“The one about why you would want to be with me?” Maybe Lark should let it be, just accept the blessing, no matter how fleeting it might be. But she had never been one to engage in casual dalliances. When she gave her heart to someone, it was all the way. She just needed to know what kind of ride she was in for. Azaleen’s arm snaked around her, pulling her nearer.
“Because …” she began, snuggling close. “I’ve never met anyone like you before. You make me feel safe—not just from physical harm. There’s a rough and tumble, take on the world Lark, and a warm, vulnerable, teddy bear Lark. When I’m with you, it’s like I don’t have to perform constantly. I can put aside the queen and just be me. Outside my home, where it’s just Mama and the boys, I’d almost forgotten what it feels like to be Azaleen. Sabine keeps telling me I need to have someone in my life for balance, for joy, for a shoulder, a support. I don’t know. That’s probably way too much information. Heaven forbid I reveal anything personal.”
Lark cupped Azaleen’s cheek, met her eyes, seeing a tumult. Leaning in, she captured her lips, sending every ounce of affirmation she could into the kiss. Azaleen melted into it, opening, relinquishing, reclaiming something long lost. Her response thrilled Lark more than she could have imagined. Here she was, little Lark Sutter, giving Queen Azaleen Frost exactly what she needed, when she needed it most. She didn’t require promises and platitudes. This was enough.
“You’re safe with me, Azaleen,” Lark cooed, reveling in her touch, her taste, her sweet smell. “Relax and be a woman for a while. And when the world needs the queen, I won’t make demands. Just please, always be yourself with me.”
Azaleen kissed her again, hungry for the touch she’d long denied herself. Pain flared; Lark grimaced.
Backing away, alarm on her face, Azaleen gasped. “I’m so sorry! I forgot for an instant.”
“Oh, don’t apologize,” Lark replied as she readjusted her position. “I want it all—believe me! It’s just these pesky bullet holes.” Shifting again, she laid a hand on her hip. “This one in the gluteus maximus is the worst, though, ‘cause I have to sit on it.”
“No, you don’t.” Azaleen pushed up, moved pillows around. “Lie down. You can roll on your good side, or I’ll get another pillow for your hip. I let myself get distracted.”
Lark stretched out on the padded bench, Azaleen arranging a pillow under her head. She flashed an incorrigible grin. “I like it when you get distracted—especially when I’m doing the distracting. But by the time we get home, my stitches will be out, and I should be in much better shape, fully recovered.”
Azaleen pursed her lips, narrowed her brows. “You had emergency surgery for a pierced lung. I don’t think fully recovered is an accurate prediction.”
Quirking her brows, Lark quipped, “Recovered enough,” and grinned.
Azaleen’s laugh warmed her soul. After pulling up a blanket, the queen edged onto the bench beside her. “If that’s what you want, a lot of rest is required between now and then.”
She began to sing. “Leaves on the wind, not knowin’ where or when, they’ll come to rest again. Hearts on the sea, never knowin’ when they’ll be, swept to the shore again.”
Lark gazed at her in wonder, home tugging at her soul. “Hey, you know the song.”
“Of course, I do.” Azaleen’s smile was the most beautiful thing in the world. “My mother used to sing me to sleep with that song.”
“Mine too,” Lark recalled fondly. “I saw your mother at the festival. You’re so lucky to have her with you. Mine died a long time ago. But I had Gramma, so it’s OK.”
Azaleen took her hand, fingers threading through, and kissed it. “I’m sorry you lost your mother. In a way, I lost mine too. I don’t ever talk about it, but I think I need to share the story with someone.” She went on to pour her heart out to Lark, what a devastating blow losing Thalen had been, shifting focus from him to her as heir, then Edric and Aren’s deaths so close together. “The doctors said it’s Alzheimer’s disease, but I think she just couldn’t face reality and prefers to forget. Either way, she’s always sick with something and frequently doesn’t know who I am.”
Lark drew Azaleen’s hand to her lips. “I am so sorry.” She truly felt Azaleen’s heartache. How draining it must be for her, what an extra burden to bear. And, outside the family and Orielle’s caretakers, nobody knew. Azaleen said that’s how she wanted it. Private matters should remain private. “Please, Azaleen, talk to me about anything—any weight you need lifted, any secret longing. That’s why the Universe brought us together. Sabine is right. Everybody needs someone to lean on.”
Azaleen bent down, kissed her, emotion unrestrained. “I just want you to know—I’d take a bullet for you too.”
The queen left Lark to rest, and she drifted into slumber, the words and haunting melody of the song playing in her head.The wind keeps on blowin’, the river don’t stop flowin’, the spirits are always knowin’, all’s reborn again.
Chapter forty-five
Defenses Drawn
Marchland, Verdancia, three days later
“Cassandra Cade, Lady of Marchland, Warden of the River,” announced Benjamin Hollis, her silver-haired steward who might faint if noble formalities weren’t observed. The urgency of the situation required her to travel to the citadel to meet with base commander General Alexander Longstreet and his second in command, Lieutenant Colonel Miriam Vance. Upon entering the crisp military office, Cassandra noted the fourth person and forced her expression to remain polite.
Augustus Fairborne, a plantation baron whose fortune swelled with every bale of cotton, dared any man—or woman—to hold counsel in Marchland without his voice weighing heavier than the rest. Naturally, the man’s pride never recovered from the Constitutional Convention’s decision to name the Cades as the regional noble family instead of the Fairbornes. He’d nursed a cold feud with Britain Cade, but he wouldn’t press it once Cassandra inherited the title. He’d merely commented on how he refused to engage in competition with a mere woman.
With a haughty chin jerk and a flick of auburn hair, she allowed Hollis to pull her chair at the strategy table. The polite general and colonel rose at herentrance. August remained sprawled in his seat, fingering his waxed mustache like the villain in some old riverboat melodrama.
The general’s office was a soldier’s chamber, stripped of ornament. Rough-hewn furniture, maps spread like battle scars across the walls, and the faint odor of ink and gun oil clung to the air—so unlike the courtly halls Cassandra was used to commanding.
Ignoring his rudeness, Cassandra nodded to Longstreet and Vance and took her seat. “Thank you, Mr. Hollis. You may wait outside.”
From the hallway without came the muted clamor of boots on tile, messengers running back and forth with papers and shouted orders. Hollis glanced toward the door, as if torn between his duty to her and the demands outside. Cassandra allowed him a nod; he had earned a reprieve from formality today.
“Yes, ma’am.” With a sharp pivot, her aide exited the office, closing the four of them in. Outside the window, a tugboat’s horn blew, and a parade formation of cadets marched by. From this elevated level of the citadel, atop the highest point along the river, the view was indeed breathtaking. But this wasn’t a social call. The greatest threat of her lifetime loomed just around the bend.
