Page 37

The stern discipline of a lifetime allowed Remin to wake on his own a few hours later, a slow and blissful rousing that was like coming into a dream rather than out of one.

It was a bit disorienting, with the sun too high in the sky and the cottage already a little too warm, but Ophele was in his arms and there was plenty of evidence that the previous night’s passion had been very real.

Closing his eyes, he buried his face in her hair and breathed.

For all that he’d hardly slept, he felt better rested than he had in weeks.

Normally he would have risen straightaway, but for once, he indulged himself.

Part of him wanted to claim illness and wave away the day altogether, to stay in bed with her.

An increasingly large—and hard—part of him wondered if he would hurt her if they went just one more time.

She was already naked.

He was right there.

Reluctantly, he rejected the idea.

There was a certain rawness to more delicate parts of his own anatomy, making him worry that he might have already been too rough with her, and besides, he was the Duke of Andelin.

He had to set an example.

Bending, he kissed the top of her head and tried to slip out of bed without waking her.

He was big and the bed was small.

It was tricky, trying not to jostle her.

Perversely, her eyes opened anyway.

“Mmm?”

she asked sleepily, squinting.

“Time izzit?”

“Midmorning.”

Remin crouched beside the bed to put his face level with hers, brushing her hair back.

She was barely conscious, but he found he needed to see if the magic was still there. “Wife.”

“Hmm.”

“Do you still love me in the morning?”

he asked, and her lips curved.

“Yes,”

she said, her eyes slitting open.

“Do you still love me?”

“Yes.”

He rumbled with contentment as he kissed her.

“More than anything.”

She burrowed back into the covers, but he could see her smiling.

He had never felt like this before.

Not just in love, but safe.

So many times, Ophele’s face had replaced Merrienne’s in his dreams.

But now he had seen her flinging the knife away with his own eyes.

Washing, shaving, dressing, he couldn’t stop turning to look at her, in the same place she had been for the last five months, if only he had been able to reach for her sooner.

In due course he would find a hundred ways to make up for everything that happened between them.

But for now, he could only be humbly grateful that somehow, his life had led him to this place.

Tugging on a fresh jerkin, Remin shrugged at a stinging itch in his back and belted it around his waist, then went to wake her properly.

“Ophele,”

he said, kneeling beside her and peeling back the covers.

“Do you want to stay and sleep?”

“Nnngh.”

That sounded no-ish.

“You’ll have to get up, then.”

Sitting her up, he put a cup of water in her hand.

Normally, he would have left her then, but she looked so tempting.

Naked in bed with her clouds of hair tumbling around her shoulders and the marks of his mouth all over her shoulders and neck, her nipples red and swollen.

It made him want to push her back down and leave more marks.

Unfortunately, the forequarter of Ophele’s mind finally creaked into motion, and one arm moved to conceal her breasts.

“Could you get me my chemise?”

she asked, her ears turning pink, and Remin propped his chin on his hand and gazed up at her adoringly.

“In a minute.”

“You’re already dressed, it’s not fair,”

she said, but though she was blushing, she was laughing, too.

That was good.

He didn’t want to embarrass her, but he had always liked to tease her.

“I’ll get it.

And some water for washing up.”

But he couldn’t be settled in his mind about leaving until he had kissed her twice more and then retreated stiffly, a little unsettled.

Not only was he acting a fool, he couldn’t stop.

It was already hot outside, the sun bouncing off the cobblestone street, and he looked with satisfaction at the building underway.

There were several more merchants clamoring to set up stores in a valley where an awful lot of men currently had nowhere to spend their wages, and in the distance, he could see the baths nearing completion.

The women’s bathhouse would only have one customer for the present, but Auber’s clan would arrive any day now.

Hopefully more would follow.

In the kitchen, he ignored Wen’s curses over the late request for breakfast with the equanimity of a man in love and went to the stable for his horse.

Ophele was waiting at the door of the cottage when he rode up, looking like a pretty Celestial sister in a modest violet gown.

