Return of the Guardian-King by Karen Hancock

trying to pry into our business. Well, except for one.”
    He meant Maddie, and he meant it for a joke, but Carissa had been thrown into such a state of emotional turmoil she could not respond to it, could only stare at him with a feeling that bordered on alarm.
    She could hardly believe he would ask her to accompany him, and had no idea why he would. Was he embarrassed by the rumors circulating that their marriage was a sham? That he had married her only to save her reputation? A well of conflicting emotions, the primary of which was terror, boiled up in her, and before she knew it, words were tumbling from her mouth. “Oh no. I can’t. I’ll have to feed Conal, you know, and I’m just not comfortable leaving the palace yet. But you go ahead. The Gilded Ram is the inn where the rivertraders come up from Peregris, isn’t it? I’m sure you’ll gather a good measure of news, and you don’t want me intruding on that.”
    She wasn’t sure if the look that came into his expression was alarm or horror, but it was only there for a moment. Then his lips tightened and he nodded stiffly. “Of course.”
    Stagnant silence pooled between them.
    “It’s all right,” she said then. “I don’t feel bad that you go without me. And if you wished to spend some time with other . . .” She exhaled suddenly and stared at her lap, her face flaming. “I know this isn’t a real marriage. I never expected it would be. You’ve done so much for me as it is, I’ll never be able to repay you. But all this other, the cocoa, the invitations . . . You needn’t pretend what we have is anything more than duty. I would feel more comfortable, in fact, if you didn’t.”
    She couldn’t bear to look up at him and see the relief in his face, so she continued to study her cup, struggling to breathe, wondering if he might have spoken and she’d not heard him for the thunderous rush in her ears.
    The silence was even more awkward now. Just when she thought she could bear it no more, he spoke. “I’m sorry, my lady. I didn’t—” He cleared his throat, then said more evenly, “It was never my intent to make you uncomfortable.”
    He paused, as if waiting for her to speak. When she didn’t, he set his cup on the tray between them and said softly, “Well, as you say, I have much to do this morning. If I may have your leave?”
    “Of course.” She forced herself to look up at him and smile, desperate that he not see how deeply his easy acquiescence had hurt her.

CHAPTER
    4
    The Inn of the Gilded Ram stood at the corner of River and Cantor Streets south of the palace at Fannath Rill. A well-known and respectable establishment, it offered good food, good ale, and a clean, well-ordered environment. A huge stone hearth and multiple levels sporting candle- or kelistarlit nooks where clients could dine in relative anonymity gave it its distinctive character. So did the cadre of musicians that performed evenings for the inn’s customers, mostly well-to-do riverboat traders and their local merchant counterparts, meeting over dinner or mugs of ale to negotiate their deals or exchange the latest gossip.
    Fortunately their gossip, unlike that at the palace, dealt more with how the river was flowing through the Silver Cataracts these days, where the price of wool was likely to head that summer, and of course news of the ongoing war to the south. The inn’s patrons were only idly interested in the pregnancy of the deposed queen of Kiriath and could care less about the controversy regarding the child’s patrimony.
    Tonight the place roiled with tales of the recent Esurhite offensive to take the island of Torneki. Lying several leagues off Chesedh’s southeastern coast, it was home to some of the richest men and finest villas in all the known world. It was also a key port for the Chesedhan navy, and thus of strategic importance in defending Peregris and the vulnerable mouth of the Ankrill. Maddie’s brother, Leyton, had been defending it against