Aurie and Isabella had let Draka have his way…when he was looking. If it wasn’t for the way he looked at her, the weariness in his gaze, she might have slapped him for the suggestion on that parchment. Leave it to a man to surround a baby with all the women in his life and give himself an exit. Balor would have been taking notes with glee, the fiend!

  “I’m not sleeping in the same room as that blowhorn,” Maud crossed her arms outside her door. Theresa and Paul were jumping and playing on her bed behind her. “It’s bad enough that Paul soils his bedding as it is. I don’t need that thing in there with me, too.”

  “I usually keep him from drinking anything after supper,” Isabella said over Aurie’s shoulder. “He knows better.”

  Aurie wondered if she would ever hear that amount of embarrassment in the woman’s tone ever again. For a moment, she had to hide her want to gloatingly smile. Behind her, Melissa, the mother of a newborn herself, was impatiently shushing her own babe in one arm a few steps away while trying to balance Jacob in the crook of her other. Both were crying with little hands jerking and grasping from their swaddling.

  Aurie rolled her eyes with a long sigh and a wave, “Princess Jasmine, you’re in Maud’s room.”

  “What?” Jasmine gasped and jumped to the other side of the hallway with a stomp of her foot, facing Isabella. “Mother!”

  “Her, too?” Maud gaped with her jaw going sideways, flaring of her nostrils. “I’ve already made my confession for the night, I’m not interested in making another before morning.”

  “So be a good little Cathol,” Aurie winked.

  “Mother, no!” Jasmine stomped her foot again. “Don’t make me sleep in there!”

  “You’ll be with your sister and brother,” Isabella shrugged. “I honesty couldn’t agree more.”

  “But…”

  “If I remember correctly, I’m the Princess,” Maud narrowed her eyes. “And Draka said…”

  Aurie raised a brow, “And I’m still your mother. Baby or Princess Jasmine.”

  Maud looked between them. Aurie nearly laughed at how she was actually considering it. Both babies were beginning to kick at poor Melissa, who was pleading for them to let her sit down as spots were forming in her blouse. She was visibly beginning to hurt.

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake, girls,” Isabella shoved Jasmine toward Maud’s door. “We needn’t have two infants’ murders on your consciences. You’ll thank us after you have your own.”

  Maud glared through the rolls of her eyes and shakes of her head as she turned back into her room, followed by a sulking Jasmine. Aurie tucked her lips not to snicker too loudly. Isabella, however, cackled the moment their door was closed.

  “Girls,” she laughed and tapped Aurie’s shoulder in a rush to Melissa’s side to take her infant from her. She had first reached for Jacob, but a glance Aurie’s way made her change direction. “Come on, let’s get you inside to something comfortable. You poor thing, you must be ready to burst!”

  “Thank you, milady,” Melissa was shaking with nervousness as she released her baby into Isabella’s arms.

  Aurie opened the door and took Jacob out of her arms in a single motion. Her cheek pressed on the babe’s forehead as she followed Melissa in and closed the door behind them with one hand. His milk breath made her heart sing. His wiggling against her, the feeling of his swaddling and the warmth of his little body cradled to her, the mere motion of carrying him reminded her of…

  Isabella pulled nearly all the pillows from Draka’s bed and packed them into his armchair for Melissa to sit in and on, leaving Melissa’s child kicking and screaming on its back in the middle of the bed. She tapped a finger to her chin with a crinkling of her nose in disappointment that she shrugged off before leading Melissa to sit in it. A second later, she was lowering Melissa’s infant into her arms with warmth and careful slowness.

  Aurie raised Jacob to her shoulder, onto his belly, and began lightly patting his back and rocking him as she paced the room. His wailing in her ear was a familiar song. She began humming despite it, letting Melissa calm and nurse her own first.

  “A part of me wonders if we should just sneak them in during the night to give those spoiled brats a taste of what’s to come,” Isabella chuckled as she pulled Draka’s blankets from the bed and rearranged the few remaining pillows. “How can he sleep without his bed made properly? You can tell, you know? He just pulls the blankets back over…look! His cover sheet…just kicked nearly completely off, like he doesn’t even use it.” She held up an end to her nose and winced. “I’m not sleeping in that.” She tossed it to the floor.

  Aurie giggled in her hum. “Thank you for your help, Melissa,” Aurie said as her pacing brought her to the nursing mother.

  “Of course,” Melissa looked up from her snuggling infant. “I’m happy to.”

  Isabella was rummaging through Draka’s drawers and wardrobe, remaking the bed. “There are so few newborns in Talkro. I was surprised to see that. It is certainly a blessing. I hope your husband won’t be upset by you spending your nights here. I will see to it that he is well rewarded for his sacrifice.”

  “My husband…” Melissa turned back to her suckling babe with a distance in her look.

  Aurie felt Jacob burp and heaved a sigh of relief. His little fingers, like cold little pincers, wrapped her ear and tugged. She jerked her head and kissed his plump cheek, glad his pitch had changed tune. He was still crying, but it was no longer a wailing of pain. Now, it was one of demand.

