Page 30 of Traitor Son

“Promise?” And he actually extended his big hand to seal the bargain, as if they had agreed on some trade. He would buy her clothes, and in exchange she would tell him truthfully if she needed something? And she wouldn’t look like a beggar’s brat?

She gave him her hand, her small fingers vanishing into his vast palm. “I promise.”

* * *

Though Remin increasingly doubted that his new bride was going to murder him in his sleep, he found there were plenty of other reasons to worry about her.

He should have gotten her a maid.

Remin was reflecting on his actions and repenting.

He’d had no idea how much tending women needed. The princess needed help dressing, she needed help undressing, she had long hair that took hours of maintenance, and he could hardly hand her over to one of his knights. At night, they hauled the supply cart off the road and screened it off with cloaks so she wouldn’t have to sleep in her extremely limited selection of dresses.

“You don’t have to do all this,” she said as he lifted her onto the supply cart one night, doing his best not to notice the gentle curves under her chemise or the fluttering silk of her hair.

“Yes, I do,” he said gruffly. It was his fault she didn’t have anything to wear. “Go to sleep.”

That was another worry. Remin was convinced she didn’t sleep like a normal person. He didn’t know if it was a thing all women did, or a unique vulnerability of her own, but there seemed to be a significant risk that she would kill herself before they ever reached Tresingale. The first two mornings after they left Celderline, he put it down to the wine. But the third morning he knew for sure that she was stone cold sober when she woke in the chilly gray dawn and tumbled off the front of the supply wagon, only to rise like one of the shambling undead of the Undebige Valley.

“Princess?” He started up from his place by the wagon wheel and caught her wrist.

“Muh.” She pawed her hair out of her face. Her eyes were open, but unfocused, and she squinted up at him with none of her usual timidity and said, “privy.”

“Over there,” he said, gesturing to a clump of bushes. She wasn’t usually so plainspoken; normally she tried to sneak away like a thief. “Your shoe,” he added sharply as she stumbled off, seemingly unaware that one foot was bare. “Princess, are you well?”

“Mmm.” It took several tries for her to slide her foot into the fur-lined slipper, during which time she seemed to forget where the bushes were. His long arm shot out to point her in the opposite direction.

“That way.”

When she returned, she sleepily washed her hands in the basin he offered, then crumpled over in front of the fire, asleep in seconds. Maybe she had never really been awake. Remin fetched his cloak from the wagon and covered her with it, eying her uneasily.

The third concern was the reason he was sleeping against the supply wagon, rather than stretched out in a bedroll with her.

Having experienced sex with her, his body reacted to her presence with infuriating eagerness. He would have been within his rights to have her whenever and wherever he chose, but she was still recovering from the rigors of their first night together and he was not about to engage in such activities with fifty men listening nearby. It would be disrespectful to his wife. Who would probably die of shock.

And who also deserved a bed, not a filthy blanket on the ground, or being pushed roughly against a tree, or rolled under a hedgerow. Not that he had been contemplating such things.

His mind knew this. His body remained stubbornly unconvinced.

And so, though ordinarily he would never have considered paying money for an inn when there were perfectly good hillsides outside town, it only made sense to get an inn for the night, if they happened to arrive in Granholme before sunset. It would be irrational to force his gently bred wife to sleep in a supply wagon when there were beds available and she was clearly longing for a bath. And if she stayed at the inn, then as her husband it was only right—no, it was hisduty—to go with her and sleep with her. At the inn.

Maybe this was compensation for all those years of deprivation. Remin had spent most of his adolescence suppressing his sexual urges with constant physical training, knowing that any woman he bedded might very well try to stab him to death in the middle of the act. Now, with the prospect of an inn, a bed, and his wife in the bed on the horizon, he was finding it very difficult to think of anything else.

“Your Grace,” she protested, looking up at him with blushing cheeks the second time his lips inadvertently grazed her neck.

“The breeze is cold,” he observed, adjusting his cloak to cover them both. She eyed him as if she suspected he had some other mischief in mind, and he pretended he had nothing at all to do with the hand sliding around her waist to stealthily caress her under the cloak.

“There are people,” she whispered, but all he could see was the slow curving of her pink lips when she spoke, and his hand slid upward all by itself over her belly to cup her breast.“Your Grace.”

“Watch the road.” His breath felt unsteady. She smelled so good, it was making it hard to think. Remin bent his head, breathing her intoxicating scent and sorely tempted to tell his men to leave them for a half hour or so. He was fully aware that this was not the time or the place, but he could see the pulse beating frantically in her throat and all he wanted to do was bite it.

Her ears were red. Anyone who saw her could guess what he was doing; indeed, his knights were suddenly being very careful not to lookin his direction. But she wasn’t one of the hellcats that had marched along with his army, and he was not an animal. He could endure for a few more hours. He had always been contemptuous of men who couldn’t control their baser impulses. He lectured himself severely and sighed.

“Tonight,” he murmured, pressing his lips chastely against her forehead and trying to ignore the glint of her tawny eyes through her thick lashes. If he looked at her once more, he really might pull his horse off to the side of the road.

They arrived in Granholme that afternoon, and he dispatched his men to see to supplies, messages, and accommodations. He intended to look after the princess’s new wardrobe himself. Left to her own devices, he suspected she would only dare to purchase four new dresses twice a year. Was that normal? It didn’tseemright.

“Bertin, Ortaire, with me,” he said, ordering two of the older squires along as escorts and looking down at the princess severely. “Stay in my sight, understood?”

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