I tensed.
“What?” he said, alert to my discomfort.
“Nothing,” I said quietly. I was not going to tell him that I was embarrassed because of the stretch marks that decorated my protruding belly.
He furrowed his brow.
On the other hand, wasn’t this just more of what I’d always done? I was afraid to show him my weaknesses. I wanted to hide all that from him and pretend that I was impenetrable. But… it wasn’t true. I took a deep breath. “I’m just… my body is not way you remember it.”
He arched an eyebrow.
“I had a baby,” I said. “After a woman has a baby, she never… goes back to…”
He tried very hard to stifle a smile, but he couldn’t. He even snickered a little bit.
I gritted my teeth. “Are you laughing at me?”
“I always said you were too serious, Fleur,” he said, going back to unlacing my dress, deliberately loosening the ribbon where it criss-crossed over my chest.
“Well, you look even better than you used to, and I look…” I huffed.
He pushed my gown over my shoulder. “Oh, I look better, huh?”
“You’re horrible,” I said.
He bared my breast, and I gasped.
He cupped it, and he kissed me. His hands worked at pushing my dress down.
I didn’t stop him, but I didn’t help him either, and that meant that I ended up with the dress pushed down nearly to my navel, my arms pinned to my sides. He pulled back and looked down at my bare skin.
I squirmed under his gaze.
He put both of his hands on my breasts, teasing my nipples stiff. “I think these are bigger.”
I squirmed again, but it was a better squirm this time. “Maybe, but they’re… floppy now.”
He laughed, kissing me.
I cringed.
“You’re insecure,” he whispered in my ear.
“I am not!” I protested.
“You are, and I like it,” he said. He was kissing his way down my body, kissing between my breasts. He planted a kiss above my belly button. “You.” He kissed me right on my navel. “Are.” He pushed my dressed down further and kissed the place where my belly swelled. “Perfect.”
I shut my eyes, and I squirmed again. I wasn’t sure why it felt so good when he said things like that.
He pushed the dress down further. “You’re all I ever really wanted, you know. The only thing that’s ever mattered to me.” His mouth was hot and wet as it went lower on my body.
I gasped again.
“You’re everything,” he said to me, his mouth finding the center of me.
My back arched and I moaned. He had said the same thing to me the first time we’d made love in Rzymn, and the memory of our closeness then, before everything had been ruined, washed through me.
I bucked against his expert mouth on me. It wasn’t long before I climaxed against him, whimpering, and then he was shedding his trousers, and we were kissing again, and I was guiding him inside me.
When we were joined, I felt the flame far, far way in Islaigne. I felt it calling to the magic in the two of us, how what resided in us was an echo of that magic, how the flame was related but separate, and how our joining made us more than the sum of our parts, how it made us something new and pure and good.
I felt complete and whole in a way that ached.
I clung to him long after we were spent, and he didn’t attempt to move out of me. I could feel him softening inside my body, and I wrapped my legs around him, wanting to keep us connected for as long as I could.
We fell asleep like that.
* * *
I woke to the sound of Margo’s nurse scolding her. “You get back here this instant!”
I opened my eyes to see that Margo was at the foot of the bed and the nurse was just entering the room. When the nurse saw the king in my bed, her eyes widened.
“Mama,” said Margo, furrowing her brow. “Who is that man?”
The nurse scurried over and snatched Margo by the arm. “Come away now, Princess,” she said in a loud whisper. “Mama’s busy.”
“It’s all right,” I said. “Margo, go out in the other room and I’ll be out in a moment.”
The nurse looked at me. “I’m so sorry. If I’d had any idea you were— well, then I would have kept her out.”
“Would you?” I said, winking at her. We both know that Margo was a determined little girl. “Give me a moment.”
Remy was stirring. He was half on top of me still.
The nurse pulled Margo out and shut the door.
Remy’s eyes fluttered open.
