Chapter 11
Bram sat on the front porch, forehead braced by the palm of his good hand, very much trying to ignore the fact that Marigold
was bathing on the other side of the door.
Nope, nothing for it. Despite his throbbing hand, he needed to whittle something, anything, to occupy his jumpy mind. She
hadn’t fallen in love with Crispin. Ever. The joy that bolted through him when she confessed her dislike for the prince suffused
every inch of his body, had turned up the brightness on his world.
Hence the need to distract himself. He circled to the back of the house and entered the byre. He kept his tools in the stall
next to Queen, who mooed as he entered.
“Go to sleep, girl,” he said. “Big day tomorrow. Marigold will milk you.”
Her tail flicked as he scratched between her eyes.
From the next stall, he collected his carving knife. Instead of heading back to the porch he delved into the root cellar and
dipped a cider from the barrel within.
An hour later—saints, how long did it take to bathe?—he was nearly finished the miniature orc carving and well into his second
cider. The beverage was welcome and tasty. It had taken many tries to get to a decent formula. His first attempt, when he
was fresh to his orcness and hungered for oblivion, had produced a barrel of fizzy apple juice.
This year’s batch was less sweet, crisp, and potent.
His ear twitched. Another difference when he’d been re-skinned as an orc—his hearing was sharp. Noises blended into a pleasant
background hum of life in the hinterlands had caused him alarm when he’d first turned. With practice, he’d learned to ignore
the scratch of a squirrel or the clattering thwip of a locust.
But novel sounds demanded his attention.
Like Marigold’s soft sigh an hour ago as she’d settled in the bath’s steaming embrace. Or the splash and trickle as she washed
herself. Curse his memory and his fertile imagination. In the years since he’d last held her, her body had ripened further.
The plains of young womanhood had been replaced by curves he ached to explore.
Not that she’d have him like this.
Nor would he expect her to.
Maybe he should grab a third cider? Before he rose from his rocking chair, Sir Patrick’s voice echoed in his mind: Drink never solved anything better than a frank conversation. The old man had sayings about everything, and damn, if they weren’t wise.
Inside the house, the sound of water cascaded. Must’ve been Marigold rising from the bath, and mercy, he shouldn’t have imagined
that picture. He focused on the pumpkin patch in front of him and tried to call any vision to mind that would help him ignore
the sound of her sloshing as she stepped over the side of the basin.
And a grunt and a thump as she slipped and fell.
He dropped his knife and burst into the cottage. “Marigold?”
“Over here.” She raised an arm from where she lay betwixt the divan and basin.
Mid-stride, he paused. “Are you decent?”
“Enough. But I’m okay.” The arm disappeared, and the sound of shifting cloth sounded from her spot. “Correction. I am tangled.”
Sensitive to her modesty, he asked, “May I approach?”
As Bram, he’d seen, caressed, and tasted all of her. But Marigold thought he was Jask. The orc did not have her consent to
see her in a state of undress, and she might scream if he pounded toward her without permission.
“I may permanently reside on the floor if you don’t. Your linens have become an epic Gordian knot.”
Because personal injury was the time to trot out Greek mythology.
He found her on the floor, swaddled in damp linen and her bathing shift. Though they remained opaque, the linens molded to
her and did not hide the luscious hills and valleys of her body. Which, as a courtly gentleman, he should do his best not
to see as he lifted her to the divan. This was another benefit to his orc body—even with a damaged hand, he possessed the
strength of three men.
“Are you hurt?” he asked.
“Mortified, but otherwise hearty.” In the firelight, her typical pale skin had whitened further. “The water stayed quite hot.
Or maybe it was the fire? Either way, I stood up too fast.”
“Uprightness is a hazard.” He covered her with a quilt, then lit a taper in a chamberstick. Her pale skin deeply contrasted
with the dark russet of her wet hair. “Look at me?”
She turned to him, and saints, she stole his breath.
He brought the flame close to her blue eyes. “Are you nauseated? Or have a headache?”
During tournaments, some knights who’d been knocked from their horses were stunned to the extent that they sought dark rooms and buckets to catch the contents of their stomachs.
One telltale sign that they’d suffered a serious blow was the irises’ lack of response to light, but Marigold’s pupils shrank to pinpricks.
“No on both counts,” she said. “The bruises are solely on my ego. And perhaps my ass.”
The tight fist of fear around his heart eased. Jokes meant she was fine.
He set the candle down. “Would you like some water?”
“My embarrassment calls for something stronger.” She lay her head back on the divan. “Whiskey?”
