The woman tossed the parchment onto her desk, then rose to her feet, revealing just how heavy with child she was. So the gossips had been correct on that part, though with the way Sir Marcus smiled at her and slid his arms around her, they were wrong thinking the child was why he’d married her.
Duchess Valerian’s large aqua eyes fixed on Sapphire, and Sapphire felt the faintest whisper of magic. The gossips had been right about that, too.
Sir Matthias hugged Lady Brelynn. “How are you feeling, Your Grace?”
“Stuff that your grace nonsense.” Lady Brelynn hugged him back. “And start talking.”
“Lady Brelynn Valerian, this is my wife, Sapphire Northland. Sapphire, Her Grace Lady Brelynn Valerian.”
Sapphire curtsied as low as she could without falling. “Your Grace.”
Lady Brelynn’s eyes narrowed. “So it’s true. You are married, and you didn’t tell anyone.”
“Not that you’d know anything about such things, but there were extenuating circumstances. We just got back from visiting my family and sharing the news with them.”
“What kind of extenuating circumstances?” The duchess folded her arms over her ponderous belly.
“Is it true there was an attack on your family farm?” A woman asked as she stepped from the shadows.
Sapphire pressed a hand to her heart but managed not to squeak in surprise.
“Mara, this is my wife, Sapphire Northland. Sapphire, this is Lady Brelynn’s companion, Mara,” Sir Matthias said.
Mara’s blood-red hair was tied into a thick braid. She’d eschewed a gown for fitted black trousers and a black tunic. The plain scabbard she wore sheathed a sword large enough to cleave a man in two. Mara’s amber cat-like eyes fixed on Sapphire, and a shiver skittered down Sapphire’s spine.
This was no ordinary companion.
“Was there an attack?” Lady Brelynn asked, but worry had softened her tone.
“Mara’s well informed. Yes, there was, and yes, everyone’s okay.”
“What happened?” Sir Marcus asked as he guided his wife into a plump overstuffed chair.
“The Knights of Valor are still trying to figure out why, but five men attacked my family’s farm.”
“Five?” Lady Brelynn glanced up at Sir Marcus.
“Your family’s not that far from Aerius,” Sir Marcus said. “I’ll send a couple extra Knights down there to help.”
“Not sure that’s necessary now that we’re back in Aerius, but it would make the locals happy to know the central church is watching out for them,” Sir Matthias said.
“Consider it done.”
Mara’s cat-like gaze fixed on Sapphire. “A Knight of Valor marries quickly and unexpectedly and is then attacked on his honeymoon. Who’d she anger?”
“It’s a long story,” Sir Matthias answered.
“Is that why you married her?” Mara raised a brow.
Sapphire studied the expensive carpet beneath their feet, but color still crept up her neck and stained her cheeks.
“I’ll send for something to eat, and you can start at the beginning.” Lady Brelynn tugged the bell pull. “And if I like what you say, there’s fresh bread pudding.”
Sir Matthias grinned. “Knights never lie, but it’s tempting for your chef’s bread pudding.”
“Which is how I’ll be certain you have earned the bread pudding.” Lady Brelynn motioned to the seats opposite her.
Matthias sat down and gently pulled Sapphire beside him. He glanced over at Mara. “I heard you threatened Lady Carsons at the Everly ball.”
Sapphire’s eyes widened, though she said nothing. Lady Carsons was a powerful and spiteful woman who was best to avoid. The idea that anyone would challenge her at all, much less openly, seemed impossible.
Until Mara smiled, a cold expression that made the strange woman even more frightening. “I never threaten, but I explained to Lady Carsons that ‘heathen’ Oskelesians poison those that insult them. I explained how long it takes the poison to work and how it’s so torturous most victims are begging for death long before they die.”
“Mara!” Lady Brelynn said.
The companion lifted her shoulders. “Nothing I said was untrue, and she stopped spreading lies about you.”
The way she said the words made Sapphire think the strange woman had delivered such a death more than once.
Yet Sapphire’s grandmother would deserve it. Lady Carsons was an extension of her husband, a useful tool her grandfather deployed as necessary. Sapphire knew very little else about her as Lady Carsons had distanced herself from Julianna and Sapphire, viewing her daughter’s marriage and the resulting child as stains on the family name.
Sir Matthias squeezed Lady Brelynn’s hand. “You’re worth ten Lady Carsons.”
The stupid smile of a lovesick husband tugged on Sir Marcus’s lips, and he linked his fingers with his duchess’s. “That she is.”
A stab of jealousy shot through Sapphire at the Valerian’s easy and genuine affection. Rashalee was relentless, but Sapphire refused to succumb to Her darkness this time. Sir Marcus was a good man who had sacrificed and endured more than she could understand. He deserved the happiness the Twins had given him.
“There is something you should know, especially after your issues with Lady Carsons.” Sir Matthias met Mara’s gaze, then turned to Lady Brelynn. “Lady Carsons is Sapphire’s grandmother.”
Sapphire held her breath and waited for the disparaging words.
Brelynn paused as if she were thinking through a lesson. “You were Sapphire Darrington before you married Matthias. Your mother was Miss Julianna Carsons and your father Captain Gregory Darrington.”
Sapphire folded her hands. “My father was a good man.”
“I never had the chance to meet him, but he sounded like a decent fellow,” Lady Brelynn said.
Sapphire stared down at her hands as she tried to hide her surprise.
Lady Brelynn smiled, but there was no mirth in the expression. “There were a lot of things I didn’t know about Tamryn before coming here. One was how proud people could be of an accident of birth.”
Sapphire knew better than to ask where Lady Brelynn was from, though a society where people didn’t care about lineage was an interesting notion.
“The Dragon Church put forth changes to the inheritance laws that could help mitigate that. King Eli is considering them,” Sir Marcus said.
“You didn’t marry Sapphire to join the Carsons clan.” Mara fixed her amber gaze on Sir Matthias. “Why did you?”
Sir Matthias glanced over at Sapphire, and she nodded. These were Sir Matthias’s friends. He cared about them and trusted them. And her first impression of both Mara and Lady Brelynn warned earning their trust would be difficult enough, but impossible if she didn’t give them the full truth.
If she wanted a chance at forever with Sir Matthias, she needed to be accepted into his world. One where honesty was expected.
So very different than the high society her mother had loved.
Sir Matthias squeezed Sapphire’s hand, then told Sir Marcus and Lady Brelynn everything, including Sapphire’s hunch that her grandfather had killed both of her parents to get her fortune. When that hadn’t worked, Lord Henry Carsons had been trying to get Sapphire committed for insanity at the same time he was trying to marry her off to a man suspected of killing his first wife.