She’d known what to expect, in a vague way, but his manly part was bigger than she’d thought it would be. She hadn’t gotten a good look at it, because it was so dark here in the shadows, but she could certainly feel it. And it was so hard. How did he keep that thing under control at all times? How on earth did any man walk down the street without waddling? She would have to ask Blade how he handled normal activities with such an impediment, but now was not the time for such a question.
How desperate she must be not to become a nun, to allow herself to be here, in this position, with this man she’d just met. Blade Renshaw was her husband, yes, but she didn’t know him at all. Well, she knew that he was kind enough to rescue a woman in need, even though he didn’t look at all kind. She knew he had no real desire to take a wife, though he didn’t seem to mind this part of the arrangement at all. He had once been a sailor and a ship builder, he’d said, so why did he no longer live by the sea? She knew he was most likely a thief, perhaps a beggar, perhaps both, but he’d spoken to Father Kiril as if he were a gentleman.
She really could not think of Father Kiril now! He would be shocked to see her in such an undignified position. She was shocked herself. This was certainly not how she’d imagined the night ending. She’d imagined a proper bed, one candle on the bedside table, some kissing before and after. Instead she was... here. And what was happening here had completely scattered her wits.
The important thing was that she was married and bedded, albeit without the bed. She was a wife in all ways. Maybe she didn’t know much about the man she’d wed, but she had taken a husband before her twenty-third birthday. She wouldn’t live her life alone in darkness, as her dreams—and that awful witch Vellance—had warned.
Her thoughts came quickly, disjointed. She really needed to stop thinking so much. The movement of her husband within her was terribly distracting, and soon she couldn’t think of anything else but the way it felt there, where their bodies came together. She shifted, and he thrust deeper. She buried her face against his warm neck and breathed in his manly scent. It was intriguing; intoxicating.
Her body warmed, and her breath came differently, as if she had to work to bring air into her lungs. She forgot everything but the way it felt to have Blade inside her. She even forgot that she was in an alley, with her back against a rough wall and her skirt bunched up around her waist.
Blade moved faster, and so did she. It was as if she was driven instinctively to take him in. To rub her body against his and urge him deeper. She wanted more, but she wasn’t sure exactly how to get it or even what it was. He drove deep and held himself still, and he shook. She felt his release inside her own body, heard a low groan in her ear. He went still, but for the effort it took for him to breathe. His body remained linked to hers, though it was now... different.
“Sorry,” he said, as he withdrew and very gently placed her on her feet.
Reality came back to her as she smoothed out her skirt. Her body throbbed, her head swam, and she found herself... squirming. She wasn’t exactly sure why.
“Why are you sorry? The fucking was not entirely unpleasant, and we are truly man and wife, as I requested. You have nothing to apologize for that I can see.”
There was little light in the alleyway but there was enough for her to see that his lips twitched, as if there was a danger he might actually smile. “One day you will see,” he said, straightening his clothes and then hers, though she’d already made an attempt at the chore. “I imagine. And, dear wife, I would suggest that you not use the word ‘fuck’ so frequently.”
“Why not?” she asked. “You used the word yourself, so I assumed it was the proper word for what we just did. Did I not use the word correctly? Was my pronunciation incorrect?”
“Your pronunciation was stellar,” Blade said, a touch of humor in his deep voice. “However, it is not a word used by proper ladies. Your Father Kiril would have heart failure if he heard you say it.”
She inhaled sharply. “It’s vulgar?”
“It is.”
“You should have told me so immediately,” she admonished.
“I suppose I should have,” he admitted. He sounded much more agreeable than he had on their first meeting a short while ago, or even at the wedding, when he’d been so pleasant for Father Kiril’s benefit. In fact, he sounded downright pleased with himself. “I’m surprised you don’t know the word. It’s rather common.”
She hesitated to tell him that her father had always protected her from the more common aspects of life.
“You can use that word when we’re alone,” he said before she had a chance to prepare a response. “I rather like the sound of it coming out of your sweet, pretty mouth. You can whisper it into my ear whenever the mood strikes you.”
“I can’t see how that will be necessary,” Lyssa said, as Blade took her arm and led her from the alley.
“Many pleasant things are not necessary, wife.”
Wife. Hmm. She rather liked the way that word sounded coming out of his mouth.
They walked a short way down the road in silence. Lyssa deemed herself to be badly in need of a bath. The act of consummating her marriage had left her sweaty and sticky, and she was quite certain she smelled. She also felt as if Blade was still inside her, in a way she could not explain. Even though she had managed to get everything she wanted and needed on this momentous evening, she was horribly on edge, jumpy... skittish. And she was also convinced for some reason that they were not finished.
“Will we live in your room or in mine?” he asked.
Lyssa pursed her lips. What was done was done, but she hadn’t yet worked out all the details. “I suppose we will live together eventually, but...”
“Not eventually,” Blade said. “Immediately. How else am I to gain your father’s trust so that he will take me into the palace with him on his next delivery?”
“There are many deliveries to be made in the coming months. It doesn’t have to be the next.”
