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Chapter Eleven

Guinevere

Vindicator was a stallion of the highest caliber, handsome and well formed, with an expression that was remarkably aloof for a horse. He trotted proudly over the Amber Road like a shiny streak of midnight, his great hooves striking the ignoble dirt with the arresting rhythm of thunderclouds.

Riding sidesaddle on such a fine mount, in her new dress, her new boots dangling together gaily, Guinevere felt like the princess that Oskar had so wryly called her hours ago.

Of course, the dress was a square-necked, puff-sleeved affair that called to mind tavern wench rather than princess, and her mother would have conniptions when Guinevere arrived in Nicodranas like this, but it was clean and serviceable, and she’d learned not to take that for granted after having traipsed through the woods and the streets of Druvenlode in a nightgown.

If she had one problem with Vindicator, it was that he was given to high spirits, with a tendency to rear. She never would have been able to control him on her own, not with the sum total of her previous experience being the gentle ponies of the Shimmer Ward’s stables.

But Oskar kept him well in hand, with firm tugs to the reins and calmly muttered assurances.

Guinevere was pressed up against him in the nest of the leather saddle, her torso bracketed by his relaxed arms in what could almost be an embrace.

It was scandalous, but she found that she didn’t much care about that.

It was as though the open road and the clear blue sky and the lack of people for miles around stripped away all her inhibitions. She didn’t feel like herself.

What did bother her was how conscious she was of Oskar’s big, warm body so close to hers. The brick wall of his wide chest that she was jostled against on occasion. The spurs of his lean hips. His rock-hard thighs, and the smell of him, all soap and sweat, leather and forest.

She could also have done without his many questions regarding her betrothed.

He hadn’t started asking them until they’d left the mining town far in the dust, and now they mingled with birdsong and rustling wind and the thunder of Vindicator’s hooves—and Pudding’s more amiable gait, the mare shuffling along close behind.

“What’s their name, Guinevere?”

“His. Fitzalbert, Lord Wensleydale.”

Oskar made a disparaging noise in the back of his throat. “How did you meet him?”

“I haven’t yet,” she admitted. “My parents brokered the match a few days after they arrived in Nicodranas on business. He is from a fine old Dwendalian family, but he has an estate on the Menagerie Coast as well.”

Was it her imagination, or did Oskar’s fists tighten on the reins?

“You’re marrying someone you don’t even know ?” he growled.

She shrugged. Honestly, the topic was putting her in a bit of a mood. “It is my duty to marry well. Father writes that Lord Wensleydale is not too old and has all his teeth.”

“Ah, yes, the two primary considerations in a spouse. Aside from the title, of course.”

She turned her head to blink up at him. He was staring into the distance with stormy golden eyes, a muscle working in his sharp jaw.

“I don’t want to talk about Lord Wensleydale,” she said.

“Fine.” Oskar didn’t miss a beat. “What are you bringing him? What dowry could be worthy of such a toothy paragon of an appropriately aged man?”

“I don’t know what exactly is in the trunk,” Guinevere retorted hotly, “and I don’t know why you’re being so cross with me all of a sudden. How old are you ?”

“Twenty-three,” he snapped.

“Well, that makes you only three years older than I am, so do not act like you know so much more about the world—”

As though echoing the contention between his riders, Vindicator chose that moment to rear again.

Guinevere’s world tilted, and she was sent flying backward into Oskar.

Instinctively, she looped her arms around his waist—and kept them there as he steadied their mount.

He spoke to the stallion softly, his chest rumbling against her cheek, his voice flowing through her like wine.

Even when Vindicator had settled into a trot once more, she didn’t let go.

She would, if Oskar told her to, but he didn’t.

Her hands drifted up, her fingertips digging into the taut muscles of his back, learning their shape and the way they rolled.

What a revelation, to touch a man like this, here where no one was around to tell her it was wrong.

But he was clearly not done interrogating her. “How can you lug that trunk across the Empire and have no clue what’s inside?”

“It’s jewels, I think,” said Guinevere. “I hear them rattling around like stones on occasion. My parents say it’s some kind of great treasure, at any rate. The trunk’s been in my bedroom since forever. It’s locked, and only Father has the key.”

Over the last two years, she had wondered why her parents did not simply sell the trunk’s contents.

If it was as valuable as they claimed, it could surely have been the antidote to all their financial woes.

Whatever it was, it was certainly valuable enough to entice Lord Wensleydale into marrying a merchant’s daughter.

Oskar was grumbling to himself, a stream of cantankerous words that Guinevere could barely make out despite their proximity.

His obvious unhappiness at the prospect of her wedding a stranger was a balm to her soul—at least someone was enraged on her behalf.

She couldn’t be, because that wouldn’t be dutiful; that simply wasn’t done.

Everyone understood that marriage at high enough levels was just like any other business transaction.

She sighed, gripped by a melancholy sculpted from autumn air. She shifted against him until her head was tucked neatly under his chin. She hadn’t really meant to, but it felt so nice that she didn’t bother moving anymore. And it wasn’t long before Oskar’s grumbling faded away.