He did look slightly perturbed now, and she could not blame him. Rodric had a boring habit of telling the same stories over and over again, and Althea had a sharp and grating laugh.
The deputy minister of something could not be more irritated than Danya was. Her unsuspecting mother had put her directly across from the newest member of the family, Vida’s husband, Ennis. If Ennis were seated anywhere else at the table, Danya would be able to completely ignore him. Instead, every time she lifted her head, she caught him staring at her. More than once she’d almost choked on her food, so now she only pushed it around on the plate, in order to stave off another embarrassment.
Why did he have to be here? Why, why, why? She should’ve refused the request for this one last gathering, but knowing that it was truly the last, she had been unable to deprive her mother. The matriarch of this house did so love having all her girls together.
Danya was certain her mother would get along well after she was gone. There were grandchildren to dote upon and grown daughters with whom she could share her wisdom of nearly sixty years. Her husband was tipsy only in the evening, so it wasn’t as if she’d be without companionship. She would thrive when all her girls were on their own, each busy with her own familiy.
Everyone chattered, and as the night progressed, the volume grew unbearable. The four married sisters were all excited about Danya’s opportunity, as if they themselves were the ones who had been chosen. Even Vida, naive, ignorant Vida, smiled happily and wished her youngest sister the best. The talk turned to shoes and gowns and jewels, naturally. What other concerns would an empress have?
Ennis remained silent, though he did raise his glass to her once, when their eyes inadvertently met.
Danya tried to keep her face impassive; she attempted to participate at least minimally in the conversations around her, even when she gave them only half an ear. Soon the noise was too much to bear. Her facade was crumbling, it was about to fall away. She needed a moment, just a moment, to gather her wits, to shake off the pain and put on her prettiest and happiest face once again. She excused herself and left the table at an acceptable pace, running toward the doors which would open into the night only when she was out of sight of the others. A deep breath of air, a quiet moment, and she would be composed once more. An empress would need to be able to compose herself, no matter what the circumstances.
She could not imagine that there would be anything more trying than this, even when she was empress. Political intrigue would pale in comparison to her tumultuous life thus far.
Outdoors, all was silent and peaceful. The air on her face was wonderfully cool. Danya closed her eyes and took a deep breath and thought of Arthes. She imagined the wonder of the palace she had never seen and all the luxuries she would know when it was her home. She thought of escape, of forgetting the past, of starting anew in a finer, better place.
“I have never seen you look more beautiful.”
Danya’s eyes snapped open at the sound of that soft, deep, seductive voice. Ennis stood not two feet away, an empty smile she knew too well on his pretty face.
“What are you doing here?” she snapped.
“I have come to verify the safety and comfort of my favorite sister-in-law, who is soon to be empress.”
“There is no guarantee that the emperor will choose me.”
“How could he not?”
You didn’t. The heartbreaking words she did not dare to say aloud shot through her brain in an oddly painful way. “You should return to your wife,” she said coldly. Your pregnant, blissfully ignorant wife.
“I told Vida I was going to make sure you were well, since you looked so pale all through dinner. I am ever the concerned brother-in-law.” He bowed insolently before moving closer. His hand lifted slowly. He reached out as if he planned to touch her, and she slapped his hand away.
He laughed. “There was a time when you did not dismiss my attentions so quickly.”
There was a time when I thought you loved me. “I’m smarter now than I was then,” Danya said, proud that her voice remained calm. Inside, she was shaking. Somehow she imagined Ennis saw that inner tremble. He knew her too well. The man who had once been her lover knew her weaknesses, her dreams, her failures. He had made her tremble and shake and confess her undying love for him, and then he had chosen another.
“I’m sure the emperor will be pleased with you, Danya. You’re one of those rare women who does so love the pleasure a man can give. If you scream for him as you screamed for me, he will think himself a master of the bedchamber. Of course, you and I will always know that he was not your first. A woman never forgets her first lover, the man who teaches her all about the pleasures of the body. I taught you well, didn’t I? How about one more kiss, just a little something to remind us of what we no longer have?” Ennis asked, slowly moving his head toward hers, parting his lips, touching her shoulder.
Danya froze. This was what she wanted and feared, what she craved and despised. If Ennis had chosen her to be his wife, as she had been so certain he would, she would be happy and ignorant like Vida, and she would not be on her way to Arthes to vie for the position of empress. But he had not chosen her. He had made her love him, he had shown her pleasures that she had not known of before he’d seduced her, and then he had destroyed her with his rejection.
Before his lips touched hers, she said, “I gave birth to your child.”
The words stopped Ennis cold. He came no closer; he did not move away.
“A boy, in case you care to know.”
Ennis licked his lips. He paled, she could see that even in the dim moonlight. There were no questions or concerns about her well-being or that of his child. His cold words to her were “Who knows?”
Danya laughed without humor. “No need to fear, Ennis, I told no one. When I realized I was with child, you had already chosen Vida over me, so I saw no reason to inform you or anyone else of my condition. I told the family that I was going to visit my childhood friend Lyla for the summer, but instead I went to the coast, where I hid myself away for a few months, until the baby came.” Now she felt the blood drain from her face. Why was she telling him this? He did not deserve to know, and the telling hurt more than the memory she tried so hard to bury. “I stayed with a midwife who promised to find a good home for your unwanted child. I sold some of the jewels my grandmother left me, and with the proceeds I paid her well. She cared for me as best she could. Still, your son came weeks too early, and he died within three days.”
