Bride by Midnight (16 page)

***

Hagan was an early riser, Blade knew, so he didn’t hesitate to knock on the man’s door just after the sun rose. Lyssa was preparing breakfast. He didn’t have much time, but he did need a word with Hagan. Alone.

The older man admitted Blade into the house himself, as he often did. Wearing a bright red dressing gown, his hair uncombed, Hagan was not prepared for visitors but he was wide awake. In the dining room, he offered Blade tea. Blade declined, as they both sat at the table.

They were alone, no Lyssa or servants present, so Blade spoke plainly.

“It was Miron Volker who killed Runa.”

Hagan’s hands shook and he set his teacup down too hard. He was obviously unprepared for such a conversation. “
Minister
Volker?”

“Yes.”

“Are you... sure?”

“Of course I’m sure! I saw him kill her, and I looked him in the eye when he tried to kill me. I didn’t know his name, then, but now I do.”

Hagan shook his head. “You can’t possibly think to get away with...”

“No,” Blade said in a lowered voice. “I won’t get away with it. I won’t escape.”

“There has to be another way...”

“There is not.”

Hagan’s cook, a youngish woman with wild red hair, walked into the dining room carrying a tray of sweet rolls and jam. When she saw Blade she started a bit, surprised to see such an early visitor, then she placed the tray on the able and said, “I’ll be right back with another plate and more rolls. Eggs will be ready shortly.”

“I won’t be eating,” Blade said.

Hagan waved the cook away with an impatient hand, and she went.

“You have a wife, now,” Hagan whispered. “You cannot throw your life away!”

Blade did not argue that Lyssa was not a true wife. He could not even say that he didn’t care. He whispered, too, in case the cook had her ear pressed to the other side of the dining room door. “When I die, will you let her stay here? She will need a home.” She would need a friend even more than a cozy cottage, he suspected.

“Of course she can stay, but there is no need. Together we can find another way to see this done.”

If there was another way, he would have thought of it already. “No. There is no other way.”

“Emperor Jahn...”

“Will not hang one of his own ministers for killing one of the Isen Demon’s daughters,” Blade finished, his voice sharp.

Hagan paled. “The timing of Runa’s birth... I cannot say I never wondered. I did hope I was wrong. I’m so sorry.”

No one else would care. No one else would see that Volker was punished. “Lyssa.” Blade said simply. “Take care of her.”

Hagan nodded, once. It was enough.

***

Blade had thought about leaving her, Lyssa knew. Even when he’d shown her pleasure and denied himself, he had thought of simply walking away. He said nothing to that effect; his actions and words when others were present had not changed. To her friends and family, he appeared to be a loving husband. All of her friends and more than a few acquaintances had stopped by the shop to meet him, and she could tell that they were envious. After all, Blade was handsome and attentive, a dream husband—at least outwardly. He was the man who had broken the curse, who had survived marriage to Terrible Tempest. He did not show his intentions to the world, but Lyssa knew that for a while now he had considered leaving her without offering a word of explanation.

But he
hadn’t
left. She scared him—she knew that, too—but she didn’t scare him enough to give up his goal.

Blade thought death was all he had to offer the world, that once he had avenged his sister his life would be over. Pointless. Worthless. Without meaning. He was wrong. Unfortunately, he did not believe her.

Her husband was a hard worker and a determined man; to all eyes the man she had been waiting for all these years. She knew what others did not; that he had settled into the job with her father only to patiently wait for another opportunity to access the palace. She spent every frustrating day trying to think of a way to stop him.

Edine, who had been a wife for three years now, had offered to show Lyssa how to prepare a few of her husband’s favorite foods. That devoted husband’s mother was currently watching the children for a few hours so Edine could spend some time with her oldest friend. Lyssa had worried a bit about leaving Blade and her father alone at the store, but business was slow this late in the afternoon, and besides... the two men got along very well. That would not be the case if Cyrus Tempest knew the truth about his son-in-law, but as he did not, all would be well. For a while.

