Chapter 14 – Enduring Happiness
“I’m sure your father would reward you richly,” Remin went on, as she sat stupefied before him.
“But I have made provision for you, all the same. Tounot and Edemir witnessed my will today. You can see it is sealed, with a stamp that means it is sworn in the light of the stars. It is my will that if you kill me, no harm will come to you. No one will lay a hand on you. In the morning, you will be given safe transport anywhere you want to go. Segoile, if you like. Anywhere in the world. There’s a draft waiting for you against my accounts for a thousand gold sovereigns, with a further thousand to be paid annually. Once the valley starts producing—”
Ophele’s head shook slowly as she listened, disbelieving. None of this made any sense, she didn’t understand, why—
“Please, just listen.” The strong brown column of his throat worked as he swallowed.
“Once the valley starts producing, you’ll receive a percentage of its profits, including the river trade and the port.
You will never want for anything, the rest of your life.
You will be safe. We can even call in the guards to watch you do it, if you like.
To prove I let you.” He smiled very gently.
“You couldn’t get me unless I let you, Princess. ”
“What—what—w-why?” she stammered, bewildered. “Why, I don’t understand, why would you—”
“Because I love you.” He said it straight out, with such sadness in his eyes that she felt tears burn in her own. “I love you, and I would rather…you lived. But I’m tired of waiting for the axe to fall. If this is another trick—”
He had to stop. His jaw tightened.
“Then you win,” he whispered. “I concede. Just do it now, please.”
“No.” Her lips trembled. “No. No, I don’t want to, Remin—”
“I know you might not want to. Maybe the Emperor is forcing you somehow. I don’t blame you if he is, wife. It’s happened before.” His big hands covered hers. Warm hands. “It’s all right. I understand.”
His hands squeezed, and she felt the hilt of the knife under her palm. He had put the blade into her hand himself.
“You won’t be hurt, I swear it to you,” he repeated softly. “You won’t ever get a better chance than this. I just don’t want you to…surprise me. I might strike back without thinking and if I hurt—I would rather die, do you understand? Please. This way, you’ll be safe—”
“No. No, no, no.” That broke her paralysis. Ophele stumbled out of her chair, clutching the knife in her hand like a live serpent. “No, I won’t, I don’t want to, I won’t!”
She didn’t know what to do, and she realized she was still holding the knife and flung it into the corner with a cry, scrubbing her sweating palms on her skirt.
Oh, she did understand. It took her only a moment to put it together.
This was what Sir Miche had been warning her about.
This was why he had told her that terrible story, and the reason Remin had tried so hard to push her away.
This was what had been tormenting him from the very beginning.
Remin couldn’t be sure of anyone. Ever.
He loved her? He was afraid to love her.
Ophele, the daughter of the Emperor. How could he ever believe she was not her father’s tool, placed at his side and waiting only a single moment of weakness?
How could he know that she would not be like Merrienne, who had beguiled him and won his trust and then not only tried to lure him to his death, but forced him to kill her with his own hands?
What could she possibly say? Her tongue was rooted to her mouth, blocking all questions and objections, and she had never been good at finding the right words when it mattered most. He was right to be afraid.
There was her father, implacable and vengeful, who might very well decide one day he had a use for his bastard.
There was the nameless crime of her mother, and all the many poisons Lady Hurrell was carefully hoarding.
But it was just as her mother had said: Ophele could not control what the Emperor would do, or what Lady Hurrell would do, or what her mother had done.
All she could control was her own hands.
“Wife—” Remin began, rising from his seat. “If you would just read—”
Her eyes fell on the parchment on the table beside him. His will, wrapped in ribbons, witnessed and sealed, his intent in writing that she could take his life and go unpunished. And just like that, she knew why.
He was giving her this chance to kill him. He was giving her every possible reassurance that she could do so without repercussion. He had done it because he desperately hoped she would not.
Ophele lunged past him and thrust the parchment into the fire.
“No,” she said, whirling to face him, throwing out her arms to keep him from retrieving it.
“No, I won’t. I won’t, ever. I—I swear…” Frantically, she searched for words, any words, magic words that would once and for all remove all the doubt and fear from his heart.