“Surely that is a blessing . . .”
Danya slapped Ennis with all her might. “Don’t you dare say the death of our child was a blessing.”
He backed away, one hand over his offended cheek.
“Still want to kiss me?” she asked, surprised at the sharp bite in her words as an anger she had buried for too long rose to the surface. “Knowing what you did to me, do you still wish to touch me as if we were lovers?” She managed a tight smile that made her face feel as if it would crack. “Do you think I should tell Vida my sad tale? Should I tell them all the truth—here, tonight—before I leave home to begin my new life? I have always imagined that they would not believe me, that they would think I was telling a tale to stir up trouble or that I was the one who seduced you and was bitter that you chose Vida over me. But maybe that is not so. Vida knows you well, now, so perhaps she would believe.”
Instead of cowering and begging her forgiveness, as he should’ve, Ennis surged forward and clasped her throat in his hands. He pressed her against the wall, gripping too tight. She could barely breathe . . .
“You cannot tell Vida. You cannot tell anyone!” Ennis insisted. His fingers tightened, and Danya’s throat closed. She quickly grew lightheaded, but she had the strength to reach up and grasp Ennis’s steellike wrists to claw at the exposed flesh there. She couldn’t make him ease his grip; she was too weak and he was too strong. Her vision dimmed, and fear grew. Was he trying to frighten her or to kill her? Danya raked her fingernails
across Ennis’s hands, but he did not budge. He squeezed harder; he was actually trying to strangle her.
“Release Lady Danya now,” a calm voice interrupted, “or I will kill you.”
Ennis dropped his hands, and Danya took a deep, ragged breath, thankful for the fresh air flowing into her lungs. She raised protective hands to her throat before looking up to the intruder who had very possibly saved her life. Ennis would do anything to keep his neat little world from falling apart. And fall apart it would, if people knew . . . if they believed . . .
“This is none of your business, Deputy . . .” Ennis stumbled over his words. He hadn’t remembered the minister’s name, either.
“Rainer,” the tall man said, “Deputy Minister Angelo Rainer. And Lady Danya is most certainly my business, at the moment. It is my duty to deliver her to the emperor undamaged.”
Ennis sneered. “It’s too late for that, I‘m afraid. This one is damaged to the pit of her soul, the lying, spiteful . . .”
The man who had once been Danya’s lover said no more, as Rainer’s hand shot out and brushed against Ennis’s finely sculpted nose. The blow looked to be insignificant, no more than a graze, and yet Ennis let out a howl. His nose began to bleed. Rainer grabbed Ennis by the collar and dragged him toward the door to the house. “Dear me,” Rainer said as he opened the door and shoved Ennis inside, “this poor clumsy man has taken a nasty fall in the dark. Do be careful, poor fellow.” Ennis stumbled into the house, then tripped over his own feet and went sprawling.
Danya found herself smiling, though moments earlier she had thought such an expression to be impossible.
She stopped smiling when Deputy Minister Rainer turned his fierce gaze to her. “The delays are over, Lady Danya. I leave at first light. You can travel to Arthes with me, or I can send an escort back for you in a month’s time.”
“I will go with you,” she said, more anxious than ever to escape from this house and its memories.
“Then don’t be late,” he commanded.
He turned gracefully to enter the house, but Danya stopped him with a whispered “Wait!”
Rainer turned, and she took a moment to really look at him for the first time. The blond hair was remarkably silky and full, the eyes were powerful and pale blue-gray, the features were masculine and very nicely shaped. How much had he heard? How much did he know? Were her secrets still safe? “I’m not sure I ever heard you say. Of what branch of the government are you deputy minister?”
He gave her a cold and impatient smile. “The Ministry of Magic.”
MORGANA lay upon her blanket, staring at the stars. She should’ve gone to sleep long ago, but her mind continued to wander to what tomorrow would bring. A marriage bed. A room over a tavern. A husband she did not want. A husband who thought drink, women, and gambling were acceptable pastimes!
No, she understood well enough when he was teasing her, and he’d been teasing then. Not that he’d found any of her alternative suggestions acceptable.
She had been so certain her stepfather would’ve rescued her by now. He must be very angry to leave her in the company of a sentinel who claimed her as his wife as if they were peasants who had no option but to make marriage in the most primitive manner. Perhaps her refusal of the emperor had been the last straw for a man who was loyal to his ruler. Perhaps she should not have told him the truth, that she wished never to marry at all!
She had slept well on this journey, and she did feel oddly and unexpectedly safe. Did she want to be rescued? Did she truly wish to return to a house where she would always fear that someone would discover her secret?
