“No. Go to bed, brother.”
“Her mouth. I’ll just give her another little lesson in—”
A knock sounded on the door, a soft, rather distinctive knock, and Jude found a smile sneaking up on him. “Not a word,” he warned Malac, as he stood.
His brother’s brows rose. “You haven’t told her?”
“Not one word,” Jude repeated. Then he threw the door open and dropped into a squat, just in time for a small child to throw herself into his arms.
“Daddy!”
“Rosa!” Jude squeezed his daughter until she protested, then he tickled her until she squealed. “It’s been too long since I saw my little garden bloom! How are you?”
“Good! I found the arcade all by myself, and the attendant made me an ice cream float while he called Mommy!”
“Wow!” Jude said. Then he shot a cross look up at her mother, before smiling down at the four-year-old again. “But you’re not supposed to leave the family suite without a grownup.”
“I know, but the attendant said I’m clever, and Mommy said he was certainly right!”
When Jude let her go, she planted a wet kiss on his cheek, then ran off into the room, giggling.
“Da!”
Jude stood and leaned in for a slobbery kiss from the toddler Geneva held on one hip. “Hey, baby,” he cooed, and his younger daughter babbled a string of delighted nonsense around the chubby hand she’d stuffed into her mouth. “How are Violet and her mother doing today?”
“We’re delighted to have you home!” Geneva went up on her toes to kiss his cheek, then she stepped past Jude into his private study.
“We’re going to have to talk about our little escape artist, over there,” he whispered with a glance at Rosa, who was teaching Malac a new song, complete with hand motions. “How does she keep getting out?”
“She’s her father’s daughter,” Geneva said with a too-broad smile. “How do you keep slipping away from me?”
“Duty calls, and a king has no choice but to answer.”
“I know. But I didn’t even realize you’d returned until I saw Malac headed this way, just now.” She set Violet down, and the eighteen-month-old raced across the room on legs that seemed much steadier than when her father had last seen them. “How long have you been back?”
There was no criticism in Geneva’s voice. No censure in her gaze. Jude had never been able to tell whether that was because she was truly never irritated with him, or because she’d been taught to school her bearing, before marrying the newly anointed king of Stead Camden five years before.
“Three days,” Jude informed her. “I apologize for not calling on you sooner.” Not that he’d called on her tonight, either. If only it were possible to visit just his girls… “May I offer you a drink?”
“No, thank you.” She looked past him, to where Malac watched their interaction with more interest than he typically showed his brother’s wife, while his youngest niece sat at his feet, trying to untie his boot. “Nice to see you, Malac. I hear the council decided in our favor?”
“Indeed, they did.” Malac scooped little Violet up and tossed her into the air, then he caught her on the tail end of a squeal. “What did you hear, exactly?” he asked as he set the toddler back on her feet.
“That Jude was awarded Gareth Delayne’s head, in recompense.” Her expression soured for a moment, at the thought. “And that Stead Delayne made another, ‘unspecified’ concession toward peace. I went to school with a couple of Gareth’s siblings, you know.”
“Oh, which ones?” Malac asked, and Jude bit back a groan at his brother’s conspicuous interest.
“The other boy. Jaarod. Though I guess he’s a man, now.”
“He sits on the council with Orlann,” Jude told her. “Well, he did. Now he’s king of Stead Delayne, and I suppose they’ll have to appoint someone else to his position on the council.”
“Which other Delayne were you schooled with?” Malac asked, and Jude shot him an angry glance.
“Maari. The oldest of the three girls.”
“And what did you think of her?”
“Malac was just leaving,” Jude growled, already marching toward the door to show his brother out.
“Well, she’s a couple of years younger than I am,” Geneva said, as if her husband hadn’t spoken. “But we did socialize occasionally. I can only imagine this is all quite difficult for her.”
“I would think so.” Malac gave Geneva a pensive nod.
