Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 72065 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 360(@200wpm)___ 288(@250wpm)___ 240(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72065 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 360(@200wpm)___ 288(@250wpm)___ 240(@300wpm)
It was clear the minute she got it out of the over that there was no saving the roast. Aleena carved into it anyway—or tried to—but it was burned to a crisp. She’d been hoping that maybe it was only done on the outside and raw underneath. That way she could have peeled back the first layer and tried roasting it again.
But no—it was a total loss. The incredibly strong heat jets had charred it almost to a lump of charcoal—even the formerly white bone was blackened with soot.
Aleena felt like crying and not just because of her burned hand—which was hurting more by the minute. She would have to admit to her new husband what she had done. The dweezle haunch had been an extremely expensive cut of meat—the cost of it would have fed herself and her mother for a full two months. And she had ruined it in less than an hour.
There was no hiding such incompetence. He would know when he came downstairs and smelled the acrid smoke still drifting from the ruined haunch. She would have to come clean and he would probably disavow her at once. Not that Aleena would blame him—how could she have ruined the beautiful meal she had planned so badly?
With tears in her eyes, she turned off the other vegetables steaming and boiling on the cooktop and trudged up the stairs.
It was better to admit her fault and get it over with, she told herself as she went. At least she would probably be back in her mother’s house by nightfall, though she didn’t know how the disavowment would affect the deal she’d made with her stepmother. Probably Grindelia would refuse to let her father pay for her mother’s treatment now and she would end up on the street letting strangers change the color of her eyes after all.
The thoughts of her dismal future were so depressing that by the time she reached the study door, she could barely bring herself to knock. But this had to be done—it couldn’t be put off.
Fighting back tears, she knocked on the door with her unburned hand and waited to learn her fate.
12
BEAR
Bear almost didn’t hear the tentative knocking. It was so faint that at first he thought it must be his imagination. But after a moment he realized that it must be his new bride trying to get his attention. Probably Last Meal was ready and she wanted him to come eat.
That suited Bear fine—he was getting quite hungry by now and his stomach had growled several times, interrupting his studies. He put aside the thick volume of Karpsian Treaty Law which he’d pulled from the bookcase and went to answer the door.
What he saw outside surprised and concerned him. Aleena was standing there, all right, but her pretty face was a mask of tragic woe. Also, she had one hand clutched to her stomach, as though she was in pain somehow.
“Aleena? What’s wrong?” he asked, worried at the look on her face.
She shook her head, as though she could barely summon the words at first. Then, finally, she looked up at him and blurted,
“Oh my Lord Husband, I burned your dinner!”
“What? How? Are you all right?” Bear demanded all in the same breath. The tragic expression on her face troubled him—she looked like she was about to tell him that someone she loved had died—not that she’d simply burned something.
“It was the oven—it has so many heat jets and I’m not used to that many,” she said quickly. “But I know that’s no excuse! I burned the dweezle haunch and I know how expensive such a cut of meat is. I never meant to—I’m so, so sorry!”
Then she fell to her knees and started to weep.
Bewildered at her sudden grief, Bear did the only thing he could think to do—he gathered her up into his arms and carried her to the bed chamber. Then he sat on the side of the bed, holding her in his lap, and waited until she stopped sobbing.
“All right now,” he said at last, when she was no longer crying so hard. “Tell me what this is all about? Why are you so upset just because you burned something?”
“Just because I burned something?” She looked up at him through wet lashes, her purple eyes like jewels. “That dweezle haunch was so expensive! And I know you’ll want to disavow me now—of course you will. What man would keep a wife who can’t even…can’t even cook?”
She started crying again and he noticed that she was clutching the same hand she’d been favoring earlier to her chest.
Frowning, he tugged gently at her wrist.
“Let me see your hand—did you do something to it?” he asked.
Without speaking, she uncurled her fingers, showing swollen and badly blistered skin.
Bear sucked in a breath at the sight and the doctor part of his brain—the part that had been sleeping for the past five years since his wife had died—suddenly came back to life and started shouting orders.