“What’s this?”

he asked, flicking at the heavy wool with a frown as he settled her before him.

Her long hair was loose too, hanging around her shoulders, and she tugged it down when he tried to brush it back.

“I had to cover up,”

she said, her eyes fleeting up and down the lane as if she suspected listeners were waiting to spring out from beneath the daisies.

For a split second, she pushed one side back to show him the marks on her neck, as if she were revealing the brand of a criminal.

“You made so many,”

she whispered, scandalized.

“I was hungry,”

he said, presenting her with an apple.

But he would restrain himself, in future; it was one thing to tease her when it was just the two of them, and something else altogether to advertise.

Especially if it meant she had to wear one of the hated wool dresses.

“But what if someone sees?”

One hand tugged down her long locks to keep them from flying as Remin nudged his warhorse onto the road.

“We’ll be careful,”

he promised, pulling her comfortably against him, one arm wrapped around her waist.

“Are you hurt at all, wife?”

“I’m all right. Really,”

she added before he could ask, and there was no telltale line between her eyebrows.

“Tell me if you are.

Or tired.

Or anything.”

“I will,”

she said, and when she lifted her eyes to his, for a dazzled moment he completely forgot where they were going and what they were doing and even that he had a horse he was supposed to be directing.

The smile that spread across his face almost felt like the shattering of a mask, he used it so rarely.

But it was also completely out of his control when she was smiling back at him, wide and foolish and beautiful, and he hadn’t known it was possible to be so happy.

Sousten and his men were already busy on the hilltop, and Juste was consulting with the man himself as they rode up.

There was a gratifying number of workers present, darting over and around a foundation made of solid Andelin granite that stretched deep into the hill.

Sousten’s plans called for an absolute warren underneath the house, storerooms and vaults, kitchens and servants’ quarters, with a delivery entrance on the back of the hill.

Dismounting, Remin lifted Ophele down and fed her apple core to his horse.

She was still trying to woo the fierce animal, but so far he was having none of it.

“I was beginning to wonder if you’d come,”

said Juste, offering a bow to Ophele.

“My lady.

I’m glad to see you looking so well.

I’ll let Sousten explain what’s what, he’s like to burst otherwise.”

“It’s a pile of stone,”

the architect said bluntly, waving both hands at the large square foundation behind him.

He was wearing his version of work clothes, compensating for rugged leather boots with a great deal of lace at his wrists.

“Today it will become a box.

Here you see the bones of the grand entry: the deep portico, the wide stairs, and there are the bases for the pillars, Your Grace, as well as the pedestals for the guardian dogs.”

He gestured to the two square plinths at the base of the stone steps.

“The stars must bless our work this day that you have appeared so fortuitously.

It needs the hands of a fair lady to make this box a thing of beauty, and there are no fairer hands than the lady duchess, the flower of the Andelin.”

He bowed to Ophele, who looked rather startled by the compliment.

“It does?”

“Indeed.

It is the duty of the mistress of the house to make it a home.

This will be the first house in the valley and the grandest.

A daunting task lies before us.

His Grace has flung open the doors to the world to seek inspiration.

Will we have sun palaces as they do in Daitia, or Bhumi water gardens? Would you like your bath in the Benkki Desa style, or the sunken pools of Argence? We will wed these functions to the form of the Andelin Valley, with which we will build a harmonious whole.”

He clasped his hands together, looking at the house as if he could already see it.

“And of course, we must incorporate the characters of our chief players, the Andelin’s first duke and duchess,”

he added, flinging out his arms to encompass them both.

“It is your home, but it must also be a stage, a place to display the fairest flower in the valley, to showcase the lady’s delicacy and charm.”

He bowed again.

“And also a fit setting for His Grace. Austere,”

he explained, waving a hand in Remin’s direction.

“Aloof.

Difficult to please.”

“You earn your gold, Sousten,”

said Remin, unperturbed.

“It is a historical undertaking!”

The architect declared passionately.

