Chapter 37
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
A fter my interesting exchange at the armory, I picked up Rowan to escort her to dinner.
She was dressed in gold-colored silk, pale and fitted enough that I could see the outline of the muscles in her abdomen that hadn’t been present in Bear.
“Have you been sparring a lot?” I asked unnecessarily, since I knew the answer.
She took the arm I held out to her, raising her eyebrows at me. “With the abundance of spare time I have around our…planning?”
She always stopped just short of using the word wedding when she could avoid it. But as always, I pretended not to notice.
Instead, I smirked. “You’re always welcome to train with me at sunrise.”
She made a thoughtful sound. “I could get up at an unholy hour to exercise. Or, alternatively, I could stab myself in the eyeball with one of the dinner forks tonight.”
A low chuckle escaped me. “If you were willing to incur Princess Jocelyn’s wrath for ruining the aesthetic of our wedding .” I emphasized the word just slightly, noting her slight wince.
We rounded the corner to the family dining room. Rowan averted her gaze from the painting of her with her father that hung outside the door, just as she did from the real-life version of the enormous man seated at the head of the table.
The king was even less happy to see me than usual.
I wasn’t the only one to notice, since the queen shot him a hard look.
“We’re celebrating tonight,” she announced pointedly, gesturing to the tall, narrow glasses of sparkling wine already set out on a beverage cart.
The room was thick with tension that didn’t seem entirely attributable to the king, a weighty silence replacing the usual clamor of banter and bedlam.
We took our seats while Rowan alternated between glaring at her father and ignoring him. Gwyn and Gallagher were the last to arrive, then the servant handed out the sparkling wine.
It was quiet enough to hear the clink of the glass on the table, something that had never yet been discernible in this room. Had I missed an incident?
Or was this all because Rowan was preparing to marry one of their enemies? Preparing to marry at all?
She glanced up at me, raising her glass with an edge of sarcasm.
“To our very platonic alliance,” she smirked, mischief lighting up her gaze, though there was something almost serious lurking in the background.
If that’s the way she wants to play it.
“To the sacrifices we make,” I responded, raising my own glass in turn.
Let her make of that what she would.
A huff of air escaped her full lips, and she nodded as if to acknowledge that had been fair, taking a sip without tearing her gaze from mine. It was easy to forget about the strange mood in the room when her tongue darted out to catch a stray drop of sparkling wine.
Storms, it was easy to forget there even was a room until her younger sister’s voice rang out.
“Is the wedding really in just over a week?” It was Bronwyn who asked, discernible only by the slightly different pattern of freckles on her cheeks.
“And then you’re going to leave again?” Blair added, her usual bubbly tone subdued.
Ah. So that was where the mood had come from.
I should have known it wouldn’t take long for someone to out the source of the tension. They were, after all, both Lochlannian and kin to Rowan.
It made sense that they would be concerned about her return to Socair, considering she had only recently returned from the kingdom that had tried to keep her.
“I have to—” she started to respond, but a booming voice cut her off.
“No, ye dinna have to,” the king barreled over her. “I told ye I could take care of it, but instead of trusting me to do that, ye decided to traipse off and marry into the kingdom that repeatedly tried to kill ye.”
I blinked, digesting the new information. Rowan’s father had offered her a way out, a way to avoid marrying either of us.
And still, she had said yes.
My gaze slid over to her, taking in the resolved expression on her perfect features. I told myself his refusal to accept our marriage didn’t matter, especially when I couldn’t exactly argue the dangers in Socair, but my jaw still clenched in response.
It might not matter to me, but it was evident that it mattered to Rowan. She sucked in a breath to respond, her eyes blazing with something far more furious than mischief this time, but once again, she was cut off.
“Logan,” the queen said in an uncharacteristically sharp tone. “I’m sure Ellie is up from her nap. Why don’t you go fetch her?”
He turned to meet his wife’s eyes, his hard expression never faltering. She stared him down silently, until he surprised me by nodding and getting to his feet. Though perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised, since I had seen the fierce man cave to his daughter on something far more important, stilling his sword just because she asked him to.
Not that he seemed to be especially pliant toward her these days.
