“Your wedding was beautiful.”
Flustered, Hannalinde stood so she could curtsy. The motion was automatic, drilled by years of court training: you always curtsied for the queen. “Thank you, your Majesty.”
The queen smiled. “It’s lovely to see you at court again.”
Hanna bent her head in acknowledgement. There was too much to say about that.
Liselot’s gaze moved to her belly, direct and unapologetic. “You’re further along than the gossip suggested. How much longer until the babe is born?”
Hannalinde chuckled, touching her belly lightly. “I wish I knew. The midwife says the child has its own schedule. Weeks or less, I expect.”
The queen nodded. “Has it been trying for you, carrying a gargoyle’s child?”
Hannalinde paused, weighing how much honesty the moment could bear. The queen seemed genuinely interested, but the Zenith and his mate were listening closely, as was her husband. She had to tread carefully if she wanted to please them all.
“No more than it is for any woman carrying a child.”
The queen gave her a knowing look. “Certainly, your case is unusual.”
“Unusual but not unheard of. The hardest part is the Tower,” she admitted. “The ladders weren’t built for humans, and certainly not for pregnant ones.”
“Ladders?”
“Our eyrie is on the seventh tier.”
Frowning, the queen glanced at Rikard. She took in his ruined wings, and understanding flooded her expression. “It’s outrageous to expect you to climb that distance every day in your condition. You aretrapped.”
In her peripheral vision, she felt the Zenith stiffen. She had tread too close to criticism and was endangering her husband’s reputation. “It’s not too bad. Most days I stay in the eyrie, anyway. My husband provides what I need, and when he cannot, I rely on the keepers.”
“Why do you not reside in Lamont House?” the queen asked.
Hannalinde’s heart stopped. After a moment of shock, it sputtered to life again. “All assets and titles were stripped after my father’s treason, Your Majesty.”
“Has it been sitting empty all this time?” Liselot sounded shocked. “What a waste. It will be yours again. I won’t have a pregnant woman falling to her death in the Tower when there is a perfectly good home languishing in the palace quarter.”
Hannalinde’s throat convulsed. “Thank you,” she managed. “I did not think the Lamont name would ever be restored.”
“The house will be restored to you, not to the Lamont name but to the wife of the Nadir and to your descendants thereafter.” The queen folded her hands, the gesture as final as a seal pressed into wax. “I trust you would prefer to live at ground level. At least until the child is born,” she added, her glance taking in the gargoyle company.
“Until the child is born,” Hanna repeated. Was she dreaming? She pinched the back of her arm and felt the sting.
Lamont House was hers. The pale stone townhouse with its carved lintels and choking vines. The garden that she’d never seen bloom. The marble floors she’d slid across in her stocking feet as a girl. The balcony where her mother watched the sun set. All of it was hers again.
She dropped into another deep curtsy. “Thank you, Your Majesty. I don’t have words to describe what this means to me.”
“Very good,” the queen said kindly. “I’ll have someone bring you the keys tomorrow.”
Liselot moved on, and Hannalinde sat down. She was suddenly aware of the noisy hall and the thirteenth course congealing on her plate. She pressed her hand to her belly, where the baby was kicking with restless energy.
“Did you hear all that?” she asked Rikard, still in disbelief. “I have my house again.”
Rikard’s hand, enormous and warm, found hers. “You have your house.”
Chapter 23
Rikard
The front door of Hanna’s old home had swollen in its frame. Rikard had to shoulder it open with enough force that it sent a colony of beetle carcasses scattering across the threshold.
