Chapter Twenty-One
Gerard
When Doran had come knocking for his lunch and complained about the watery stew, Marie told him there were no potatoes.
“The Laune Market’s been near abandoned for weeks,” she’d grumbled. “You tell Her Majesty we’ll be scraping the back of the stores for peas and corn until the winds die down.”
He’d sneered at her.
“And what, exactly, do you think Her Majesty can do about the damned winds, old woman?”
They all knew precisely what Avette could do about the winds, but Marie hadn’t risen to him.
“I’ve many mouths to feed,” she said tersely, “and most of them know how to say please and thank you. Take your stew and go. You want potatoes, you can wait until the winds die down.”
The thing was, Ger was pretty sure they had potatoes.
There’d been a large sack of them in the storeroom just yesterday.
He remembered, because later on, when Avette had frozen Bertha’s gulp of tea in her throat and watched her suffocate on the solid stream, Ger had closed his eyes and brought himself back to the kitchens.
Back to where it was warm, and nobody was choking to death in front of him.
To where he’d sat on a low wooden bench, chewing a fresh bread roll and watching Jack haul a bulking sack of muddy spuds across the tiles, shirtsleeves rolled up to reveal the long lines of tension in his smooth forearms.
He’d smiled at him as he passed by.
So yes, Ger was fairly certain they did have potatoes.
But when Doran finally fucked off, and Marie whipped a teatowel off a chopping board laden with what looked suspiciously like cubed spuds, he didn’t question it.
Not even when she snatched his half-empty bowl out from under his nose and nudged him toward the stove.
“Keep an eye on that pot, and there’ll be a serving of real stew with your name on it,” she said. And after laying her teatowel on his shoulder, she handed him a wooden spoon and marched off muttering something about a break for her aching feet.
So, as had become second nature over the last few weeks and months, Ger kept his mouth shut and did as he was told.
It was different, though, in the busy warmth, with the rich overlap of voices in place of the unending swirl of Aera’s winds.
Instead of forcing his mind away, he could stay in the moment; escape into it.
Let the burble of the stew and the repetitive motion of his wooden spoon lull him into a kind of calm he’d almost forgotten about.
No screaming in his mind, no strangled breath, no thundering pulse—
“She’s got you on the stew again?”
His pulse did kick up a little at that.
Jack sidled into his periphery, arms folded as he leaned on the countertop at Ger’s side and peered into the pot he was stirring.
“Thought you’d be banned,” he said mildly. “I’m still picking charred celery out of my teeth after the last time.”
Ger felt his lips twitch. An almost smile; so close.
“I see you’re no longer trying to get on my good side,” he said. Even without a smile, he was pleased to hear the slightly lofty air to his own voice; he almost sounded playful. Teasing, like he might have been if it’d been Adeline goading him.
Jack chuckled.
“Ah, well, no need,” he said, then pitched his voice a little lower; confidential. “I got what I wanted from you.”
Ger nearly dropped his spoon into the stew.
Well, that’s honesty for you. He allowed himself a quick glance at Jack’s face; shiny black hair feathered over his brow, and pin-straight lashes that nearly brushed his cheekbones as he mused over the stew.
It might not have been a quick glance, as it turned out.
Those lashes flicked up before Ger could look away, and Jack’s face immediately split in a grin, his broad nose spreading wide in a way that was oddly pleasant.
It made his face look sunny and open, his brown eyes soft.
Ger had always rather liked brown eyes.
“Candid,” he said dryly. “Although I have to say, most people want a little more than a kiss.”
“Oh, don’t get me wrong, the kiss was very nice—”
He felt his brow pitch, voice rising to meet it. “Very nice?”
“—but that’s not what I meant. I just wanted your attention.”
Amusement swelled like a bubble in Ger’s chest, its warmth flushing quickly up his neck. His attention? Why did that sound so … innocent? So stupidly endearing?
But he forced a nonchalant shrug, an airy nod. “Can’t say I blame you.”
“And I got what I wanted.”
Ger swirled his spoon, not without flourish.
“Oh?”
“Yep,” said Jack, the word popping merrily between his full lips. “Still have it in fact.”
Ger’s laughter burst out of him in one short breath, so surprising it made his heart skitter into his ribs like he’d caught it unawares.
