Wildest Dreams (Fantasyland #1)(27)

Hmm. Interesting.

“Was your errand successfully run?” I queried.

“Yes.”

Not informative but at least an answer.

“Um… how many men do you have?”

“Many.”

Again not informative but at least an answer.

“Are we talking ‘many’ as in ‘more than ten’ or ‘many’ as in ‘more than five hundred’?” I attempted to clarify.

“Somewhere in between,” Frey clearly didn’t feel like clarifying.

I was not deterred

“So, are you often at sea?”

“Yes.”

“Are you going back soon?”

I asked this because I wanted to go with him when he went though I wasn’t going to tell him that then. I just wanted to know how much time I had to convince him to take me.

He didn’t know this and thus read my question wrong. I knew this not only from his next words but an arm that got very tight at my belly.

“I’m just home, wife, and you wish to be rid of me?”

“That’s not what I meant,” I kinda semi-wheezed, he heard it and his arm relaxed.

“If not, then tell me what you meant,” he ordered and I knew I couldn’t say I wanted to go with him, not yet.

So I said softly, “I’m just trying to get to know you, Frey. You aren’t a font of information, telling me your favorite color and pouring forth your heartfelt desires. I didn’t mean anything except to ask about you.”

“I don’t have a favorite color,” he replied, “and my desires, at the moment, though I would not describe them as heartfelt, but felt somewhere else, all revolve around what I shall do when I first bed my new wife. Would you like to talk about that?”

Ho boy.

“Um…” I swallowed, “no.”

He shifted then muttered over my head, “I did not think so.”

Okay, so, that went well. Kind of. I learned a few things about my husband. Since I did, I decided that I could take a break and stop talking to Frey.

We made it into town and I refused to think about the fact that the last time I was here I was carted out of a pub by my just returned from sea husband. Instead, I acted business as usual, smiling, waving and calling out greetings to people I knew. Luckily, they did the same (with glances at Frey, of course, who did not call out greetings, wave and, I couldn’t see him, but I was pretty certain he did not smile) and he stopped us outside the market.

He dismounted then, with hands at my waist, I came down too.

Then he did something sweet, something unexpected, something I didn’t think he had in him even after stoking the fire and saying he liked my pancakes.

His big hand enveloped mine and he walked me to the market while holding my hand.

Shit. I liked that. That was nice.

Hmm.

We walked in and I called out to Maria, “Hi Maria! It’s Finnie! I’ve come to get some groceries!”

She was in the back room and yelled in return, “Greetings, Princess Finnie! I’ll be out in two moments. We’ve had some green beans come in!”

Freaking cool!

Fresh veg, I had also learned in Lunwyn, was to be treasured.

Green beans just got jotted on the menu.

“I want some of those!” I yelled.

“They’re yours!” she yelled back.

“This pleases me,” Frey muttered and I stopped wandering through the store shouting and looked up at him.

“What?”

He was looking toward the back room but at my question, his chin dipped down and his active, assessing and, indeed, pleased-looking brown-green eyes came to me.

“You have your mother’s grace, something I never noticed before. But you do not have her manner. She is refined but cold. You…” he looked to the back room then at me, “are not.”

I wasn’t certain but I thought that was nice.

“Thanks,” I whispered, kinda embarrassed.

He tugged me through the store, continuing to mutter, “You can teach this to our daughters, if we have them.”

Oh shit.

Another item for the grocery list: see if they had a condom section (though I held no high hopes for that). And another topic for discussion at dinner: birth control (though I held no high hopes for that either).

Shit.

Frey let my hand go and I started to pile stuff in my basket making a mental note of what we needed to get at the butcher and the baker.

Unfortunately while I did this, Frey felt talkative and with what he felt like talking about, I decided I preferred him taciturn.

“It is well-known your father, not having a son, did all the things with you that he would do with his son. He taught you archery, swordplay and you went hunting with him from when you were wee. Our daughters will not do these things.”

I clenched my teeth after his declaration, not wanting to think of “our daughters” which was something I hoped we didn’t create while I was on my adventure.

I grabbed a jug of golden syrup and decided to whisper, “Okay.”

“It is also well-known that he kept your mother and you close to his side during all his travels and business, by land and by sea. This, I will consider doing.”

I looked up at him and froze.

I did this because, first, my Dad in this world sounded a lot like my Dad in my world. He liked me close and he never went anywhere without Mom and, most of the time, me. I had tutors when I was young and I was only not with them when they died because we’d been around the world and back again so many times, they decided I needed to have some normalcy in my life and make some friends and they’d enrolled me in boarding school. Second, I did this because I was super happy he was already considering taking me with him.