Page 8

She had flowers in her hair.

The vision of the princess danced before Remin’s eyes even after he turned away, like an afterimage from staring directly at the sun.

He had very rarely gotten a good look at her, these past few days; she was always looking at the ground, and hiding behind her masses of untidy hair.

Even as the Prior began his opening blessing, Remin couldn’t help watching her from the corner of his eye, as if it might be some trick.

She looked like the maiden spring in pink and green, and her hair was beautiful, the rich umber streaming in loose curls down her back, with a crown of pink roses on her head.

The ceremony needed a few adjustments, as they went along.

Neither of them had parents to approve the marriage, or at least, in the princess’s case, no parent that was willing to stand behind her on her wedding day.

And for the first time, the thought of the Emperor aggravated Remin for reasons beyond his own grievances.

Surely the Emperor should have sent someone to witness his daughter’s wedding.

What Miche had said was right, and Remin found an unwilling pocket of sympathy.

She had been a very nice girl so far, and she was all alone.

“Let us call the stars as witness,”

the Prior said, and Remin snapped back to attention.

The invocation was long and rather ironic, considering the number of verses calling for the blessing of the stars, and the Emperor who was their Beloved.

It was very unlikely that the Emperor would spare any grace for this union.

But the Prior made the best of it, and smoke from the silver braziers rolled in thick cloud around the base of the dais, cold and sharp to Remin’s nose.

“Before these witnesses and under the light of heaven, we propose to bind this man and this woman as one, unto death and beyond, and even to their dwelling in the stars,”

said the Prior, lifting his hands.

“Are there any here that will protest this joining?”

There was a terrible moment when Remin glanced at her, wondering if she might protest.

But she said nothing, and at that moment the crystal chimes hummed along the periphery of the dais as the stars sang a wordless, ethereal accord.

The princess began to glow.

Remin had never been a particularly religious man, but even he was awed as the light shone from her fair skin, glowing in her eyes.

Behind him, there were gasps from the crowd, and a rustling as everyone fell to their knees before a Daughter of the Stars.

She was shining so bright, the lines of her body wavered in the radiance of their light.

The princess looked down at herself in amazement, and when she lifted her eyes to Remin, he saw that she was afraid.

“Sacred Highness.”

Remin had to force himself forward, to take the hands of this divine creature, his thumbs rubbing gently into her palms, warm and reassuring.

“I am Remin Nicanot, the son of Benetot and Sidonie, and by the grace of the stars, Duke of Andelin.

To you I swear the protection of my body and my house, from this day to my last day, and even unto our dwelling in the stars.”

He meant it.

Even if she was the Daughter of the Stars, the daughter of the Emperor, he would protect her to his last breath.

The Prior was nearly as awed as the rest of the crowd, but he moved forward at Remin’s sharp glance and began to bind their wrists together, the silk cords symbolizing the oaths that would bind them unto death and beyond.

“I—I am Ophele, daughter of Bastin and Rache, and by the grace of the stars, Princess of Argence.”

The princess’s voice squeaked once before it settled.

“To you I swear the submission of my body and my obedience to your House, from this day until my last day, and even unto our dwelling in the stars…”

Back and forth, they alternated vows, each vow another cord, another knot, another bond.

A pattern emerged in silver and white and blue, gleaming with tiny crystal beads.

If either of them had had a family, it would have been their responsibility to supply the cords of this binding.

As it was, they had been supplied by Miche.

Possibly stolen.

“As your husband, I will build and guard the walls of our House, and forsake all others in fidelity to my wife,”

said Remin, taking the rings from the ends of the cords.

They were nearly done.

“As your wife, I will govern well within the walls of our house, and forsake all others in fidelity to my husband,”

Ophele replied, taking his ring.

There was a plain silver band for Remin, but her ring was small and exquisitely formed, with a diamond set in each scalloping scroll of silver.

Miche had somewhat exceeded his mandate.

For a moment, they looked at the rings together, and then her eyes lifted to his as they spoke as one.

“With you, I will share my hearth and my home.

The products of my labors.”

Together, they slipped the rings onto each other’s fingers.

“With you, I will share all my joys and sorrows, for all the days of my life.”

The pattern was done.

The Prior slipped it loose from their wrists, a perfect weaving, reflective, recursive, infinite.

He lifted it over his head, that all the witnesses might see.

It was done.

Remin was married.

And no power on earth could undo it.

The light of the stars faded.

Ophele tried to withdraw her hands, but Remin held them tightly, his heart thumping with emotions even he couldn’t identify.