  “Your husband, was he in the battle?” Aurie went to Melissa when she saw that she was ready for Jacob to be settled in her other arm.

  Melissa shook her head, blushing with shame. “No.”

  Isabella was fluffing one of the two remaining pillows on the bed. She hesitated between fluffs for a breath and propped it against the wall to move on to the other. She kicked the pile of Draka’s bedding on her way with a look of disgust and began fluffing that next pillow.

  “I don’t mean to pry, but,” Isabella said between her pounds and pulls of the pillow, “are you married?”

  Melissa’s head fell and shook.

  Aurie grinned sympathetically at the poor girl. She was near Maud’s age, possibly younger. In the dim light of the one lamp and the brazier between the bed and the bureau she sat at, she looked to be somewhere around twenty at best. Aurie could only imagine what had happened. Some handsome boy professed his love for her, convinced her that she was everything to him, and she let him have his way.

  “Your accent,” Isabella turned on her. “You’re Parisi, I presume?”

  Aurie crinkled a brow at Isabella, “I think we’ve pried enough.”

  Isabella shrugged her off with a wave and sat at the edge of the foot of the bed, facing Melissa. “I’m making conversation with someone whose milk is nurturing a Prince. I think it is rather important to know what sort of scandals we may be enduring as a result, don’t you?”

  Aurie could see that Melissa was scurrying in her chair, her eyes searching for escape though her body was lying still. The babies in her arms were beginning to stir in their calm suckling to the speeding of her heart.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  “Stop it,” Aurie growled under her breath, standing over Isabella. “Let the girl have her peace.”

  “Tell us the truth, where is the father of your child?” Isabella ignored her.

  “I don’t know,” Melissa answered in a pleading whisper. “Please don’t cast me out.”

  “We won’t cast you out,” Aurie reassured her. Through gritted teeth at Isabella, “Not in Talkro.”

  Isabella leaned her elbows on her thighs, “Where is your family? Your father?”

  Melissa swallowed, visibly shaking. “Brittany. They sent me away when they found out.”

  Aurie turned a fierce glare on Isabella.

  Isabella nodded, straightening with an upward glance to meet that glare. “Well, then we’ll need to find someone who is willing to marry a widowed mother in the King’s Court when this siege is done, won’t we? A knight with some honor to his name, I think. Your disposition will remain between us and God, do you understand?”

  Melissa blinked at her, then at Aurie. Even Aurie was confused.

  Isabella drew in a long breath, “In other words, confess your premarital immorality in silence and keep it to your dying breath and let us do the rest. We’ll find you a husband and your daughter a father. You’re a member of this House now. We can’t have you as an unmarried mother of a bastard, now can we? And there are no shortages of soldiers and knights willing to take wives, especially after campaigns, with or without children. Many consider it an honor to rear the children of their fallen brethren.”

  Aurie sat on the edge of the bed at one of the pillows and began to unbuckle her boots. “Not what I expected.”

  “Mistakes happen. I once tried to mount Draka in his sleep to trap him into marriage,” Isabella scooted herself across the bed toward the other pillow. “I’d have gladly borne him a bastard if it meant he was forced to be my husband.”

  Aurie was thankful that her back was to the woman with how heated her gaze was in that moment. She was able to keep that heat out of her voice as she said with a hard tug of her boot from her heel, “Is that so?”

  Isabella lay back on the bed. “Oh, don’t you worry. I’m long past such tricks. I learned my lesson in Crimea. I misunderstood him and he misunderstood me, you know.” She rolled onto her side and tugged Aurie’s shirt to draw her attention to a finger and the ring adorning it. It was crusted with tiny glistening diamonds.

  Aurie turned, lifting one leg onto the bed. “That’s beautiful.”

  “Draka and I used to spend every day together,” Isabella turned her hand to look at it herself, her fingers stretched. “In between our studies.” She turned a haughty brow on Aurie, “Not together, mind you. I was learning other things while he was being taught to read and such.”

  Aurie rolled her eyes and returned to taking off her other boot, leaving Isabella to picking at that ring on her finger thoughtfully.

  “He was my escort in the gardens and the market—well, him and Phillip—nearly every day. Phillip wasn’t always there. He had his own ways, even then. He was such a troublemaker. But Draka, he would go wherever I wanted. If I wanted to go to the river, he would go with me. If I wanted to see the Opera, he would join me. If I decided that I was going to dress up and parade around the courtyard and play tea party, he would act the gentleman and play his part along with me.”

  Aurie let her boot thump to the floor. She wondered if there was room in Maud’s bedchamber for one more…

  “I kept bringing him to the market after a while. Father had begun sending Phillip on errands. I thought it was because he preferred Phillip at first, but he told me it was because he wanted me to get Draka to begin courtship, to convince him to give me a gift. So, I kept bringing him to the same stand with fine jewelry, day after day, and I would look at this ring each time, put it on my finger, look at it, admire it, ask him what he thought…”

  Aurie could only imagine Draka half paying attention the entire time. He was likely trying to understand why shiny things kept her attention so readily and hoping it would keep her from boring him long enough to move on to something more interesting. Either that or he truly thought it was just something she really liked and he bought it for her for that reason alone.

