“I’m not sure you are entirely trustworthy, Miss Dahl-Saida.”
They had tea in the parlor, Talia shoving her books off the table before Wen could look at the titles too closely. She pulled up an extra chair by the fire and they sat, sipping their tea and eating cake and playing with the white cat, who kept trying to sneak his head into the cream.
It felt strangely comfortable, being there with him.
Suddenly she was aware of the ring on her right hand, dirt ground into the silver whorls from her work digging out the ship. For the first time since the day Wen had put it on her finger, she didn’t mind it so much.
Wen sensed the change in her. “Talia?”
“What about our wedding?” The words tumbled from her lips without her permission, but she didn’t regret them.
He studied her for a moment without replying, absently petting the cat who had curled up on his knees. “I’m not going to make you do something you don’t want to do,” he said at last. “My—my father isn’t here anymore to press the issue. And as the new Baron, Caiden … well, Caiden won’t either. We …” Wen’s lips twitched a little. “… discussed it,” he finished vaguely, waving one hand.
Talia wondered if Wen’s fist had found Caiden’s face again. She wouldn’t mind if it had. “And the Empress’s contract?”
“Caiden and I discussed that, too. We have it handled.”
She didn’t press him, and he turned his gaze to the white cat, who was purring loudly.
She fiddled with the ring, twisting it off her finger and holding it out to him. “You’ll be wanting this back, then.”
He shook his head. “I want you to have it.”
“But it’s your mother’s—”
He pressed the ring back into her hand. “It’s yours now.”
Another week slipped by. Then two. Then three. The days began to grow hesitantly warmer, the snow seemingly gone for good, and Talia thought she smelled a hint of spring in the air. But with the improving weather, her anxiety about what she was planning to do sharpened.
Every morning, she walked out to the hidden cove, slowly making the ship seaworthy. She scoured the beach, miraculously finding a sturdy pole that would make a suitable mast. She rode out to the village to order rope and twine and pitch. When the issue of payment came up, the shopkeeper informed her that he’d had word from the Ruen-Dahr to provide her with anything she required, and the bill would be sent to the Baron. That made Talia guilty, but it was far too serendipitous to pass up.
And every few days, Wen came to see her.
He would be waiting when she came back from the cove—lounging on the front steps, or perched on the pasture fence, legs dangling, or playing with the cat in the parlor.
He told her all the gossip from the Ruen-Dahr. Blaive’s remodeling project and party plans had the whole house in an uproar. Artisans and chefs and seamstresses were tramping through at all hours of the day, disrupting Dairon’s careful routine, demanding payment that wasn’t strictly available. The housekeeper grew so agitated Ahned had to send her off on holiday, and, meanwhile, Lyna and Ro were quarreling with Blaive’s maid to a ridiculous degree.
Wen’s stories made her laugh and she enjoyed his company more than she admitted to herself, even though it made her progress with the boat slower than it could have been.
The days he didn’t come, she tore through the rest of the books she’d brought from the Ruen-Dahr’s library, always searching for more accounts of Rahn’s Hall.
One afternoon, her hands cracked and bleeding from her work on the ship, she stepped into the parlor to find Wen conversing with an unfamiliar, black-coated man. They both stood as she entered, bowing solemnly, and she hastily attempted to clean her hands on her filthy skirt to no avail. She curtsied in confusion, not missing the panicked look on Wen’s face.
The black-coated man had Enduenan coloring and was perhaps thirty, his face narrow and his brows etched in an eternal frown. “Mrs. Aidar-Holt? I’m Nalin Den-Erras, Her Imperial Majesty’s ambassador to Ryn. I’ve just been speaking to your husband, and it appears everything is in order.”
She balked. “My hus—” But Wen caught her eye and shook his head, so she echoed faintly, “In order?”
The ambassador nodded, drawing a sheaf of paper from his breast pocket. “It seems the terms of Her Imperial Majesty’s contract have been carried out as instructed. Wendarien assures me you have, in fact, wed?”
Understanding dawned on her.
“Just a month ago,” said Wen.
Talia nodded, holding out her right hand so the ambassador could see the ring. She thanked the gods Wen had insisted she keep it.
Den-Erras frowned. “What have you been doing to your hands, Mrs. Aidar-Holt?”
She smiled brightly. “Gardening.”
He grimaced. “All I need is your marriage papers, then, and I shall return them to Her Imperial Majesty as proof.”
“We don’t have—”
“Here they are,” Wen interrupted, drawing a few sheets of cream paper from a narrow drawer in the sideboard.
Talia had to force herself to not look astonished.
The ambassador glanced over them, frowning all the while, then at last nodded and folded them up. “There is one other thing.” From his other pocket, he drew out a stack of letters tied with string, and plopped them in Talia’s hands.
She recognized them with a sinking heart—every single letter she’d ever written to Ayah.
“Contact with Enduena is forbidden, Mrs. Aidar-Holt. You are lucky I intercepted your correspondence before Her Imperial Majesty learned of them. She would not be so lenient.”
“Huen swallow your liver,” Talia muttered under her breath.
Wen choked off a startled laugh.
The ambassador just kept frowning. “I’ll wish you good day, then.”
Talia stared slack-jawed at Wen, waiting until she heard the front door click shut and hoofbeats fading away from the house before she collapsed onto the floor, laughing so hard her eyes began to stream.
Wen sat beside her, grinning wider than she’d ever seen him. “Well that was a narrow escape.”
He gave her a handkerchief and she wiped her eyes, still giggling. “What would he have done if he thought we weren’t married? Frowned severely and thrown us into the sea?”
Wen snorted, which made Talia laugh even harder.
“Seriously, though. How in Endahr did you have marriage papers in the sideboard?”
“I found them in my father’s things when we were shutting up his office. They weren’t signed, of course, but he had them ready for us. I forged your signature and brought them here a while back, just in case something like this were to happen.”
Talia leaned back against the sofa, absently petting the white cat who came to rub against her knee. “I’m glad you did.”
He nodded at the letters. “Who are those for?”