“Yes, it does.” He grabbed her shoulders and spun her about to face him. “I’ve waited too long. I won’t wait any longer.”
She wished she could see him better, but there was not enough light here. Not nearly enough light. “Why exactly do you wish to get into the palace?” she asked. She’d thought maybe he was just curious. There were many who simply wanted to see the imperial opulence for themselves, to walk among the fine ladies and gentlemen there, and look upon the jewels and paintings and sculptures. Perhaps he wanted a close look at the emperor, the empress, and their children. But as little as she knew about her husband, she seriously doubted that he was curious about such things. “You’re not going in there to steal something, are you?” she asked, horrified.
“No.”
“I know you’re not above thievery,” she argued. “The uniform you’re wearing proves that much.”
“I swear to you that I have no plans to steal anything from the palace.”
That was a relief. She wanted no part in thievery.
“So, your room or mine?” he asked again.
Lyssa’s mind spun. “Tonight I’ll return to my house alone. My parents will be alarmed if they awake in the morning and I’m not there. They would also be shocked to find a man in my bed. I can only imagine the commotion that would ensue. It would be best if you came to the house later in the day, at which time I will make proper introductions.”
“I suppose that will work. And then?”
A witch’s prediction, a string of bad luck, and years of nightmares had spurred her to this point. But there was more. She didn’t want to be a burden to her parents; she didn’t want to be underfoot when the new baby arrived. She certainly didn’t want her father and her stepmother to look at her with pity because she couldn’t find a husband and make a home of her own.
And she wanted her own home, at least for a while. She and Blade might not have the time she’d planned to have with her husband. If they lived in her father’s house... No, even if it was a hovel
, she would have her own home.
“We will live in your room.”
“You haven’t even asked what the place is like. What if you find it unsuitable?”
“No matter what your living circumstances may be, we will manage. You’re much too tall for my bed. Kyran, the man I was supposed to marry this afternoon, isn’t much taller than I am, so it would not have been an issue, but you simply will not fit. Yes, your room,” she said with a determined nod of her head. No matter where it might be, it would surely not be as dark as the inside of a tomb or as quiet as a nunnery where everyone had taken a vow of silence, and no matter how unsuitable it was, she would not be living there alone.
***
Blade watched Lyssa walk carefully and quietly through the door to her small but more than satisfactory home. Though he could not see anything of the interior from where he stood, he was certain it was much nicer than the room he rented by the day, even though that rough room was much better than most of the places he’d slept in the past four years.
Lyssa would soon regret marrying him. But not before she served her purpose and got him into the palace.
He’d sunk to new lows in order to do what had to be done, but that realization that did not make him regret his decisions. It wasn’t as if Lyssa got nothing out of the deal. She had the husband she’d been so desperate for, and the deed had been done before midnight. Who was he to say that her reasoning was invalid? He would make sure she wasn’t entirely sorry before he finished his business here.
He and his wife would lie together again, and he would show her what pleasure could be had when a man and a woman came together. Not entirely unpleasant, she had said. She had no idea... and it would not be a sacrifice on his part to teach her.
Late as it was, as unexpectedly satisfied as he was, he didn’t feel like sleeping. It wouldn’t be the first sleepless night he’d passed. Nor the last. He walked past the tavern where he’d left his half-empty bottle of whisky sitting unattended. It would be long gone, and while there was more to be had, he did not want to dull his senses. Not now.
He kept walking. This was an unsavory part of town, and he passed more than one other tavern along the way, and also a rutting couple or two. Drunk and totally without shame, they did not even bother to slip into an alley, not at this late hour.
Not far beyond one loud and ill-kept tavern, he passed the two-story inn where he’d been renting a room, and as he watched a rail-thin prostitute and her customer fumbling with one another near the front entrance, he knew he could not bring Lyssa here. Even though he and his bride had just engaged in a very similar activity... it wasn’t the same, not in his mind or in hers.
He’d sworn he would not accept help from anyone, he’d vowed to do this on his own, but that wouldn’t be the first vow he’d broken—not even the first on this long day. At least this time he had a somewhat noble cause.
Besides, improved living conditions would instill confidence in Lyssa’s father, who would be more willing to take his new son into the family business if he proved that he could care for her properly.
Perhaps his reasons were not so noble after all.
It was hours after he’d left Lyssa, and the sky was gray with morning light, when he knocked on a solid door far from the seedier section of town where he’d been spending his time since arriving in Arthes. He didn’t have to wait long before the knock was answered.
Blade looked down on a face he knew well. The expression there flitted from anger to confusion and finally to something that might have been relief.
“I need your help.”
***
Lyssa slept, and for the first time in a long while she did not dream at all. Instead of waking with a start and a scream, she stretched slowly, sighed, then burrowed in the blankets for a few precious moments.
She was married. A smile crossed her face. Perhaps it was not a real marriage, the way marriages were supposed to be, but she’d found a way around the old witch’s grim prediction and averted disaster. She would be Bad Luck Lyssa no more. Take that, Vellance.
As she lay there, after a few hours of deep, undisturbed sleep, she imagined the day ahead of her. Introducing Blade to her parents was going to be tricky. “I sneaked out of the house last night and married a stranger” was not going to go over well.
