He Broke Our Betrothal at the Midwinter Ball, So I Wed the Grand Duke Before Dawn novel · Chapter 2 of 32
Chapter 2: The Dawn Contract
Thessaly and Eskil write four clauses and marry at dawn; the Prince answers by stripping the Orlanne family of their seat and giving them three days to leave.
By the second bell after midnight, the map room of the Frostmarch town house smelled of ink and cold tea.
Thessaly sat at the long table with a fresh sheet of vellum.
Grand Duke Eskil Varnhelm sat across from her with his scarred left hand flat on the wood.
An Imperial clerk, woken from bed and furious about it, sat at the end with a quill.
"Clause one," Thessaly said. "You do not command me."
"I command an army," Eskil said.
"Not in this house. You may ask, you may advise, you may argue. You may not order."
He considered it.
"Granted. Clause two is mine," he said.
"Say it."
"You do not lie to me about the North. Not about the grain, the roads or the men who owe me. If you are afraid, you tell me. If you are leaving, you tell me."
Thessaly looked up from the page.
It was a strange thing to ask of a wife, and a stranger thing to be asked it by a man who had not blinked in ten minutes.
"Granted," she said. "Clause three."
"Mine again," said Eskil, and then, to her surprise, he stopped.
"Go on."
"The bed." He cleared his throat. "I have no right to your bed under any contract. I would like that written in so it is true."
The clerk's quill stopped.
Thessaly set down her own pen.
"Write it," she said. "No bed unless I ask."
"Unless the lady asks," the clerk repeated.
"And clause four?" Thessaly asked.
"Yours."
"I stay your duchess until the Spring Standing is held and the duchy is safe. After that, we speak again, and either of us may walk out the door."
Eskil's jaw moved.
"Agreed," he said, after a moment.
It took three hours to finish.
Thessaly asked for his seal on every page and read each line twice.
When the sun began to turn the windows grey, the clerk blotted the last signature and said, "Your Graces, the law requires a priest."
"Then bring one," said Eskil.
They were married in the palace chapel at dawn.
The priest was young and half asleep.
Her father came, because Nerissa had run to wake him, and he stood at the back with his jaw set.
Nerissa stood beside Thessaly instead, holding a bouquet of winter holly she had snapped off a bush in the courtyard.
When the priest said, "You may seal the vow," Eskil bent and kissed her forehead, quickly and carefully.
His mouth was warm against her cold skin.
Thessaly felt it all the way down, and told herself it was only the cold.
They turned from the altar.
The chapel doors flew open.
The morning light came in behind a line of Imperial guards, and in front of them a herald in white and gold carried a scroll with the Prince's seal on it.
"By order of His Highness," the herald announced, "regent in the Emperor's illness."
He unrolled the scroll.
"The Marquisate of Orlanne is stripped of its seat in the Council and its lands within the capital, for the insult of the Lady Thessaly Orlanne against the Crown."
Her father's breath left him.
"The family of Orlanne has three days to quit the city," the herald read.
"Their pensions are void," he read on.
"Their name is struck from the Council rolls."
The herald rolled up the scroll, bowed, and left.
Nobody in the chapel spoke.
Thessaly stood with her new husband's sleeve against hers and watched the door swing slowly shut.
She had expected a reprisal.
She had not expected it before breakfast.
"Thessaly," her father said.
He came down the aisle with his fists tight.
Corvin Orlanne was fifty-two, tall and grey-templed, and he had given the Crown thirty years of loyal service.
"Papa," she said.
"Do you understand what you've done?" he asked.
"I understand that I chose," Thessaly said.
"You've lost us the Council," Corvin said. "You've lost your sister her season. You've lost your mother's house."
"Father," Nerissa said sharply.
"I will say it." He turned on Eskil. "My lord, I mean no disrespect. But you are a stranger, and a hard one, and she has given you her life to spite a boy."
Eskil met his eyes without a flicker.
"I did not ask for it," he said. "She offered it, in front of the court. I mean to be worth it."
Corvin looked at him for a long moment.
Then he looked back at his daughter.
"You've married a wolf to spite a prince," he said, and his voice broke on the last word.
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