Daughters, that felt good. Short-lived, but fuck—the shift in his chest, the pressure relieved.
He was nearly lightheaded with it, especially when he looked up and found Jack positively beaming at him.
His own lips tugged in response, the smile coming a little easier in the wake of his laughter.
“D’you think so?” he said wryly.
“I know so,” Jack grinned. “Why else would you keep coming back?”
Ger’s brows rose, mouth popping open at the sheer cheek.
He nodded at the pot. The open flame beneath it was heating his face, and he knew it probably looked as though he was blushing—which of course, he wasn’t—but that must have been why Jack didn’t look too convinced when he said, “I’m just here to eat. And to help Marie.”
“And a fine job you’re doing with that.”
Jack breathed a short laugh, but he was moving before Ger could scrounge up a retort—he really had lost his touch. Jack stepped around him and appeared at his other side, then waved a finger over the pot in a quick, swirling motion.
“You want to be stirring it all the way through, so you can make sure none of the heavier roots are sitting at the bottom getting burned. Here, just—”
And then, as though it was second nature, he reached easily over and closed his hand around Ger’s wrist. His skin seemed to be permanently chilled now, and Jack’s palm was warm, the soft scratch of callouses rousing an entire crop of goosebumps that made Ger’s arm jolt, the spoon jerking from his grasp and sinking into the stew with a heavy plop.
Shit.
They both stared into the pot and the slow, thick bubbles that had swallowed his spoon.
Ger chanced a look and found Jack’s face doing that spreading thing again, sweet and warm as a cinnamon bun iced fresh from the oven. It roused an odd flutter in his belly, and he rushed to get a word in before that smile did too much damage; “You surprised me. Warm hands.”
The smile slipped, but the knowing edge to it remained. He wasn’t sure if that felt better or worse, but Jack turned away and picked a clean spoon out of a nearby pot, then set about fishing the drowned one out of the stew.
“Fair enough,” he said. “Gets pretty cold up there, doesn’t it?”
The flutter in Ger’s belly became an iron grasp.
“Yes,” he said.
His own voice was thin and unfamiliar, but Jack just nodded, lip jutting thoughtfully.
He reached up to grab a teatowel from the handle of the nearest cupboard and used it to envelop the gloopy spoon he’d fished from the pot.
Ger watched, the thought of lending a hand barely crossing his mind.
It was nice, watching Jack work. Soothing.
He had his sleeves rolled up again, and his forearms were surprisingly toned despite his slight frame.
The base of his thumb jutted out above his narrow wrist, angular and strangely eye-catching.
“I don’t know how you stomach it.”
Ger blinked when that same hand suddenly turned to him in offering, the clean wooden spoon laid across its palm. He took it and turned quickly back to the stew.
“Stomach what?”
“All of it. Up there in the palace. The cold, and … well, you know.”
Ger gave the stew a vigorous stir. He did know.
And he didn’t stomach it really, did he?
Whatever the opposite of stomaching it was, that was what Ger did.
More than once, he’d returned to his new quarters, tucked in a lower wing with the other Queen’s Gard, and spent the night dry heaving over the privy.
And maybe the memory of those nights had twisted his face, because when Jack spoke, it was a little more quietly, uncertain.
“You’ve more courage than me, is all I’m saying.”
At that, Ger nearly dropped the fucking spoon again.
The laugh that barked out of him this time was just as short and not nearly as pleasant.
Courage. There was a joke if he’d ever bloody heard one.
Oh, Ger was brimming with courage. So courageous, how he stood and watched as Silas was frozen alive, Edward crushed into snowdust, and Mareda tortured over a fucking dress.
Countless people threatened, killed, or otherwise tormented, and he’d had the courage to watch it all happen.
“I haven’t a lick of courage,” said Ger.
His ugly laughter still rode every word, but Jack only eyed him, assessingly.
“I don’t think that’s true,” he said finally. “You’re still here, aren’t you?”
Ger just turned his head and stared.
Yes, he was here. Here because this is where Adeline had left him, and where he feared she’d return. Here, because he knew Avette enjoyed his presence, and that was as much of a shield as he could hope for. Here, because where the fuck else was he going to go?