She’s not yet six, and since your youngest were her only playmates, the Porters couldn’t leak any poison into her heart. She’s not even really incestuous fruit-Kij and Keifer had different fathers and mothers, which normally would have made them cousins at most. It would be a shame to shoulder her with her parents’ blame.”
“You’ll raise her like a sister?” Halley asked, obviously surprised.
“I’ve got fourteen youngest sisters under the age of ten; what’s one more?”
“What happens when they marry?” Halley pushed. “How could you expect them to share their husband with her?”
“It will be up to them to decide. After looking at my family records, I suspect that my family started when a group of women banded together and called themselves sisters. We’re not ones to worry about bloodlines. If you’re willing to run the risk, we’d be willing to raise her.”
Ren glanced to Halley, saw her willing, and nodded. “Have someone go now, though, and get her away from the Porters. I don’t want them to have a chance to plant any murderous thoughts in her before we execute them.”
Jerin woke in a strange bed. in a strange room, wearing a strange nightgown. He sat upright, panicked.
Someone had taken off all his clothes to put new ones on him! Who? What else had they done to him?
His head ached; there was a bandage on his head and the flesh underneath felt tender. Snatches of his adventure swam up through his memory, but nothing was complete or sensible. He had been kidnapped, had been on the Destiny, and had been in the river. If he had been on the Destiny, why had he been in the river? Had Kij thrown him overboard? Where was he now?
He threw back the sheets and swung his bare feet out of the bed. A quick check showed his stash pouch was missing, and so was his derringer. There was a wardrobe beside the bed. He opened it to find men’s clothing, good in quality, in his size, and vaguely familiar. He fingered them, then looked about the room again. He knew this place. Relief poured in as he realized where he was. Annaboro. His aunts’ house. His cousin Dail’s room.
The door swung open; almost as if summoned by his name, Dail came in, a slightly younger reflection of Jerin, carrying a load of folded towels. “Oh, good, you’re up!”
“Dail!” Jerin caught his cousin in a hard hug. “Oh, merciful Mothers! I didn’t know where 1 was!”
Dail laughed, patting him on the back. “You’re safe! Mothers brought you home last night, looking like a drowned cat. Eeeew, you still stink like river water. I’ll have to change my sheets before tonight.”
“What happened? How did I get here?”
Dail shrugged, nonchalant. “I don’t know. No one tells me anything. Aunt Erica, Cousin Eldest, and the others showed up on lathered horses yesterday just as a royal messenger did too. There was a big war council, without us men, and then everyone but Lissia and Kaylie and my youngest saddled up on fresh horses and rode out. A few hours before dawn, some of my mothers showed up with you, looking like they’d fished you out of the river. I was told to keep an eye on you since Papa’s busy with the babies and see that you had a bath once you woke up, if you felt up to it.”
“I feel up to it,” Jerin said, while his mind raced. Eldest had written that they were coming. Apparently a messenger from Ren had reached Annaboro at the same time his family did. They had come looking for him, and found him in the river.
His aunts had a bathhouse much the same as his mothers‘. Dail led him down to it. chattering on about meeting Cullen. Jerin’s sisters had stopped on their way home in order to lay plans for their wedding.
With only eight months before his sixteenth birthday. Dail was starting to consider wives. Apparently Cullen thought a Whistler cousin married to his sisters was as good as a Whistler brother.
“It would be a step up. Cullen says they have servants and he’s never had to cook before.” Dail rolled his eyes. “Cullen’s looking forward to cooking-can you imagine? He says having servants do everything is boring. I think once he has to wash diapers for seven babies at once, he’ll be wanting a servant!
You’re so lucky to be marrying into a wealthy family. Here are towels-I’ve got to go help with dinner.
We eat in a hour.”
With that, Dail left him to ponder his missing memories and his future. Would he actually be able to marry Ren and the others? Disturbing memories were starting to rise. Cira holding him close. Cira kissing him. Cira taking off her shirt. Cira lying on top of him, grinding against him. What had happened? Had Cira taken him? If she had, how could he return to his wives?
He bathed in agony over the lost memories, trying to scrub away the feeling of being used and ruined. If he had been ruined, though, he couldn’t return to his wives. He had no way of knowing what diseases Cira might carry; he couldn’t subject them to those risks.
He was toweling his hair dry when Dail came running down the hall.
“Jerin! Your wives are here! Princesses Rennsellaer, Halley, and Odelia! Three of the royal princesses, here!”
His heart sank. From what he could remember, there was little chance that he was still fit to marry. He would have to tell Ren the truth, and worse, tell her in front of a stranger, Halley. He dressed slowly, and went down to the parlor, shaking. He cracked the door and peered inside. Odelia sat in a chair, leaned over her knees, worrying at her thumbnail. Ren absently turned her hat in her hands. Halley, the missing princess, stood looking out the window, her back to the door, the sun in her royal red hair.
Ren noticed the opened door and went still. Soundlessly, she lifted her hand to him, entreating him with her eyes. There was such pain in them that Jerin couldn’t deny her. He slipped quietly inside, for it seemed making a sound would trigger words, and with words, he would have to confess, and it would all come to an end.
He clung to her, reveling in her softness one last time.
“I’m so sorry,” Ren whispered finally. “I never wanted for you to be a target.”
So it ends. “I’m the one that’s sorry, Ren. I don’t think I’m clean anymore. I think I slept with another woman. She helped me get away from the river rats, and we were alone in a barn together-I-I-don’t remember what happened. I’m so sorry. I failed you.”
“If that was your idea of sleeping with a woman,” a familiar alto voice drawled, “then we’re going to have problems coming up with babies.”
He jerked out of Ren’s arms to stare at the familiar scarred face, surrounded by a nimbus of flame red hair. “Cira?”
“Halley, actually.” She grinned as she came to join Ren and him. “Your wife. Cira was just a name I used to get close to those river trash, so I could get my pretty new husband back.”
Jerin could only stare as the events of the last few days turned themselves onto their heads. All at once he recognized the Moorland stamp on Cira’s-Halley’s- features; no one had ever told him that Halley alone took after their father.
“Personally, I would hit her,” Odelia said, “but then I’m not a boy.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Jerin asked.
Halley spread her hands. “I tried at first, but you didn’t believe anything I said. Later, I thought you knew. I guess, looking back, Kij and the others never did actually name me in front of you.”
“You’ve done nothing but make us proud of you,” Ren said quietly, clasping his hand. “You’ve been brave, clever, and selfless.”
“Kij would have won the day without you.” Odelia covered Ren’s hand with her own.
“We love you.” Halley cupped his hand and her sisters’ hands between her two. “And we’re not going to lose you again.”
Chapter 16
Ren was jolted awake by someone leaping onto her bed. All annoyance vanished as Jerin squirmed into her arms.
“Get up! Get up!” He left her breathless with kisses between his demands. “Their ship is at the landing!
They’re here!”
“I’m awake!” She managed another kiss before he slipped away. He dashed across the room to peer out her window, kneeling on the window seat.