“Malac,” Jude barked, and both of his daughters looked up from the marble sculpture Rosa had pulled down from a pedestal. “I’d like a moment with my family, if you don’t mind.”
“Of course.” Malac gave his sister-in-law a formal peck on the cheek, then he headed on his way. “I’m sure you two have a lot to catch up on.”
Jude closed the door a little too hard, then he turned to his wife. “Are you sure you wouldn’t like a drink?”
“Not now, thank you. But the girls will go down within the hour.” She gave her husband a quiet, inviting smile. “Should I call the night nurse and have a bottle of wine sent up to my suite?”
Jude blinked at her. “Are you ready, so soon?”
Geneva nodded. “Violet’s been weened for nearly two months. I saw the doctor today, and he said the next three days are our best chance this month. And I know you’re eager for a son, so…” She shrugged, and suddenly Jude felt every inch of the space separating them, like a gulf stretching between two land masses. “I can’t give you one through my own efforts.” Her smile faded, and he could practically taste her anxiety.
She believed herself to be failing in her only duty.
In truth, if not for the crown, Jude wouldn’t have cared if he ever had a son. His girls were more than enough to make any father proud. But the law required him to have at least two sons—an heir and a spare—and that was even more important now that he might conceive one with another woman.
In theory, they would never know who’d sired Maari’s children. But in reality, over the course of a lifetime—most likely after Jude’s death—tests could be run. Succession challenges mounted.
“Geneva, have a seat. I’m glad you’ve come. I need to explain something to you.”
Alarm washed over her features, and her gaze flicked automatically to her daughters. “What’s wrong?” she asked as she crossed the room to pluck the sculpture from Rosa’s hands, before she could drop it on Violet’s head.
Both girls whined in protest, until their mother produced a couple of small toys from her skirt pockets.
“Nothing’s wrong. Please, sit,” Jude insisted. And when she sank into the chair Malac had just vacated, instead of sitting across from her, he went to the liquor cart and poured her a drink.
“Something is wrong,” Geneva said as he pressed the glass into her hand. “You haven’t insisted I drink since our wedding night. When I was so nervous.”
The memory made Jude uncomfortable. She’d flinched and lay stiff beneath him, chewing her lip. Enduring her duty with such obvious stoicism that he’d felt like an unwelcome guest in his own marriage bed. He’d wanted to bite her. To touch her and whisper filthy things into her ear. To make her like it. But a man did not dishonor his wife in such a manner. Especially a wife who would give birth to a future king. A wife who offered herself with a primly lifted skirt, rather than an eager, bare body…
No matter. There would be—and had been—plenty of other women to adore him properly. His wife need only bear his children and appear in public at his side.
“Nothing’s wrong,” Jude told her. “I just want to explain about the peace accord. About the other concession that the council ordered from Stead Delayne.”
“Okay.” Geneva seemed to relax when she realized he was talking about politics—until she remembered the drink she was still holding. “What was the concession?”
“The council ordered that Stead Delayne hand over one of their women to Stead Camden. To be bred, as a way o
f literally and symbolically merging two adversarial bloodlines.”
“Oh.” Geneva’s brows dipped while she mulled that over. Clearly trying to figure out why her husband might think she’d need a drink in hand, for that explanation. “By you, you mean. They sent a woman from Stead Delayne for you to breed.” Her voice thinned into a sharp edge. “So your bastards are to grow up alongside my children? Here in the palace? And I have no say in that?”
“Geneva.” His voice hardened, and his daughters looked up from their toys. “Take a drink and reconsider your tone.”
Her anger obviously shielded a more delicate pain, and he refused to feel guilty about that. He’d never sworn fidelity to his bride; no such expectation could be placed upon a king. But he had let her believe that hers would be his only children. That she could rely upon an honored status as the sole bearer of his successors.
Slowly, she lifted her glass and sipped from it, flinching over the burn of the liquor. “Is she here yet?”
“Yes. She returned from Saintton with us.”
