My advisor does not hide his impatience, but it’s the king of Lavere who answers. “Well, the men are looking for a wife, aren’t they?” He dabs at the sweat on his brow and drones on. “It makes sense to sample their baking first. You wouldn’t want to spend all that money if the woman can’t even bake a decent pie.”
Pie?
Gwen is a farmer.
She doesn’t have enough fucking work to do without having to bake for a husband, too?
“And then, of course, there is the water carrying competition,” Connor continues, sounding kind of smug, though I can’t imagine why when my world is falling apart. “A man needs to know his newly purchased property is strong enough to carry water from the well.”
A vein ticks ominously behind my eye. “Newly purchased property?”
Connor sighs. “Sure, that’s what these women will be, at the end of the day.”
The king of Lavere nods in agreement and fire climbs up the back of my neck. “Gwen is not property. Do not refer to her that way.”
“I’m sorry, what was she going to be to you?” Connor asks quietly, studying his nails.
“She…I…” My fist comes down hard on the arm of the throne, drawing attention from the crowd, including Gwen. “It is not the same thing, Connor,” I manage, though having her eyes on me makes my throat constrict.
And maybe it’s the fact that we’re finally making eye contact. Because for the first time this morning, I’m managing to think clearly. “I just need to explain to her why I refuse to take a wife. I didn’t explain it to her last night. Of course she said no.”
“So…you’re going to discuss your past with her.”
Discomfort needles me. “Yes.”
“Wow. Fine. Thirty years of friendship and you won’t even talk about it to me. One night with this girl and it’s just, feelings, feelings everywhere—”
“Shut up, Connor.”
The nausea is slowly leaving my system, because I have a plan. Once Gwen understands my reasoning for not wanting to be married, she will back out of the auction. I know it. She’ll be mine. I can’t imagine the day ending without her in my arms, so this has to be the answer.
Gwen
I place the strawberry rhubarb pie on the table in front of me, giving the panel of male judges my most winning smile, when what I’d really like to do is smash their faces right into it. That my ability to be a good wife should come down to the taste of my pie is galling, to say the least. This pie, baked at home two nights ago and brought to the Joining, has nothing to do with my personality. It does not speak to my determination or strength.
Still, though.
It’s a damn fine pie.
I know, because I ate two just like it while perfecting my recipe.
The eligible men watch in the audience trying to decide which oh-so-lucky lady to wed and I hate myself for comparing them all to Corbet. Sure, many of these men are warriors. Fit and healthy and well able to help provide for my sisters. But they do not shake the earth with their steps. They are not big and commanding and impossible to ignore.
They don’t look at me the way he does, either.
As if the stars have been hung from my eyelashes.
None of them fill my stomach full of butterflies or arouse me in any way.
But one of them will take me as their wife nonetheless. And I will accept them as my husband. Because it’s the only option I have at my disposal. The only good one, anyway.
Stop thinking about the king.
“The judges will now taste the pies!” calls the man who has organized this contest.
At least a hundred woman are taking part in the wife auction, but the judges are tasting a dozen pies at a time, meaning I’m competing against the eleven women in my bracket. They shift nervously, eyeballing one another’s pies.
There is one woman, immediately to my left, who seems more nervous than the others and it’s easy to guess why. She is a pretty woman, fair-haired, though she is much older than the other competitors. Her dress is frayed at the bottom. There are three children standing in the audience—twin girls, one of them holding a toddler on her hip. They watch the fair woman in such an anxious way, they obviously belong to her. They are skinny and barefoot and I know at once, some terrible misfortune has befallen this family.
Her hand is shaking as she cuts a slice of her pie.
I wince at the sparse contents revealed by the opening of the crust. The color of the fruit suggests it was old when she baked the pie and still, still it must have cost everything she had.
In short, this woman needs a support even more than I do.
It’s why she’s in this competition, but there is no way she’ll succeed.
Not when she’s up against pies with the best ingredients, heaped with cream.
I’m distracted from my troubled thoughts when a huge shadow is cast over the table. Before I even glance up, I know who is responsible, but the stirring and shuffling of the audience confirms that King Corbet has arrived to watch the proceedings.
I only last eight breaths before I glance up and find him watching me from the dead center of the crowd. Unlike last night, he wears his crown, his eyes storming with intensity and appreciation beneath the golden band. And jealousy. There is quite a bit of that, too. He only removes his attention from me for a matter of moments and he uses the time to rake every man in attendance with a death glare, before settling back into his rapt perusal of me.
Resolutely, I look away, focusing on the competition.
The judges have already tasted the first six pies and will reach me very soon.
There is a terrible gnawing in my stomach, though. My attention continually strays to those children hovering on the outskirts of the observers. My own sisters aren’t too far away, their cheeks covered in chocolate from the desserts I bought them before the contest, so they would be occupied. At least I can afford to occasionally buy sweets for my family. The fair-haired woman might not even be able to feed hers at all. If she gets low marks during this contest, she doesn’t have a hope in hell of attracting a suitor. Whereas I can make up for a bad showing in the water carrying round…
With a quick sleight of hand, I switch my pie with hers.
She gapes at me and I put a finger to my lips, trying not to cry when her features transform with gratitude. Honestly, I am not a crier, but the Joining seems to be turning me into a soppy mess. It’s horrible. I’m supposed to be the tough one.
“Thank you,” she whispers, just as the judges reach us.
“Dear God,” the first one says, recoiling from the pie.
They all have varying degrees of the same reaction, one of them even refusing to try a bite, but I accept their criticism with my chin raised and wait for them to move on. My pie, which now belongs to the fair-haired woman, receives top marks and I exhale with relief, warmth flooding my chest at the overjoyed smiles from her children. After that, it’s time to move on to the next round—water carrying—and I’m collecting my things when my spine tingles and I know Corbet is standing behind me.
“I saw what you did, woman.”
With a flip of my hair, I turn to face him and am momentarily tongue-tied by the affection on his battle-scarred face. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”