Triumph.

Happiness.

Grief that his parents had not lived to see him wed.

Satisfaction that he was moving, step by step, toward restoring so many things that had been lost. And looking into the eyes of his new wife, uncertainty about what lay ahead, because she was the daughter of his enemy.

“On this, the fourth day of March in the 826th year of the Divine House of Agnephus, I witness this marriage on behalf of the Temple of the Stars, and attest the shining of the stars upon it,”

the Prior concluded, and bowed his gray head, smiling.

“Your Grace, you may seal this covenant, and kiss your bride.”

When Remin bent to kiss her, it was only the second time in his life that he had kissed any woman.

The back of his neck heated, aware that the Knights of the Brede had a reputation to uphold and that he had a certain dignity to maintain before the eyes of half of Celderline.

But her lips were red and yielding and she smelled as if she had come from a bed of roses.

Remin’s hand sank into her soft hair to hold her in place, feeling the hesitant response of her mouth under his.

It was as if someone was gently rubbing silk against his lips, and the surprising pleasure of the sensation made him lean into her for a moment before he collected himself.

Lifting his head, he had to force his usual impassive mask back into place, nodding to the Prior to continue.

The man was dignified in his advanced age, raising his hands in benediction to the new couple.

“To the people of Celderline and all people under the dominion of the stars, I present the Duke and Duchess of Andelin!”

The cheers spread from inside the temple to the streets of the city as the temple bells tolled the news of the duke’s marriage, and still Remin’s knights were the loudest of all.

* * *

The rest of the evening galloped by like a panicking horse.

After the ceremony, the wedding party retired to the inn for a feast attended by anyone who impressed the innkeeper and the duke’s knights.

The food was tested for poison before it was brought to His Grace’s table, and the only attendees permitted to carry weapons were the Knights of the Brede.

Ophele was ignorant of all these precautions.

Seated at the high table beside her new husband, she picked at her food and tried to ignore the stares, unaccustomed to the attention of so many people.

The duke was being unusually considerate, and she wondered why.

It was impossible to tell from his expression; when he wasn’t actively irritated, his face was at best neutral, if not grim.

But he prepared a platter for her, cut up her meat, and offered her savories as they passed by, though his suggestions sounded more like orders.

“Do you have much experience of wine?”

he asked as he poured her some, pausing with the glass half-filled.

She shook her head.

The first time she had ever tasted wine was in his camp the night before last, and it had been sour and made her feel sleepy.

“You have to cultivate a taste for it,”

he explained, setting the jug aside.

“Here, try it.”

Obediently, she sipped, wondering if this variety might be any better.

The taste filled her nose and tickled her tongue with a stinging heat, sour and acid.

Her mouth puckered.

“No, eh?”

The duke signaled a serving girl to bring her something else.

Tasting his own cup, he frowned.

“We will do better in the valley.”

He meant to grow grapes? And he wasn’t ignoring her, or barking orders.

Ophele cast about for something to say, attempting to meet him on his own ground.

“Are you going to—”

“Edemir.”

He was already speaking, leaning over to the knight on his left.

“Before we leave, send out some inquiries…”

He probably hadn’t heard her in the din.

Ophele accepted a cup of fruit juice from the serving girl and sipped, trying not to notice that the sky outside the casement windows was completely dark, and the servants were lighting the oil lamps along the sides of the banquet hall.

A space in the center had already been cleared for dancing, and musicians were tuning their instruments, the sounds of flute, drum, and mandolin rippling through the noise of conversation.

She caught the duke watching her from the corner of his eye and lowered her head, hoping he wouldn’t ask.

She could already hear his question in her head, punctuated by the derisive princess.

She didn’t know how to dance.

Her mother had danced with her when she was a little girl, but after she died, there had never been a tutor or a dancing-master.

Not even a nurse like Mistress Ursule, who taught Lisabe the proper arts of a noble lady.

Ophele looked up at her tall, imposing husband, wondering with renewed fear what he would say when he realized exactly how poor a princess she was.

“What?”

“Nothing,”

she whispered, looking hastily away.

She watched the moon rise like a criminal counting down the minutes to their execution, and saw the key players in the final drama moving into their places: one of his knights came to murmur in the duke’s ear, and a moment later Mistress Goel appeared at the far end of the table, flanked by two maids.

It felt as if her heart stopped.

His Grace looked at her with opaque black eyes, and bent his head to her ear.

“Go on up, Princess,”

he said quietly.

“I will follow shortly.”

It occurred to her that dancing might have been a better alternative.