“She was already there? But surely Stead Delayne had no more idea than you did that the council would— Oh.” Geneva took another small sip. “She was part of their delegation. The council gave you a servant, I assume?”
“Actually, the council gave us Maari Delayne.” His delivery offered no hint of his part in the selection.
Geneva blinked, her expression blank, as if she were sure she’d heard him wrong. “They gave you Princess Maari Delayne?”
“Yes, but she wasn’t given just to me. Orlann and Malac have been charged with the same task. Out of respect for you, I believe,” Jude explained. “So that we can be sure any offspring will be of royal blood, of both steads, but we will never know for certain that any of them are mine.”
She set her glass on the table beside her chair. “But we’ll never know they aren’t, either.”
Jude nodded. “It’s a compromise, of sorts.”
“A compromise,” she echoed. “The planetary council has given you a princess to breed, and you call that a compromise.”
“Geneva—”
“And she’s been here for three days. Where is she? Where are you keeping her?”
“That isn’t relevant.”
Her eyes flashed in an unusual display of temper. Perhaps the only one he’d ever seen from her. “Have you already had her?”
Jude stood, signaling an end to the conversation. “I thought you had a right to know, so I’ve informed you. But don’t assume this courtesy I’ve extended out of respect for our marriage and your position in the kingdom means I will do so in the future. From this point on, I will not be discussing Maari Delayne with you. She has nothing to do with you. With our family. She is an obligation the council has placed upon me, that need not touch your life.”
Geneva remained seated, and for several seconds, she only stared at her hands, clenched around her drink. Then she lifted her glass and drained it. “How can she possibly not touch my life?”
“I will see to it that she does not.” Jude knelt in front of his wife and took the empty glass from her. He set it on the table, then he took both of her hands in his. “Geneva, I told you from the beginning that being married to a king would not be easy.”
“I thought you meant because of the war.”
“I did.” And in marrying the niece of the king of Stead Landrum, he’d secured the use of their airspace for his fleet, a strategic advantage he would have done anything to obtain. “This is because of the war. This ended the war. Permanently. Blood does not fight blood, and soon Stead Delayne will be our blood. The alternative would have meant the deaths of more than a million people—everyone in Stead Delayne. Surely you would not deprive a million people of their lives, just to get Maari Delayne out of your hair.”
Geneva sat straighter. “Of course not.”
“Then put it out of your head. This will not change your life at all.” He pulled her to her feet by both hands and pressed a chaste kiss to her cheek. “Rosa and Violet are the center of my universe. And they will not be the last. You will have sons. Promptly.”
“So then, should I expect you tonight?”
“Not tonight,” Jude said. “But soon.”
“Okay, then. We’ll get out of your way.” Geneva stiffly stepped past him to pick up Violet, who’d fallen asleep on the floor with her thumb in her mouth.
Jude turned to gather Rosa, and he found the four-year-old sitting in his chair with his com screen in her lap. Watching two women share a dinner of roast chicken at a small table in the lilac room.
“That is not a toy.” Jude took the device and swiped the security feed away before Geneva could get a look at it. How the hell had she even gotten it unlocked? He set the screen on the table and lifted Rosa into his arms so quickly that she squealed in delight.
“Spin me!”
Jude backed into the open center of the room and spun his daughter around, so that her legs and her little bare feet trailed out behind her. When he set her down, she collapsed into a peal of laughter, until her mother tugged her up by one hand.
“Rosa, come help me get Violet all bathed for bed.”
“May we have bubbles?” she asked, skipping her way to the door.
“Of course!” At the door, Geneva turned back to her husband, and he was pleased to see that she’d set aside her anger and reclaimed the composure expected of a queen. “It isn’t fair, this burden the council has placed on you.”
“Fair isn’t a concept kings concern themselves with.”
