Chapter 37 #2
Flint hummed and nudged Richard’s shoulder with his own. “Out with it, then. What happened?”
“Kaelen,” Richard replied quietly. “He—we—last night. He accused me of—he believes I have flirted with other men. With a druid who visited the castle. And now, he suggests, with you.”
“With me?” A delighted grin spread across Flint’s face. “Oh, that is splendid. Do go on.”
“He thinks I am drawn to powerful people.” Richard cleared his throat. “That I lied, in some manner, when I told him I felt no desire. That perhaps I have desire after all, and simply lust for people of the magical and uncommon kind.”
“Ah.” Flint tucked his thumbs into his belt and tch-ed. “He hurt you.”
“Yes.”
“Such is the way between lovers,” Flint said.
“They can wound you in ways no stranger could ever manage, because you have given them the map. You have shown them the soft places, the bruises beneath the armour. You expect them, at the very least, to understand. And when they prove they do not, it cuts. I won’t pretend otherwise.
” He undid his ponytail, allowing his hair to spill down.
“And when you’ve two lovers, it’s twice the joys and twice the wounds, I assure you. Happens to the best of us.”
“But Flint—” Richard glanced around to ensure none were near enough to overhear. “You know Kaelen is not my lover.”
Flint cocked a brow. “Is he your friend, then?”
Richard opened his mouth and closed it.
On the second wagon, Kaelen had finished hammering. He stood upright on the wagon roof, knocking sawdust from his palms, and a buxom lady whose curls had escaped her cap offered a hand. Kaelen accepted with a smile and, after jumping down, said something that made her bat her eyelashes.
Richard’s jaw set. “Not a friend…Not precisely.”
“So what then?”
“I do not know how to name it.” Richard watched the woman dab Kaelen’s temples with her handkerchief.
“He is—He matters to me. It is a strange thing, in truth, for I have only known him properly for some six months. Before that, he was merely a boy on the periphery of my life. And now—” He narrowed his eyes at where Kaelen was helping the woman onto a saddled horse, palm steady at the small of her back.
“Now I find I do not like it when he does that.”
Flint followed his gaze. “That?”
“Precisely,” Richard gritted out. “Smiling at people like so. Walking about half-undressed with everyone sighing after him.”
“Mm.” Flint nodded gravely even as his eyes raked Kaelen’s torso. “Highly disagreeable, that.”
“And I do not like it when he yells at me. Though I confess—” Richard worried at his lip. “I confess a part of me does find some assurance in it, for he does not often get angry, and it…it feels special? As though he is only angry because he could not have borne losing me. That is foolish, I know.”
“Not especially.”
“And he is beautiful.” Richard glowered at Kaelen, who was chatting now with another man.
“Who could not see it? When he smiles, he—he shines, somehow. And he is always warm when he holds my hand. Such is his temperament, soft—gullible even—and yet, fierce to his enemies, and I find myself fond of it. He works hard, even at his poetry, though he butchers the syntax. On occasion, he speaks to me softly in a tone I do not hear him use with others, and I like the way his fringe hangs when he looks down. I—”
He broke off. Flint was looking at him with bemusement. “What?”
“My friend.” Flint intoned as though Richard was being slow. “You’re in love.”
Richard froze, and the bear-keeper from behind almost strode into him.
“I am not,” he muttered to Flint as he made way for the keeper and her animal charge. “I do not want him in my bed.”
He thought Flint would laugh, but the bandit’s eyes were solemn. “I heard you the first time, handsome. But bedding and love are not the same thing.”
“Of course they are the same, Flint.” Richard frowned. “Why else do we have a bedding ceremony on the wedding night? Know you any couples that do not engage in intercourse?”
“No, listen to me, you dumb fuck,” Flint said.
“Bedding and love are two roads that sometimes run alongside each other for a stretch and sometimes do not.” He sucked his teeth.
“I’ll grant you that for most folk, they overlap so thoroughly that the two appear to be one thing, and the world speaks of them as one thing, and so we all grow up half-deceived.
But love is one matter. Bedding is another. Is that so hard to understand?”
Richard stared.
“I shall tell you a thing.” Flint’s voice lowered.
“For a long while after she was burned, Edith could not bear to be touched at all. Even after we left the orphanage, for three years thereabouts, she did not join Lyell and me when we took our pleasure in bed. She watched sometimes, or went to another room—too uncomfortable, she was, with the burns where they were. She only ever allowed kisses. And in those three years, handsome, I did not love her one whit less. Not one whit. Lyell did not love her less. She did not love us less.”
Flint held up two hands. “The roads had drawn apart for a while, between us, and we walked them separately, and we waited for them to come near again. Which they did, eventually. But the love had never gone anywhere. It had only been the love all along, in truth. The bedding was a thing we did because we could, because it helped us show our love, and because it was pleasurable, intimate, and fucking the both of them made me see the stars, but it was not a thing that made the love. You understand?”
Richard’s heart pounded harder with every word that Flint said. His ears buzzed, and his vision blurred. He only realised why when he blinked, and a tear slid down his right cheek. Startled, Richard brushed it away with a knuckle.
Flint looked just as alarmed. “Don’t go bawling on me. I’m no good with the sappy stuff.”
“I am well, Flint,” Richard rasped. “It is only that…I had not considered…Always, I had believed that to love meant to...” His throat ached too much, and he stopped talking.
Ahead, Kaelen had stepped back from the woman’s horse and was wiping his brow with the back of his wrist. He turned, scanning the line of carts, and his gaze caught on Richard and Flint together. The dark eyes held a moment, then Kaelen looked away to pull on his tunic.
“But for him,” Richard whispered, “he would wish to bed, would he not? He has bedded many before. I know he has dreamt of bedding me. Why would he want me if I cannot answer in the same?”
“I don’t have all the answers, handsome. But here’s a bright thought.” Flint’s lopsided grin returned, teasing and exasperated. “Why don’t you fucking ask the man?”