Chapter 35
Miss Jocelyn fastened the back of my wedding gown for me.
She spoke happily to the other maids who were fussing over my hair and jewelry, dressing me for the day.
We shared the occasional glance in the mirror as she worked, but she did well to maintain her smile and keep the bedchamber bright with pre-martial joy. At least, outwardly.
Internally, I was revisiting every detail of the plan Ser Elías and I had created.
The barony, the duchy, the esteemed companion title–my cousin and his father.
She pulled the last of the ribbon through its final hook and fashioned a large bow at the small of my back.
I nodded, half-smiling, half-shaking, and just as I was going to dismiss the other women, there was a knock on the door.
Ser Elías nodded cordially to Josie and then to the other girls. He handed me a brown folder, and then stood patiently as I unwrapped its binding. I met his eyes just as I opened it, scanned the document, and then nodded.
“If you’ll excuse us ladies,” I said. Josie curtsied, then began to move. “Not you, Miss Jocelyn.”
Her brows rose, then she glanced between us both. “Is everything alright, Your Majesty?"
“Yes, of course,” I said. I looked at the Lord Commander. “Is this official?”
“As soon as you sign it, yes,” he said.
After a second, I moved to the desk and took the pen, scrawling my signature across the bottom. “There.” Then I handed it back.
Ser Willoughby arrived at the door. He and Josie met eyes but didn’t speak, instead he canted his head slightly, as if he could feel a shift in the room.
“Is everything alright?” he asked.
I nodded again. “Yes. With me, I’m fine.” I sought Elías’s approval. He gave it. “Daniel,” I squared my shoulders. “Do you or do you not harbor feelings for Miss Jocelyn?”
Josie gasped, she lifted her hand in protest, reaching for my arm. “Svana! Please!”
I frowned but then regained my stoic posture. “I’m not asking as your cousin, I’m asking as your Queen. Yes or no.”
He opened his mouth to say something, then maybe thought better of it. He looked somewhere beneath my eyes, staring at nothing as he considered.
“It’s an order to answer me,” I said. “In case that wasn’t clear.”
His eyes found mine; he was furious. “Yes, Your Majesty. I am fond of Miss Jocelyn.”
“Good.” I turned my attention to her. “And do you, Miss Jocelyn, share this affection with my knight?”
She broke my gaze to find Ser Willoughby’s and her attention went nowhere else. “I…Yes, Svana,” she said woundedly. “You know I do.”
“That’s right, I do. He does. You do. Now everyone knows, yes?” I asked.
“I don’t understand the mind-fuckery you’re–”
My eyes widened at Willoughby’s outburst, but Eli pressed the back of his glove to his chest and gave him a look that tempered it. Then he handed him the parchment.
“What is this?” Daniel asked.
“That is the marriage contract I'm going to offer your father later today. You’ll find the terms in the center there.”
He furrowed. “This says I’m to marry a Baroness of Dawne. No. I don’t accept it, and I certainly don’t understand what you think you’re proving here by–”
“You just said you loved her?” I looked at Elías and then back to him. Then I gave a slightly wicked grin. “Didn’t he just say that, Lord Commander?”
“Aye, he did,” Elías said.
Willoughby froze. He reread the document, this time with more caution.
“I don’t understand,” Josie said. She shook her head, there were tears at the corner of her eyes. “Why–What–Who is the…” Her words faded.
I took her hands, both of them, and drew them toward my chest. “Jocelyn, you’re the Baroness,” I said.
“W-What?”
Willoughby stared at the order, then he looked up at her. “You… I don’t… How is this possible?”
Josie shook her head. “I’m not a baroness, my lady, I’m just a maid. I’m not anyone.”
“You were a maid, as of five minutes ago, but you were never just anything. You’ve been my friend through the hardest months of my life.
You dragged me from a fire, risking your own life, and then you stood beside me–you didn’t run–when bandits tried to burn my mare.
If you were a man, I’d have knighted you twice by now, and honestly, if I thought that’s what you wanted, I would have done it anyway, but instead, I’m giving you a barony.
It’s a good manor. It’s very pretty, there’s a courtyard in the center of the home that has a fountain.