“I can’t promise for my father, or Lady Hurrell, or anyone else, but Remin…
I swear, I swear if I ever lay my hands on you with violence, may all the stars in heaven strike me dead. I never will. I swear. I swear.”
Those were his words. That was the oath he had made to her the first night they came to the valley, a spell of protection. Tears streaked hotly down her cheeks as she gazed up at him, but even with her eyes blurring, she saw the change in his face.
“You’ll—you’ll be safe if you do it,” he began, wavering. One hand gripped the back of a chair as if he needed the support. “There’s another copy, Edemir has it—”
“I don’t care. I’ll burn that, too.” Her voice cracked as she swiped at her eyes. “This is my chance to kill you, right? Without any punishment. I could be rich. I could go anywhere, and—and I won’t, I won’t, I don’t want to! Remin, I won’t, ever—”
He took a stumbling step toward her and she wasn’t sure if he pulled her down or if she fell with him, but he dragged her against him, his hands gripping so tight they hurt.
He wanted to believe her. Oh, how he wanted to believe, she could feel it in his desperate grasp, the way his fingers trembled as he held her.
This was the greatest test of his life. Not whether he had the courage to offer his throat to her, the daughter of his enemy, and risk everything he had to ask her this question.
The test was whether he had the strength to believe her answer.
“I won’t,” she repeated. She didn’t even realize she was sobbing. “I won’t. I really won’t, I’d sooner go in the Brede—”
“Don’t say something so terrible. I can’t—you won’t. You really won’t?” He sounded strangely breathless, his voice more wavering and uncertain than she had ever heard it. “You’re not…tricking me?”
“No. Never.” Her hands reached to cup his face, to look straight into his black eyes and let him see her own, transparent as glass and filled with certainty enough to sustain them both. She could promise him this. She could promise him this with all her heart. “Remin. Never.”
His eyes flickered as if he had been struck. He twisted his head out of her hands and his throat worked, his chest giving a traitorous quiver before he managed to suck everything in and shove it down hard, hiding it all behind the cold, stern mask of his face.
“All right,” he whispered after a moment, catching her to roughly wipe away her tears. “All right, I’m sorry. Don’t cry. Please don’t cry, I’m sorry, I had to…I had to be sure. I’m sorry, wife. I…believe you.”
“You do?” she asked, looking up at him with fresh tears welling. “If my father does something terrible, you won’t hate me again?”
“No,” he said huskily. “No, he has nothing to do with you. Nothing at all.”
His arms went around her and he all but crushed her against the wall of his chest, a place so solid and safe that it was inconceivable that it could ever cease to be.
His heart pounded frantically under her ear, but that was all right as long as it was still strong and beating, and the warm, masculine scent of his body was so comforting.
And gradually his heart slowed, and her tears ended, and his deep voice rumbled through his chest under her ear.
“I’m sorry,” he said again, stroking her hair.
“I couldn’t think of any other way. It was driving me mad, wondering, and I never really thought you would, but I…
I couldn’t stop imagining…but that’s not your fault.
I will make it right, I swear. Every grief I’ve given you, I will repay.
Ophele, I love you.” He pushed her back gently to look into her face.
“I love you so much. I hope one day to make you love me.”
His gaze was as stern and direct as ever, as if he meant to win her love with the same awkward, stubborn, touching persistence with which he had dedicated himself to taking care of her after her sun sickness.
Locking them both in the cottage, Ophele a captive in her bed while he interrogated her about her shoes.
It made her laugh and cry at the same time.
How could she tell him anything but the truth, when he had just bared his heart to her?
“You remind me of a bear,” she whispered, her fingers stroking his high, arrogant cheeks.
She loved every part of his face, from his tip-tilted eyes to his thick black brows, so quick to frown.
“From the first day we met. Remember, when you pulled me out of the tree? You looked just like a bear, your hair, and your eyes. And you grumble like a bear. And I was scared, at first, but you were so nice that day in Granholme, and so I thought…”
Her eyes went to the glass bear on the mantle above them, small and melancholy, with one large paw outstretched.
“I like bears,” she whispered, feeling heat rise to her cheeks.
“Oh.” Remin blinked, looking from her to the bear and back again, his dark eyes wide. “Ophele. Ophele…”