Lyssa had seen Edine several times since her marriage to Blade, but they had not been on their own. There were always children or a husband or a father around. With the window opened and the doors closed, they were on their own now in the cottage Edine shared with her husband and two young children. Edine wasted no time. She smiled widely and asked, “How do you like being married?”

“It’s very nice.” Lyssa twisted her hands just a little, flexed her fingers and shifted her feet. She hated to lie, especially to a friend, and here she was, trapped in an enormous lie! But being married
was
very nice. That much was the truth.

Edine’s smile faded. “Nice? Blade is so handsome, and strong. Surely you can come up with a word better than
nice
to describe him. Is he an attentive husband? A good kisser? How is he in bed?”

“Oh, you want to know about the fucking.”

Edine actually drew back a bit. “Lyssa Tempest! I mean, Lyssa Renshaw! Such language.”

“I know it is a vulgar word, but...”

“
Very
vulgar.”

“Well, what do
you
call it?”

“Sinmora didn’t prepare you for marriage at all,” Edine said in a disapproving tone. “You cannot cook, and you don’t even know that what you said is entirely unacceptable for a lady.”

“I’m not a lady. I’m a shopkeeper’s daughter and a shopkeeper’s wife.”
And perhaps a witch,
though she kept that thought to herself. “Sinmora said it was a husband’s place to instruct a wife. She never did go into details about what that instruction might include. Or what it might be called.”

“Yin will, on occasion, call it a poke. A word I detest, by the way.”

“I can understand why.” Lyssa wrinkled her nose.

“He thinks it’s roguish and charming, but he’s mistaken.” Edine lifted her eyebrows in an expression that spoke of loving exasperation. “My mother calls it my wifely duty, which doesn’t seem any better than a poke. It has never felt much like a duty to me,” she added in a lowered voice.

Nor to me.
“Well, if I can’t say... that word, what should I call it?”

Edine smiled. “I like to call it making love.”

Making love
. She liked that, though it wasn’t entirely accurate where she and Blade were concerned. He didn’t love her. “Many people who are not in love share their bodies.”

“Then it’s a poke, or what you said, but when a man and woman are truly in love, the act is simply not the same.”

Lyssa wondered if she occasionally thought herself in love with Blade simply because he made her feel good, on those few occasions when they’d... well, call it what you would, he had been inside her in more ways than one. But when she tried to imagine any other man in her bed—in her body—she could not. Would not.

Making love.

Lyssa found she was anxious to change the subject. How could she explain to her friend that Blade had come into her life as a temporary solution and now he didn’t feel temporary at all? Love had never been a part of the plan, so why did the words “making love” feel so right? Yes, best to avoid that particular subject.

“If you don’t teach me how to cook, I will be a poor wife indeed.”

That was all it took to get Edine started. A pie, stew and a quick bread. Lyssa watched, trying to absorb it all. She and Edine talked the entire time, their conversations flitting back and forth between culinary pursuits, children, parents, the weather and new shoes and husbands, with barely a breath between subjects. Perhaps their constant conversation was the reason Edine’s hand slipped and she cut the palm of her other hand, a deep cut from which blood began pouring.

Edine dropped the knife and stepped away from the table, staring at the sliced flesh and the blood that filled her palm. “Damnation!” Without lifting her head to look at Lyssa, Edine lifted her uninjured hand and pointed to the hearth. “There’s a basket of bandages and ointments next to the small pot.”

Instead of fetching the basket, Lyssa reached out and grabbed her friend’s hand. “How bad is it?”

“Bad enough. It stings like the devil! And look at all the blood.” Edine grimaced as she grabbed a linen towel and placed it under her hand so blood wouldn’t drip on her floor.

Acting on instinct, Lyssa took Edine’s hand in her own. The already bloodied linen dropped to the floor. The cut was deep, the gash too severe to be mended by ointment and a strip of linen. Lyssa’s mind momentarily turned to doctors and stitches and weeks of immobility.

And there it was again, that green fog that floated above the wound, an unnatural glow much like the one she’d noted above Madam Azar’s knee. Without thinking, Lyssa laid her other hand over Edine’s and tightly enveloped her friend’s damaged hand.

