His arms gave me another squeeze and he, too, kept whispering. “Really, my wee Finnie. These past months with you, I have thought there is nothing more beautiful than my wife. Now, I know this is wrong. There is. And that is my wife carrying our child, a child which will herald the beginning of our family.”
Family.
Oh yeah. Family.
I liked that.
I pressed my lips together to bite back the sting of tears in my eyes and then I pressed my cheek to his chest and my body to his. When I did, Frey held me closer and I felt his jaw against the top of my knit cap.
“Love you, baby,” I said against his chest, got another squeeze of his arms and he replied, “And I you, my Finnie.”
I pulled in a breath and tipped my head back again to look at him.
Then I asked haltingly, “Do you think, um… that Mother and Father will, uh… be happy about this too?”
He smiled that gorgeous smile again, dipped his head to touch his lips to my nose and then pulled back an inch before he answered, “Just today Aurora asked how we were getting on with creating the heir to the throne. She awaits good news and tomorrow, we will delay our departure so we can have a celebratory breakfast with them before we go.” He gave me another squeeze as I felt my brows draw together and he finished, “She and Atticus will be delighted.”
Okay, the good news about that was, I was right. Atticus and Aurora were also obviously already on board with me taking their daughter’s place.
The bad-ish news was that I didn’t think Frey and I had been trying to create the heir to the throne, not yet. But his words would indicate he did.
Or maybe just Aurora did.
I had no opportunity to think on this as Frey gave me another squeeze and his head dipped, his lips touched mine then slid down my cheek to my ear where he murmured, “It is now time to get my wife and child home and warm. I could stand in the glow of the adela and the brighter glow of this news for a decade, my wee one, but I must take care of my family.”
My belly somersaulted again and I twisted my neck to look at him and when I caught his eyes, I smiled.
Then I said, “Living in Lunwyn, he or she is going to have to get used to the cold, husband.”
To which Frey returned, “As they’ll have to get used to their parents’ loving care, wife.”
Okay, there it was again, another belly somersault and I couldn’t stop the huge smile that spread on my face.
When Frey saw it, his hand cupped the back of my head again and he pressed my face in his throat and his other arm held tight for a moment before he let me go, took my hand and walked me the three feet to Tyr.
I was up on Tyr, Frey behind me and wheeling his steed around when I asked dreamily, “I wonder if she’ll be an adventurer like her Mom and Dad.”
Frey moved us into the forest, this time much slower, the mist having disappeared and I watched the moonlight glint on the snow as I listened to him chuckle before he muttered, “If so, gods help me.”
I giggled because he was right about that. Then I giggled again just because. Then Frey leaned me into Tyr’s neck, touched his heels to Tyr’s flanks, we shot forward and I giggled again as I watched the trees stream by and felt Frey’s command of his beast as they did, the power of the animal under us, the rider and his mount one and I experienced a late night, carnival-style ride that was better than any I’d had before.
And although I eventually stopped giggling, I never stopped smiling.
Not once… all the way home.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Meddling
One week later…
I had a problem.
We were at Frey’s lodge in Kellshorn or, more accurately, outside the large mountain town that catered to vacationing skiers and fishermen who came to fish at the vast lake that Frey’s lodge and the town skirted.
My girls hadn’t been exactly right. The lodge wasn’t fit for a queen as it was no Winter Palace and definitely no Rimee Keep.
But that didn’t mean it wasn’t cool-as-shit.
First of all, it skirted a vast lake and that would be a spectacular vast lake.
Secondly, the lodge was gorgeous. It was made of blond wood and stone, it had a lower level built into the swell of a hill and two upper levels that had wraparound balconies, the lower one wider, all of them with wooden railings made of flat planks that had been stamped through along their lengths with the shape of a pine tree.
Nothing inside or outside of the lodge was graceful, refined or ornate as with the Palace and the Keep. This was not a place for stately affairs or official meetings. This was a place to relax, unwind and be surrounded by nature in all its immense beauty. It was comfy, cozy, welcoming and warm. There were lots of windows, lots of open spaces, lots of beautiful, gleaming wood, lots of gorgeous stone, lots of furniture that invited you to sink into it and lots of fires that seemed to keep every corner warm.
There were also lots of bedrooms which was lucky because all four of my girls came with me.
This meant the journey included sleighs which made that journey longer (two days rather than the one Frey told me it would have been if we were able to take the more direct route). As we travelled, Frey’s men rode around the two sleighs packed with his, my and the girls’ trunks and, for the first time since I arrived in that world, I rode in a sleigh with Esther and Bess (the first day) and Jocelyn and Alyssa (the second) because Frey didn’t want me on Caspia.
This was my problem.
I was pregnant and Frey, as early signs were indicating, was going to be one of those ultra-careful, concerned, not exactly hovering but nevertheless protective expectant fathers.
Case in point, Frey had put his foot down that, considering my condition, I would not be continuing my lessons on Caspia and he’d also called a halt to knife work with Lund.
I gave in on quitting working with Gun and Caspia. Frey was ecstatic I was pregnant and it had to be said (after the initial shock) that I was ecstatic too therefore it would not do for me to take a fall off Caspia and harm myself or our child.
And, incidentally, when we told Aurora and Atticus, they were both (even Aurora) beside themselves with glee.
In other words, all was well in my world and we didn’t need me to do anything stupid to change that.
But the knife work wasn’t dangerous. Lund knew what he was doing, he never got close to hurting me and we’d been working together for so long, I knew he wouldn’t.
And anyway, all that running around, lunging, twirling and squatting would be a good way to keep fit while pregnant.
Frey, however, did not see it this way and also thought I was a little crazy for wishing to keep fit during my pregnancy, stating, “Part of the beauty of a woman with child is her curves, wife, and you’ll not deprive me of the ones I bestowed on you by ‘keeping fit’.”
Yes, this was what he said.
Further, Frey had allowed me to continue with my bow and arrow but only target practice, not “skulking” (his word) through the woods aiming at human beings.
We’d argued about all of this, our first argument in so long, I didn’t remember when we had our last.
I was pregnant, not invalid and this I shared with my husband.
I was not going to be on a horse, working with knives or skulking through cold woods and this my husband shared with me.
My problem was, to practice with Lund and skulk with Annar, I needed his men and they listened to Frey and not me.
