The Consolation Prize (Brides of Karadok Book 3)

by Alice Coldbreath

  “Right away, Sir Armand,” said Peter.

  Armand watched him hurry in the direction of the house, before glancing again at Otho who was watching him through wary eyes.

  “Well, it didn’t take you long to turn this to your advantage,” Otho said sourly. “Your wits aren’t lacking in any case.” He spat a mouthful of blood onto the ground. “And your fists, neither. Una said you were handier in a brawl than a sword fight.”

  Armand was silent a moment. “She’s never seen me sword fight,” he replied.

  Otho’s beat-up face showed surprise. “We both did. On May Day.”

  Armand shook his head. “Neither of you have ever seen me sword fight,” he repeated and then walked resolutely back to the house.

  *

  Armand found Una in the solar spreading out pieces of fabric cut in different shapes. The smile she greeted him with dropped immediately from her face when she caught sight of his expression. “What is it?” she asked quickly. Abelard, who had been sat at her feet, slunk away to hide under a table.

  Armand looked down at her broodingly. He didn’t want to tell her what Fulcher had said. If a visit from his family could send her into a cold sweat, what would news of one, if not more approaching Northerners do to her?

  Then again, he reflected, Una’s reactions weren’t exactly those of a normal woman. An unexpected knock on the door seemingly terrified her more than a band of murderous assassins swarming into their bedroom. She hadn’t even mentioned that night at The Merry Wayfarer since it happened.

  She straightened up. “Something is clearly amiss, husband,” she said. “Please tell me.”

  Armand took a deep breath. “Fulcher says we were followed from Caer-Lyoness by at least two men,” he admitted. “One of them was definitely Northern,” he added quickly, before she could reply. “I’m hiring more workers for outside the house to keep an eye out for strangers. Fulcher says he saw someone else in our orchard yesterday. It may have been one of them. It may not.”

  Una kept her eyes trained steadily on his face. “Is that everything?”

  “I just punched Otho in the face. Several times.” He was more surprised by his confession than she was.

  “I see,” she said, coming to her feet and closing the space between them. She placed her arms loosely around his waist. “Are you alright?” she asked quietly.

  “I’m fine. Your brother’s face doesn’t look too pretty.”

  Una hesitated. “Why did you hit him?” Armand didn’t really know how to respond to that. “You don’t want to tell me?” she asked gently.

  “I’m not really sure myself,” he answered gruffly, feeling a fool. He wasn’t sure why she was comforting him at this moment. Shouldn’t she be flinging recriminations in his face?

  “You’ve been very patient,” she said gravely. “Maybe it’s the culmination of a lot of things.”

  And just like that, Armand felt like the worst kind of heel. He had been dishonest, from the start, and Una had somehow mistaken his flippancy for something altogether more virtuous. That advice Bess had given her at The Stone Crow had not been far wrong. He was neither dependable nor a good bet for her in the matrimonial stakes.

  He slipped his arms around her waist, pulling her close. “You give me too much credit,” he admitted, resting his chin on her shoulder. “Sometimes I—” He broke off, unsure how to proceed. She waited patiently for words he was not going to be able to speak. “Una, how did you get taken by Wymer’s forces?”

  Una drew back to look at him with surprise. “Where did that come from?”

  “It’s been playing on my mind,” he admitted.

  “Well, it was quite anticlimactic at the end, in all truth,” she said with a grimace. “My father was dead, as were his most trusted generals. The last of us had been driven to a remote fort in the Braeburn Heights. There was barely anyone in a position to advise me, which turned out to be a blessing. Under siege conditions, we would have lasted a matter of mere days. When we received a request to parlay, I accepted at once. I was offered very generous terms for my surrender - safe passage and a dignified laying down of arms. I was only too happy to agree.”

  Armand scanned her face. That she was telling the truth, he did not doubt. He also knew, she must be leaving out a good deal. “I can’t imagine your soldiers would have been happy with that decision.”

