The Consolation Prize (Brides of Karadok #3) - Alice Coldbreath Page 0,37

dashed to the floor. She knew what that meant. Sir Armand had been at the siege of Demoyne, she thought with sudden despair. She had to ask that foolish question, even though she knew it was always a mistake to go down this route. She thought of Lord Mycroft, her grim jailor of three years. His son and heir had died at Demoyne, in the mud and the rain and the misery and pain of that conflict. She remembered the hatred that would flash out of Lady Mycroft’s eyes toward her and was glad it was dark, and she could not see her husband’s face.

She had been foolish to cling to the hope that perhaps Armand de Bussell had not been touched by the evil of Karadok’s civil war, but she had always known it was a forlorn one. The whole country was scarred, she thought bleakly, and it would take more than her own lifetime to heal.

He removed his hand from her waist to run up and down her upper arm. “You’re trembling,” he said, sounding shocked. “Is it me? Una? Is it my touch?”

“No, no, of course not.” She wiped a hand over her face in the dark, as she strove to make her voice steady.

He swore, sitting up abruptly. “You’re crying! Did I hurt you on our wedding night?” His voice had an urgent undertone. “I knew I must have been clumsy sot, but I never imagined—”

“No, no,” she protested, rolling back toward him and reaching out to touch his arm. “It’s not that. I’m just being foolish, it’s nothing of that sort. Indeed, Sir Armand you have been nothing but considerate, I assure you.“

“Una,” he pulled her firmly into his arms, his voice urgent and low. “If that’s true, then why are you shaking like a leaf?”

So startled was she, by the physical contact, that she could not even think to tell him anything but the truth. “It’s silly,” she said stiltedly, wiping her wet cheeks again. “It’s just … talking of the North. Of the war,” she forced out.

“We weren’t talking of the war.”

She looked straight into his face, even though she could not make out his expression in the dark. “You said you had been to Strethneal,” she said forthrightly. “I know what that means.”

His arms tightened around her a moment in the dark. “You were there?” he asked, and she could hear the incredulity in his voice. “At Demoyne?”

She nodded, unable to speak the words aloud and his hand was suddenly at the back of her head urging her to rest her wet face against his chest. “Ah, Una, Una, my poor girl,” he murmured, along with other soothing nonsense words until she closed her eyes and let the comfort of his warm body soak into her limbs, as he rocked her in his embrace.

Even Estrilda had never babied her like this, she thought wonderingly, as she took comfort in the press of his warm body and the husky voice in her ear. Her nurse had been a brisk, no-nonsense woman who had shown her affection by the assiduousness of her service rather than affectionate gesture.

“I’m being silly,” she mumbled. “Doubtless you had a far worse time there, than I.”

“They should never have taken you to such a place,” he said vehemently. “What can they have been thinking?”

She lay still, not liking to tell him that for those four years, all her life had been nothing but a succession of battlefields. She was oddly touched by his indignation. She let herself be weak and relax just for a moment or two before lifting her head. “I’m quite well now,” she said quietly but with conviction.

“You’re sure?” he asked gruffly.

“Absolutely sure. I must—”

“Don’t apologize,” he said, guessing her intent and rearranging her, so she once more presented her back to him. Then he slipped an arm around her again, quite easily, as though it were something he had done a hundred times before. “Now go to sleep,” he recommended. “I’ll be waking you in the morning soon enough.”

What an extraordinary change in her circumstances, she marveled, that meant she was now lying here in the dark next to this man. Una lay awake long after she heard Armand’s breathing even out into sleep. Her thoughts were troubled and gave her no peace. She stared up at the ceiling above her and gave in to the fact she would probably find no sleep this night. It was not unusual for her to be thus deprived.