You can grow flowers there. You can do whatever it is you like. It’s your home now, yours alone.”
“W-What? No. No you can’t just give me a barony. I don’t know how to run a barony! I don’t know how to do any of that! I certainly don’t deserve it. I–”
“You do deserve it, don’t defy your Queen by disagreeing.
She’s very certain about this whole thing.
And sure, maybe you don’t know how to run an estate, but Lord Willoughby does,” I said.
I looked at my cousin. “Lord Willoughby has been raised to marry well. And now, by order of the Queen, he will marry very, very well, and he will help you with your affairs. Won’t you cousin? ”
Daniel watched me. “Yes, I will,” he said. He slowly passed the parchment to Miss Jocelyn. “I don’t know what to say.”
“You will?” Josie asked. She let go of me to face him. “You mean…?”
Elías and I stepped back.
“Such a strange turn of events, Lord Commander,” I started.
“Now that Miss Jocelyn is Baroness, she technically outranks our Ser Willoughby, doesn’t she?
” I knew the answer, but the explanation was for my cousin’s benefit.
“So really, this marriage would be beneficial to her only if it were based upon emotional attachment then, yes?”
Elías nodded, collecting his hands behind his back. “Indeed. A love match. Something gold can’t buy.”
Willoughby’s whole demeanor changed. His rigid posture relaxed, he looked almost wistfully at Miss Jocelyn as she read the paper. He leaned down, slightly, closing the distance of their heights, nearly collecting her face, but then stopping himself. He knelt, taking her hand in his.
“Your Ladyship,” he said. He swallowed so intensely that I could see his Adam’s apple move. “I’ve been such a fool.” There was a quiet lull between them. “If you’ll have me, yes, I will help you with your estate. I will do anything you ask.”
She was so still, it was almost like she’d turned to stone. But then a laugh broke from her like a wispy breath. Then another. She nodded quickly. “Yes,” she said. “But only if you ask me proper. I can do that now, I’m a real lady.”
Willoughby lost a happy sound of his own.
He squeezed her hand. “Your Ladyship. Baroness Jocelyn. I have traveled the world. I have met men who feared nothing. I have been a man who feared nothing, and then I met you, and suddenly I feared so much. Vulnerability, for the first time in my life, both physical and romantic–there've been moments I’ve had to contain myself from kissing you because I knew I could not give you what you deserved, and there've been times that I feared death–feared not ever seeing your face again. I have been so foolish, as I said. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I needed this moment to realize what an ass I am.
I’m sorry I’ve withheld from allowing myself to express my feelings to you until the Queen ordered it. I’m–”
“Daniel, I’m not mad at you,” she said. She knelt, too. Her hands met his jaw on either side. “Everyone has their secrets and their fears. …I love you. Do you love me?”
“Yes,” he nodded. “Ever since I first saw you in the hall. I’ve never been the same. I love you, Jocelyn.”
“Then stop with the dramatics and ask me, will you?” she said. “That’s all I want.”
He half-grinned. “Will you marry me, Jocelyn?”
“I’ll have to think about it,” she said. She laughed, and met his lips with a deeply passionate kiss before he could complain. “I’m jesting. Yes, of course I’ll marry you.”
He kissed her a second time, then a third, then Ser Elías and I took another step backward as he lifted her shoes off the floor and twirled her. We shared a look. When he set her down again he was serious, and right in front of me.
“You know, I was hours away from asking the Lord Commander to ship me off to Locke,” he said. “To work the ferry, just to get away from you.” He smirked. “Guess you learned to say you’re sorry just in time.”
I rolled my eyes. “You’d better watch what you say to me, I am your Queen, you know?”
He beamed. “Aye, that you are, cousin.”
Willoughby took Miss Jocelyn’s hand in his. He was proud. He was happy. So was she. Elías turned, gently, reminding me of the time.
“Your Majesty,” he said. “We need to head to the cathedral now.”
I sighed, then accepted it, looming to the door. “Right. Of course.”
We left the chamber. My heels clinked loudly against the floor as we made it to the foyer. Another maid placed a new vase by the entrance on the wooden pedestal. It was smaller than the first containers, and distinctly different with its blooms. They were daisies.
