Page 125 of Traitor Son

She burrowed back into the covers, but he could see her smiling. He had never felt like this before. Not just in love, butsafe.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 somany,”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 toadvertise.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.

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