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Reeve was sitting at the family table in the great hall when Tara entered with Bliss. He had hoped to catch her alone so that he could ask her to marry him. His brothers and father had shared their thoughts on how he should go about asking her.
“Be honest with her,” Bryce had said.
Duncan had shaken his head. “Don’t listen to him. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Tell her you love her before you do anything.”
“Isn’t that being honest?” Bryce had argued.
But his father had given him the best advice. “Let your heart speak for you. It never lies.”
While Tara and Bliss approached, he wondered how he could politely get rid of Bliss.
She smiled at him as if she knew his secret, and said, “I’m going to visit with Mercy.” And turned and hurried off.
Tara eyed him strangely as she slipped off her cloak. “I’ve spent only a short time with Bliss, but I have come to know her way. She sensed something from you, and so she left us. Is something wrong?”
Reeve reached out for her hand. “Sit with me. I have something to ask you.”
Tara discarded her cloak to a nearby table and joined Reeve.
Different scenarios had run through his head, but he rejected most of them. They simply did not fit the situation, and theirs was a situation. There was so much more involved with a union between them than just love. But the biggest obstacle he knew he would face with her was that she believed herself adeath bride.How, then, did he approach this?
“We agree that you cannot be sent to the king,” he said.
She nodded anxiously.
“But the problem remains that eventually your whereabouts will be found, and demands will be made by the king and your father, and you will have no choice but to obey—unless ...”
Her eyes brightened, and Reeve was captivated by their color once again, deeper violet, almost purple, and her lips were a plump, soft pink, while her chilled cheeks shone a berry red. Damn, if she didn’t tempt him.
“Tell me,” Tara urged, squeezing his hand.
He gave an inward shake, clearing his head and focusing his attention on the matter at hand. There would be time soon enough for intimacy with her.
“I want you to marry me, Tara,” he said bluntly.
Her hand shot out of his, and she scrambled to her feet and walked around the table away from him.
“Think on it,” he warned curtly. “I am not proposing a love match. I am proposing a union out of necessity.” He knew if he told her that he loved her, which he did more than he thought possible, she would adamantly refuse him. Approaching it this way, he felt he might have a chance of convincing her.
“You cannot wed me, you will die,” she reminded with a heavy sadness.
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “I’ve been thinking about the curse.” And he had been, trying to find a way around it.
“If it is a vow you make, death will visit again and take,” she said, repeating the relevant section of the curse.
“Right,” Reeve said, aching to go over to her and wrap her in his arms, but knowing it was best to keep his distance and not display any signs of affection while trying to convince her. “And it isn’t vows we will exchange. It is a decision that will benefit all.”
He saw by the way her brow wrinkled, and her eyes narrowed that she was giving it serious thought. And he said no more, allowing his suggestion to take root.
“What of love?”
He had anticipated that question, and, wanting no untruths between them, he was careful how he answered. “What of it? We have touched on it, yet we have yet to fully express it? So it isn’t relevant at the moment.”
His heart ached when he watched her quickly contain the cringe that surfaced, and he knew his words had hurt her.
She recovered with a brave smile. “That is true. We have declared no love for each other.”
“And with no vows, simply a decision to wed, the curse cannot touch us.”