It was bad enough that they would find the unkempt man unsatisfactory, but if she explained how he’d come to her rescue last night in the tavern... then she would have to explain how she’d come to be in that tavern in the first place.
That had not been the wisest decision she’d made in her twenty-three years, but in the end... in the end...
In the end she’d found herself coupling in an alleyway with a stranger. Her husband, yes, but still a man she did not know. So why did the thought of those few moments of fumbling and physical connection make her insides heavy and itchy? Why did the memory of Blade Renshaw making her his wife cause her to squirm in her own bed?
“Perhaps because it is long past time you were made a wife, Lyssa Tempest,” she said softly as she sat up. No, not Tempest. She was now Lyssa Renshaw.
She washed, dressed, and presented herself for the morning meal with a smile on her face. While Sinmora made tea, Lyssa toasted yesterday’s bread over the fire. What she needed to do was arrange for Blade to have a bath and a new suit of clothes before she introduced him to her father and stepmother. Preferably a clean outfit that had not been stolen. Many men wore beards, but his was desperately in need of a trim. She wondered if he would allow her to cut his hair. She found herself humming a merry tune and turned to find her stepmother staring at her.
“Are you all right, dear?”
“It’s my birthday,” Lyssa said. “Can I not be happy?”
“Of course you can.” There was a fair amount of suspicion in those words.
Her father was as suspicious about her good mood as Sinmora had been, but somewhere between his toast and the dried figs, he apparently decided to accept his good fortune with a smile. In the past, there had been at least a week of self-pity and tears after a failed wedding.
They didn’t know that she’d beaten the prophecy, that she was a wife.
How to tell them, though... Not a single scenario seemed right. And really, why should she rush to tell them anything? While there had been a deadline on the marriage itself, sharing the news of that marriage could be done at any time, she supposed. Not that she was a coward, but such important news should be delivered in just the right way.
As she often did, Lyssa opened the store along with her father. The shop was next door to their home, and while it was small and always had been, Cyrus Tempest was known for offering fine goods at reasonable prices. Business had been slow lately, she admitted, thanks to a new merchant setting up shop in town, but so far they had managed to meet their needs. Still, with her own troubles behind her, she could see the worry on his face. He looked older, more haggard, and she felt guilty for getting so wrapped up in her own troubles that she hadn’t seen what was going on at home.
Was he worried about the baby, or had the decrease in business hurt more than he’d let on?
Surely he would welcome the news of her marriage, as he had welcomed the news of a baby. Life would go on as it should. She would do what she could to help his business and then she could start a new life knowing that he, and her stepmother and her brother or sister, were well off and happy.
And she... well, one step at a time.
Shortly after opening, Edine Lair—Lyssa’s greatest friend in the world—stepped into the shop, a baby on her hip, a toddler’s fat little hand clutched in hers. With child again, she never seemed tired or frustrated, no matter how hectic her life seemed to be. Her dark hair shone and was held perfectly in place. Her skin always had a fresh, healthy glow. As she walked into the shop, Edine caught Lyssa’s eye and grinned widely.
“I’m so sorry I missed the wedding! Yesterday was impossibly hectic.” Her easy smile widened. “And where is t
he lucky groom this morning?”
I have no idea....
Lyssa’s father groaned; Edine’s smile died quickly.
“Not again,” Edine said. “Lyssa!” She glanced around the small store, making sure there were no customers present to overhear. “What happened this time?”
“Kyran left me for a woman he met on the road.” The words didn’t hurt the way they had yesterday. She didn’t feel hate for Kyran or for the woman who had stolen his heart. She’d never loved him and he had never loved her, so his heart had been available for stealing, she supposed.
“Oh, no!” Edine rushed toward Lyssa. “And today is the day. You’re twenty-three! It’s too late!” Of all her friends, Edine had been the biggest believer in the prophecy. She had always been Lyssa’s most loyal supporter, the one shoulder available for crying upon when a potential groom died or ran off.
Like many Columbyanans, Edine was afraid of magic. Witches terrified her. In the minds of many, there was little difference in the powers of a witch—whether she declared herself good or bad—and those of the evil Isen Demon. After the war with that demon, many had turned their backs on magic altogether. Edine among them.
Edine shifted the baby and released the toddler’s hand to give Lyssa a hug. The hugs were not what they had once been, thanks to the baby and the huge belly and the fact that the eldest child took the opportunity of his newfound freedom to run toward a display of carved wooden boxes. He knew some of them played music.
Lyssa was getting ready to rush after him when she saw her father step in and intercept the child, lifting him with a smile.
He beamed at the boy, much happier than he’d been just moments earlier. The worry seemed to melt from his face, along with several of the years etched there. Perhaps he was already imagining his own son.
“I’m all right, truly,” Lyssa said, reassuring her friend. “What will be, will be.” She was anxious to tell Edine all about Blade, but not before she told her parents. And goodness knows the questions she wanted to ask her friend were not ones she could put forth in front of her father. A woman-to-woman talk was most definitely in order, and soon.
Bride by Midnight Page 6