“What’s this?” I asked.
I paused, collecting the note from the petals. I read it outloud.
“I’m sorry for your loss, Svana. I’m thinking of you. Sam.”
I glanced around the entry, at the vases placed everywhere–at the several dozen flowers Sam had already sent.
“I’m confused,” I said. “Why would he send another vase? He already sent all these.”
Jocelyn peered over my shoulder. She read the note a second time. Then she, too, looked around the foyer.
Then I gasped, suddenly, sharply, and devastatingly. I spun to examine all the others. Lilies. Roses. Chrysanthemums. All white. All very intentionally meaningful. The hairs on my arm stood as I realized.
“Oh!” I realized. “Oh my God,” I said. I hurried to retrieve the note from the first arrival. I had to source several vases until it was found. I read it over.
I’m sorry, my Queen.
No signature. No explanation. Nothing.
“Oh my God,” I muttered. I found Elías across the room. “These are from… All of these are from Mr. Evergreen. I thought–” I braced myself against the wall, a hand to my stomach.
Eli caught my arm and steadied me. He leaned in, whispering. “You can do this,” he said. “You’re almost there.”
Willoughby and Jocelyn waited. Then excused themselves to the carriage. I met Elías’s eyes, my voice barely loud enough to hear, despite the privacy we’d been granted.
“I’m so scared,” I said.
“Of course you are, you’re about to change the course of Oreia–of Oreian women–forever.
Fear is good. Fear is what will keep you sharp.
Remember, the only time a Blade can be brave is when he is scared,” he said.
He righted me, then braced my shoulders.
“These flowers? They’re important. They’re proof.
Proof that your swordsman loves you. Proof that he is willing to take risks to show you that.
Twenty dozen roses is not a small feat. It’s expensive.
It’s noticeable. It’s flashy, just like him.
Use that to steel your nerves for what you must do.
You’re not just saving yourself, you’re saving him, too–the ostler’s boy you’ve always wanted.
He’s still in there, you know. He still needs his Queen. ”
The cathedral in its dark architectural prowess appeared over the hill as our carriage approached, first giving us a glimpse of its two black spires, and the large stained glass window of its face.
Across Elías I, on their own bench, Ser Willoughby held Miss Jocelyn’s hand.
They exchanged longful looks and sweet smiles, whispering to each other between giggles and plans for their new estate.
Their garden. Their staff. The color of the walls.
There was a large crowd our driver had to navigate through, that parted as we rolled to a stop in front of the church. Somewhere, a boy cheered for the Queen as she arrived.
Ser Willoughby looked up, catching my expression. He drew back the curtain just enough to glance through the window, then he shifted, taking his time to speak.
“We’re here, Your Majesty,” he said.
I exhaled. Then to Elías, I whispered, “It’s not enough.”
We met eyes, but neither of us expanded what that meant, ignoring the ever-crushing weight that had begun to descend upon me.
“He sent you hundreds of flowers, Svana. It’s enough for him,” he said.
With that, Ser Elías exited the carriage first and checked his surroundings.
Despite the loud rumble of cheers, he was satisfied.
He came forward and offered me his hand.
I placed my glove in his and slid out. There were even more in attendance than I had seen, and suddenly my chest was very tight, and at the very front of everything, there was a little girl with my crown braid.
She looked up, reverently at what must have been her mother, as the woman pointed to the carriage and then to my knights.
The child laughed, cheerfully, then clapped.
The moment they looked at me, I waved, and the woman’s eyes widened in shock. The girl laughed again.
Elías’s hand met the small of my back, he led me toward the door.
My heart was fast.
My thoughts were faster.
“Breathe, Your Majesty,” he said. He and Ser Willoughby flanked either side, and the footman who stood at the door nodded one politely. Josie trailed along. The herald did next, then turned to the conjugation inside.
“Presenting Her Majesty, Queen Svana Eisson, of the Oreian Empire!”
Music began. Elegant music. Light broke over those seated on either side of the aisle. At the far end of the room, Prince Sameer was standing with his hands collected. To his left, behind him, was Mr. Evergreen. Willem.