AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Ma—My contact there was supposed to provide me with that answer.”
If he’d had ears, he would’ve pricked them up. “Someone was to meet you in Wartson?”
“I’m not a complete idiot,” she informed him crisply. “Yes, I was to have help—including financial—that didn’t manifest.” And why hadn’t it? She worried about Maman. It had to be that Papa had kept her sealed in feline form all this time, so she’d been unable to execute the rest of her plan. Nic wished she had a way to contact Maman to find out for sure.
“We’re almost there,” Gabriel said, breaking into her thoughts. “Ready to run the gauntlet?”
Itlookedlike a literal gauntlet, with a long row of people in festive dress lined up to greet them, hopefully with not actual weapons to strike her. At the front stood a man and a woman, much the same age as her own parents. “You go ahead and say hello first,” she told him, feeling the nerves again, “and I’ll wake Narlis so she’s not alarmed by the crowd.”
“Narlis has been awake for a while,” he said with a knowing smile. “No reprieve for you there—but you shouldn’t need one, since you have nothing to fear from these people.”
She glanced back at the sled and, indeed, Narlis was sitting up, gazing around with a beatific smile, her white hair in a disarranged halo. Nic returned her gaze to Gabriel, giving him her brightest society smile. “I’m not afraid.”
“I never imagined you were,” he replied blandly, reining Vale in. The gelding, scenting home, reluctantly pranced to a halt. Gabriel swung down and handed the reins off to a young girl who ran up. He tousled her hair affectionately as she wrapped her arms around his waist in a hug. He sent her off with a quiet word and came around to Nic, who was adjusting her gown so she wouldn’t flash any of the assembly as she dismounted. The disadvantage of changing into the lighter gown.
Taking her by the waist in his big hands, Gabriel lifted her down with easy strength. “I asked the kids to take care of Narlis, too, along with the horses and baggage, so you needn’t fret about her.”
“I never fret,” she assured him breezily, restraining a remark about how he’d disposed of all the livestock in one breath.
“No, you’re far too regal and intimidating for that.” He tucked her hand into the crook of his elbow and led her to his parents. “Mom, Dad—may I present Lady Veronica Phel, formerly of House Elal, now lady of House Phel and my wife.”
And familiar, Nic added silently. Gabriel was a stubborn man. Even knowing what he should now fully understand about her nature, he refused to accept the inevitable.
“Veronica,” Gabriel’s mother said with a broad smile, pulling her into a crushing embrace, rocking Nic from side to side with it. “You’ll call me ‘Mom,’ I hope. Or Daisy if you’re more comfortable with that. Oh!” She pulled back, wiped tears away, and gripped Nic’s hands. “We are just so excited to meet you. And the baby!” She pulled Nic’s arms wide so she could scrutinize her belly, clearly quite flat in the fitted linen. “You’re not showing at all.”
“Mom.” Gabriel slid his hand under the fall of Nic’s curls and set it on the small of her back, firm and steadying with its silvery-cool tendrils of magic. “Nic’s only a month or so along, remember? Most women wouldn’t even know they’re pregnant at her stage.”
Daisy studied them both with shrewd brown eyes. “Then are you sure? I know you promised us that your spell would ensure that she—”
“The Convocation has these oracles that know. They’re never wrong,” Gabriel spoke over her words rapidly, though not swiftly enough. Dark suspicion stirred unwanted in Nic’s heart. It was against the rules to use magic to affect the outcome of the Betrothal Trials, but Gabriel had already demonstrated that he’d break Convocation law without hesitation—and those were the ones he knew about.
“How about we let the poor girl set foot inside the house before we interrogate her, hmm, Daisy?” Gabriel’s father, who she would have known for his relative anywhere with his same build and bulk, held out a hand. “I’m Gabriel Senior, which gets confusing. Everyone calls me GF—middle name is Fayne.”
“All right, GF, Daisy,” Nic replied with a smile. Their informality and easy affection struck her as strange, but also oddly relaxing. “Please call me Nic, as Veronica is a mouthful.”
Gabriel raised a brow at her, and she gave him a sweet smile, fully aware it had annoyed him that she’d made him wait so long to use her nickname. How desperately she’d clung to the least formality to wall him out of her heart. All to no avail.
“Now let me hug on my boy!” Daisy exclaimed, flinging herself at Gabriel and holding his face to kiss him on both cheeks, then scrutinizing him with sharp eyes. “You were gone so long,” she added reproachfully. “Muchtoo long. You know we can’t do most of what we need to without you. An entire wing sank again. You look tired. Have you been eating right?”
“We’ve been traveling, Mom,” he said, gently prying her fingers off his face. “And it’s winter in Elal still. It makes travel slow.”
She sniffed. “You know I worry. You could have—”
“Enough, Daisy.” GF put a hand on her shoulder and drew her away. He hugged Gabriel, pounding his back. “Our troubles have waited this long. They can wait another day. Good to have you home, son.”
“What troubles?” Gabriel asked. “Besides that wing. My fault—I shouldn’t have set to work on it with the possibility that I’d be leaving again so soon.”
“The levees,” Daisy inserted. “I told you they wouldn’t hold, and they don’t. Not without your wizardry.”
“The new levees are leaking a little,” GF allowed. “Nothing that can’t wait to be fixed.”
Gabriel frowned. “The orchards.”
“We lost some saplings,” GF admitted.
“Almost all of those orange trees,” Daisy nearly wailed. “And they were soexpensive.”
Nic winced internally at that. At least she and Daisy were kindred spirits so far as bookkeeping went.