“I suppose that’s true. And I know you will do your duty with honor, in this regard, as in all others.” She opened the door, and her daughters scampered into the hall. “I’m taking the girls to the chapel in the morning, if you’d like to join us. I’m going to ask the gods, again, for a son.”
Jude nodded. “If my schedule permits.”
“Good night then, husband.”
“Good night, wife.”
Smiling, Jude watched Violet toddle behind Rosa, while Geneva raced after her, ready to catch the toddler when she inevitably lost her balance. Then he closed the door and poured himself another drink on the way back to his chair in front of the fire.
As he sipped from his glass, Jude picked up his com screen and opened the window he’d just swiped closed.
Two hours later, he still sat there sipping amber liquor. Watching Maari Delayne moan in her sleep.
7
Maari
Maari spent most of the morning with Annah in a tense silence. She hardly said a word during breakfast—again brought on a covered tray by a servant—or her bath. When lunch came, she was sitting at one of the chairs in front of the window, staring down into a beautiful garden full of topiary animals while Annah braided her freshly washed hair.
Despite her eagerness to unleash her selective infertility upon the Camden princes, she was not eager to actually see any of them. Because unlike their special skills, hers was somewhat passive in nature. And exercising it required her to surrender her body to her mortal enemies.
She tried to ignore the lingering soreness between her legs while she picked at a cheese and fruit platter for lunch, but with each passing hour, her anxiety grew.
“This wait is maddening. I wish they’d just get it over with,” she said at last, turning from the window to glare at the closed, locked door. “So we can have the rest of the day in peace.”
Annah chewed her cheese in silence, clearly aware that nothing she said would help.
After lunch, the tray was cleared away, and Maari wrapped herself in the lilac blanket again. She sat on the edge of the neatly made bed and stared at the door.
When it finally opened, as the first sun slipped toward the horizon, she sprang onto her feet, her heart racing. Orlann stepped into the room carrying a small box, and her gaze trailed past him. When she found no one else waiting in the hall, she exhaled and her shoulders slumped.
“Not excited to see me?” He closed the door
at his back.
“I just…” Maari clutched the blanket even tighter to her chest. “I thought your brothers would…” She shrugged. She hadn’t expected to face him alone.
“If you’re that eager to take all three of us at once, I can call them.”
“At once?” She frowned. “How would I possibly—? No,” she declared with a firm shake of her head, when she finally understood how all three Camden cocks might possibly take her at once.
“Well, that’s not really up to you,” Orlann informed her, as a lump began to swell in his pants. “Fortunately for you, Jude is otherwise occupied tonight, and Malac wants you for himself, later.”
“So then, your threat for the three of you to take me at once was never real?”
“It was real. But it was never a threat.” His gaze fell to the blanket she still held tightly closed around her. “Maybe we should go over our expectations for you. Just to be clear. You’re to be freshly bathed and naked when you receive us.”
“And how am I to accomplish that, if I have no idea when you’ll be here?”
“Well, you have no clothing, so I wouldn’t have expected that part to be a problem. And if you bathe every morning, I don’t think we’ll have an issue there either. Drop the blanket.”
“I—” For a moment, her grip on the blanket actually tightened.
“Do you remember what happened last time you disobeyed an order?”
Maari did remember. Still, it took an extraordinary amount of willpower to make her fingers uncurl from the fabric they clung to. In fact, she thought it might actually be easier if he just took the blanket from her, rather than forcing her to bare herself, for his pleasure.
But Orlann would not do that, when it was clearly more fun for him to require her compliance instead.
The blanket pooled around her feet, and his gaze took her in. Slowly, while the lump in his pants swelled.
“One more rule. You will not pleasure yourself when we are not here. Nor will you accept pleasure from your handmaid’s hands or mouth.”
Maari’s face flamed. “I wouldn’t— We’re not—” Orlann smiled as he watched her flustered attempts to speak, and Maari realized he’d done that on purpose. He could easily have waited until Annah had left the room to give his pronouncement, but he wanted to humiliate her. Again.
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