A loud buzz of exclamations spread throughout the hall, until the Queen raised a hand for silence. “Do you accept my judgement, Sir Roland?” she asked archly.
Eden waited calmly for Roland to object, but when he spoke, his words stunned her.
“I do,” he said simply.
Eden turned her head to stare at his handsome profile, and then turned back to the Queen, her fingernails digging into her palms. She had been expecting him to object, to rail at her pronouncement. Indeed, if he cared in any way, she told herself, he would argue back against such a ruling. Which meant he must be indifferent. She felt mortified at his lack of reaction. Suddenly she was finding it hard to even breath.
“You have something which you would like to say, Eden?” suggested the Queen.
Eden felt her face grow hot. “I have something to say to my husband,” she admitted tightly. “If I can still address him as such!”
The Queen’s eyebrows shot up, but she nodded and waved a hand obligingly.
Eden stood up from her chair and took a few steps forward and then turned around to face him. Roland looked back at her a moment, then came to his feet and walked forward also.
Eden waited until he drew level with her. Then she faced him down, her chest heaving with indignation. That he should not stand up against this measure, cut her to the quick. It was outrageous! Monstrous, even.
“Now, love, don’t take on so…” Roland started placatingly, clearly picking up on her mood, he closed the distance between them. “I only mean…”
Eden snatched away her hand as he reached for it, feeling suddenly extremely angry. “If you imagine for one minute I’ll be sneaking to your bedchamber again, you’re vastly mistaken!” she flung in his face.
“Again?” barked King Wymer behind them. “Hah!”
Eden ignored them, her furious gaze still on Roland’s face.
“Wife…” Roland started again, his reasonable tone infuriating her.
“I think not!” said Eden crisply. “If we are back to mere courtship days, then you can hardly call me that!”
“Eden,” he said loudly. “Don’t misunderstand me-”
“Oh, I won’t! Don’t worry!” she retorted bitterly. “Not again!”
At that, he gave a suppressed sound of irritation and taking another step towards her, seized her forearm, dragging her into his embrace. She tried to resist, but her satin slippers did not grip the flagstones and he was a lot stronger than she was in any case. Dimly, Eden registered the fact that benches were scraping along the floor as people craned in their seats to get a better view of them. Close by was the sound of a crash, as one bench overturned altogether. She found she didn’t even care, she could not tear her gaze from Roland’s even if her life depended on it.
“Stop being a little shrew,” he growled at her, his fingers tightening around her upper arms. “Do you want me to kiss you in front of everyone?”
Eden had already opened her mouth on a retort, when his words registered with her. “W-what? You wouldn’t dare!”
A look of amusement crossed his face. “Oh Eden,” he murmured. “I do love you.” The background noise faded, and time stood still. Everything else was just… irrelevant. Roland’s lips came down on hers and he kissed her. Not angrily, but thoroughly, and with complete conviction that it was his right. When she stopped resisting him, his arm slipped around her holding her firmly against him. “My love,” he whispered in her ear, his words alight with laughter. “That was so indiscreet, it was actually worthy of a Vawdrey.” His shoulders shook with laughter. “I think in future, Renlowe needs to take you for a mentor in fearlessness.”
Eden, realizing she had been rather impolitic, looked back over her shoulder in trepidation at the Queen. Roland’s arm was tight around her waist. She found herself clutching at the front of his doublet. She took a deep, fortifying breath, but before she could even utter a word, noticed the King was addressing the Queen in an urgent undertone.
“I think you’d better climb down off your high horse, Armenal,” he was recommending tetchily. “The Lady is clearly not pleased with your notion, not pleased at all. What’s the point in punishing the fellow further? That’s all I ask. Seems pointless if you ask me. He took her un-dowered and lost an honorary title, seems to me that should be the end of the matter.”
