Torn between loyalty to her friend and to her dead mother. Ariq knew that pain and resentment too well. For years, he’d been torn between loyalty to his brother and to his mother. Ariq would never avenge her death so that he wouldn’t lose Taka. He suspected that Zenobia would never say what she felt to Helene, so that she wouldn’t lose a friend.
But she could say it to him. “So what was your mother’s story?”
“Not a happy one,” she said, and Ariq realized that he, too, had already formed a picture of her mother, based on everything she’d told him before.
He’d imagined a quiet version of Zenobia, with the same green eyes and brown hair—but also paler and frail. A woman who was trapped in every way possible, and who hadn’t known any freedom from her husband before she’d died. Zenobia had said that she hoped never to be in the same circumstances that her mother had been. Now her friend had claimed that
she
was.
With a heavy sigh, she moved to the balcony rail. The breeze sifted through dark curls that had escaped her pins. Soon he would take all of her hair down. But he didn’t want to make love to her and he didn’t want to leave while this still festered inside her. She would be alone when he was gone. Mara and Cooper wouldn’t be here and a rift had formed between her and Helene. But his wife didn’t have to
feel
alone.
And this wouldn’t just be a story about her mother. It would tell him more about Zenobia, too.
An airship left the docking platform on one of the lower levels. Ariq joined her at the rail, and she waited until the growl of the airship’s engine had begun to fade before she said, “I told you my father was captain of an airship for hire.”
A mercenary. “Yes.”
“So he was often away on jobs. Then when the war between the French and the Liberé began, he was gone for long periods of time.” She offered him a wry glance. “He fought for the French, of course.”
Zenobia had said she’d lived in Johannesland rather than the French islands in the Caribbean, so Ariq didn’t know why it was
of course
, but he nodded for her to continue.
“Every time he left he gave a sum of money to a solicitor, who doled it out to my mother like an allowance. But sometimes he was gone longer than that sum lasted—and there would be weeks or months with no allowance, which was never a large allowance to begin with. My father believed that men should live spare lives and that frugality was a virtue. So there was no one more frugal than my mother, who would hoard pennies from an allowance that was barely enough to cover the most basic expenses, knowing the day would come when the allowance ran out. Because when it did, she had to borrow and beg for credit just to scrape together enough food and to pay our rent. Then my father would return and we would all learn our lessons.” She paused, and her eyes were flat jade stone as she said, “My mother’s lesson would be that only a weak-willed, profligate whore would incur a debt.”
And Zenobia had learned to fear someone taking the control of her money away from her. Ariq had already known that about her; he just hadn’t known the details.
“She hid it from us, though.” Her voice softened. “Not everything. She couldn’t hide my father’s reaction. But I don’t think Archimedes and I ever knew how desperate she became during those times. We never had much, so having a little less wasn’t much of a difference, and we always had something to eat so it wasn’t . . . terrible. At least not until later, after Archimedes had gone to university, then began smuggling. That was her fault, too, of course. Whatever weakness made him a flamboyant wastrel obviously came from her. Luckily my father was gone even more often then. But we were also only two women—a girl and a woman—so we couldn’t have many needs, and would certainly waste money if it wasn’t controlled, so the allowance was even more restricted than before. Archimedes sent some money, but he wasn’t earning much yet. Still, it helped. For a while. Then she had to begin borrowing again and asking for credit. By then, I was more aware of how she scraped, so I would visit Helene’s as often as I could, because they always asked me to join them for dinner and pretended not to see that I would stuff bread into my pockets to take home. So we got by. Or I thought we were.”
She had let go of the balcony rail and wrapped her arms around her stomach, as if holding herself, so Ariq moved closer and held her, too.
“But you weren’t getting by?”
Her breath shuddered. “I didn’t know. Until after, when she was dying, and she was
apologizing
to me for not being a good enough mother. One of the creditors—our landlord—had called in the debt. She searched for work but there was none. She couldn’t make anything from home because we didn’t
have
anything to make or sell. Finally the landlord threatened to throw her in debtors’ prison, or to have us sold into indentured service to pay it. And I don’t know—” Her voice broke, and she shook against him. “I don’t know if he forcibly took the payment he wanted from her or if she just felt she had no other choice. I don’t know if there’s any difference. But she was pregnant when my father came home. About as far along as Helene is now.”
He tightened his arms around her. “Did he discover her?”
“No,” she whispered. “But there were so many debts, and he made her pay for them again. And usually she was quiet, never spoke back to him. Not that time. And I think . . . I think she hoped that if she enraged him enough, if he beat her badly enough, she would lose the baby, because at least that would save her life. Because he would have killed her if he’d realized. She didn’t lose it, though. And he left, but there was no way she would be able to hide it the next time.”
Ariq would crush her if he held her any tighter. “You didn’t have anyone to go to?”
“I had Helene.” Her chest hitched on irregular breaths. “But my mother didn’t have anyone. We didn’t have enough money to leave. Archimedes would have come if he’d known but he was somewhere in the smugglers’ dens, and we couldn’t reach him. And there were no relations who could help her. I think she tried herbs and poisons because she was
so
sick after he left.”
No one at all? Though not frequent in the Golden Empire, it was a common enough procedure. “No physicians? Midwives?”
A sharp laugh burst from her and she looked up at him in disbelief. “In Johannesland? They would be in jail. My mother would have been imprisoned if anyone knew what she’d attempted. She must have heard of someone who could help her, though, because she went to him. But he butchered her. And I . . . I—”
She fell silent. Ariq expected tears when he looked down but she only stared into the distance, her gaze dull and unfocused.
