Aleksey's Kingdom (A Royal Affair #2)(22)

He shook his head, but I would not let him turn from me. Eventually he said with some genuine distress, “Why is the world like this, Niko? We came here and said this was my kingdom and that my law applied here, but nothing has changed. We still have to pretend that we are not what we are to each other. I see you so upset at dinner, and I want to hold you and ask you what is wrong, as I would be able to if you were my wife. We ride side by side all day, and I want them to think what a beautiful couple we are and aren’t I lucky to have you, and other such nonsense that people think about two people who are in love. But none of that is for us, is it? We hide and lie and pretend and it is all shit!”

He shouted this last, and I wondered what the others would think if they overheard the sudden exclamation of shit coming from our tent. I hoped they’d blame Faelan.

I hushed him as best I could. I agreed with him, so what could I say? Why could we not be in love openly? I did not know. Being together had almost killed us, yet here we were, still in love. I pressed my lips to his ear. “If the world wants us to be secret and sly, then let us be so. How quiet can you be?”

He actually chuckled, which pleased me, as I hated to see him upset about something he could not change. Aleksey’s sense of entitlement often led him into furies when he encountered things that would not bend to his will. He very deliberately turned onto his belly and lowered his own breeches. An invitation, if ever I had one. He chuckled again and murmured, “Faelan says he will fart to cover us if we make too much noise.”

I began to laugh and could not stop. I think my previous sadness and shock were still affecting me. He put a hand over my mouth, but I had flagged somewhat now and would make some considerable rustling to harden enough to enter him. He solved this problem by pushing me over, still clamping his hand over my mouth, and taking me very thoroughly and impressively silently, given we were in such a small tent. Fortunately, therefore, Faelan’s assistance was not required.





Chapter Five


WE WOKE to another perfect autumn day, with skies so blue that the severe frost lying upon the ground was gone, even beneath the canopy of trees, before we had packed up and set off once more.

Aleksey was giving me penetrating looks as we rode side by side, which I was doing my best to ignore. I knew what he was thinking: he had seen a side of me he did not often see, and it always pleased him whenever this pathetic, driveling creature appeared. For me to have told him so much about my past and to have actually confessed to feeling something and thereby admit to having feelings at all was to him a delightful treat. I wanted to go back to erase the memory of the night from my mind—even the good parts, for I had enough pleasant recollections of Aleksey inside me to surrender just this one time. But it was not to be. Aleksey was not going to let me forget. I forestalled him by declaring in a low voice, “I am not going to discuss this further. Stop it.”

“But—”

“No.”

“I think I would make a very good doctor, do you not agree? Not one of the body, because I cannot abide sick people, as you know, but a healer of the mind. What do you think? I cured you aboard the ship leaving Saxefalia, did I not? And I am working well toward alleviating this new affliction. I could set up in town and be greatly admired for my healing skills upon the mad and sad.”

I pursed my lips, thinking about all this. There was much I could have said. I limited myself to commenting, “Your cures are unusual, though. I think some would prefer being sad to being… sodomized… do you not think?”

“Nikolai!” He glanced behind, but as on the previous day, we were well out of earshot of our fellow travelers. “I meant my listening skill. I listen very well.”

I must have made a small choked sound, and he proved the lie of his last declaration most satisfactorily by completely ignoring me as he ignored most everything else I said, except when I was uncharacteristically weak and spewed forth a pile of womanish woe as I had the previous night. He sighed and looked up. “Is it not a beautiful day? Are we not lucky to be here doing this and not in—I don’t know—some stuffy council room, deciding taxes or something? Poor Stephen. I did not do him a loving service by leaving him to all that.”

This was Aleksey actually admitting wouldn’t this have been a marvelous day for a joust, or a ride out with his army for some training practice, or for the court to go hunting, all resplendent in their beautiful clothes—had he still been king, of course.

“Would you go back, if you could?”

“What?” Aleksey did not like it when I turned the tables and became him, asking questions that cut to the heart of the matter. It was not my way. “We cannot go back.”

“That is not an answer. I asked you if you would—if we could.”

“But that is not fair. You might as well ask me if I would like to fly. I would be stupid if I said yes, for it cannot happen.”

“So you would—return.”

“No! Stephen is king. That would be terribly awkward.”

“So, only good manners prevent you?”

He looked directly at me, and I could see real anger in his face, which surprised me. “Do excuse me, I am going to ride with someone else.” And with that, he swung Boudica around and cantered back the way we had come.

When we stopped for lunch, Aleksey sat with the soldiers and the two trappers. He had that rare ability to make himself very popular with everyone. In my experience, soldiers always resented officers, for they always thought officers’ superior rank ill earned and that if the people in charge of armies had any sense they would be running everything. Aleksey’s soldiers, however, had adored him. He was so far above them, of course, that they would not look at him and say, as they did with the other officers, that they should be where he was. He was their prince, their general, their king. But every night on our long march to Saxefalia, we did not eat in the officers’ mess tent until he had made sure the soldiers had been fed. He did not come to bed until he had done the rounds of every soldier encampment from the privates to the warrant officers and spoken with them, listened to them, and in many cases shared a drink and played a hand or two of cards with them. He knew most of their names and much of their gossip. And, of course, they had all seen how they would be treated if they were injured—they would be looked after and included still as part of his army, an impractical but very characteristic innovation he had made when he became a general.