The Queen leant against one arm of her throne, and regarded Eden thoughtfully. “Now this is a strange turn of events,” she said. “I must confess myself at a loss. Your reactions are quite the opposite of what I expected.” She tilted her head to one side. “Perhaps if you explained why it is you would have no objection to following my ruling?” she said turning to Roland. The room hushed at once, and you could have heard a pin drop.
He cleared his throat, though did not release Eden. “In truth, I am not proud of the way I conducted my courtship of my wife,” he said, flushing slightly. “This gives me the chance to set that to rights.”
Eden held her breath. He wanted the opportunity to woo her? She was still reeling from this, as the Queen turned to her. Suddenly, she realized she had not even responded to his declaration that he loved her.
“And now Eden, why do you not wish to take this month-long hiatus from married life?”
This was it. Her opportunity to be as fearless as Sir Renlowe, she thought. “Because,” Eden said in a clear, carrying voice, that even those spectators at the back could hear. “As a wooer, Roland Vawdrey may have been indifferent. But as a husband, he is without peer. I love him, and I will have no other.”
The room erupted into chaos. And Roland kissed her. Again.
**
Epilogue
Two months later, The Royal Tournament, Caer-Lyoness
Eden reached up again to check the garland of flowers was sat straight upon her head. She still couldn’t quite believe that Roland had presented it to her in front of everyone as Tournament Queen. Or that she had taken it. The applause from the audience had been quite deafening. She knew there was a stupid smile on her face, but she couldn’t seem to banish it. She glanced over at her husband. He was stripped down to his braies and chauses now, and washing his hands in the basin Cuthbert had left out for him. She caught the direction of his gaze, flickering over her, before he plunged his hands back in, and started rigorously scrubbing his face and neck. For a moment, she had almost thought it was his lascivious look he was casting her way. The one he habitually wore before pouncing on her. But they were currently in a pavilion, in a field outside the palace and surrounded by courtiers. So, she must surely have misinterpreted his look, she thought. Maybe after all, she wasn’t the expert she was starting to feel on the various moods of Roland Vawdrey.
“Well,” she announced with a sigh of satisfaction, examining the fine gold bowl that Roland had been presented with, along with the return of his ‘King’s Champion’ accolade. “You did it. You’re the victor. Lord Kentigern was as dust beneath your feet. You are once more the King’s Champion.” Roland smirked as he reached for the soap leaves but gave no other discernable reaction. “You will be pleased to hear I’ve finally sorted my itinerary for the next week while we’re here at court,” Eden rattled on. “Tomorrow morn, I have a music recital in the Queen’s chamber. I shall take my harp. Then in the afternoon I have a meeting with my fellow ladies in waiting, followed by a poetry reading in the lower gallery.” She looked at him expectantly. “What say you to that?”
“Good,” he said after a moment’s pause. “Good.” He was running a drying cloth now over his shoulders and upper body.
“So, which do you think you’ll attend?” asked Eden politely. “The harp performance or the poetry reading?”
He seemed to consider this. “Harp. But I’ll be returning to the Quintain directly after you perform.”
She nodded at this, then seemed to absorb his words. “Really? The Quintain? Will you be back at practicing again so soon?”
“Yes,” he said. He had got through today’s proceedings remarkably un
scathed. “But more importantly, will you be dancing again, any time before we leave?” he asked, casting his towel away.
Eden shook her head. It turned out that Roland genuinely liked to watch her dance, but not if there were any gentlemen involved in the performance. In that case, he was sure to watch very closely, and Eden’s partners tended to get rather flustered under his hostile regard. “No, I am merely teaching some steps to others on Thursday.”
“Well, you need to give some of the other maidens a chance,” he conceded. “When you dance, everyone else is thrown into the shadows.”
