She always comes after me during the games. She knows that I won’t strike her, so she takes advantage.
Laera smiled again. “That isn’t why she does it.”
“Oh? Why, then?”
Laera chuckled. “You mean you don’t know?”
He frowned and shook his head. “No. What other reason could there be?”
“She is in love with you.”
“What? Ariel? Oh, that’s absurd!”
“It’s true, you know.”
“But she’s just a child!”
“a child on the verge of becoming a young woman,” Laera said. “In many ways, a girl of twelve is more mature than a boy of the same age.
She is certainly old enough to feel romantic inclinations.
And among the peasantry, it is not at all uncommon for girls to marry at her age and start having children soon afterward-“
“Well, among the common folk, marrying young is often a necessity,” said Aedan. “They are poor and need more children to help them work the fields.
Besides, they age quickly from their toil. It is hardly the same sort of thing. I am much too old for Ariel.”
“I was only a year older than Ariel is now when I was promised to Lord Arwyn, and he is more than twice my age,” said Laera.
“That is hardly the same thing,” Aedan replied.
“You are of the royal house, and your betrothal was arranged to cement a political alliance. Besides, you did not marry at thirteen. You were merely promised. You shall be a grown woman when you take your wedding vows-“
“I am already a grown woman, as you have surely noticed,” she replied with a mocking little smile.
Aedan flushed with embarrassment and silently - She had caught him staring, after all.
cursed himself
“it will not be long before Ariel grows into a woman, too,’ Laera continued. “And there is much less of an age difference between the two of you than there is between Lord Arwyn and myself. in only a few years, she will not seem too young for you.” She sighed and looked off into the distance. “Whereas Lord Arwyn …. She sighed again. ‘I think I understand now how my mother must have felt when she was promised to my father.” “I was told that women find Lord Arwyn handsome,” Aedan said.
Laera shrugged. -Perhaps, if they like that brutish sort. But he seems very coarse to me. He’s like a great big bear, with those large eyebrows and that great, thick, bushy beard. I’ll bet he’s hairy all over.”
She grimaced with distaste. “The thought of him lying on top of me makes me shudder.”
Aedan was dumbstruck at her remarks. He would never have imagined that a woman could talk that way, especially a princess of the royal house.
He could not think how to respond.
“Do I shock you?” she asked, seeing his dismayed expression.
“I … uh … well … I have never heard women speak of such things before,” he said, feeling flustered.
She cocked her head, curiously. “You think we are so very different?
You think that only men think about such things? Would you wish to lie with a woman whom you found repulsive?”
“We, uh … we really should not be speaking of such matters,” he said awkwardly.
“Why not?”
“It is … well, it … it is simply not proper!” he said with exasperation.
“Oh, I see,” she said. “And you, Aedan, are so very proper in all things. I suppose that is why you have been stealing glances at my bosom every time you look at me before you so quickly and properly avert your gaze.”
Aedan gasped and blushed deep crimson. “I never did any such thing!”
“Liar,” she said, meeting his gaze.
“I really should be going,” he said, and turned to leave, but she grasped him firmly by the arm.
“I did not dismiss you.”
He moistened his lips, took a deep breath, and turned back to face her.
“Forgive me, Your Highness.
Have I your leave to go?”
“No, you do not,” she said. She cocked her head and raised her eyebrows- ‘So, you wanted to look?
well, then … look.”
She stood back from him and spread her arms out slightly from her sides.
The lightning flashed overhead and, an instant later, was followed by a sharp crack of thunder. The wind picked up, blowing in off the sea, and it blew her nightgown back, pressing it close against her skin and outlining her figure clearly. As she turned slowly for his benefit, the lightning flashed again, the thunder boomed, and it began to rain, pelting down hard and fast. In a moment, they were both drenched, and as Laera’s nightgown became soaked, it clung wetly to her skin, revealing everything. She might as well have been standing before him naked.
His breathing quickened. She stood there, facing against him now, her long, dark hair plastered to her forehead and the sides of her face, and he could see the goose bumps on her flesh and the way her nipples stood out. He was unable to look away. She was breathing heavily, and her lips were parted slightly, glistening as the rain ran down her face, like tear tracks. She licked at the moisture, holding him immobile with her intense gaze.
“I shall be forced to marry a man I do not love,” she said as she approached him. “A man I do not want. That is my duty as a princess of the royal
house. But is it so very wrong of me to have … just once … a man I can desire?”
She stood very close, looking up at him as the rain poured down upon them, and Aedan trembled, though it was not from the chill.