Lyssa’s body twitched a bit. A glimmer of green light slipped from between her fingers. Cold fire, just like before, along with a sensation of... power. Edine jumped, and she tried to pull her hand away, but Lyssa held on tight. Just a few seconds, that was all the time she needed. As soon as the light died Edine jerked her hand away. She stepped back, wiped away the blood from one hand with the other, and—pale as milk—she held up her hand, palm facing Lyssa.

The blood remained, but the cut was gone.

“How did you do that?” Edine whispered.

Lyssa licked her lips. If she had known an appropriate curse word, she would have used it. The only word that came to her was no.
No, no, no, no
. She wanted to deny that which was right before her eyes, she wanted to run and hide.

“The damage was probably not as bad as we thought....” she said, her voice weak, unconvincing even to her own ears.

“Even if it was just a scratch, it shouldn’t be
gone
.” Eyes widening, Edine moved back, and around, putting the table between her and Lyssa. “You’re a witch—or a demon.”

Lyssa thought about denying the charge, but how? She had done what she had done. For weeks she’d tried her best to ignore all the signs, to dismiss what she saw and felt and experienced. She could not ignore this, much as she would like to.

“Just because I happen to have some magical abilities, that doesn’t make me a demon. And... there are some good witches, you know.”

Edine shook her head. She looked at the floor, at her hand, at the food on the table. She looked everywhere but at her friend. “You know how I feel about witches and magic. No good can come of this! Why did you never tell me?”

I did not know
. “Edine, please...”

“Get out.” Edine shook, then turned away, presenting her back and dropping her head. She sobbed, once. She cowered in fear.
Fear!

Without trying to explain, without attempting to defend herself, Lyssa turned and ran.

Chapter Twelve

Blade found himself wishing that Lyssa would return from her friend’s house sooner than she’d said she would. She was not needed here, not on such a quiet afternoon, but he still waited anxiously for her to walk through that door.

For the past two nights she had slept in their big bed alone, and he had slept before the fire in the main room. More rightly, he had attempted to sleep. He’d dozed, he’d dreamed, and he’d had to force himself to keep his distance.

Why? He did want Lyssa. That was undeniable. Though he had used the argument, he didn’t stay away from her because he was afraid she might find herself with child. Not entirely, at least. That was already a possibility; one he could do nothing to change. In that bed, in her arms, he could see and feel the man he had become slipping away. He could feel his hate fading. In her bed, life became... good.

Blade had never imagined himself a shopkeeper. He didn’t care for being indoors all day, for having a ceiling above his head rather than the sky, but working for Lyssa’s father was not the huge sacrifice he’d expected it to be. People came and went all through the day, laughing and gossiping as they shopped. When Lyssa was there, he enjoyed watching her participate in lively discussions, and listening to her laugh. He even held his breath on occasion when she caught his eye for a long, torturous moment. Without her present, the shop continued to function, but it was not as bright as it was when she was there.

As if she brought the sky inside with her. As if she was life itself. Foolish thought. Impossible.

If he’d believed he could sneak inside the palace and do what needed to be done without being caught before he killed Volker, he would have done it without a second thought. Living with Lyssa was painful in a way he had never imagined. What had seemed like a perfectly logical plan less than two weeks ago now seemed to him to be the most foolish decision he’d made in years... and he had made more than his share of foolish decisions in his lifetime.

Cyrus Tempest was a good man, a devoted husband and father, all in all a decent sort of fellow. But there were moments, snippets of time, when the shopkeeper looked at his daughter with an odd expression in his eyes, with an odd tension in the set of his shoulders. There was love, yes, but was that also... fear? Surely that was a misinterpretation.

Blade had thought, on more than one occasion, that Cyrus did not look after Lyssa as diligently as he should, but then, she was a grown woman and should not need a father to look out for her. A husband, however...
yes
.

Their marriage was not real. Not in any way that mattered. Legally they were man and wife. They shared a home, they had shared a bed, and dammit, he liked her.