Hmph. He hadn’t gotten around to building a stillroom. “All I have is cider.”
She nodded. “Then cider it is.”
“Don’t move,” he said as he surged to his feet.
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” she said. “But I’ll take care of this for you.”
In a flash of blue sparks, the bucking tub reduced to the size of a porringer. Magic still raised his hackles, but he was
growing accustomed to hers.
“Thanks,” he said.
He tossed the water from the tiny tub into the kitchen’s wash basin, then grabbed a tankard from the kitchen. Outside, he
set the tub on the trestle table that doubled as a work bench, then made short work of dipping a portion for Marigold.
On his way back to the cottage, he glanced upward. It was nice to see the night sky through her eyes earlier. Forced to live
here, he rarely allowed himself to appreciate the hinterlands’ beauty. The stars had grown bold as the evening darkened and
twinkled nearly as brightly as the fire within the cottage.
Quietly he opened the door, then rejoined her on the divan. His chest warmed at the sight of the locket around her neck. Just
as he’d carried her image with him in Harvest Hollow, she’d carried his with her. The halves had been rejoined years before
the lovers, even if she didn’t know they’d been reunited.
“Here you are,” he said.
In her hands, the tankard was enormous. “None for you?”
“No, I’ve already indulged enough for the evening.”
“My lady’s companion warned me never to drink alone, but I believe rules are meant to be broken.” She sipped. “Oh, that’s
lovely. How many ciders before you feel tipsy? With your size, I’d imagine it takes twice as much to satisfy you as it would
a human man.”
He turned that over in his head, looking for the critique, but found none. It was an honest question about the differences
between orcs and humans. One meant to learn, not mock.
“Thrice, actually,” he answered. “I eat and drink at a ratio of three to one.”
She furrowed her brow. “But we eat the same amount at meals.”
He twisted toward her. “I wanted you to have enough.”
“Oh, Jask, that’s so sweet.” She laid a hand on his knee, and the sizzle when straight to his cock. “But please, eat your
fill. I’d speak up if I wanted more. You must be starved.”
“I’m fine,” he said.
His stomach rumbled at the most inopportune time.
“Sure, you are,” she laughed. “Go, eat.”
He swung his legs to the floor. “I’ll put a snack together for both of us. Don’t move—give your humors a chance to settle.”
In the kitchen, he sliced apples, then added a chunk of fresh cheese, roasted pumpkin seeds, a few dried apricots, and a dollop
of the blackberry jam Marigold had left in the cabinet. He knocked the bread against the counter. Stale, but it would make
excellent bread pudding. No matter—the rest should suffice as a snack for the two of them.
“Here.” He set the tray on the divan between them. “Have some.”
“You first,” she said. “Bram couldn’t function if he was hungry.”
It was so odd, hearing about himself this way. Like earlier, when Marigold had cried over her lost true love and listed his
qualities. He’d blushed at her praise, and his tenderness wanted to wrap her in a hug. His desire for her, however, had encouraged
distance.
At that, he’d failed.
He reached for a thick apple slice. “How so?”
“It became his sole focus. Me? I acknowledge hunger but can keep myself together until I eat. Bram, though—he treated everything
that stood between him and a meal at the appointed time as a villain. He was often locked in existential battle with people
who had no idea they were playing the role of opponent.”
She . . . wasn’t wrong. But he thought he’d hidden it better. The sweet-and-savory blend of the apple slice slathered in fresh
cheese and sprinkled with pumpkin seeds took some of the sting out of her observation.
“Why were you with him if you disliked this about him?”
She blasted him with her laugh. “When did I say I disliked this? I loved him as he was. Since the age of seven, honestly.
As we grew older, I suggested he have a snack instead of burning the world down. Don’t you think our quirks, our flaws are
what endears us to people? I always felt like I was privileged to see and know the things he tried to keep from the world.
It’s in the knowing that true love blossoms.”
Hmph.
She might’ve had a point. The fashionable princess with the shining crown was beautiful, but this kind of quiet moment—Marigold
bedraggled from the bath and sipping homemade cider—was where he’d fallen most deeply in love with her. Why shouldn’t she
have fallen for the less-than-perfect version of Bram?
“Do you truly believe that?” he asked.
She sighed and ate an apricot. “I truly, truly do.”
He’d tried so hard to be the perfect knight. Skills and strength and courtly manners. Appearance mattered, too. Carefully brushed teeth
and hair, frequent visits to the barber for shaves and haircuts, polished boots and armor—all of it designed to prove that
he, a foundling fostered by Sir Patrick Duncan, was worthy of a princess.