He Broke Our Betrothal at the Midwinter Ball, So I Wed the Grand Duke Before Dawn novel · Chapter 3 of 32
Chapter 3: The Road North
On the road north Eskil warms Thessaly's hands at an inn until the Prince arrives to beg her home, and she tells him to count the days.
They left Averrane on the third morning, in two sleighs, with everything the Orlannes still owned tied down under oiled canvas.
Nerissa had insisted on bringing nine hatboxes.
"You will not need hats in the North," Thessaly told her.
"I will need hats everywhere, Thess, it's a principle."
Their father rode in the second sleigh and had not spoken since the city gate.
Eskil Varnhelm rode his own black horse beside Thessaly's sleigh, wrapped to the eyes in grey fur.
He did not talk either.
But when the road turned to ice, he rode on the side where the drop was, and when she shivered, a heavy blanket landed in her lap.
She had not heard him move.
By dusk the wind had come up, and they stopped at a posting inn called the Three Pines.
The innkeeper bowed so low that his apron touched the floor.
"My lord Grand Duke. And the Duchess."
The word landed on Thessaly and stayed.
Duchess.
She had been Lady Thessaly for twenty-two years.
She kept walking so he would not see her face.
The inn's common room was warm and low-ceilinged, with a hearth big enough to stand in.
Nerissa claimed the corner by the fire.
Corvin sat with his back to the room and a mug he did not drink from.
Thessaly sat at the end of a long bench and held her hands out to the flames.
They would not warm.
Her fingers had been white since the Brenn Gate, and she could not feel the ends of them.
A shadow fell across the bench.
Eskil sat down beside her, a careful hand's breadth away.
"Your hands," he said.
"They're fine," she said.
"They are white as candles," he said.
"I'm a southern girl," she said. "We're not built for your climate."
"Give them here," he said.
She hesitated.
Then she remembered the first clause she had made him sign, and she looked up sharply.
He saw her look and almost smiled.
"That was a request," he said. "You may refuse it."
"I may?" she asked.
"It is in the contract. I had it witnessed."
Thessaly laughed, and was surprised at the sound.
She held out her hands.
He took them between both of his, gloveless now, and his palms were hot and rough.
The burn scar across his left hand pressed against her wrist.
He rubbed her fingers slowly, one at a time, until the blood stung back into them.
Neither of them spoke.
Her heartbeat was loud in her ears.
Nerissa, across the room, kept her eyes fixed on the fire with enormous and terrible innocence.
The door crashed open.
Cold air and snow blew in, and with them six riders in white-and-gold cloaks.
Behind them came the Crown Prince, without a hat, his hair wet with snow.
Thessaly pulled her hands out of Eskil's and stood.
"Your Highness," said the innkeeper, who had gone pale.
Lysander did not look at him.
He looked at Thessaly, and she saw something she had never seen in ten years.
He looked afraid.
"Thessaly," Lysander said. "Come back."
"I'm a duchess, Your Highness. I'm going north."
"Come back to the capital. I'll restore your father's seat tonight," he said. "I made a mistake."
Corvin's chair scraped as he rose.
Thessaly did not turn her head.
"You made a public announcement," she said.
"I was wrong in the way I did it," Lysander said.
"You were wrong in the way you meant it," she said.
Eskil had risen without a sound, and now he stood between her and the door, with one hand resting easy on the hilt of his sword.
He said nothing at all.
He did not have to.
The six riders shifted their feet.
Lysander's eyes went from the Grand Duke to Thessaly's hands, still red from the rubbing, and something hardened in his face.
"This is a performance," he said. "You're doing this to make me suffer."
"I'm doing it because the Wolf of Frostmarch offered me a house and you offered me an apology in front of four hundred people."
"I'm offering you a throne," he said.
"You offered it to the other woman first," she said.
For a moment the whole room waited.
Then the Prince drew himself up, white to the lips.
"You will write to me within a year," he said. "You will beg me to let you come home."
Thessaly lifted her chin.
"Count the days, Your Highness," she said.
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