“Not I,” Remin said equably. He didn’t miss the relief in Ophele’s face. He still thought he was right to have gone to the Berlawes—who could say what might have happened if he had not—but he could not justify leaving now. Unless the new devils were entirely unlike any other devils seen in the valley to this point, the only risk to the men would be the weather. And his duty was to get an heir, above all else.
It was not exactly a hardship. Under the table, he nudged Ophele’s slipper with his foot and saw a secret smile curve her lips, though she granted him only the slightest glance through her eyelashes before she went back to her stewed apples. She was teasing him.
“I’ll do it, unless you’ve someone else in mind,” Miche said, as if he hadn’t already been on the road for two months. “I shall be your Master of Snow, Rem. I hardly know myself without a shovel in my hand.”
“It would be good of you, thank you, Miche,” Remin replied, and devoured the last of his breakfast in several large bites. “I’ll come to the barracks myself later today. We’d already been planning to send someone after Huber. It’ll be easier with sledges.”
“I’ll be about town this morning and then at the storehouse. My lady, I will come here for your lessons, if you prefer,” Juste added for Ophele’s benefit. “The storm smells like a bad one.”
“Can he really smell it?” Ophele wanted to know as Remin steered her down the hall to their bedchamber after breakfast, leaving the clearing up to the servants. “The storm?”
“He is usually right,” Remin admitted. “He grew up in the mountains, so his weather-sense is better than most.”
And it was a convenient excuse to linger indoors. Though they both had important work, Remin was conscientious in his duties and shut the door of the bedchamber behind them, stooping to catch Ophele up and toss her over one shoulder, purely for the pleasure of hearing her squeal. One of her slippers fell off.
“Are you going to make amends for last night?” she inquired as he carried her across the room.
“Did I do something for which amends are required?” Remin deposited her on the bed with a puff of blankets and moved over her, his black eyes heating.
“Miche and I had to carry you to bed.”
Remin thought that over and decided it was fair.
“Very well. I am sorry,” he said, sliding her morning gown up over her thighs. She wore nothing underneath.
“And you kept pinching me,” she said, in a voice suddenly gone breathy. Remin knelt by the side of the bed and sank his teeth into her silky thighs. He was already hardening.
“Then I shall have to beg pardon for that, too,” he murmured, and she gasped at the first stroke of his fingers against her most sensitive flesh, her fingers tangling in his hair as his mouth closed on her nipple. If it was apologies she wanted, he was about to apologize until she begged him to stop.
***
Afterward, while they were lying together in bed and watching snowflakes swirl through the diamond panes of the windows, it was Remin who brought up Azelma.
“I spoke to Wen this morning,” he said, one hand slowly stroking up and down her back. “If Azelma wants to help in the cookhouse, he’ll allow it.”
“Oh, thank you,” she said, surprised and pleased that he had already gone to the trouble. And that Wen was actually going to let a woman in his kitchen. “She doesn’t like to be idle. I don’t think she had a holiday once in all those years, except when she was ill.”
“Mmm.” His sigh echoed through the room. Ophele had heard enough of his sighs to know it was not a happy one. “Wife,” he began. “I don’t want to upset you, but I don’t believe this conversation will be improved by delay. Have you ever wondered how your mother died?”
“She…she was sick,” Ophele replied, with a sudden sinking sensation in her belly. “She was tired all the time. And she said her head hurt.”
“She was very young, to die of illness. It happens,” Remin conceded, his arm tightening around her, pressing her to the warm solidity of his body. “I have seen it. There was a footman at Ereguil who used to have brainstorms, and he died when he was twenty-two. There was rotten water inside his head, the healer said.”
“But you think it was something else,” she said slowly. Turning over, she met his eyes. “Just tell me.”
“I guess that she was only spared for your sake,” he said quietly. “I think once you were old enough, the Emperor might have decided to have her killed. She likely knew something dangerous. I don’tknowanything, but…there are many poisons that mimic illness.”
She said nothing. Maybe in some deep, dark part of herself, she had always suspected it. But she had been a child when her mother died, and her memories were few and hazy. It seemed to her that more than once, she remembered seeing her mother suddenly get up, her voice muffled,it’s all right, darling, play with Sir Bunkin,which had been the name of her favoritestuffed rabbit. The fleeting vision of a handkerchief pressed to her mother’s bleeding nose.
Might her father have ordered her mother’s death?
There was no question that he could have. A man that would wipe out two Houses to the third generation, men, women, children, servants, would not scruple to kill even the mother of his child. But it made her feel sick.
“She used to get nosebleeds,” she said, wondering why he was bringing this up now. “But I don’t remember. I was six when she died.”
“Poison is most often administered in food,” he replied. There was a frozen moment, and then Ophele reared back as if he had slapped her.
“Shewouldn’t,”she said instantly. “No, you think Azelma would do such a thing? She never would,never!”
