Page 61 of The Consolation Prize

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 placate 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.