  “No,” she agreed. “But we were surrounded and vastly outnumbered. They were disillusioned, tired, and hungry and had homes and families to return to. They must have known deep down it was a lost cause. There is always the odd one or two who would fight to the death, but as I said, there was no one left in a position of command to oppose me by that point.”

  “You could not have known you could trust Wymer’s generals to carry out their promise,” Armand pointed out in a low voice, his fingers tightening at her waist.

  “A prince’s promise,” Una replied lightly, “is something my father always laid great emphasis on, as a sacred trust that could never be broken.”

  “Did you believe that?” Una remained silent, but he felt the slight shake of her head against his shoulder. Wymer must have been sorely tempted to eliminate this rival claim to his throne, he thought starkly, and Una was the very last of the Blechmarshes. It was a miracle she made it out of the war with her life.

  She drew in a deep breath. “Why the sudden curiosity?” she asked sounding puzzled. “Did Otho say something? But he can’t have done, he was on the other side of the country at the time, burying our father.”

  “It wasn’t Otho,” Armand said shortly. “It was that knock on the door. The other night.”

  She tipped her head to one side. “I said the terms of surrender were generous, but it wasn’t so polite that they knocked on the door,” she said with a humorous quirk of her lips.

  Armand gazed down at her. Was she laughing at him? “I want to know why you reacted that way,” he said abruptly. “When we were nearly murdered in our beds you were calm as could be. Why would a knock on our door frighten you to such an extent?” When Una lowered her eyes evasively, he caught her chin and tipped it up. “Tell me.”

  “I—it’s hard to explain.”

  “Try.”

  Una colored. “I’m used to keeping my head in a crisis,” she admitted slowly. “To things growing steadily worse, day by day, until all you can cling to is survival itself, without expectation of anything more.” She paused. “It’s the prospect of happiness I’m ill accustomed to,” she admitted quietly. “Or rather, being so close to achieving it, that I could almost touch it.”

  The sudden ache in her voice paralyzed him. All he could do was stare. “I’ve only known true panic twice, that I can remember since childhood,” she continued after a moment. “Once when I thought you would leave on the morning after our wedding”—she swallowed convulsively, blinking back sudden tears—“and that night when we were about to eat our first formal meal in the great hall, with our household.” She smiled at him through her tears. “You see, both times, I was so … wildly happy, so crazily optimistic about a future I had never dared before to contemplate. Then on both occasions, suddenly out of nowhere, it looked as though that cup of happiness was about to be dashed from my lips before I’d had the chance even to taste it.”

  Armand murmured something, he wasn’t sure what, and then he was kissing her face, which was damp with tears. She had been wildly and crazily happy just to be married to the loser of the May Day tournament? He kissed the tip of her nose, her two glowing cheeks, and that lovely, quivering full mouth. His heart twisted on the realization she had been frozen in terror because she had been so looking forward to eating pie with their servants at their own table. A pie. It should be laughable, that a princess of the realm thought that the highest happiness she could aspire to. Why then, was he laughing, the last thing he felt like doing?

  An aching pain throbbed in his chest, that could only be assuaged by the feel of her in his arms. His kiss that had started to p
lacate and comfort her in her distress, dramatically changed. Suddenly, his heart was pounding, and he could not get close enough, even though he cupped her face and twined his arm about her waist until she was molded to him.

  “Una,” he whispered. “I’m going to give you everything. Anything you ever wanted.” What was he saying? A small part of him, deep inside, wanted to shrink back in disbelief. He never made promises, let alone to women. But the rest of him was pressing forward, eager to forge himself to her with hasty, imprudent words. Words that negated entirely that promise he had wrung from her to be amenable in all things.

  Una gasped at his words, possibly even at his alarming behavior. “You do,” she strove to assure him. Her hands fluttered at his shoulders. “You are. Armand?” He drew back. “Should we not take this to the bedchamber?” Her cheeks were bright red and the high color suited her so well, that he suffered another shock. He was fiercely attracted to his wife. Why hadn’t he realized that before?