I kissed his forehead. “Go back to sleep,” I whispered, and then I slithered out of bed and put on a robe to go out into my sitting room.
“Mama,” said Margo, her hands on her hips. “You sleep too late.”
“Oh, do I?” I said.
“Yes, I’m hungry, and you’re not awake.”
“Well, if you’re hungry, I think you should eat breakfast,” I said.
“I want you to eat with me,” she said.
“By the time I got ready for breakfast, you’d be starving,” I said. “You’d best eat without me this morning.”
“But we’ll go on a walk in the gardens, like you said?”
“Absolutely,” I said, giving her a hug and kissing her on top of the head.
“All right,” she said. She sighed. “Is this going to be our new home?”
“No, sweetie, I told you. We don’t know where our new home will be. But I think we’re going to find one. I think the king is going to help us.”
“All right, well, I hope our new home has hot springs like our old one,” she said.
I patted her head. “I would like that too, but I think that might not be possible.”
She wrinkled her nose. Then she looked up at her nurse. “Will they have the chocolate circles for breakfast like yesterday?”
Her nurse hesitated.
I spoke up. “Yes, you can request those. They are my favorite as well.”
Margo beamed at me. Then she turned back to her nurse and grabbed her by the hand. “Let’s go have breakfast.” She dragged her nurse out of the room.
I slipped back into my bedroom.
Remy was tugging on his trousers. His chest was still bare.
“Sorry,” I said.
He gave me a thoughtful look. “How old is she?”
I sucked in a breath. All right, now we were going to do this, but it would be all right. “Four.”
“You were worried about being a mother, but I think you’re a natural.” He smiled at me. “My mother, now, she…” He chuckled softly, not meeting my gaze.
“You never talk about your mother,” I said. “Is it because Cedric—”
“It was an accident,” he said, meeting my gaze. “It truly was. I saw her slip on the steps. She wasn’t paying attention. She was very, very focused on making sure she secured the regency and ousted Cedric from the throne. I’d wager that was all she ever cared about, if you want to know the truth.”
My heart went out to him, suddenly. I closed the distance between us, putting my hand on his cheek.
He gazed into my eyes. “This negotiation? After you walk in the gardens with your daughter, do you want to meet again? Or do you think we can hash it out now?”
“You want me to take the magic from that firestarter?” I said. “In return, you’ll give me the land I want?”
“Would you take his magic?” he said.
I thought about it. “I’d do whatever I need to do for my people.”
“But you’re disappointed in me for asking.” He eyed me, waiting.
I rubbed my thumb over his cheekbone. “You don’t need to rule the world, Remy.”
“If I give up on it, leave all that behind, then…” He trailed off, holding my gaze. “That’s what you’re asking me to do?”
“I’m not asking you to do anything,” I said. “It’s certainly not a requirement in
our negotiations.”
He leaned close and kissed my forehead. And then he lingered there for a long moment, and when he pulled back, his face was different. “Fleur… your daughter, is Dubois her father?”
I shook my head. “No.”
He looked at me expectantly, as if he was waiting for me to say more.
Just tell him, I thought at myself. Tell him that you’ve hidden the existence of his child from him for four years. Tell him you’re sorry, but that you didn’t think he’d ever change.
He did seem to be changing.
It would be all right.
“Maybe you don’t know,” he said in a low, ironic voice. “Dubois did say that you had quite the collection of lovers.”
“I don’t know, as it happens,” I said.
He nodded. “Maybe, uh, we should meet for negotiations after all.”
“If you think that’s best.”
“I do.” He furrowed his brow. “What time will suit you? Midmorning?”
“That would be fine,” I said. I reached out for him. We weren’t touching anymore. “Remy…”
He looked at me. “Yes?”
But nothing else came out. I shook my head.
He put his fingers under my chin and tipped my face back. He kissed me. “Goodbye, Fleur.”
As I watched him walk away, I wondered why there had been such a final note to his tone.
