Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 64357 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 322(@200wpm)___ 257(@250wpm)___ 215(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 64357 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 322(@200wpm)___ 257(@250wpm)___ 215(@300wpm)
“Excuse me?”
“You have disrespected my hospitality and your daughter for the last time. Pack your things and return home.”
My mother’s face falls. “Oh, but the baby… she needs her grandmother.”
“Nobody needs a sniping old woman.”
“We’re practically the same age!”
I have to hand it to my mother; that is quite the zinger.
“Old enough to know when to hold our tongues,” he says. “I will call you transport to the airport. Be ready in an hour.”
“Please,” my mother says. “I’m sorry to have offended you, but…”
“Oh, so close,” he replies. “You do know the words for an apology, but not the underlying sentiment, it would seem. Do not worry. I know precisely how to make those incapable of regret very sorry indeed. Now go pack, or you will be going to the airport with no luggage at all.”
My mother bursts into tears and runs from the room. I wish I could tell her that it won’t work, but I am busy feeding my daughter, and it is a relief to let my husband deal with her.
He crosses over to the chair where I am sitting with Lydia in my arms, and looks down at me with an expression of loving brutality.
“I will protect you from any and all threats,” he says. “Even those that come from close by. Nobody will ever hurt you again, do you understand?”
I smile and I nod.
A year has passed. Lydia’s first birthday has come, as has my twentieth. A cake has been smashed into her face, the furniture, and the floor. I have enjoyed the remnants that managed to stay on the plate. Life is good.
But something is wrong.
I know it every time I look at Arthur. I see a sadness in him. Something changed the night he rescued me from the rebels. I know he’s been to war before, so I don’t see why the fighting would have caused him to become quite so hollow behind the eyes.
When he looks at Lydia and me, there is love in his eyes, but when I catch him in private moments, I see a different side to him. I see melancholy.
“Arthur?”
“Yes, my love?”
“What is wrong?” I do not ask the question casually. I ask it with the intensity and care with which it needs to be asked, and deserves to be answered.
He looks at me for a long moment. “Sometimes I forget that you know me so well,” he sighs. “There are things I cannot tell you. Not because I cannot trust you, but because I have been sworn to the kind of secrecy that threatens the safety of our family.”
I pause for a moment.
“Sounds serious,” I say.
“It is.”
“Why not just tell me anyway,” I suggest, giving him a grin. “What’s the worst that could happen?”
He snorts. “That’s a good question. What is the worst that could happen? I suppose I could be killed, you could be killed, Lydia could be… I can’t even bring myself to say that. There are things in this world that rely on my silence.”
“Do you remember when my mother was giving me grief about the way I don’t fold your socks?”
He frowns slightly in confusion. “Vaguely, why?”
“You told me that nobody would ever hurt me again.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t want anybody to hurt you again either. I want you to stop being so sad.”
“I will get over it,” he tells me.
“No, you won’t. You’ll hide it, and you’ll try to pretend, but it will drive us apart eventually. We are husband and wife. We are parents to a child. We have to share our secrets.”
“We don’t.”
“If you’re going to be sad all the time, then I’m going to be…” I bite my lower lip, trying to think of a threat that might somehow lighten this situation and show him that I can be trusted. “I’m going to be very, very annoying.”
He lifts a brow. “More so than usual?”
Ouch. I can’t be angry at that. I suppose I deserved it. Opened myself up for it.
“All you need to do is continue to be your sweet self,” he says. “Time heals all wounds.”
“I’ve seen your body, so I know it also leaves scars.”
It is his turn to wince at the sharpness of my jibe, though I really did not mean it to be harsh.
I’ve failed in my attempt to broach the subject. Fortunately at that moment, our nursemaid brings the baby in, giving Arthur and me the opportunity to shower her with attention and ignore what is starting to feel increasingly broken between us.
Arthur
I refused to discuss the matter with Mila, and now I do not know where she is. I have noticed that she has been getting up earlier in the morning and going out. She leaves baby Lydia with the nursemaid.
One morning, I wake up as she is sneaking out of bed. It is only three in the morning. I follow her out of the house and downstairs. I am surprised to see that she enters the garrison. Though we moved from the tower, I still keep a small unit here on the property. We need to be well defended by soldiers whose loyalty is proven.