Morgana knew that her mother had truly loved Almund, and that the kind man had more than accepted a fatherless little girl as his daughter. Still, there had been days when a younger Morgana had wished desperately to know her real father, the man who had died when she’d been two years old, too young to remember him. Awel Ramsden had refused to discuss her first husband, and so Morgana had always imagined that she’d loved him too much to bear his loss. Still, after her mother’s insistence that Morgana should marry only for love, she’d wondered if perhaps the opposite had been true. Had that arranged marriage been so terrible?
Marriage to a sentinel; marriage to an emperor. Any sane woman would choose the emperor. Maybe it was not too late. This “marriage” had not been consummated, and the palace was right there, before them. Given a choice of a royal bedchamber and a room set above a cacophony of drunken men . . . what woman would not choose the palace?
“Jahn,” she said, knowing by the sound of his breathing that he was not asleep, “what if I change my mind about marrying the emperor? I’m not saying that I have changed my mind, you understand,” she added too quickly “just . . . exploring my options. There is no guarantee that he would choose me, of course, but perhaps I was being hasty when I dismissed the notion without giving it proper consideration.”
Jahn sighed, and there was a short pause before he said, “Too late,” his voice sleepy and perhaps even weary.
Her heart thumped too hard. “How can it be too late?”
“Blane will have delivered the message by now.”
Morgana sat up. “What message?”
Jahn sighed. “The message that you refused the emperor’s offer. You refused quite adamantly, as I remember. It did not occur to me that you might change your mind.”
“You said Blane was rushing to his wife!” Morgana said shrilly.
Jahn rolled onto his back, his face now lit by the dying fire. The dim light created sharp shadows on a face which was becoming familiar to her. “Not until his duty as sentinel was done and the message was delivered. By now the emperor knows you have refused and Blane is happily ensconced in the arms of his loving wife.”
“Oh.” Knowing she would not be able to sleep for a while, Morgana pulled up her knees and rested her chin on them, drawing herself into a tight little ball. She would not be empress. Not that she wanted to be, but still, now that her options had been narrowed, she did not know what would become of her tomorrow. “Just as well. I don’t suppose the emperor would take it kindly if I refused and then changed my mind.”
“No, he would not take it well. He can be a bit testy, and if Blane also told him what you said about him being old and fat and stupid, well, I doubt you’d have much of a chance in the contest. Perhaps if you threw yourself at his feet and begged . . .”
“I will not beg!” Morgana snapped, and then she sighed tiredly. No, an emperor would not be pleased to hear that he’d been insulted.
“Would it be so bad?” Jahn asked softly.
“What?”
“To marry a simple man and live a simple life,” he said. “To make a home with whatever of life’s blessings come your way, to make your days with another always at your side, through thick and thin.”
“My mother said I should wait for true love.” Perhaps she should not speak to this man who claimed her about something so personal, but there was no one else and she needed to talk. “She said I should hold out for nothing less, and when I asked, she said that I would know love when it came. She said love was worth waiting for. But here I am at nearly twenty-five years of age and I have found no love. I have not once in my life looked into a man’s face and known in my heart that he was the right one for me.” Morgana’s frustration came through in her voice. “What if she’s right and there is one right man for me, and he’s on the other side of the world and we never meet?”
Now fully awake, Jahn sat up. “Your mother’s notions make no sense to me. I think marriage at its best is rather like being in the military.”
“That is ludicrous,” Morgana whispered.
“Is it? Two soldiers, side by side, together fighting whatever enemies come their way. Those enemies might be sickness or bad crops or more conventional foes, but still, if the bond is a strong one, then neither one would ever have to face those foes alone.”
“I have never heard marriage described in quite that way,” she sa
id.
“Most women seem to think that marriage is love and laughter and flowers, jewels and pampering and a life made forever beautiful by the man upon whom they deign to shower their favors. Nothing is forever beautiful, I imagine. And I’m sure love is nice, while it lasts, but I suspect friendship and lust are preferable and longer lasting than something as indefinable as love.”
She squirmed as he spoke of lust and love.
“Marriage has always been about business,” Jahn continued. “A man alone, a woman alone, they cannot survive. Together, however . . .” He finished with a shrug of his broad shoulders.
She was most afraid of passions and turmoil calling her curse to the surface. The life Jahn spoke of seemed to be devoid of passion. In spite of her mother’s insistence that Morgana demand love, was this simpler existence Jahn spoke of the kind of life she had been searching for? No love, no hate, no fury to call to the worst of her.
Since riding away from her home she had not had a moment’s struggle with the newly discovered curse at the pit of her soul. She’d been angry and frightened at times, and she and Jahn had argued. But she’d never had to force down the chill that had once grown in her heart. Was it because, truly married or not, she was not alone in this trial? Was it because Jahn had so ardently promised that no harm would come to her?
“Perhaps I will see what life is like in your room above the tavern,” she said, knowing that in truth she had no choice. She could not make her way alone in the city, and she could not return to a home where she was no longer wanted. Morgana felt as if her life had suddenly shifted. She was no longer the pampered daughter of the manor, pursued by wealthy young men and an emperor. She no longer had servants to see to her every need, or a doting stepfather to protect her. All she had was Jahn.
And strangely enough, she was not afraid.
“I am not ready to share your bed,” she said quickly, forcing the words out. “We do not know one another well enough for . . . that.”
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