content to let her sleep all day; at some points yesterday, she had been crying so hard it alarmed him.

But he knew she had things she wanted to do.

“…time izzit?”

she mumbled.

“Nearly nine,”

he said, pulling her upright and holding her there, inexpressibly relieved to feel her burrow into him.

“Breakfast is on the table.”

Given a few days, the resourceful Lady Verr had produced a plain morning robe for Ophele, a slightly too-large blue cashmere with fur slippers for her feet.

Remin poured the first cup of tea himself.

Until the clouds cleared from her eyes, Ophele was a danger to herself and others.

“I talked to Juste,”

he said, opening the small breakfast hamper and doling out the contents.

“He had a few ideas for where we might begin with your lessons over the winter, and there are things we need to do to protect your rights as a daughter of the House of Agnephus.”

“Did you tell him everything?”

Her eyes did not lift from her plate.

“Yes.

Because it’s Juste.”

They had agreed on this last night, but Remin knew just how she felt, that another person knew her deepest shame.

There was a reason he did not like others to speak of Merrienne, who he had killed with his own hands, or of Ellingen.

“He handles such subtle work, and I promise you, he does not gossip.

But I don’t know what you want to say when we ask Adelan to help you learn the house, or Tounot about music, or Edemir about the Court of Nobility.

And I suppose Lady Verr must teach you etiquette. I expect she has mastered the language of fans.”

That last was very grudging.

The thought of trusting a Rose of Segoile with so much made him bristle.

“I don’t want to lie,”

Ophele said resolutely.

“I will say that I was never taught.

They all know I grew up in exile.”

“As you wish.

I invited Juste up for supper tomorrow, so we can discuss what you need to learn, and what you want to learn.

Edemir will be sorry to lose you,”

Remin added, nudging her foot with his own.

He wanted a smile from her.

“I told him that my wife is not an abacus.”

“I want to help, if there’s time,”

she said, all solemn eyes.

“I need to know how to manage accounts for the house, when we have them, don’t I? And Sir Edemir said we’re paying the builders triple to hurry up with the library.”

“I want it done before winter.”

“But that’s so much money!”

she protested.

“Triple pay for the carpenters, and the masons, and do you know how much they’re charging for the gables? It’s the same as what we paid for that bull, and Sir Justenin said that bull has a nobler lineage than some Houses.”

She had never scolded him before.

To his surprise, he was enjoying it.

“Did you memorize Edemir’s price lists?”

he inquired respectfully.

“I can’t help it if I remember things.”

She took a bite of eggs.

“It doesn’t matter to the books if there are fancy gables now or in January.”

“What matters to me is whether you like the gables,”

he pointed out.

He had seen them himself, fanciful constructs that would beautify the high ceilings of the library.

“They are very nice,”

she admitted, with her first real smile since yesterday, and Remin sat back, satisfied.

“Is that where you’ll be today? At the office?”

“Yes.

I hope I haven’t made you too late.”

She glanced at the angle of the sun out the window.

“I know you have so much work to do.”

“A little, but Lancer can make some time for me.”

Emptying his teacup in a single gulp, he rose.

“Shall I send up Lady Verr? ”

“Yes, please.”

Her fingers caught his sleeve as he bent to kiss her, and instead of a quick peck he found himself sinking down into the taste of apple and her soft, sweet lips.

The beguiling caress of her tongue made him feel as if he was falling.

Her eyes lifted to his.

“Could you come home early today?”

“I’ll…try,”

he managed, a little dazed, and departed feeling curiously as if a tornado had struck his home and left it stronger than it had been before.

It was a strange day.

To be sure, he was still off-balance from Ophele’s revelations and so dreadfully busy that he very nearly broke down and took notes between errands, which he had never in his life had to do before.

But he was sure he wasn’t imagining the sidelong looks and whispers that followed him from place to place, though he looked himself over several times and found nothing amiss.

Had he done something to scare them again? When he went to the masons’ camp around noon, a dozen people saw him coming and fled in a literal cloud of stone dust.

There were a lot of people out on the roads today, especially in the afternoon when they should have been at work.

Remin saw a number of wagons trundling toward town laden with strangely-shaped and carefully covered objects that made him turn in the saddle to watch them go.

The men in the barracks were behaving even more oddly than usual, which was a high bar for soldiers.

“Are they up to some mischief?”

he asked, his eyes narrowing as he watched a half-dozen soldiers from the Third Company—distinguished by the red III on the shoulders of their livery—make off with something large, heavy, and wrapped in a tarpaulin.

Beside him, Bram spat into the dusty courtyard.

“When are they not?”

he asked acerbically.

“Didn’t look like anyone was struggling under there.”

That was true.

It was almost a relief to go home early, with the promise that he would make up the missed work tomorrow.

But even though he was at least an hour earlier than usual, Remin would have sworn the building site on top of the manor was curiously empty, and he thought he spotted the fleeing form of Sousten Didion in the distance, who had been ducking him for the last three days.

Normally Remin would have hunted him down to help unburden an obviously guilty conscience, but today it was sufficient that nothing appeared to be falling over.

Taking the steps two at a time, he came upstairs to find Ophele already coming to meet him, dressed in a different chemise than she had been wearing that morning with her hair unbound and a large fire crackling in the hearth.

