Chapter 20
Marigold woke before Barnaby’s blood-curdling call. With a satisfying stretch, she turned and smiled at Jask’s sleeping form.
Much better to find him there, unlike the mornings that followed her dreams of him in her bed.
This time it was real.
She felt tipsy, but without the ill effects. Happy and languid, unable to count the number of times she and Jask made love.
That was what last night had been. Not a tumble, this.
Love.
She resisted the urge to brush free the curtain of hair covering half his face. His chest rose and fell with deep, rhythmic
breaths. She also stayed her hand from tracing the lines of his rounded muscles beneath the lone bedsheet covering him.
Because orcs, in fact, ran hot.
Were he awake, he would not enjoy the same view of her. Snuggled under a pile of blankets, this might’ve been the coziest
any person had been in the history of time. Light rain pattered the panes, she was warm—but not too warm, didn’t yet need
the privy, and slept the glorious deep slumber brought about by rigorous exercise and a clear mind.
Jask had been the exercise, and as for the clear mind?
She’d reached a decision.
She wasn’t returning to Thornwick.
No, she’d stay here in the hinterlands with Jask on Grimroot Farm.
She’d never thought her shattered heart would mend after Bram’s death.
But it had, in the unlikeliest of places, with the unlikeliest of people.
She wouldn’t take this feeling for granted.
Not again. No, she’d hold on to it with both hands and never let go.
Saints, she wanted him again.
Was it healthy to feel this much desire? Eh, fuck it. If her humors were out of balance, she liked them this way. At court, Bess had expected her to be reserved, to dim her light
so as not to outshine the menfolk. But Jask enjoyed her sharp wit from the first. Encouraged her questions and asked several
in return. Never mocked her for enjoying fairy tales. No, he simply quietly sat and carved while she turned pages.
Compatible, blissful.
And in bed, they were fire.
That, she hadn’t expected. Had hoped, of course. But with Bram, it had taken ages to learn what pleased her. He’d been a game
partner, but it had taken experimentation. Not Jask, though. He knew exactly how to please her without awkward learning period.
She frowned. Wait. How—
Barnaby shrieked at the faint glimmer of light in the sky.
Jask took a deep breath, then fluttered open his eyes. He rolled toward her and smiled. “Good morning.”
“How many lovers have you had?” she asked.
With a snort, he said, “That’s not the greeting I expected.”
“Good morning, my lusty Hercules. I hope you slept well. Now, how many?”
“Besides you?” He propped his head on his pillow, then traced her shoulder. “One.”
Much as she wanted his touch, she shook it off. “Don’t lie to me, Jask Bone-Cracker. I’m a grown woman. I can take the truth.
Dozens?”
He laughed.
“Hundreds?”
He scooped and flicked his shimmering hair over his shoulder. Curse the bouldered beauty of him.
“What inspired this line of questioning?” he asked.
She blew out her lips. “The little death. I experienced it no fewer than four times and didn’t instruct you once on how to bring it about.”
“Perhaps I’m a natural?” He dipped his hand under the sheet and found her breast, running his thumb over the beaded tip.
“See? This is what I mean. You know exactly how to—” she gasped as he lightly pinched her nipple “—excite me.”
“I may have only had one lover, but we loved often.” He scooted closer, then kissed her neck. “She taught me well.”
Jealousy flamed through Marigold. Which was completely hypocritical. She’d shed tears about Bram in front of this man. They
were both allowed to have people in their past.
“What was her name?”
“I’ll never tell.” Jask removed her blankets, leaving only the sheet.
“Please, I must know.”
“Sorry to disappoint you.” He slipped below the sheet, then spread her legs and positioned himself between them. “Allow me
make it up to you.”
Her toes curled as he licked her like cream.
She gasped as he alternated between long and short strokes. “You . . .” Her gasps turned to panting. “Are avoiding the question.”
“Correct, Princess. Now allow me to help you come.”
Marigold was depleted in the best way possible.
Each of the last three days, she awoke to Jask’s hardness and happily helped him relieve it.
Romps occurred when the moment carried them, which was often and unpredictable.
Of the places Jask listed that first night, the goldcap tree in the forest remained, but she had high hopes for her foraging plans tomorrow.
After years of walking about half-dead, this was a joyful rebirth.
She sniffed the air—the buttermilk biscuits were ready. As she removed them from the oven, the door opened. Jask was returning
from his lake bath. He’d no sooner hung his linen than he curled himself around her back, nuzzling her neck.
“Miss me?” He palmed a handful of her behind through her homespun dress.
“Every minute. Though I’m productive when you’re gone.”
“I’d prefer you were so besotted that you spent every minute wishing I’d return.”
“I can do both,” she said. “Sit, and we’ll eat.”
She’d made a mushroom-and-barley soup. Seasoned with thyme, of course. They each dished out their portions and seated themselves
when the familiar bells of Alfred’s horse rang from their front yard.
Jask dabbed his lips with the napkin. “I’ll receive the delivery.”
“Invite him in while you’re at it,” Marigold urged.
Jask pushed back from the table, then crossed the front door. A pumpkin-scented breeze from the ripe fields curled through
the home. “Ho, there, Alfred. Care for dinner?”
Alfred called back, “Indeed I would!”
Marigold rose to scoop another serving of soup into a bowl, added a biscuit on a plate, and set it on the table. As she upended
the pitcher of the cider she and Jask had pressed two weeks ago, bubbles rioted into a light foam in the waiting tankard.
By the time she’d set his portions on the table, Alfred entered the house. “Welcome, Alfred. Any news from town?”
Jask closed the door and tucked a small sack of flour into the cupboard.