GUILLAME
Guillame folded his arms over his chest. He had been summoned to the king’s chamber, and Remy was wearing the same clothes he’d been wearing yesterday as he sat in a chair with elaborately carved arms. The king wasn’t looking at him. He seemed wrung out, subdued.
“You went to see her,” said Guillame. “I told you to stay away from her. Can’t you control yourself? The two of you—”
“Why did you leave Islaigne?” said Remy.
“We’re going over this again?” said Guillame. “I told you this. She was unable to keep her legs closed while I was gone on a mission for her. I was sick of trying to share her.”
Remy’s voice was soft. “Was she pregnant when you left?”
“Why does that matter?”
“Answer the question,” said Remy.
Guillame sighed heavily and sat down opposite Remy. “What is this about? How about we cut to the chase?”
“I saw her daughter this morning,” said Remy. “No one mentioned to me how obvious it is that the girl has Dumontian blood. She’s… she’s mine, isn’t she?”
Guillame didn’t say anything.
Remy leaned his head back on his chair, gazing at the ceiling. “Dubois, tell me the truth. Why did you leave? It wasn’t because of other men in her bed, it was because you knew she and I had been together when my army was defeated, and you knew that because she was with child. It’s so obvious now, and it’s even more perverse that you made me put your son in line for my throne, when you knew that I had a legitimate heir.”
Guillame swallowed.
Remy’s tone was mild as he addressed the ceiling. “Of course, it was a girl, but you wouldn’t have known that then. You wanted to cheat my own child out of—”
“I didn’t cheat her out of anything. She’s the princess of Islaigne. It’s not as if…” Guillame sighed. “You know, I didn’t really think of it that way. Fleur didn’t want you to know.”
“Yes, and you were being so loyal to her at the time.” Remy let out a laugh. “You wanted to hurt her, and you wanted to hurt me too, didn’t you? Because you thought Fleur was yours, and she’d never been yours. I think you’d both fooled yourselves into thinking that you belonged to the other, but from the first time she and I touched, we were—”
“Stop,” Guillame muttered. “What do you want to do? Are you going to strip Beau of the doffine title? Are you going to try to have Fleur’s daughter ascend your throne?”
“No, you can rest easy about your brat.” Remy flopped his head forward, looking at him. “You could pretend to be sorry, Dubois, for blazes’ sake.”
“I am sorry,” said Guillame. “Honestly, it was a stupid scheme. I didn’t think it through. I’m not sure I’ve even done Beau any favors in the end. He’s hurt that you don’t give a fig for him, and he’s got pressure on him all the time, and I can’t be there for him the way I want to be. And maybe I did hurt Fleur, but it’s amazing how hollow that all ends up being in the end.”
“Isn’t it, though?” said Remy. He scratched his beard. “Why didn’t she want me to know?”
“She thought you wouldn’t let her go. That you’d be obsessed with having your heir.”
“And after she thought that I already had an heir and knew that she had a daughter, that a girl wouldn’t be in line for the Dumonte throne?”
“I don’t know,” said Guillame.
“And just now?” said Remy. “Just now, why did she continue to conceal it from me when I asked her?”
“You were with her just now?” Guillame cocked his head. “Were you with her all night? Blazes, Remy, what have you done to our negotiations?”
“All the negotiations can go to the blazes,” said Remy, spreading his hands. “I’m done with her. This time, seriously, truly, entirely done.”
“What are you saying?”
“The amount of times I’ve bared my soul to this woman, just turned myself into a sniveling weakling in her arms… She tried to kill me, and I begged her not to leave me, did you know that? She unmans me. She turns me into…” Remy got to his feet and kicked his chair.
It fell over with a clatter.
Guillame stood up. “You know, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but maybe if you talked to her?”
Remy shook his head. “No, no, she’s playing a game. If she’d changed and turned into this new, giving person like she’s pretending to have done, she wouldn’t have continued to lie to me. This is all some scheme to her. I don’t know what she wants the land for. I don’t know what she’s planning, but she can’t be trusted.”
