Page 20 of The Thornwyck Rose

She hoped they would assume that statement was for Henry, but she meant it for Commander de Montfort. He’d saved her life when he didn’t have to. Took a chance that Father Osbert or her handmaids would hear his whispered warning.

“In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost?—”

Henry clapped once, sharp.

“Amen,” he said, smiling with teeth. “Now let us see if God favors the bold—or only the beautiful Lady Seren.”

It was the first time Henry had called her beautiful. Too bad it was meant to cheapen what she had offered to Heaven.

She waited for her husband’s hand to help her stand, but it never came, so she leaned forward and pushed off the cold floor herself.

He gripped her chin as soon as she was up, hard enough to know what would come if she disobeyed, but soft enough not to raise eyebrows of those in attendance.

“Do you believe God listens to you, milady?” His words were fine; his tone was not.

“I believe He listens to all who ask,” she replied gently.

He squeezed. She let him do it.

“The Lord,” he said, “blesses legacy.” He released his grip and turned to the nobles. “Have I not grown my legacy? Is it not blessed by the Lord?”

“Here, here!” The nobles said, raising their glasses.

“And now my wife has prayers heard and answered by God himself.” He found Seren’s hand again. “My child shall be blessed with legacy and blessed with divine favor.”

There were murmured congratulations. Some half-hearted. Others reluctant. All directed to Henry.

Only Commander de Montfort spoke clearly.

"Congratulations, Lord Henry." He offered Seren the slightest nod and the only well-wish in the room for her. "May the child be strong, the birth easy, the recovery quick.”

“Yes, Commander, not like my last wife, who gave me a dead child after his third breath,” Henry said as he turned his attention to Seren. “A dead boy is a useless heir, and I have no use for dead babes or wives who birth them.”

The chill of winter’s frost did not compare to the cold in her spine. Her stomach recoiled—not just from fear, but the horrible truth: he did not mourn that child. He only measured what he had lost.

Henry smiled and placed a soft kiss just behind her ear. “Perhaps you should say a prayer for yourself, Lady de Thornwyck,” he whispered.

His hand grazed her lower back like a doting husband. He guided her from the council chamber like an infatuated lover, his arm looped at her waist and his voice low with pride, but the possessive grip in his fingers pressed into her side told the real story.

He dismissed her with a flick of his hand and summoned her to the gardens at first light to see off the campaign. The council chamber door slammed shut, leaving her with her handmaids on the outside of it.

She stared at the heavy oak and sighed.

“Back to my chambers,” Seren said, flatly. “Lord Henry requires nothing more of his wife, and I am tired.”

They bowed their heads as they went back to the top floor and undressed her.

“See, Margot,” Seren said as they pulled the veil off her head. “Less to put on, less to take off.”

“Yes, milady,” Margot said with a slight, cautious chuckle.

Margot and Isolde put Seren to bed and went to their alcove to lie down as well.

But even as Seren rested, deep in the hollow of her ribs, she made a vow.

“I will not die because of this man,” she whispered. “And this child will not be his father. Lord, hear me now, this child will be a son, and he will not become his father.”

IX