“So there’s nothing we can do?” she demanded, furious. “They stabbed Wen! Because they want to kill you!”
Remin’s jaw tightened. It was on the tip of his tongue to snap that Wen was not the first and would not be the last. And no, there was nothing to be done, there was nothing anyonecoulddo but pray with all their might that the fucking bastard in Starfall dropped dead sooner rather than later, but he had promised himself he would not insult her parents before her. He didn’t want her to be angry or frightened or anxious. Genon had said more than once that Remin should try to keep her calm and happy if they wanted to make a child together.
It took a massive effort to shut all of that down, to shove it all away somewhere to be dealt with later. But there had been days worse than this. For right now, this moment, she was with him and the doors were locked. They were safe.
“Ophele,” he said gently. “Let’s leave it alone. Come here and tell me about your day.”
“I had lessons,” she said, sulking. “Do you want tea?”
“I don’t want anything but you,” he replied, holding out a hand to her. “Come and warm me up.”
This rarely failed to draw her out. And it was true, too; Ophele was always warm, a soft and wonderful little bundle of heat that Remin huddled around like a small flame. For a while it was good to wrap himself around her and listen to her talk about her day, and eventually she was calm enough to let him kiss her. Closing his eyes, Remin bent his head, trying to make himself feel it. Feel her, and nothing else.
“Remin,” she whispered, turning her body into his. For the first time, her touch did not rouse him.
“Wife,” he whispered back. Rising, he carried her to their bed, forcing himself to focus on the feel of her mouth, the soft and gliding caress of her tongue. Laying her on the bed, he moved over her, tugging her robe open.
He really did not want to do this. All he wanted to do was go to sleep and hope there were no dreams. But someone had come to Tresingale to kill him, and he had come too far to fail at the last moment. He must make an heir. He was the last of his blood, and he owed it to all his murdered family to ensure that their line did not die with him.
He must make a child.
Once he had done that, it wouldn’t matter if an assassin finally got past his guards.
***
“My lady, I don’t know if we ought to…” Davi began for at least the eighth time that morning as Ophele pulled up the hood of her cloak and stepped into the icy air.
“Did His Grace tell you to keep me locked in the solar forever?” Ophele was feeling a trifle belligerent.
“There is a difference between knowing an assassinmaybe there and knowing they arecertainlythere, my lady,” Leonin pointed out as both men strode after her, their boots crunching through five fresh inches of snow.
“That is why you are with me. We will see them coming for a mile, with all this snow,” she replied stubbornly. She had been pent up in the house for three days and had hardly seen Remin or any of his knights, and all anyone would say was that everything was fine and how could thatpossiblybe true?
It took a great deal of bullying to get Leonin and Davi to saddle her horse, but soon enough they were on their way to the infirmary in a light snowfall, with flakes so small they seemed to hover in midair. They had dissuaded her from visiting twice already, but her worries for Remin aside, she wanted to see Wen for his own sake.
“Only for a little bit,” Genon said grudgingly, when she presented herself in the infirmary and politely demanded to see the irascible cook. “I don’t know that you’ll get much sense from him…”
“That’s all right,” she said, trying to sound brave as she marched to the small room at the back of the long aisle of beds.
But it was something else when she reached the door, and Ophele had to nerve herself to knock and poke her head inside, half curious and half afraid of what she might see. Remin had told her Wen was stabbed more than once, and she could only hope it wouldn’t be too horrid.
“Wen?” she asked hesitantly, entering on tiptoe. The huge cook was lying face down on a cot, his head angled to one side and his back swathed in bandages that only showed little bits of pink. His big, rubbery mouth was partly open as he snored. Glancing at Davi, Ophele crouched down in front of the cot and prodded the cook experimentally. “Wen?”
He gave a snort.
“Master Wen?” Ophele gripped her knees nervously and scooted forward on her toes. He had freckles on his cheeks. She had never noticed that before. “Master Wen, could you—”
Looking at all those bandages, she felt guilty. He might have died, and here she was bothering him about supper. But just as she was about to retreat, he snorted, blinked, and glared at her.
She almost fell over on her backside.
“Your…Grace?” he slurred, and twitched as if he meant to rise.
“No, don’t get up,” she said quickly, patting his shoulders. “It’s all right, Wen, I just—I just came to see you. Are you badly hurt?”
“Been stabbed a few times,” he grumbled, licking his lips and turning his head to squint at Leonin and Davi. “Come to…visit me?”
“Yes. Oh, I am so sorry,” she said, forgetting every word of the little speech she had planned. “I’m so sorry you were hurt. They told me you were all right, but I wanted to see…oh, and I brought you something,” she added, fishing it out of a pocket. “I read that I ought to bring flowers to someone who’s sick, but there aren’t any, and Isilde showed me how to make sachets…”
