Chapter Thirty
“You should have told me you couldn’t sleep,” Rhys said, tucking the heavy blanket up and around Seph’s shoulders as she slid into a comfortable place on his chest, her hands folded under her chin.
She looked up at him, admiring the angles of his face from this vantage, lashes tilted up and feathery.
Absurdly, it made him blush. He cleared his throat, averting his eyes for a moment as the butterflies settled in his chest. “I know what that’s like not sleeping. I could have kept you company.”
“I could never steal sleep from you,” she said with a wry smile, reaching up with a single finger to tilt his chin back toward her. “Exactly because you know what it’s like.”
“Hm,” he said, catching her fingers and pressing his lips to them, resolving just to blush if he needed to, and to let her see it besides. “Decent, if inconvenient. Can I tell you a secret?”
“Only if I can sell it later,” she quipped, making him grin.
He reached an arm out, pulling the drawer open from the table that sat at their bedside and reaching inside, withdrawing a fat, shiny taper candle in light-blue wax. It had a few thumbprints in it and a wobbly exterior rather than a smooth cylinder.
“I asked the priest for help sleeping,” he confessed, blushing a little. “He helped.”
She was already sitting up, those glorious breasts on display as the blanket fell around her shoulders like a cape.
She took the candle from him and inspected it, her thumbs tracing the grooves in it, turning it this way and that, and finally, giving it a suspicious sniff.
“Ah,” she said, blinking. “Calming herbs.”
“It’s not just the candle,” Rhys informed her, scooting back so he could sit up against the headboard.
“He bade me to keep a devoted stack of papers. I was to light the candle and say, ‘Saint Peter Damian, I offer you my restless mind.’ And then I was supposed to write without lifting my pen until every thought in my mind had gone on the paper. I was to write until no more words could pass between my head and my pen.”
“Mhm,” she said, squinting at him as he talked, her thumbs continuing to rub the candle.
“Then douse the thing and put the papers under it, like an offering,” he said, shrugging. “I haven’t had to do it yet, so I don’t know if it works.”
“Is there paper and ink in there?” she asked. “For the other part of the ritual?”
“What do you mean, ‘Is there paper and ink’?” he snapped. “Of course not. Are you confusing me with your other husband?”
She grinned at him. “I don’t have even one husband.”
“You will very soon,” he informed her. “And for the rest of the week.”
“Is that so?” She watched him, her expression more curious than scrutinizing. “Will it be you or that other gent?”
He gasped theatrically, slapping a hand over her mouth. “It’ll be me, wench,” he exclaimed. “I’ve a mind to start the banns before we even get back.”
“Well, do it if you’re going to do it,” she quipped. “And stop quacking about it.”
“‘Stop qua’—” he repeated, shrill and breathless. “Now I need twice the paper for Saint Peter Damian!”
“I’ll put some there tomorrow,” she told him, rolling her eyes and tossing the candle back to him before fluffing the blanket like a queen’s regalia and huddling back down over his chest. Then her performance cracked, her teeth flashing in the low light, and she nuzzled down to steal a very quick kiss from him.
“Use one to write to the Brighton Parish.”
He grabbed her chin and extended the kiss, taking two, and then a third before he released her. “Are you going to try the father’s magic?”
“Yes, I think so,” she replied, tilting her head to the side, her hair spilling down around her like a cloak. “It sounds … appealing.”
“Aye,” Rhys agreed. “I don’t know if he’s got extra godly power or if he’s just very intelligent.”
“Same thing,” said Seph, shrugging. “I walked in on him standing on Master Yuri the other day. Just … standing on the other man’s back, hands in pockets, admiring the wallpaper.”
Rhys covered his mouth, a little titter escaping. “Did they see you?”
Seph frowned. “Yes! And they both just silently stared at me until I left.”
At that, he lost the hold on his amusement and gave a bark of laughter. “Excellent.”
“I also saw him wiggling Nini’s arm until something popped. Nini moaned in pleasure,” Seph continued, shaking her head like a tattler, giving the good bits to their mummy.
“Yuri’s got sciatalgia,” Rhys said. “He grouses about it constantly. Maybe Father Wheeler was stomping it out of him.”
“And Nini?” Seph asked, raising her brows.
“That was just restorative therapy from how her arm hurts after reaching into everyone’s heads so often,” he said, and he was smacked lightly with a throw pillow for his trouble.
He nodded at the lantern. “Should we douse it? It’s low, anyhow.”
“‘So shines a good deed in a naughty world,’” Seph quoted, scooting off him to see to it. “You did well, little flame. It’s been a long night.”
She glanced back at him, hand on the dial, and slumped a little at his expression. “Really, Rhys? I didn’t have fancy tutors and I know Shakespeare.”
“I know Shakespeare!” he protested, watching her roll her eyes before she submerged them in darkness. “I know everything Mercutio says.”
“Because you played him, you dolt,” she argued, crawling back onto the dark bed and finding her place beside him. “You love stories. Why would you ignore the Shakespeare lessons?”
“Because he talks in ridiculous ye olde rhyme?” Rhys suggested, shrugging. “Besides, I prefer prose. The stage play is not engrossing to read.”
“Says one Welshman against the whole of the Western world,” she returned, shaking her head and stifling a yawn. “I did cry, by the by. When you died. As Mercutio.”
For a moment, he could only grin in response. He felt her, still and waiting for him to react, but he just couldn’t yet. He grinned until his cheeks hurt.
She huffed, shaking her head. “You are too convincing an actor,” she declared. “And Mercutio is too close to exactly who you would be, if you were from that story and not your own. You looked truly hurt. You looked weak and angry and hurt. That was what made me cry.”
“Don’t worry, gwrach,” he said into her hair. “I’ll never die again.”
She sniffed. “Good. Thank you. I love you.”
He nodded, stroking her loose hair as he planted a kiss on her head. “I love you too. Cariad.”