Page 52 of The Iron Dagger
They were full of aggravated blusterings and “now see here!”s, but Gideon quickly dispatched them by giving them each a small purse of gold. The rumblings stopped and they left, taking their hats off to bow to him as they went. Gideon rolled his eyes and chastised Tobin to never wake him before dawn again to answer to a petty bit of thievery.
He was on his way to his rooms to change into something more becoming than a nightshirt and trousers when his mother’s chatelaine caught up with him. The elderly woman smiled sweetly and impressed upon him how dearly his mother wished to see him that morning.
With a bite of frustration, he doubled back his steps. He had planned to spend the morning with Hara to make sure she was comfortable in her accommodations and perhaps introduce her to some helpful persons at court, but those plans would have to wait.
Why did he feel like a nursemaid fretting over his charge? Surely no harm had come to Hara in the space of a night, and he was back at home. He should be out making his presence known in the city, visiting the gambling hells and the salons of his admirers. Instead his mind kept being pulled to the room at the end of the guest wing, wondering how Hara had slept and if her breakfast was to her liking. He even found himself pondering if he should install a box of sand in the garderobe for the blasted cat.
She did not know it, but Gideon was at her beck and call. It irritated him, this feeling of being beholden to someone. And it irritated him most of all that a small part of him liked it. He secretly craved the moments when her indifferent mask slipped,when she looked at him with humor and trust and he could bask in the warmth of her gaze.
No, he wanted more than that.
He wanted her passion. He wanted her approval and her delight and even her rage. He wanted more of the woman he had glimpsed that night after they’d been thrown out of the inn. And he had no right to it. It made him burn to think that she bestowed more favor on simple dolts like Samwell Thorn than she would ever give to him. He’d never had to chase a woman before, and it was dreadful. Why did her affection come so easily for others and so reluctantly for him?
Gideon pinched the bridge of his nose as he entered the sunny passage where his mother’s chambers were located. He’d slept terribly, and what little rest he had gotten was fraught with dreams of Hara coming apart on his fingers. Except this time they did not stop, and he woke in the dark sweating through his bedclothes and hard as a steel rail.
The restless craving for violence on the road was now clear to him. It wasn’t a fight he wanted.
He wantedher.
It felt curiously similar, the heated frenzy under his skin begging for an outlet. Part of him wondered if he just needed to bed her and have it over with. To sate his curiosity at the very least, for that was all it was: lust and curiosity. There was nothing to suggest that their personalities would suit. His bizarre need to please her was nothing more than a side effect of his desire to bed her.
When he laid it out this way it made sense, and he felt that he had grasped hold of the reins once more. Fantasies were more intoxicating than the real thing, and Gideon always lost interest in the hunt once the quarry was caught. To break the madness he had to break the fantasy.
But now was not the time to entertain visions of Hara’s legs over his shoulders. He quickly schooled his thoughts as he turned around a corner and strode into his mother’s suite.
“You could see your father before you had even beat the dust out of your clothes, but your mother must wait? When were you planning on seeing me, Gideon—next solstice?” said Eleanora Falk. The scoldings were tumbling from her lips before he even entered the room.
Gideon groaned and collapsed onto a delicate sofa in his mother’s receiving room, his legs hanging over the edge. All he wanted was to go back to sleep, but between the miniscule sofa, the lurid pink walls of the room, and his mother’s nagging voice, that dream was quashed.
“Please, I’ve been sleeping on straw ticks and at inns without running water for months. I don’t need more prickles in my side,” he said from underneath the hand that was draped across the bridge of his nose.
“And I hear you arrived with a girl,” said his mother, her tone changing from whining to sweet in a moment. “Your father said she was quite comely.”
“Oh, I meant to tell you. She is my lady wife and we were married a fortnight ago in a monk’s hovel,” said Gideon. “It was a very dull affair. No guests, very shabby.”
His mother let out a surly little scoff, and he grinned at her. He knew it was not the thought of a secret marriage that upset her, but the idea that it might be drab. Her ermine-trimmed robe was a plush frame for her scowl. A maidservant set a tray of breakfast items before them, and Gideon sat up.
“Well? What’s her name? Who is she?” his mother questioned.
“Her name is Hara, and she is a Witch Recruiter. She saved my life,” Gideon said.
His mother looked up from her teacup mid-sip. The corners of her mouth pulled down in a disapproving frown.
“She’s awitch? Oh, Gideon . . .”
He spent the next several minutes dissuading the uneasy expression on his mother’s face by describing his ordeal and how thoroughly Hara had tended to his injuries. He emphasized how close he had been to death’s door between bites of toast, and as he spoke, his mother’s jaw dropped and her brows rose higher and higher.
“Well, there is only one thing for it. We must have a celebration. For your homecoming, yes, but also to honor the woman who saved your life!” she said.
“I do adore your little parties, Mother,” he said, helping himself to a strawberry cake. He expected something like this; Eleanora Falk took any opportunity to orchestrate lavish social functions. “But Hara has just arrived at court; I’m not sure if she would be comfortable being the center of attention.”
“Nonsense, my love. Her manners could be that of a she-bear and I would welcome her proudly.”
“And father?” He did not want his father to think this had been Gideon’s idea. The warning to remain discreet plucked at his nerves.
“Oh tosh, he cannot complain. It would be good for his public image to host a witch as our guest of honor. Where is she now?”
“I put her in the Waterfall Room.” It was one of the grandest rooms of the east wing, reserved for visiting royalty.