Traditionally, her mother and sisters should have escorted her from the hall, along with any other married female relations and close friends.

Ophele rose and exited the hall alone, trying to walk with dignity, her head held high and her pace unhurried.

But they did not take her to her room.

They went instead to a different room at the end of the hall, where Sir Auber was just coming out of the door.

“Your Grace,”

he said, moving aside with a polite bow.

The new bedchamber looked much like her old one, a large and luxurious room with a large and luxurious bed, littered with a small assortment of belongings that plainly belonged to a man: a large pair of boots on the floor, a familiar cloak over a chair, a rough leather bag.

Patiently, the maids undid all their work, removing the layers of her gown and replacing her chemise with a lighter one of thin white silk edged in lace.

Then Mistress Goel shooed them from the room and sat her by the washstand to remove the roses from her hair.

“Your Highness, please forgive me for asking,”

she began, looking troubled.

“I assumed someone from your family was on the way, and had perhaps been delayed on the road.

But…has no one given you your bridal lessons?”

“Bridal lessons?”

Ophele repeated blankly.

“Oh, dear.”

The mistress glanced anxiously at the windows, marking the progress of the moonrise.

“And His Grace will be here any minute, I wonder if I dare…you must be very honest with him, Your Highness.

I believe he is a sympathetic man, he seemed quite taken with you.

It was just as I said…”

A knock sounded at the door, and both women started.

“He hasn’t been able to take his eyes off you,”

the mistress finished in a whisper, and gave Ophele’s hair a final stroke with the brush before she rose and departed.

There was a brief, whispered conversation in the hallway, and then the duke ducked through the door, and made the room small with the sheer force of his presence.

She had skittered halfway across the room like a frightened deer before she realized it.

“Wife.”

The single word stopped her in her tracks.

Her fingers tangled in an anxious knot before her as she lifted her eyes to his, ignorant that the fire behind her revealed the curves of her body through her thin chemise.

“Mistress Goel said no one told you what’s to happen.”

As he spoke, the duke undid the silver buttons of his jerkin, sliding it off his shoulders and letting it fall on the floor.

His tanned skin was dark against the open neck of his white shirt.

Mutely, she shook her head.

“We have to be together tonight.

I will take your virginity.”

He was moving closer, too close, too tall, reaching out one huge hand toward her face.

Her eyes fixed on it as if it were a snake and it took everything she had not to cringe backward.

By the time his thumb brushed her cheek, she was trembling.

“Will it hurt?”

she whispered.

“It might, a little.”

Gently, his hand stroked her face, curving around the back of her neck to slip beneath the warm weight of her hair.

That didn’t hurt.

“But if I do it right, it is supposed to feel very good.

I promise I will be careful.

You must tell me if it hurts. Promise?”

She nodded.

Her pulse was beating so fast, she could feel the tiny, frantic knot of it in her throat.

His hand shifted to cradle her head and there was a sense of vertigo as his black eyes descended, his lips covering hers in the same slow, considering kiss he had given her in the temple.

It was a kiss that felt strangely…patient, his lips gliding slowly, plucking at the soft curves of her mouth.

His hand touched her back and she flinched instinctively, her eyes squeezing shut.

But he was only caressing her, his hand sliding up and down her back, his fingers in her hair, as methodical as if he was surveying the contours of her body.

It didn’t hurt.

He had said he wouldn’t hurt her.

Ophele thought of the romances she had read and tried to do what he was doing, her lips moving in timid, tingling brushes.

Those books had never gone further than kisses, and the strange, fluttering feelings they provoked.

But those girls did often fling their arms about their lover, and her hands crept tentatively upward to wrap around his neck.

His shoulders went rigid.

“What are you doing?”

he murmured against her lips.

“I’m sorry,”

she whispered, removing her hands at once.

“You don’t like it?”

“No, it’s fine.”

But he was frowning as he kissed her again, his thick black brows lowered ferociously.

Ophele shut her eyes tight only for them to fly open again at the warm and shocking roil of his tongue into her mouth.

He tasted of wine, and the honey-cakes they had had for their wedding supper.

This was not the sort of kiss she had read about, and it made her feel very peculiar.

It was hard to think when he was doing that, hard to breathe, and she bent back, and back, and back, and hardly knew she was falling until he caught her.

“See?”

he murmured.

Another kiss.

“It will feel good.

Don’t be afraid.

We have all night.”

It was obvious to Remin that she had no idea what he meant, but that was his own fault; he had snatched her from Aldeburke without giving anyone a chance to explain things to her.