“Tis only you who thinks so,” said Eden, who still got a little flustered when he spoke thus. She set down the golden bowl carefully. “And then, we travel to Chilbury on the following Monday for the next tournament, where I will cheer you on from the crowd.” She turned to examine the rest of the things scattered on the table, lifting up one of his gauntlets. “How do you even lift your sword-?” she began, when suddenly she felt her hips seized from behind and Roland’s warm breath on her neck. He buried his face against the side of her throat and dragged her back against his front. Before she could stop herself, Eden let out a surprised squeak. “Roland! What do you think you’re doing?” But he didn’t want to talk. His fingers were in her hair, tugging her face to turn toward his. So, she had not misinterpreted that look after all! He kissed her until she was breathless, and then spun her around, and lifted her up to sit on the edge of the table. Eden’s eyes widened. “Roland-” she said, casting her eyes toward the entrance of the tent.
“The dogs are posted there,” he said, kissing her neck, his hands busy pushing her skirts aside. “All six of them. They won’t let anyone interrupt us.”
“We’re out of doors,” she reminded him in scandalized tones.
“We’re in a pavilion,” he pointed out, and he tipped his head back to look at her. “Will that fellow Childers be at the poetry reading?” He asked with a sudden frown. “When he dedicated that ballad to you, you blushed.”
“Well, it was a very great compliment he paid me,” Eden replied.
“Let’s get this straight, wife. I’m the one that makes you blush. Me. Your husband. No-one else.”
She looked at him gravely. “Mr Childers is fifty-five and balding,” she pointed out gently.
“I wanted to kill him.”
“I’m not in love with Mr Childers,” she said firmly. “So kindly do not murder him.” He said nothing. Eden tried again. “We simply have a shared interest and a similar taste and appreciation for the arts-”
“Eden,” he interrupted her. “You’re making me feel murderous toward him again.”
Eden broke off her words to look at him in exasperation. “The one I love is you. If you were to award the tourney crown to another, then I would understand that you were paying a great compliment to that lady, and I would not…”
“That won’t arise,” he said crisply. “As I’m never going to give the tourney crown to another.”
“What?”
“I’m only ever going to give it to you, from now on.”
Eden paused, scanning his face. “Are you in earnest?”
“Deadly.”
She took a couple of unsteady breaths. “Fine, I won’t accept any more poetry dedications.”
They kissed, and Eden was quite lost in his embrace, when he pulled back again. She made a sound of protest.
“Unless…” he said, sounding frustrated. “Does that mean you will lose status somehow? As a patroness.”
Eden looked up at him in mingled amusement and exasperation. “Not really,” she pulled a face. “Poetry is not a sporting event. Though I suppose there is some prestige attached…”
“Very well, then,” he huffed. “They can still dedicate poems to you.”
“Roland Vawdrey,” she said with a sigh and laid her hand against his cheek. “You are such a considerate husband.”
“Open your legs then,” he recommended, breathlessly.
“Oh, very well!” Eden said, but she wasn’t even convincing herself with her show of reluctance. He stepped between her legs, and she had to bite back an answering sigh.
“How can you be so-?“ he asked thickly.
“What?” she asked.
“Tart, yet sweet,” he said distractedly.
“What?”
“Like a piece of fruit.”
Eden looked at him incredulously. “A piece of fruit? But Roland was kissing the tops of her breasts. “It’s perhaps as well you’ve never tried to write me a poem,” she observed. “I suspect you would be very bad at it.”
“As bad as you at jousting,” he agreed, and she ran her fingers through his dark hair.
“All this,” he said greedily, dragging down her shift to expose her breasts. “Including this perfect bosom, is mine.” He cocked an eyebrow at her as if daring her to argue with him.
Eden regarded him solemnly as he waited. Perfect bosom? “Yes, yes,” she said indulgently. “It’s all yours.”
“It’s going to turn so red here, from my attentions,” he said with satisfaction, and ran a possessive hand over her white tender cleavage.
Eden gasped. “Did you not shave just now with your razor?”
“No.” He shook his head.
“Why not?” she squawked. He usually did without fail.
“So everyone can see at the celebratory feast, tonight,” he said wolfishly. “That you are a woman who is thoroughly desired by her husband.”
