Total pages in book: 208
Estimated words: 209645 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1048(@200wpm)___ 839(@250wpm)___ 699(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 209645 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1048(@200wpm)___ 839(@250wpm)___ 699(@300wpm)
We took several steps before I felt his lips on my hair where he kissed me.
After that, he again looked forward, but I kept my head to his shoulder, and my husband and I walked silently under the moonlight with nature’s most beautiful melody of waves lapping the shore serenading us the rest of the way to the camp.
49
The Breakfast
Prince True
Fifty Miles Inside the Southern Border
WODELL
“This is ridiculous. An unacceptable delay,” King Gallienus announced pompously as all sat around the large dining table that Mars’s servants took apart to travel and put back together for them to use when they made camp of an evening.
As well as a morning.
Even a chilly morning.
The sun was bright above them.
But everyone had a rug draped over their chair to ward off the chill of the wood and six barrels of fire danced around the table to give a modicum of heat, not to mention all the women wore cloaks and the men mantles.
Except Mars, who appeared immune to cold which gave new meaning to the ancient title his ancestors bore.
The Fire King.
“This wedding nonsense needs to just be done,” Gallienus concluded.
True had presently finished explaining what he’d woken early to tell his mother and father.
Something his mother was delighted about, for he had been correct, it gave her more time to build a bigger spectacle.
Something his father didn’t seem to care much about.
Then again, True had known the man for thirty-one years, perhaps twenty-six of those when he was somewhat fully cogent, and he had no idea what his father cared about.
Now all at the table knew that he and Farah were off to explore Wodell and they would meet the others in Notting Thicket a month hence.
Farah, sitting at his side, shifted, and he turned his head to her to see she looked uncomfortable.
Therefore, he reached a hand to hers, and when her fingers curled around his, he brought them to the arm of his chair and held on.
“I think it’s a magnificent idea,” Lord Johan, Silence’s father, declared. “This means my Silence can come home. To Bower Manor. And there she can spend time amongst the dells she loves so, before she has to go back to all that sand.”
“My Silence,” Mars corrected low.
Farah made a discreet noise of alarm.
“And we won’t be going to Bower Manor,” Mars finished, only for Silence, who sat next to her husband in the manner she often sat in the times True had seen her around her father, or really anybody, except True.
Silently.
She had been much more animated in Firenze.
She was retreating into herself again.
And Mars wasn’t helping.
In fact, True worried Mars being Mars and not guiding her to an understanding of who he was and why he was that way was the reason she was doing it.
Now his cousin turned her head and stared at her husband’s bearded jaw with a mutinous expression, before she wiped it clean and reached to the teacup in front of her.
Yes, Mars was not doing any guiding whatsoever.
Farah made another quiet noise of alarm.
True squeezed her hand.
“And where will you take my daughter?” Johan asked Mars, as if Mars was making off with her, instead of married to her.
True had never given much thought to Johan, except to think in a vague way he wasn’t very likable and in a not-vague way he was a thoroughly poor father.
Now, True studied him.
And he did not like what he saw in the way Johan glared at his son-in-law.
“It isn’t so far. We’ll go back to the sand,” Mars returned. “My queen should be amongst her people. They should come to know her. It’s autumn. The crocus bloom in the north. We can visit my saffron field.”
“She is amongst her people,” Johan retorted.
Farah made a strangled noise.
Damn it.
Mars appeared curiously, and alarmingly, like he’d grown four inches simply seated in his chair as his eyes blazed fire across the table at his father-in-law.
“Silence, haven’t the tenants left Cord Cottage?” True called.
His cousin looked to him.
“I’m sorry?” she asked quietly.
“Cord Cottage,” he repeated. “It’s vacant, is it not?”
“Yes, it is, my prince,” Johan answered for his daughter, giving demonstration to one of the varied reasons why Silence had been silent much of her life. “Why do you mention it?”
“It’s spacious and it’s well-appointed,” True answered. “One of the reasons you haven’t found tenants to occupy it, I assume. It’s costly. It also has a carriage house where Mars’s Trusted can lodge. And land, for his men to camp. And it’s but five kilometers from Bower Manor. Silence and Mars can stay there. The newlyweds can have privacy, Silence can be home, in a manner, and they would be close enough to have dinner with you and Aunt Vanka once a week or so.”
“It’s more like seven kilometers,” Johan corrected.
“All the better,” Mars stated expansively, leaning back in his chair, doing so draping his arm around the back of Silence’s. “This we shall do.”