“Our,”Alys interjected.
“Yes, our regrets,” Piers amended. Was it ‘our’ now? Piers had never been an ‘our’ before.
The agent looked to Alys briefly and his eyes narrowed. “Likely you will be able to make your regrets personally.” He bowed slightly. “Good day, my lord. My lady.” He turned and was off on swift, clicking feet.
“A damned shame,” Piers murmured.
“Heartbreaking,” Alys agreed. “But I wonder what he meant when he said we’d be able to make our own regrets? He was looking at me when he said it.”
“I suspect Lord Griffin carries a heavy responsibility for Edward,” Piers guessed. “My thought is that ‘twill be none other than Julian Griffin whom he sends after Fallstowe.”
“Surely it won’t be soon—the man’s just lost his wife.”
Piers shrugged because he had no answer for her. Then turned to look down at Alys. In that instant, Julian Griffin and his misfortune were forgotten, as was the fate of Alys’s childhood home. He was faced with a woman he had nearly lost himself. His own wife now, was she? Was she, truly?
She looked up at him. And then she smiled.
“I told you we were married.”
Piers didn’t know what to do, how to react. He wanted to grab her, kiss her, beg her to come home to Gillwick with him and Ira. But although her smile was sweet and relieved, he didn’t know how she felt about their hasty and very legal marriage that had just taken place.
“I’m certain there is still time to have it retracted if you wish,” Piers said, more gruffly than he’d intended.
Alys’s brows lowered and she drew her head back. Then her fist. She dealt him a blow in the soft spot between his left breast and shoulder, and although it barely rocked Piers, he knew she’d intended for it to hurt him.
“I can’t believe you would even suggest that!” she said. And then she burst into tears, her hands flying up to cover her face.
Piers cursed softly and gathered Alys into his arms, as he’d wanted to do from the moment she’d stormed the king’s court for him.
“Alys, Alys—forgive me. I am a fool, true,” he murmured into her hair. Piers took a deep breath and, for the first time in his life, spoke unabashedly from his heart. “I love you so, my little wife. Please, please say that you will come home with me to Gillwick, and live with me forever.”
She slowed her sobs with sniffling breaths and after several moments, looked up at him, wiping at her cheeks. Piers raised a hand and brushed at a rogue tear she’d missed near her chin.
“Will you?” he asked, pressed. He cared not that she might refuse him now. He was laying himself open to her, his heart, his home, everything he was and everything he owned. He would never be as wealthy as her family. Gillwick would never be as grand as Fallstowe.
But she was no child, and so she already knew this. Perhaps she had realized it long before Piers had ever thought to.
“I told you once that I would go with you to the ends of the earth,” Alys said solemnly. “That was my vow, and I meant it. I am so proud to be Lady Mallory, Piers. Your wife. So much prouder than I ever was to be just Alys Foxe.”
Piers huffed a laugh. She was remarkable. “You were never ‘just’ Alys Foxe,” he said, smoothing back her hair from her face with his palm.
He released her suddenly from his embrace and grasped her left hand. He brought out the carnelian signet ring once more, and slid it onto Alys’s longest finger. It fit perfectly. He heard her soft cry, and Piers raised her hand tohis lips and placed a kiss atop the carved M, much as he had done with the king’s royal crest.
“Thank you,” Alys said softly, her eyes shining. She squeezed his fingers. “But Piers—”
“Shh,” he said with a smile, and then produced the little string of wooden beads and tied them once more onto Alys’s right wrist.
“Now I truly feel that we are married … again.” She smiled up at him as he took her into his arms and kissed her mouth lightly.
“Tell me,” he asked, pulling her more closely into him, “what outrageous excuse were you forced to concoct that convinced Sybilla to allow you to return?”
Alys shook her head and ran her hand up the fine velvet of the stolen tunic she had purchased for him. “No outrageous excuse. But let us talk about it somewhere else, Piers. The air here is …”
“Tainted, yes,” Piers agreed, thinking of the ghastly culmination of Judith Angwedd’s and Bevan’s fates. He pulled the key from his belt and held it before her. “Allow me to introduce you to the luxuries of a royal apartment, my lady wife.” He smiled, thinking it odd that it was he who had spent the night in the king’s home before his privileged spouse.
Alys’s eyes sparkled. “Ooh! Is the bed as soft as I imagine it will be?”
Piers chuckled and raised his eyes to the ceiling for an instant, his face flushing. “We will find out together, my love. I spent the night on the floor, too fearful of mussing the bedclothes.”