“Roland! That’s absurd!”
He shrugged. “I disagree,” he said calmly. “You have to give me some dispensation if I am to tolerate all your fawning admirers.”
“Fawning-?” Eden broke off. “You’re hopeless,” she said with a sigh, relaxing back on her elbows against the table top. “Are you really going to bestow on me all your tournament crowns?”
“Of course.” He was kissing now between her breasts with exquisite care.
“It will look most particular of you,” she warned him, her hand flying to the back of his neck to cradle him at her bosom.
“I don’t care, everyone knows I’m mad about you. No-one will be remotely surprised.” That was probably true. Sometimes she worried that people laughed, he acted so smitten around her, but Roland didn’t seem to care one whit. She had amassed more jewelry in the last two months than most ladies in a lifetime. She had glittering brooches and necklaces and rings to rival even the Queen’s. Most of them had sapphires as Roland said they matched her eyes. Their wedding had been blessed last month in the royal chapel with the King and Queen in attendance, Lenora, her grandmother and all of Roland’s family including Cuthbert.
”I took those plans into town yesterday, to see about getting the work started on the Keep.”
“Really? So that’s where you went! I was afraid you’d gone to commission more baubles for me.” A guilty look flitted across his face. “Roland, you didn’t!”
“You haven’t got a diadem,” he said in justification.
Then she realized what he’d said. “Oswald’s plans to expand the Keep you mean?” she gasped.
“Yes.”
“But-”
“We’ll need more room about the place,” he pointed out. “There will doubtless be children before long, and probably more dogs… Fulco and Brigid have become hand-fasted,” he reminded her. “They’re likely to start a family soon. And Baxter even has a helper now word’s getting out the place isn’t haunted. Besides, you liked them, didn’t you? The plans?” He pulled back to look into her eyes. “Eden?”
She nodded her head, unable to form words, just blinking rapidly up at him.
“We can afford it,” he said. “Even your uncle insisted I took that dowry in the end. Mind you, I think your cousin shamed him into it.” He frowned. “Shall we do this back at the palace, sweetheart?” he said, looking about them ruefully. “This was probably not my greatest notion. Oswald and Mason and everyone will all be expecting us to emerge…”
She wrapped her arms around his neck, drawing him down to her. “Your whole family watched you win,” she reminded him.
His gaze drifted over her face a moment, then up to the garland on her head. “And saw you crowned,” he added.
“Yes.”
“Shall we go and join them, my love?” She shook her head. “No?”
“Not yet,” said Eden. “First I want you to do that thing you promised.”
“Which thing, my wicked faery?” his eyes grew warm. “Give you a baby?”
“Oh, I think you’ve already done that,” said Eden lightly. She watched the emotions flit over his face: surprise, delight, elation.
“Really?”
“Really.”
He laid a hand on her still-flat stomach, and rested it there a moment. “I can scarcely believe it,” he whispered.
“I know,” she whispered back. “It should be due next springtime.”
Roland cursed. “What was I thinking? That building work should have been started a couple of months ago at least!”
“All will be well,” Eden assured him with a gurgle of laughter. “You’re panicking.”
“What if it’s twins? They do run in the family.”
“We spend half our time at court!” she reminded him contentedly.
“I want everything to be perfect,“ he frowned.
“And it is,” she told him sagely. “But right now, I want you to untidy me, and make it clear that I’m a very desired wife.”
Roland’s gaze turned dark. “That my fearless lady, will be entirely my pleasure.”
“But you must have a care not to dislodge my crown,” Eden cautioned him, teasingly. “I’m very fond of it, for tis proof of my husband’s regard.”
He eyed her a moment with a mixture of amusement and tenderness. “This is merely the first of many,” he reminded her. “Now come and kiss me, Faery Queen.”
“You’ve been spending too much time with Baxter,” she laughed. But she kissed him all the same.
THE END
An Ill-Made Match (Vawdrey Brothers Book 3) Page 34