Though he could not trust her, and she was the daughter of his enemy, he could not bring himself to be cruel to her.

Not when she was looking at him like that, with her eyes eating up her face.

“Come here,”

he said, drawing her over to one of the chairs by the fire and sitting her on his knee.

Miche had offered a painfully explicit explanation of how he should proceed, but it was something else to actually do it.

Remin had never done this before, either, and it was all too easy to imagine accidentally hurting her.

Now that it came to it, he found himself unexpectedly nervous.

They must do this tonight, to ensure there were no possible grounds to contest the marriage later, but he felt foolish as he brushed his lips over her cheeks.

Her eyes slid shut and her breath shivered out and then it was easier, and he moved more confidently down her jaw, nuzzling into her throat.

The sweet scent of her made his head spin and he lingered against that soft, warm skin.

There was a fluttering against his lips that he realized was her pulse, speeding away.

“Does it feel good?”

he asked thickly, and sensed her reluctant nod.

The more he kissed her, the more he wanted to kiss her.

His hands at her waist tightened, sliding up and down, feeling her ribs move as she breathed, tiny and delicate as a bird.

The slender frame of her collarbones called to him, and before he could think about it, he was licking her, sliding his mouth over those little bones and feeling her jerk as he bit her.

But she liked it.

Remin was warming to his task, advancing steadily downward, and every time she squirmed, every time she stiffened, he retreated back to her lips until she softened for him.

The back of his neck heated as he finally reached her breasts and sought one rosy nipple with his mouth, tugging her through her chemise.

It was the first explicitly sexual thing he had done to her, and she rewarded him with a high, breathless gasp: the single most erotic sound he had ever heard.

The princess clapped her hand over her mouth and turned scarlet, and he couldn’t bite back a chuckle.

Drawing her nipple between his lips, he tugged again, wetting her chemise with his mouth.

His other hand slid resolutely over her knee to the inside of her thigh, and she pushed it away, unthinking.

“But…what—why?”

she stammered.

He opened one eye.

“I am making you ready,”

he told her, and deliberately licked her nipple again, a lewd motion that made it darken and harden through the fabric.

“We are going to be naked together, and I must touch you everywhere until you are wet.

Then I will put myself inside you.”

Ophele digested this.

“Like a goat?”

she asked timidly.

“I saw goats once…”

The corner of his mouth twitched.

“Like a ram, I should hope,”

he said.

“Do not be embarrassed.

This is what we must do together, as husband and wife.”

She did not look entirely persuaded, but he could feel her response as he captured her other nipple, her body jerking with every stroke of his tongue.

His fingers trailed lightly up and down her inner thigh, tickling that sensitive skin, making her jerk and shiver like a horse needing gentling.

Both of them were breathing hard, and she could not be still.

“Let me look at you,”

he whispered, meeting her eyes for a moment before he slipped the wide neck of her chemise over her shoulders, and then her breasts were bare and he was cupping one in his warm hand.

The sensation of his tongue rasping directly against her naked nipple was vivid and shocking.

“Ahh…”

Her voice cracked.

Her thighs tried to close, but Remin patiently eased them apart again.

“Your Grace…”

“Does it hurt?”

he asked hoarsely.

“No…!”

She gave another cry as he stroked, circling with his fingers as he pressed his face into her breasts, licking and kissing and biting with his heart pounding wildly in his ears.

Her nipples were so pink and tempting, quivering taut on his tongue as if they might melt.

He tugged on one and then the other, and every time she jerked, every time she moaned, the pitch of his own desire burned hotter.

And then, nerving himself, he slid one long finger inside her.

“Oh—oh, y-your…what…”

She stuttered in shock, her eyes flying open as she tried to squirm away from the invading digit.

He didn’t stop.

Ophele thought she would burst into flames as a second finger joined the first, and that handsome, forbidding face nuzzled again at her breast.

This was Remin Grimjaw, the Scourge of Valleth, who had done nothing but glare at her from the moment they met.

His lips moving, plucking at her.

His tongue laving.

His teeth nipping her skin. She could never have guessed what would happen, she certainly could never have imagined this, but the last thing in the world she would have expected from him was pleasure.

His fingers slid in and out, easier every time.

It tickled.

He made her body shake.

In.

Out.

In. Out. Her breath burned in her lungs as a cry burst from her lips, sensation scorching along her nerves as she jerked and quivered through her first climax.

“I think you’re ready,”

he said, as if from very far away, and his arm slid under her knees to lift her, striding toward the bed.