Another chair slid backward, and I turned to see Isla rising from her seat as well. Unlike Rowan, the tiny woman was fairly adept at keeping her features even, but her voice was another story.
“I believe I’ll help,” she said, each word coated in ice.
She stalked after her cousin, closing the door behind them with a bang.
If I had thought the room was quiet when we arrived, it was nothing compared to the silence that settled around us now. Fortunately, awkward, silent dinners were nothing new for me, so it was easy not to react.
Not so for the Lochlannians who fidgeted in their seats.
“I apologize for my husband,” Queen Charlotte said after several uncomfortable ticks of the clock. “He’s not usually...” she trailed off with a wince, like she couldn’t quite force herself to finish what was obviously going to be a lie.
Avani sighed, speaking up at dinner for a rare change. “There’s no point in sugar-coating it now, Mamá.” She looked at me with a shrug. “You’re marrying into quite the temperamental family.”
That was not news to me, but I wisely held my tongue on that subject for obvious reasons.
“It’s all the red hair,” Prince Finn added with a glance toward the door.
“Though I’m sure you never would have guessed that, what with Rowan being so amicable and accommodating,” Davin offered, directing his smirk at an unresponsive Rowan.
I tilted my lips up as well, more for her sake than my own. Her silence always brought me back to the endless days behind the canopy of my bed.
“Those are the words I most often use to describe her,” I said lightly, pressing my leg subtly against hers.
Finally, she straightened and nodded with a bare effort at a smile.
“As well you should,” she rasped out.
“I received a note from Master MacMillan just before dinner,” Jocelyn offered. “He has new sketches for you to review that he assures me are…less ornate than the other options.”
“You mean she doesn’t want the seventeen tiers of glory that Avani had?”
The heir in question shot Davin a look of mock offense. “It was only twelve, and I didn’t pick that cake. My ridiculous groom did.”
A shadow passed over her eyes, but she blinked it away.
Davin let out a laugh, though there was an air of sadness to it. The door opened before he could respond, though, emitting the king with his youngest daughter in his arms, followed shortly by Isla.
They both got to their seats in silence, until Isla cleared her throat pointedly.
King Logan narrowed his eyes at her, picking up his sparkling wine in a grip so tight I feared for the delicate glassware.
“We are…glad to welcome Lord Evander to our family,” he said without actually looking at me. Or Rowan.
She scoffed quietly at my side, but Prince Oliver spoke loud enough to cover it.
“Let the record reflect that on this day, the King of Lochlann hath shed tears of joy—” he began in the voice of a court announcer.
“Many, many sincere tears,” Davin interjected in the same theatrical tone, “whilst welcoming his future son-in-law to the illustrious family.”
“I believe I see some even now, Brother,” Oliver took back over, a dramatic hand over his heart, “glistening in your very eyeballs.”
Blair and Bronwyn let out a synchronous giggle, followed by titters around the room from nearly everyone. Even Jocelyn shook her head with a soft smile at her husband and son, and both Queen Charlotte and Isla were laughing outright.
Finally, the king followed suit, letting out a chuckle on a slow breath.
“Ach, haud yer wheesht, Oli,” he muttered after a beat.
I wasn’t familiar with the phrase, but the intent was clear.
The tension bled from the room, dissipating into the usual chaotic atmosphere that punctuated these dinners.
The queen raised her glass, welcoming me to the family with a great deal more sincerity than her husband had shown, and similar sentiments went up around the table. Rowan leaned subconsciously closer to me throughout dinner, her arm brushing against mine each time she lifted her glass.
Or perhaps it was conscious, tied to the way her eyes seemed to linger on my features for longer than usual.
Still, she laughed good naturedly at the jokes her family made about everything from her temper to our wedding night. Though, that last was a subject only Davin had been brave enough to comment on, and only until Jocelyn smacked him on the arm.
No one brought up where we would live, though. If Rowan had made a decision, it didn’t appear she had shared it with anyone.
Though I told myself the decision rested entirely with her, I couldn’t help but wonder how I was supposed to content myself with the handful of weeks we would spend between our Lochlannian wedding and our Socairan one.
And how I would walk away from her when it had taken all I had to let her go the first time.