  “Unless you don’t want to,” she said quickly, and it was only then that her words registered.

  “Oh, I want to,” he said thickly, scooping her up in his arms. Then he carried her to their room, stripped her naked, and made love to her with a tender thoroughness he had not shown her or anyone before. Una wept in the aftermath, which alarmed him, but when he held her close, she told him they were happy tears and he had to make do with that.

  11

  Una woke to find light still streaming through the wooden shutters and guessed it was early evening. She was lying naked with Armand’s arm about her waist and he was fast asleep.

  She turned carefully about, so she could gaze upon his face. What on earth had gotten into him, to make him so … gentle with her? She could not really think of the right word. He certainly had not collapsed grunting on top of her this time. He had acted like she was precious and in need of careful handling. It had been lovely, she thought, but she did not want him to get the wrong idea about her. She was not some fragile flower that he needed cautious tending. She was a woman and she was his wife. Of course, weeping all over him like that afterward had probably not helped. She wasn’t sure why she had done that, except that her emotions had been all over the place.

  The fault had probably lain with those words he’d uttered. She felt breathless even at the thought of them now. I’m going to give you everything, anything you ever wanted. Such an extraordinary thing for him to come out with! Her heart had seemed to stop for a moment before it had started wildly beating once again. She wondered with a pang if he would regret the words on waking.

  The word of men could be undependable where women were concerned, or so her old nurse had warned her, when they’d been drinking or when they were trying to get under your skirts. But neither of those motivations applied in this instance. For though Armand had certainly been aflame for her, he had not been trying to seduce or persuade her into anything when he’d made his remarkable statement. As his wife, she had always said that his wishes would be considered law to her and she would oppose him in nothing. She had made that clear the morning after their wedding.

  She hesitated before leaping to conclusions, but it seemed like he was now offering to rewrite their marriage bargain. Una bit her lip. It would be foolish to set too much store by such words spoken in the grip of some strong emotion. When he had come to her that afternoon, his feelings had probably been overwrought, and he had likely not been thinking rationally.

  Just the fact he had even thought, let alone voiced such words was unspeakably precious to her. Unable to stop herself, she reached out a tentative hand and stroked one lock of dark hair from his face. His eyes flickered open and he smiled drowsily at her. Una caught her breath.

  “My sweet princess,” he murmured, tightening arm about her waist. Una felt her chest flutter and swallowed. She really could not let him get away with calling her that. Some would consider it high treason! Her expression must have shown her thoughts.

  “You’ll get used to me calling you that eventually,” he said, a glint in his eye. “In the bedchamber.”

  “I would much rather you did not!” she admitted, flushing hotly. “It’s dangerous.”

  He cocked his head to one side. “What if I told you that men call women that sometimes, even when they aren’t royalty?”

  This took her by surprise. “Why would they do that?” she asked, puzzled.

  “Much like calling someone a randy stableboy or a lusty tavern wench, I suppose,” he shrugged.

  Una felt she was in danger of entirely losing the thread of conversation. “You mean, even when they are not employed in a stable or a tavern?” she asked with a frown.

  Armand smirked. “Now you’re getting it.”

  “But, why?”

  “Just for bed sport,” he suggested.

  “Bed sport?” Una echoed, feeling mystified.

  “For instance, if you called me Sir Lusty Loins, or called it, ‘riding my trusty stallion.’ ”

  Una blinked. Sir Lusty Loins? She regarded him doubtfully. “I would never demean you in such a manner,” she stammered hotly.

  “Oh, but I would not find it demeaning me in the slightest,” he assured her. “In fact, I’d like it.”

  Una considered this a moment, quite flabbergasted. He had a smile playing about his lips and she wasn’t at all sure he wasn’t teasing her. It seemed like flirtatious Armand had returned with a vengeance. “At court—,” she started painstakingly, but then stopped.

  “At court?” he repeated quizzically.

