Michel stared at him. Everyone in the room stared at Michel.
“Speak!” her father repeated.
“I am here for your daughter.” He stood proud, noble, unflinching.
“Excuse me?”
“I would like to marry your daughter,” Michel called, his voice booming across the hall.
“I should kill you now,” her father ground out. On a wink, her brothers had their swords at the ready. “You are nothing.”
“I am not nothing,” Michel insisted. “I will be the Duke of Chevalerie, an important social and political region in France. I offer trade, I offer allies. I offer a wonderful life for your daughter.”
“My daughter has all and more. Who are you to think that you can give her something she does not have?” Her father smoldered. “You are nothing compared to her.”
Michel dropped his head. “You are correct. Without your daughter, I am nothing.”
A tense silence hovered, but her father spoke, softening. “I know that you helped her. For this, I did not block your escape.”
Eve blinked. Had her father let him escape?
Her father continued. “You do not deserve her.”
“I have done nothing wrong by her?—”
“You did not bring herhome,” her father cut him off, coming up to stand. “You would have taken her to your country with no word, no care for her family or her customs. You used your position to take advantage of a woman who had no one there to protect her.”
“I did not kidnap her,” Michel yelled back. “That was your people. I found her,” he corrected himself, “she foundme, after she had already been taken fromyourfields.”
Borjigin stepped off the dais. Eve could see the flames in his eyes, ready to engulf them all. She feared this version of her father, the one who was torn by many different rights and wrongs, the one most volatile.
“Father!” she called out again.
“Quiet!” he roared back without taking his eyes off Michel.
Eve shook, her hands gripping the banister. Michel could die by his words.
Her father took a breath. Then he began, his words careful and even. “I respect that you have come here to try to speak with me. However, I cannot let you go again, boy. You have solved many problems for me by coming back.” He turned to his eldest son, Dzhambul. “Now,” he instructed.
Her brother pulled his sword and took quick steps toward Michel without hesitation. Michel took his stance, but he had no weapons. Eve knew he would fight, but he had no way of winning. Eve could shout for Dzhambul to stop, for her father to call them off, for Michel to run, but she knew that none of those things would save him. So, instead, she said the one thing that was sure to get a reaction.
“I’m pregnant!” she shouted down to the floor.
Thatfroze everyone in place.
“You’rewhat?” Her father yelled, finally looking up at her.
Eve hung over the balcony and locked eyes with Michel for the first time since he had arrived. “You’re pregnant?” Michel called up to her.
“Yes,” she said, nodding furiously, wiping sudden tears from her cheeks.
Michel stared, and despite the chaos between them, he breathed in and smiled and grabbed at his heart…just seconds before her youngest brother caught him with a left hook right across the chin.
“Oh!” Eve shouted and ran down the stairs as the floor erupted into a brawl. Three of her brothers had jumped onto Michel at the news. Dzhambul still stood with his sword drawn, but he had let it fall to the side as he leaned against a column and waited for his turn. Her other two brothers circled the pack, looking for an opening.
Her father stood at his chair, staring at Eve. She didn’t look at him. She couldn’t deal with the shame of finding herself pregnant or any disapproval right now. She only cared about Michel. She wanted to honor her tribe. She cared about doing what was right, but she didn’t have the strength to turn Michel away again. She took the steps of the staircase as fast as she could.
In the center, Michel ducked and threw a punch at her brother, Yul. The youngest brother jumped on Michel’s back, and Michel slung him off, while the other took a swing, which Michel evaded, only to be nailed in the stomach by Esen. Michel stumbled back and sucked in a breath, ready to take on the next attack.