Remin took in these details with some perplexity, which only increased as she tugged him through the door and locked it behind him.

“Oh, good, I hoped you could come,”

she said with relief.

“I said I would,”

he said, glancing back at the locked door as she propelled him across the room.

“Wife, is something going on?”

“A little bit.”

His legs hit the side of the bed and Remin sat down, bemused.

“I wasn’t planning to tell you all that last night, I planned—something else.

But I’m fine now, really, and it is your birthday…”

He blinked.

“That’s today?”

“I knew you forgot,”

she said, coming to stand between his knees.

Her cheeks flushed becomingly as she began to untie the laces of his jerkin.

“You’ve been so busy, since you got home…”

“It’s the middle of the day,”

he said as she undressed him, entranced by the soft curves under her chemise, that tempting skin of her throat.

There had been a dozen things on his mind when he came through the bedroom door, and he couldn’t remember a single one of them.

“You…don’t want to?”

she asked, hesitating.

“I wanted to surprise you.

If you still…want me.”

“Oh, I will always want you,”

he said, drawing her down to show her how much.

She might have looked delicate, but Ophele was fully the match for his passion.

Even as he drew her against him, his palms squeezing the satisfying roundness of her backside, she was kissing him, freeing him from his breeches with an urgency and hunger that made him groan aloud.

And then stroking until his thighs jerked, her breath coming in panting little gasps as she showed him how well she could learn her lessons.

“Remin,”

she breathed as she shifted above him, her tawny eyes gleaming beneath her lashes, filled with light.

Witch.

Enchantress.

His breath clogged in his throat as she bent to kiss him again, her long hair falling about her sweet, lovely face.

“Ophele,”

he breathed, his fingers curling into her hair, gripping the back of her slender neck.

“You are mine, you know that, don’t you? Always, unto the stars.”

“Yes.”

She kissed him again, her soft mouth curving.

“And you are mine.”

Yes.

He would have her say it again and again until she believed it, until her heart was as sure as his own.

He had never known he wanted this so much.

Not just to possess a woman, but to be possessed by her.

To be claimed as thoroughly and eagerly as he claimed her. To see her jealous love-bites on his skin. He lay beneath her and shuddered as her tongue licked the ridges of his belly.

Roughly, he stroked his fingers through her hair, pushing it back so he could see her face as she kissed the wide planes of his chest.

In her eyes, he saw his own beauty reflected.

Remin rarely thought of himself outside utilitarian terms.

His body was meat, trained and honed to a purpose, sacrificed and stitched back together again.

But Ophele loved him. She touched and caressed and kissed his body as if his flesh was precious.

“Ophele,”

he whispered, and this time he lifted his chin first, baring his throat to her.

Both of them would struggle to learn they were loved, and so he would do this over and over, as many times as it took to teach his body that he was hers.

His breath, his heart, his voice, his skin, he would deny her nothing, not even the smallest measure of his pleasure or his love.

It was a miracle to know his heart was safe when it rested in her.

Her fingers laced in his as she moved over him, her thighs settling on either side of his hips, and in a smooth stroke her body swallowed his to the root.

The sinuous contractions of the molten heat inside her made him suck in a breath, thrusting helplessly upward.

“Do you like it when I do this?”

she whispered, her eyes hot and glowing, glorying in her feminine power over him.

“Yes,”

he rasped, his hands caressing her hips as she began to move.

As birthday surprises went, he would have been hard-pressed to name one he wanted more.

Remin would have been happy to spend the rest of the day in bed with her, and the night too, perhaps with a delivery of supper later.

But as the light turned to November gold outside the windows, she kissed him and sat up, her disheveled hair falling in clouds around her naked body.

“We have to get ready,”

she said, reaching for the chemise that had been kicked to the foot of the bed.

“I told Lady Verr we could manage ourselves tonight.

Magne even repaired your blue brocade doublet to match my gown.”

Clearly, she had planned this with care.

Remin allowed himself to be swept along, helping her with the laces of her blue and bronze gown just as he had in their cottage a night not so long ago, the same night when he had realized that he loved her.

How many things had changed since then.

“Look,”

she said as he straightened beside her, pointing to the mirror in the corner, the two of them resplendent in blue and bronze.

Her eyes were filled with admiration as she looked up at him.

“My husband is so handsome.”

He could count on one hand the number of times she had called him husband .

“I must be, or I would be ashamed to stand beside you,”

he said, lifting her hand to his lips.

He might enjoy fine clothing after all, if it pleased her so much to see him so.

And he was not at all surprised that her next request was to be taken into town for supper.

He imagined everyone who had been in on these surprises had wanted him off the roads for a few hours.

But he still drew Lancer up automatically as they approached the cookhouse and he saw the lights glowing ahead, torches to illuminate the night and bonfires to chase away the November cold, a mass of people far greater than he expected.

There were over three thousand people in Tresingale now, and surely that could not be all of them, but he could guess their number at a glance.

And he knew almost every face he saw.

His craftsmen, his farmers, hunters, builders, soldiers, and as they came nearer, he saw his own knights and guards, cautious as always of his safety in a crowd.

Remin dismounted his horse and reached to lower Ophele down, feeling both touched and foolish that so many people were here just for him.

“Come,”

Ophele said, taking his arm, and tugged him into the gathered mass of his people.