“We are not building a peasant’s hovel, no tepid merchant’s town house! There is no other place in the world like this! In centuries to come this will be the beating heart of the valley, where all of its nobility will come to marvel at the splendor of the House of Andelin! They will dance upon floors that you have selected, my lady! They will eat in your grand banquet hall! The guardian dogs that we set upon the doors of your House will stand watch over your children’s children’s children!”

He ended this ardent speech on one knee before Ophele, clutching her fingertips in his, as if he were already honoring her for this achievement.

Remin felt an inexplicable urge to applaud, but Ophele looked daunted at the prospect.

“Are—are there books I could read?”

she finally offered hesitantly, looking at Sousten with worried eyes.

He blinked, as if his leading lady hadn’t quite nailed her lines, but soldiered on.

“Yes, my lady,”

said Sousten Didion, clasping her hands reverently.

“There are books.”

“We will need walls first,”

Juste observed, recalling the architect to mundane reality.

Life was hard, for a man with a vision.

“Stay in the shade,”

Remin said as he walked with Ophele beneath the ancient oak.

Its roots were so high, they made a convenient bench.

“Don’t worry, we’ll get all the books you like.

We’ll build another storehouse for them, if we need to.”

“I can do it,”

she said, her lips firming in her own version of a stubborn face.

His hand reached to give her a caress all by itself, as if it were possessed.

“I know,”

he said, and went to go lift up the first wall of their house.

It was closer to noon than morning and the very air smelled hot, the sweltering, wavering depths of an Andelin summer.

The structure of the house would be a blend of stone, plaster, and timber frames, using the ancient trees that had been sacrificed to clear the home site.

Remin didn’t mind being called on for heavy labor.

He was proud of every stone he had lifted in the valley, and every tree he had hewn.

“Right, lads!”

shouted the foreman.

There were multiple crews of men standing by ready to lift the massive frame, some of them on ropes, with a few like Remin waiting to push from the other side as the frames were pulled upward.

“And…three…two…one…lift!”

The men heaved.

The massive frame rose, and Remin got his hands under the post and shoved, muscle bunching in his shoulders and back as he took the weight and bore up beneath it.

Braces thunked into place at the ends of the frame, and carpenters hurried forward to hammer pins and toe holds into place.

The heavy frame would support itself, once all four sides were up; they would lean on each other and last for centuries.

For now, they were just building the main house.

Remin could already see where the hallways to the wide wings would be, and as they lifted the frame, where tall windows would look out on the valley and the river.

He couldn’t help glancing at Ophele, watching with fascination from her place under the tree, her large eyes taking everything in.

Her gaze caught his and she glowed in his sight, and Remin turned back to his work, suppressing another smile.

As the day heated up and he began to sweat, his back stung like fury, and halfway around the house he slid his shirt off and hung it over a handy shrub, shrugging his broad shoulders.

Between his size and his scars, he was used to being stared at, so he thought nothing of it when the men nearby kept giving him sidelong glances.

Particularly at his back.

“My lord.”

Juste leaned over to murmur while Remin was holding the latest section of the frame in position.

“Did you run into a cat yesterday? It appears one might have been at you.

Perhaps you should put your shirt back on.”

“No,”

Remin replied, mystified.

“Perhaps you were tangling with a cat last night,”

Juste said meaningfully.

Remin blinked.

His eyes automatically sought out the cat in question.

Or rather, the owl.

The owl would never stand up under questioning.

Ophele was staring at them in mortified horror, peering through her fingers and scarlet to the ears, shaking her head slowly.

The guilt couldn’t have been more clear if she’d been wearing a Daitian punishment hat.

“Thank you,”

Remin told Juste with great dignity, and went to retrieve his shirt.

So much for being discreet.

The rest of the framing was done by midafternoon, and Remin accepted a dipper of water and a small loaf of bread and cheese from Wen’s wagon and then went to go see how Ophele was faring.