  “One day, he bought it for me and I thought, finally! I held out my finger for him to put it on and he looked at me like,” Isabella began laughing, “Like I was some foreign beast or something and was so awkward about putting it on, he only got it past the tip and bent my thumb to make sure it didn’t fall off. Of course, I tried to kiss him and he jumped! He jumped from me like I was a spear or something, Aurelie.”

  “He really had no idea, did he?” Aurie looked over at Melissa. Melissa had fallen asleep against the pillows surrounding her, cradling the two babies who had fallen asleep as well.

  She crept over and carefully lifted Jacob to her before returning to the bed.

  Isabella whispered, “Good idea,” on her way to covering the mother and child with a blanket with a light tuck. Still whispering once she slid back into the bed beside Aurie, “After that, I was throwing myself at him in the worst ways. I had my tricks and Draka had his.”

  “What tricks did Draka have?” Aurie adjusted her pillow so that she was partially upright with Jacob in her arms.

  Isabella blew out the lantern. “Well,” she leaned over her and Jacob, “When I followed him into Crimea, with my father and—at the time—Father Thomas, a whole entourage for marriage, we made him a summons to the Basilica that he couldn’t refuse. I was there, in such a beautiful dress. It was gorgeous. Everything was perfect. I kept thinking, this is it, I’ve won, I’ll finally have him, and he walks in, sees me, and Phillip walked past him to take his place at the pulpit.”

  “That’s how you ended up married to Phillip?” Aurie whispered through a gaping mouth, blinking. “He just took a step to the side?”

  Isabella was snuggling into the pillow with a shrug of her shoulder. “Draka had accepted orders to campaign for his third point on his star just before entering the Basilica. He couldn’t marry and go on campaign.”

  “Really? Why not?”

  Isabella crooked her brow, “You’re still early in your training, aren’t you? When you volunteer for campaign to get a point on your star, you make a sacred vow of service. You belong to the campaign, body and soul, until released by the Paladin Commander who called for the Crusade. No other vows or oaths can be made after, of any kind, and the Holy Spirit enforces this with a vengeance unless deemed worthy of God alone. So, he couldn’t marry me, even if he wanted to.”

  “He got out of it on account of a loophole,” Aurie rolled her eyes. “The stubborn little shit.”

  Isabella let out a long sigh aimed at the ceiling. “And I married Phillip, who apparently had wanted me all along anyway.” There was a momentary glimpse of sadness across her face as she said, “I could have treated him better. He really did love me.”

  Jacob rubbed his cheek against the nape of Aurie’s neck, snuggling against her with the wetness of his drool. She ran her hand over his swaddling and yawned. She felt wetness there, too. This is going to be a long night, Aurie knew as she sat up to carry him toward the stack of linens on the bureau to change him. She hoped she still had the skill to keep him asleep while she did it. Unfortunately, she didn’t.

  His cry caused Melissa’s to begin crying, which caused Melissa to blink awake and a cacophony of thumps from Maud’s room. She paced and rocked Jacob, Melissa nursed hers, and Isabella took Melissa’s to pace with her and hum a lullaby to calm her. Back and forth, they cared for the two infants. In Isabella’s arms, Jacob’s screams only grew louder, but Melissa’s girl quieted instantly.

  By the end, Isabella had Melissa’s daughter in her arms, and Jacob was in Aurie’s, while Melissa curled herself into a wedge in the pillows surrounding her on the armchair. It was only for a few minutes, but it felt like hours for all three of them.

  A slight stirring made Aurie wake and she turned to find that Isabella had already set the girl back in Melissa’s arms for another bout of drowsy nursing in the dim glow of the brazier. Melissa still had herself curled into the pillows, but she was caressing her baby’s face lovingly, a warm smile on her already exhausted face. Isabella was sitting on the edge of the bed, poking at the crackling flames with the iron.

  “I didn’t mean to wake you,” Isabella said thoughtfully.

  Aurie yawned, glad that Jacob was still asleep. “It’s alright.” After a moment, “You know, your story, it’s a lot like me, in a way. My husband wasn’t the one I wanted to marry, either. The man I wanted, married someone else. So, I found myself another and he loved me so much more than I did at first, but I fell deeply in love with him over time. He was…my everything by the time he died. So, I understand.”

  Isabella didn’t look back from the brazier. She shook her head from hunched shoulders as she poked at the brazier again, causing the flames to cackle and spark. “Sometimes I wonder if God really forgives us for what we do. For what we can’t forgive ourselves for.”

  Aurie pursed her brows. “Of course He does.”

  “I didn’t, not like you,” Isabella still didn’t look away from the fire that was beginning to brighten with warmth. Another shake of her head. “I never loved my husband.”