Her voice was as empty as her eyes when she said, “We didn’t know my father was already dead and that the risk she took was for nothing. At least she made it home before the bleeding worsened. Helene was there with me, because we’d been studying, and . . . I’m grateful she was there.”
So was Ariq. “Yet now you’re angry with her.”
“She
saw
what my mother went through. So to claim that she was forced—” She shook her head. “Maybe the desperation is the same. But not the force. She
had
a choice before she went to another man’s bed. And then to claim she suffered the same? I want to scream at her. And yet . . . I know exactly why she said it.”
“Because you’ve done the same.”
Abruptly she pulled back to look up at him. “What?”
“You claimed you were a widow. I’ve been the one to tell women that their husbands were dead. I’ve seen their grief. You claimed that pain for your own, too.”
“I never claimed any pain or grief.”
“But anyone you told would assume it and treat you differently for it.”
“All right. Maybe that’s true.” She narrowed her eyes at him, and he was glad to see the fire return. “But it’s still not the same, because no woman in the world is better off for having been forced. But there are many women better off for losing a husband.”
That was probably true, too. “So what will you do?”
“I don’t know. She
is
my friend. But I don’t particularly like her right now.”
Ariq grinned and pulled her closer again.
Her scowl disappeared on a sigh as she wrapped her arms around him. “I’ll go to the embassy. If I’m very lucky, my brother will arrive and I’ll have another option, because I’ll be just as safe with them. But either way, I’ll miss you terribly all the while.”
Her brother.
Ariq’s blood seemed to slow and thicken. “You would leave?”
“Only the embassy. And I would let you know where we went, so that when your town is safe I could come.”
Which wasn’t much different than waiting at the embassy, yet a cold fist seemed to tighten in his chest—because she’d told him that if this marriage didn’t work, she would leave when her brother arrived. That wasn’t what she was saying now, yet the same dread spread ice through his veins.
He fought it. Zenobia said she would come. There was no reason for this uncertainty.
Except that he had to abandon this fight for her—and she believed that some women were better off without husbands. Considering the story she’d just told him, she had good reason to believe it, and distance might give her time to believe that she would be, too.
But he couldn’t let those doubts touch him. Even if she did fly off with her brother,
his wife was telling him that she would come.
Maybe she would have reason for that, too, no matter how high she built her walls—and she’d told Ariq in other ways how much she wanted to stay with him. She’d accepted his seed. Given all that had happened to her mother, and the fears that had driven Helene, she must have trusted him to have taken that risk.
Possessively, he flattened his palm over her stomach. “You might already be carrying our child.”
Her quick smile eased some of the weight closing around his heart. “Yes,” she said softly. “I should know soon whether I am.”
Then he could reassure her on one point. “You feared being in the same circumstances that trapped your mother. I swear to you now, you never will be.”
“Of course I won’t. You’re nothing like him.” She caught his jaw between her hands, emerald eyes bright. “But even if you were, I wouldn’t be trapped in the same way. I have money. I have protection. I have options. And I never would have been with any man if I didn’t.”
“A man you didn’t trust?”
She suddenly grinned. “Trust was an option. So was pure carnal gratification. I would have been with you in Krakentown and I didn’t trust you then. Yet it would have been the same risk.”
Now he remembered her telling him this before, when they’d been in the lantern fish. “Because I’d have been your adventure.”
“Yes. But the risk of a child, too. I knew that then.”
“I wouldn’t have spent my seed within you.” Not then, when she’d only been a visitor to his town.
She scoffed. “There would still be a chance. But I wouldn’t have taken that risk if I didn’t have the same options then as I do now. If I’d chosen to leave, if I’d chosen to raise a child alone . . . I
could
have.”
So accepting his seed hadn’t been a sign of anything. Not of her hope to stay. Not of her trust. He’d read too much into it. What he’d assumed was a crumbling wall was actually just another, stronger defense.
And he couldn’t be on both sides of the continent fighting two different wars at once. But here, now—he was on this side, and his calm slipped over the burning, ragged edge of the pain building in his chest. Maybe he hadn’t yet won his wife’s heart. But he could make sure that leaving was an option she never considered.
“Ariq?” Her wary gaze was searching his face. “That’s the expression you get when you break people in half. Is everything all right?”
Yes. He just had a battle to fight.
Without warning, he swept her up against his chest, hooking his arm beneath her knees and pivoting toward their chambers. She gasped her surprise, then looped her arms around his neck.
Urgently she kissed his throat, then his jaw. “How much time?”
“Two and a half hours.”
Time that he’d use like a sword, cleaving away the needs she didn’t have. She didn’t need his money. She didn’t need his protection. But he gave her adventure. He gave her carnal gratification. She needed him for those, if nothing else, and he intended to make sure she wouldn’t forget that while he was gone.
And his body had been made for war, but he’d never fought one like this before. He could crush a man with his arms, but he cradled his wife in them and carried her to the bed, instead. He could command armies, yet a kiss was a better use for his mouth now. He demanded her surrender with each long, sweet taste of her lips, and by teasing her nipples to succulent points.
But his wife never gave in so easily. Her touch made demands of her own—as if she didn’t know that he’d already surrendered, so long ago.
His hands were his weapons now, stripping away the robe that shielded her from him, then pushing her thighs over his shoulders and pinning her wrists at her sides. Her back arching, she bowed under the ruthless onslaught of his tongue, and screamed when she broke. Victory for them both. So he bent to her aroused flesh and did it again.