It had been some time since he replaced his jerkin, but she moved to sit with him out of sight of the builders without meeting his eyes.

Silently, he broke his loaf of bread in half and extended it to her.

Tearing off a bite of his own, he waited.

“Everyone saw it,”

she finally whispered, clutching her bread.

“Remin, your whole back, it looks like you lost a fight with a bobcat.”

“It itches,”

he agreed, twitching his shoulders as if the scratches bothered him.

Honestly, he hadn’t known there was anything there.

He had to fight to keep another foolish smile from escaping.

“You scratched the devil out of me, wife.

I don’t know how I can bear the shame.”

“I didn’t do it on purpose, why didn’t you—”

she began, and then she finally looked up at him and stopped short.

A giggle escaped, and she covered her mouth and looked away.

“You’re horrible.”

“We’re married,”

he told her, and since they were safely out of sight, he lifted her onto his knee and kissed her soundly to prove it.

“Everyone already knows.

Miche is always quoting that one philosopher, what’s his name.

The hedonist.”

“Thiolas Laval.”

“The greatest blessing under heaven is a lusty wife.

That one,”

Remin agreed, and she burst out laughing.

“That is not what he said,”

she said reprovingly, but settled against him comfortably to eat, her toes dangling above the grass.

Sheltered by the ancient oak, they watched the house coming together like a vast wooden puzzle.

The builders bawled orders, hammering and pegging, finishing the toe holds and driving huge wooden dowels into place to pin the massive timber frames together.

The wood would be protected by a fa?ade of stone when it was done, and those timbers might stand forever, if the builders did their work well.

“That’s really going to be our house,”

she said, watching with fascination.

“It’s so big.

I don’t know what we’ll put in it.”

“Books?”

he offered, to see her smile, and laid a big hand on her flat belly.

“And babes, in time.”

“I will,”

she said firmly, placing her hand on his with the same air of resolve she had given the house.

“I asked Mr.

Hengest and he said I shouldn’t have any trouble, as long as I eat well and—”

“No,”

he interrupted.

“Not the noble children of House Andelin, scions of Ospret Agnephus.

Our children.

Yours and mine.

I want children with you.”

“I—what—why?”

she stammered, searching his face, and then looked quickly away, as if she had realized how much she had revealed with that question.

Remin looked at her steadily.

He was not a stupid man.

After almost seven months of marriage, he had at least learned not to attempt a frontal assault on this shy, wary opponent.

It would only make her retreat.

“It seems I have grown greedy,”

he said instead, toying with her slender fingers and allowing her to avoid his eyes.

“The more I have, the more I want.

I defeated Valleth, and won the war.

I am made duke again, which was my birthright.

I have the Andelin Valley for my duchy, which they call the jewel of the Empire.

And I have married the daughter of the Emperor, so that my heirs will be protected by his sacred blood for all time. I thought that would be enough. It’s the foundation for a dynasty.”

She was listening, watching his fingers caress her.

“But it wasn’t.”

He pressed his lips to the back of her hand.

“I needed my wife to love me.

I want children with her, and no other.

And I will love them better, because they are like their mother.”

As so often happened, words failed her.

Ophele’s lips trembled and then firmed, her eyelashes veiling her splendid eyes, hiding all those thoughts.

How much did she think that she never said? But he thought he understood her a little better now, and his hand drifted over her back, a caress to make the silence comfortable.

Really, they had only begun to know each other.

“I will be a good lady to you,”

she said finally.

“And to your people.

I will learn.”

“We will both learn,”

Remin agreed, and sealed it with a kiss.

There was time.

This was only the beginning.

Before him spread the wide valley, the distant villages whose fate he still did not know, and the devils that lurked in the shadows, waiting for nightfall.

His own house was little more than a foundation and timber frame, but in time, it would shelter them all from wind and rain.

In time, he would make it a home, and a garden for all his people.

In time, it would hold the new family he would make with Ophele of Aldeburke, the woman that he loved.

In time, it would be a beauty and wonder.

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