The Wager
1664 Words
Jesse and the others excuse my house staff for the evening on my behalf. The cook seems happy to go, but Mariana insists she’ll need to help with the post-dinner cleanup. Symone assures her she’ll take care of it, and, reluctantly, Mariana clears out.
“Let me guess,” I say grumpily as we take our seats at the table. “If one of the men had offered to help clean up, she would have never left?”
Ollie and Briggs exchange a confused look; Jesse seems a bit more sympathetic. “It’s the way things are here,” he tells me gently.
My frown deepens, but I don’t bother lingering on it. “Okay. What’s the new problem?”
“I took a stroll through the sky after we got back,” Ollie tells me. He’s referring to his falcon form, I infer. “To see how far out Lyons and the gang are. They’re still on track to return tomorrow, but…”
“They stopped in Twin Lakes,” Jesse tells me. “It’s on the outskirts of Beatton. There’s a family there with Old Vitalian roots. I think Lyons is going to bring one of them back here to get the truth out of you.”
I consider this as I chew the surprisingly delicious quail the cook prepared for us. “That’s not so bad, is it? I just need to make sure I have my story straight… and that it’s convincing.”
“That’s not all,” says Symone, sounding rather pleased with herself. “There’s a bachelor in the family—the son of the house. Going off to war soon, but likely seeking a wife before he leaves.”
“We think Lyons will bring him here,” Briggs explains to me. “And, if he determines that your husband is dead, we think Lyons will force a marriage.”
I nearly choke on the piece of quail I’m chewing, then quickly reach for some wine to wash it down with. “I told you—that’s not happening. Can’t I just tell the guy my husband is still alive?”
“If you do, the chances of them back-checking your story triple, if not more,” Jesse tells me grimly. “He’d send Ollie or another of the birds to deliver a message to Bridgeport seeking out your husband, and from there, he’d learn that you’re lying.”
“Couldn’t he do that anyway?”
“He could, but it’s much less likely if you come forth saying your husband is dead,” says Briggs. “If that’s the case, you’re more his property than Bridgeport’s, anyway.”
His use of the word property makes me feel queasy.
“Okay.” I clear my throat. “So I tell him my husband died a few days ago, and that I’m still in mourning. Surely there’s some, I don’t know, statute of limitations on how soon you can force a woman to remarry here?”
“A few months, maybe,” says Briggs. “Anything past a year will be considered… well, it wouldn’t be smart.”
“So, what? They’d take the cottage away? I’d have to find my own place?” I could handle that, couldn’t I?
“You wouldn’t be able to stay here,” Symone tells me. “You wouldn’t be able to stay anywhere in Hammerlocke, really, with your story out. You’d be ostracized and shunned from the community.”
Jesus. Maybe I should want to go home.
My mind flashes again to that word—Faevara. If there’s even a chance that I really am meant to change this world, can I let myself marry some, random soldier?
“What if I was a soldier?” I ask Symone. “Like you?”
She snorts. “Please.”
“I’m serious! I’m decent with hand-to-hand combat, and I’ve taken enough fencing lessons to get by. I’d outride any one of you, and—”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” interrupts Briggs, sounding amused. “Out-horseback ride?”
I raise an eyebrow. “You suggesting you could take me, old man?”
Jesse, Symone, and Ollie burst out laughing at that, but Briggs holds my gaze, looking surprisingly threatened. “They call me the greatest rider in all of Beatton.”
“Well, they call me the greatest rider in all of New York. And the population there is 8.5 mil.”
“8.5 million?” Ollie gasps. “People?”
“She did outrun me and a bear yesterday,” Jesse recalls, giving me a small grin. “And jumped her way from one world to another.”
“Let’s set something up,” I say eagerly. “A race—a jump course—whatever you want, Briggs. I can do it all.”
“What does this have to do with you joining the army?” grumbles Symone.
“She’s not joining the army,” Jesse says sharply, grin fading. “It wouldn’t be allowed, even if—”
“Me against Briggs,” I interrupt. “If I win, you guys help train me and convince Lyons to let me join his forces. If Briggs wins, I’ll marry the damn bachelor.”
A thick, heavy silence fills the room as everyone takes in the seriousness of my wager.
“Fine with me,” Briggs finally says. “Can’t promise we’d ever succeed in turning you into a soldier, but it won’t come to that, anyway.”
“Fine with me, too,” Ollie says cheerfully. “You’ve got more muscles than I do, Mistress. I’m sure you’re a better soldier than most of the guys in our unit.”
“It’s a juvenile wager,” mutters Symone. “But the competition could be fun.”
I glance at Jesse—the only one who hasn’t spoken. He’s watching me as intently as he always does, though his expression is hard to read.
“You shouldn’t want to be a soldier,” he says softly. “It’s not a good life for anyone, Echo.”
I hold his gaze, unflinching. “And what should I want, Jesse? To marry a stranger? To live a lie?” My unspoken words speak the loudest—screaming the reminder at him of what I might be—of what I might do for this world. Faevara.
For several, intense seconds, he says nothing. He stares so hard into my eyes, they almost start to burn.
Finally, he looks away from me. “Fine.”
- - - - -
I find it increasingly hard to ignore the feelings that Jesse stirs inside me as I sit across the table from him, finishing my meal. Why was he so intent on keeping me from making the deal? Why is he so intent on getting to know me, yet equally intent on getting me, well… married to someone else?
By the time dinner’s over and everyone files toward the door, I decide that I can’t just let him leave without confronting this. It’s not that I want to jump his bones, or even to kiss him; my head and my heart are still all a mess of broken parts from Hunter, and it’s only been a day and a half since I even met Jesse.
But the thought of waiting until tomorrow evening to see him again without having unpacked any of these feelings is too much to bear. I can’t sit around this stuffy cottage with only Mariana and my cook for company, wondering who Jesse is, what he wants, and what he thinks about when he looks at me like…
Well, like he’s looking at me right now.
“Can…” I bite my lip. “Can we have a minute? Alone?”
He glances at the others, who clearly disapprove of the request; apparently unmarried men and women aren’t supposed to be alone together in a house in this world. But they reluctantly nod and step out through the front door to give us the space I asked for, anyway.
Jesse seems to sense the thoughts rushing through my head without my having to say them. “Echo,” he says softly, reaching out to take my hand. “I’m just trying to keep you safe.”
Again, I don’t flinch. Is it possible that my body is learning to trust him this quickly?
Who am I kidding? All of me is learning to trust him this quickly. For better or for worse.
“I’m stronger than you think I am,” I tell him, weaving my fingers into his. God, I love the feeling of his fingers. “I can handle war. I can handle responsibility. I can handle pain. What I can’t handle is losing my freedom.”
He lifts his free hand up toward my face, then uses it to tuck my stray hair behind my cheek. His eyes follow the strand of hair as he does so, then linger there—taking in my appearance for the second time tonight.
“Your hair feels like silk,” he says softly. “And it shines like gold.”
I’ve never much cared for my hair. It’s somewhere between the golden-blond shade of hay and the reddish-brown shade of copper. It’s glossy, to be sure—long and wavy, like a ribbon. But I always found it a bit plain.
I take a step toward him—so close, I can feel his breath on my skin. I lock the fingers of my free hand into the notches on his waistcoat, then gently tug him toward me to close the remaining distance between us.
“You can’t say things like that to me,” I murmur softly to him, “and then tell me to marry some other guy.”
A long, soft groan sounds from somewhere deep inside him, and then, well…
He kisses me.
- Writer