“Not much. The festival’s still canceled, but no new wedding date’s in sight.” Alfred hung his hat by the door. “Seems the
princess’s ague has worsened.”
“That’s all it is?” Marigold asked. “An ague?”
“Rumors run wild. The townspeople have diagnosed her with everything from melancholia to plague. I’m taking bets on ergot
exposure. Rémy the baker sold some bad rye lately.” Alfred slathered his biscuit with herbed butter. “He can’t compare to
your delicious goods, Miss Meg.”
Much could change when she put her mind to it—a month ago, she couldn’t bake a bean.
“Thank you,” Marigold said.
“To the princess’s recovered health.” Jask held his tankard aloft, and both Alfred and she clanked theirs with his.
From behind her tankard, she glared while he hid a snort. The honeyed fizz of the bright cider gently prickled her tongue.
Unlike the orc-strength cider, this was meant to refresh, not blind, the drinker.
“That’s nice.” Alfred sniffed his cup. “What do you call it?”
“It’s Miss Meg’s Hollowsnap Red–cider recipe,” Jask said. “She calls it Crankle’s Finest. Light enough to enjoy at midday
without compromising the afternoon’s work.”
“Would you like to take some with you?” Marigold asked. “We pressed far too much, and it would be a shame for it to go to
waste.”
“I’ll take you up on that, if you’re sure,” Alfred said.
Marigold spooned up her soup, then blew on it. “We’ll call it a fair trade for your reporting.”
The rest of the meal passed with tales of the market’s quieting business and mounting frustration with Crispin’s stance on
trade, and laughter as Jask stoically endured Fuzzle’s leap onto his lap.
When his soup was gone, Alfred folded his napkin and placed it beside his dishes. “I need to get going to my other stops. Thanks for your hospitality, friends.”
Jask stacked their dishes. “I’ll get the firkin.”
In the courtyard, Marigold and Alfred watched Jask dip a pitcher into the light cider barrel, then pour it into the firkin’s
funnel.
“You’re good for him, you know,” Alfred said. “I’ve been out here every week, sometimes more, for three years. It’s hard to
tell with orcs, but this last month’s the happiest I’ve seen him.”
“I’m pleased to hear it,” she said. “He’s lovely but easily misunderstood.”
“On that, we agree. At first, I stopped here out of habit—the previous farmer, Halvard, and I were good friends, rest his
soul. Gruff as your fellow is, he struck me as a solid sort. Capable, and set much of Grimroot’s disrepair to rights. Busy
as all get-out, like he was trying to escape his own mind. He’s calmed, though.” Alfred fiddled with the brim of his hat.
“I hope you don’t mind me saying so, Miss Meg, but for Jask’s sake, I hope the princess never, ah, recovers from the so-called
ague and you stay here with Jask.”
Sweat prickled Marigold’s brow. “I don’t know how that’s related.”
Alfred chuckled. “Don’t you, though? You needn’t worry. I’m the only one who knows you’re here, and I’m no gossip.”
“That’s demonstrably false.” She bumped shoulders with him. “Every time you’re here you tell us the latest from Harvest Hollow.”
“Well now, that’s just making conversation.” Alfred winked. “But what I see in the hinterlands stays out here. Especially
with your fella. It’s my personal life philosophy never to piss off an orc.”
Jask tapped a stile into the side of the firkin, then hoisted it onto his shoulder. As they walked around the cottage to the front yard and the cart, he said, “You’ll want to store this on its side. The cider’s still fermenting a bit, so I didn’t plug it.”
He wedged it amid the other goods to reduce jostling on Alfred’s journey back to Harvest Hollow proper.
“Thanks, friend.” Alfred untethered his horse from the maple in the front yard. After he seated himself in the driver’s box,
he tipped his cap. “Till next week.”
As his cart disappeared, Marigold tangled her fingers.
Jask slung an arm over her shoulders. “Something troubling you?”
“How could you tell?”
“Your fingers are knotted tighter than your kirtle’s laces.” Jask squeezed her shoulder. “You do that when you’re anxious.”
She parted her hands, then stared at them. “Do I?”
“You do.” Fuzzle twined himself around Jask’s ankles. The orc scooped him up, then scratched under the cat’s chin. “What’s
got your fingers in knots?”
“I really thought they would’ve canceled the wedding and accepted that I was gone by now, or that Rowan would have arrived
to escort me home so we can alert our parents to Crispin’s schemes. But now with us, I don’t want to leave . . . and I’m sure
this lie about me being ill is to buy time to find me. I don’t like it.”
There. That was all true, but not the whole of it. Nothing about Alfred guessing her identity. And certainly nothing about
her new magical ability. She preferred to wait until she knew more about it before sharing it with him. During her brief periods
of solitude, she’d lobbed orange orbs at the byre, the trees, and herself, but nothing came from it. If they were simple illuminations,
they were useless since they lasted all of ten seconds.
“I admit it would be better if Crispin accepted the situation. But he’s a prideful prick and won’t release you until he sees the advantage in it for him.
” He squeezed her shoulder. “They’ve already searched for you here once, and they’ve attempted to conscript magical creatures to find you.
If they come ’round again before Rowan comes for you, we’ll handle it. ”
She wished she could be so sure. But if Alfred saw the goodness in Jask and how good the two of them were together, perhaps
more people would see it as well. Like the common folk of Harvest Hollow. And Rowan. Maybe even her younger brother and parents.
Strength lay in numbers.
Like that fairy tale of the princess protected by seven little people—alone, none of them would have been able to protect
her from the evil queen, but together they succeeded.
Marigold tangled her fingers.
Well, not succeeded, exactly. She still ate a poisoned apple, and the little people preserved her until a passing prince could
help.
But the point was to survive, they’d need allies.