Guillame crossed to the king and put a hand on his shoulder. “If this is true and you don’t give her what she wants, what do you think is going to happen?”
“What’s going to happen if I do give her what she wants?” he said.
“If we go to war with Islaigne, there are… I don’t know, over a dozen firestarters in the country. More by now, I’m sure. They get hit by those explosions and they mutate. It won’t be like like with Cyrille, it’ll be twenty times as bad.”
Remy sank both of his hands into his hair. “I think I always knew she was going to be the death of me.”
“For the sake of your people, for your kingdom, for…” Guillame wasn’t sure there was anyone Remy truly cared about. Blazes. “We need to negotiate, Remy,” he murmured.
Remy blinked at him. He righted his chair and sat down in it.
“Let’s give her a chance,” said Guillame. “Can we do that?”
“I’ll be there,” Remy muttered. “We’ll see what she has to say for herself.”
* * *
Guillame tried to get to Fleur before the negotiations, but he couldn’t find her. Later, he found out that she had been walking in the gardens with her daughter. He had looked all over the castle, but he hadn’t bothered to look outside of it.
So, by midmorning, they were all assembled back in the room for negotiations again. If Fleur’s people had arrived before Remy, Guillame would have taken her aside and explained to her that Remy knew about their daughter, and that she needed to do something to calm him because Remy was about to sink everything, but Remy was there first and Fleur and her people were late.
Fleur seemed in good spirits. There was color in her cheeks, and later, Guillame would speculate that it was because she had been outdoors. At the time, though, he couldn’t really think. He could only register a high level of dread and a feeling of guilt, because he was fairly certain that this was all at least partly his fault.
Whatever had occurred between him and Fleur and Remy, it had seemed p
ersonal at the time, but Guillame had bent the course of countries to his will in service of his personal grievances. Now, it was bigger than it ought to be.
Guillame had a feeling that, left to his own devices, Remy would string Fleur along, asking her leading questions and being sarcastic until it finally came down to his revealing what he knew about their daughter, and Guillame found he didn’t want to go through that.
So, as soon as Fleur was seated, he leaned across the table and got her attention. “Queen Fleur, you need to realize that King Remy has discerned things about your daughter’s parentage.”
Fleur’s gaze snapped over to him right away.
Remy let out an annoyed noise. “Really, Dubois, must you take the fun out of everything?”
“You told him?” said Fleur.
“He figured it out,” said Guillame.
“I’m not nearly as stupid as you think I am,” said Remy, giving her a bored look. Guillame knew that Remy wasn’t nearly as unemotional as he was pretending to be either, but that was Remy’s way.
Fleur took a deep breath. “Remy, could we talk? You and me, alone?”
“We were alone earlier,” said Remy. “I believe you were given the opportunity to tell me the truth, but you chose to lie to my face.”
She looked down at the table. “I’m sorry.”
Remy shrugged. “Well, it’s no matter. Here’s what I propose. Since it’s so very dangerous for anyone to be in Islaigne, and since I’ve been deprived of the presence of my own flesh and blood for her entire life, you’ll let her stay here with me.”
Fleur’s lips parted. She gaped at him, seemingly unable to form words.
“Shall I take your silence for assent?” Remy clasped his hands together. “Very well, then. The rest of your party should clear out of the country by dusk. I won’t have you spending another night under my roof.”
Fleur reached across the table to touch Remy’s arm. “I should have told you. I don’t even know why I didn’t. I—”
He pulled his arm away. “None of this is necessary. I understand exactly what you truly think of me. Your actions are clear.”
She drew herself up. “And what do I think of you?”
“You think I’m easily manipulatable and you think I’m an idiot,” said Remy without a trace of emotion. “You have some reason for coming here and seeking things from me, and you’re not above crawling into my bed to get what you want out of me.”
Throne Shaker (The Clash and the Heat Book 3) Page 18
