Page 13 of Stardust Child

“Oh, stars. Nothing. Never mind.” A brick-colored blush climbed up the boy’s neck. “Heaven save us, when I think what might’ve happened—I need to tell His Grace. He’s not here?”

“He’s at the barracks.”

“Sir Edemir, then. C’mon. Please,” he added, bobbing a bow. “M’lady.”

Puzzled, she went, and felt like both a fool and a child, standing there in the office while Jacot whispered an explanation to Sir Edemir. Why couldn’t he say it out loud? The man had apologized, hadn’t he? No harm had been done. She had a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach that this was something she should already know, and she turned scarlet when Sir Edemir snapped at one of his secretaries to go fetch His Grace.

“That’s not necessary,” she said, her face burning as all of them turned to look at her. “I’m perfectly fine, and the man apologized. I just want to know what he wanted. I don’t understand.”

“I beg your pardon, my lady,” Sir Edemir said, looking more uncomfortable than she had ever seen him. “But I think it would be His Grace’s place to explain it.”

This was even more confusing. Was it because Remin was her husband, or because he was the duke? Either way, the thought of disturbing him with her ignorance made her cringe inside.

“Then he can explain it to me tonight,” she said, and was mortified to hear the quiver in her voice. That man must have done something wrong, and she was too stupid to understand what it was, and all of them were looking at her now with embarrassment and pity. “Jacot, let’s go have your lesson.”

“Your Grace—” Sir Edemir began, and though she wanted to lie to herself that it was a dignified retreat, it was a retreat because she couldn’t face any of them for an instant longer. If only she had understood what that man wanted, she might have told him no. She could just imagine what Lady Hurrell would have done: a masterpiece of icy, offended dignity that would have sent him scampering off like a whipped dog.

“M’lady, wait!” Jacot called from behind her as she walked stiffly to the cookhouse. Ophele only moved faster. She was so embarrassed, she had gone beyond blushing; her face was actually prickling, a tingling numbness, and her ears were filled with a vast buzzing.

“Come and sit down,” she tried to tell him, her voice bouncing through several octaves.

“My lady, I really don’t think—” he began, this fourteen year-old boy whose voice hadn’t even completely broken yet, but somehow still knew more of the world than she did.

“Just open the book,” she said, struggling for some semblance of dignity, but it was too late. As a perfect finale, she started to cry.

* * *

They sent for Remin anyway.

“I’m fine, I’mfine!”she said, bursting into tears of pure vexation when he appeared in the door of the cottage, looking like one of Noreven’s Three Idols of Wrath. Jacot had fled as soon as he persuaded her to go home. It had been a farce, with him alternately threatening to get Sir Edemir and pleading with her to stop crying, while she tried to order him to readSummer’s Golden Songs.

“Then why are you crying?” Remin wanted to know, shutting the door with a thud. “Edemir said someone tried to make off with you. Come here and let me see you. You’re all right?”

“No, he wanted a whore. What’s a whore? No one will tell me. I told them not to bother you, I’mfine.”

“Comehere,”he repeated, with a sharp undercurrent of command, and Ophele reluctantly emerged from the corner of the bed to let him look at her, since apparently they would make no further progress until he had.

“Jacot said there were whores on the other side of town. And a man said he would give me two silvers if I went with him. And Sir Edemir said it wouldn’t be proper for him to explain why, which means it’s something only my husband should talk about.” Ophele laid out her reasoning as Remin looked her over, as if searching for some invisible injury. “So, are whores women that do…that for money? That’s what he wanted? Do we have those?”

Remin hesitated.

“Dowe?” she asked, her voice rising, because if there was one thing that could rouse her meek temper, it was being denied knowledge.

“There are two dozen of them, between the bridge and the mason’s camp,” he said, sighing. “The men would riot otherwise. Bram keeps them safe and out of sight. And you shouldn’t saywhore. It’s a rude word.”

Her face flamed.

“Oh,” she said, mortified, and let Remin move her into his lap as he sat down on the edge of the bed with a jingling of chainmail. “I didn’t know. I’ve never…I never heard that word before.”

“I would hope not,” he said sharply. “Jacot has been told to mind his tongue before ladies. If you have to talk about them, say prostitutes. But it’s not a subject for polite company.”

It didn’t matter; neither word had made its way into the books in Aldeburke’s library. And she had never been in company, polite or otherwise.

“So that’s what he wanted,” she said, low. Her small mouth firmed into a straight line as she absorbed it. “So—I thought…but I guess there’s nothing to stop people from doing that if they’re not married, is there? Or even if…” She looked up at Remin with dawning comprehension, and the first hint of worry in her tawny eyes.

“No,” he said instantly. “Never. I have touched one woman in my life, little owl, and I want no other. I swear by the light of every star.”

She believed him. His hand rose to stroke her cheek.

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