Page 14 of Stardust Child

“Is that why you were crying?” he asked quietly. “I never would.”

“No, I didn’t think of it until now,” she said, with heartless honesty. “Why didn’t you tell me? I didn’t know what that man wanted, and no one would tell me, and I felt so…sostupid.Even Jacot knows what a prostitute is. Is it something I should know?”

“No,” he said sharply. “I don’t want you to know such things. It’s not something you should have to think about.”

“But I have to know, or something like that could happen again!”

“No, it won’t,” he said, with such finality that she looked up at him, startled. “You’ll have a guard, after today.”

No. She didn’t want that. Over the last few months, she had come to think of all of Tresingale as her home, a wild place filled with wonderful people, people she had worked alongside and greatly admired. People who smiled at her and were kind to her and listened when she spoke. Friends. She had never had friends before. She didn’t want a guard, as if she couldn’t trust them.

Ophele looked down at her hands, trying to work through her objections. She had never been good at moments like this. She needed time to think, to reason out her position. She hated not knowing things. Above all else, she hated not knowing. Ignorance was weakness. Ignorance made her vulnerable. The worst humiliations in Aldeburke had come from things she didn’t understand. Lisabe laughing because Ophele hadn’t known how to put on a breast binding, when no one had taught her. Lady Hurrell’s sweet, vicious corrections for errors Ophele still didn’t understand. Julot…if she thought about it, she had no doubt she might now understand some of his taunts, but she didn’t want to.

And now this. She had said a curse word in front of Remin without even knowing what it was. Stars, what if she had said it in front of Sir Edemir and his secretaries? The thought made her want to curl up right there and die.

“I still want to know,” she said, struggling to find the words to explain it. “I…I could have stopped him, if I had known. That man. I didn’t know why he wanted me to go with him, but if I’d known…”

Remin’s face darkened.

“What did he look like?”

“I…wha—no,” she said, drawing back. “No, Remin, he apologized. It was just a misunderstanding. I don’t want anything bad to happen to him, it was my fa—”

“Jacot said you told him to let go, and he was pulling you to the back of the cookhouse,” he said, his voice deepening with suppressed anger. “Do you realize what could have happened?”

“But he apolog—”

“Ophele. He might have raped you. Do you know whatrapeis?” he snapped, and Ophele flinched, flushing white and then red. It wasn’t just at his tone, or the terrible question. Stars, she wasstupid.She did know what rape was. She had read it in histories, frequently in connection to the sacking of cities, in the usage ofrapine.Aldeburke had several dictionaries.

But she had never once connected that word with herself. In her mind, what she and Remin did together was so separate from anything else in the world that it never occurred to her it was even possible with someone else. Or that someone could…make…her…

“I know…” she whispered. The thought of anyone but Remin touching her that way sent such a wave of terror through her that she recoiled, rejecting it instantly. It had just been a misunderstanding. No one in Tresingale would do that.

“I’m sorry,” Remin said, drawing her into the dubious comfort of his breastplate. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said it like that. I’m not angry with you, little owl. I’m—help me get these things off,” he said impatiently, yanking at his gauntlets. Silently, Ophele helped him slip them off so he could touch her with his bare hands. “I’m angry that this happened. I don’t want you to worry about things like this. I don’t ever want you to be afraid again. Of anything.”

“I’m not a child,” she began, troubled, but the new knowledge ofrapewas so tangled in her mind that it was hard to convincingly claim she wanted to learn more things like it.

“I know you’re not.” His thumb stroked the line of her jaw, turning her eyes up toward him. “But you’re my wife, and a lady. I don’t think there’s any shame in being innocent. I like it about you. I like how you see things. I don’t want you to know about…ugly things. Once you do, you can’tnotknow them. Like when I told you there are prostitutes in the valley. What was the first thing you thought?”

“If you ever were with one,” she said dully. The thought of Remin with another woman made her feel sick. This whole conversation made her feel sick and confused.

“And now that you know you could have been raped,” he continued, his tone jarringly gentle against the brutality of his words, “what will you think if another stranger approaches you?”

“I know,” she said miserably.

“I don’t want you to be afraid.” He drew her against his side, his strong arm wrapped around her. “I know what it’s like. If you’re not careful, soon your fear is all you can think about. I don’t want that for you.”

“You’re not afraid of anything,” she said, moved by the tenderness in his voice. He was the bravest man in the world. Everything else fearedhim.

“I don’t want you to have to think about things like that,” he said softly. His lips pressed against her forehead. “What’s all this for, if I can’t protect you? I want you to feel safe. I want you to be happy from the moment you wake up until you fall asleep. Nothing but happy. Nothing bad will ever touch you.”

He said it with such love that her eyes filled. No one had ever loved her like this. It was the sweetest thing anyone had ever said to her. But though she didn’t know why yet, she thought somehow it was wrong.

“But I want you to be happy too,” she said, turning her face into his caressing fingers. “You shouldn’t be stuck with all the bad things. That’s what we swore,” she remembered, recalling the oaths spoken on their wedding day. “All our joys and sorrows. And, Remin…I hate not knowing things.”

“Some things no one should know.” The fact that she couldn’t entirely understand what she saw in his face seemed like a case in point, but…did shereallywant to hear some of the tales Remin Grimjaw could tell? Ophele touched his cheek, consoling, and his black eyes lifted to hers. “They were always eager to hear about it, in Segoile. As if knowing about filth makes you wise.”

“That’s not…what I want to know,” she said hesitantly, and bit her lip. “I need to think. I don’t know…what I think yet. Please.”

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