  She had been going to remind him how much she had disliked being called the Northern mare but realized that would put a complete damper on his lightened mood. She liked playful Armand and was glad to see he was back. She just wasn’t sure how to indulge or encourage him. She knew she had done a pretty woeful job of even attempting it so far. That had to change, she thought resolutely. Or he’d start treating her like a piece of glass every time he handled her. “You must be acquainted with the heraldic beast of my family,” she improvised instead.

  Armand’s eyebrows rose. “The green wyvern.”

  “Yes,” she agreed. “If we are to have different characters for our … bed sport,” she said with a trace of self-consciousness, “then I would rather we called it … um”—she cleared her throat—“Sir Lusty Loins versus the Blechmarsh Dragon.” Her face was surely crimson by now. Armand had an arrested look on his face, and she had a terrible suspicion he was trying not to burst out laughing.

  “We could, certainly,” he agreed, his voice a little uneven. “Let us discuss this further.” He folded his arms behind his head. “How would that play out, do you suppose?”

  Una bit her lip. She had not realized she was supposed to supply whole scenarios. “Well, er—” Her mind went blank. Had she made this situation ten times more awkward than it had been already? She almost wished she had let him call her princess and be done with it.

  “Sir Lusty Loins could be sent along to vanquish the Blechmarsh Dragon with his mighty staff?” he suggested huskily when she remained tongue-tied.

  “Ye-es,” she agreed weakly. Then suddenly, she got the joke. Oh! By staff, he meant …

  She flushed. He was definitely teasing her now. Una felt an overwhelming desire to vindicate herself and show she too could play this game! “Of course, he would find it no easy task,” she said, with a valiant attempt at airiness. “For I would be a very wicked dragon indeed and would entirely overpower him.”

  “Indeed?” He sounded more intrigued than alarmed by that, rolling toward her and running a hand up and down her thigh. “How?”

  “Everyone knows a dragon breathes fire. I would—breathe on him.”

  “Breathe?” He cocked an eyebrow.

  Una leaned forward with great daring, pressing her breasts to his chest. She knew he liked them, for he had told her so when he was drunk. “From my lungs,” she whispered in his ear. “Like this.” She blew gently against the shell of his ear and Armand’s own breathi
ng hitched before he went very still. Something wasn’t still, though, Una thought, for something was definitely stirring to life against her thigh.

  “I see,” he said, after a moment’s pause. Was it her imagination, or did he sound a little breathless? Una felt secretly thrilled that she might be having some effect on him. “I imagine that might be effective,” he conceded. “If you breathed like that against … my staff,” he suggested, giving her a scorching look.

  Una blinked. “If I breathed fire against your staff, it would surely disintegrate,” she pointed out.

  “Nay, you are quite wrong on that score,” he said thickly. “I think it might explode.”

  “I would not let you burn to a crisp,” Una assured him. “I am a dragon, and I like to devour my prey whole.”

  Now it was his turn to blink. “Gods, Una,” he groaned. “You’re bloody good at this, love.” He rolled her underneath him. “By all means let’s try it your way.”

  Oh, he wanted to play it now, she thought, gratified. She must be getting the hang of it!

  He grabbed her wrists in a loose hold above her head. “Behold me now, wicked dragon,” he rumbled down at her. “For I have been sent to battle with you. Prepare to be vanquished, for I have bought my trusty sword—”

  “Sword? I thought it was a staff,” Una corrected him, tipping back her head to look up at him. Feeling suddenly inspired, she arched her back and pressed herself against his hard cock. He made a surprised noise in his throat.

  “In truth,” Una mused breathlessly, “it feels more like a staff, than a sword …” She rubbed herself against him like an abandoned thing, biting her lip. She felt him grow harder against her. “And yet, I am not sure …”

  “You wicked, brazen creature,” he groaned, and the way he said it sounded more like praise than censure. His big hands landed on her buttocks, kneading them, encouraging her to move against him in a sinuous slide. “You should know that all knights are pure in heart and cannot be defeated thus.”