Jaime Lannister blinked vivid green eyes at her, then frowned. "Come again?"
Brienne gulped, sinking to the ratty wing chair, and repeated herself. Mercy, but he was a looker. She'd heard so, of course— that was why he was the first name on her list. All the working ladies in all the saloons she'd visited in her travels from Tarth to Hellholt had named him the most dashing, exciting, and handsome bounty hunter in all of Westeros.
He was renowned for his skill, both professional and recreational, from one end of the territory to the other. Women wanted him, and men wanted to be him. If she could manage to convince him to participate in her farce... she'd buy herself at least another few years before Sansa would harass her again.
"That's what I thought you said." He took his time withdrawing and lighting a cheroot, taking a pull and squinting at her through the wisp of smoke rising to the ceiling. "Unless you've been seized by a sudden passion for me... which is possible, but you don't seem the type to be taken by flights of romantic fancy." He surveyed her from top to toe, leaving her feeling positively scoured by his leisurely gaze. "Suppose you explain why?"
The cigar smelled heavenly, a warm, sweet, heavy scent that permeated the room, giving it a sense of false intimacy. Brienne steeled herself against it, and banished the insidious little thought that he would likely smell similar, and how nice it might be to bury her nose against his strong, tanned throat.
"I need you to be my husband for just a few weeks," she clarified stiffly. He didn't reply, didn't move a muscle, so she continued. "I know what you must be thinking, that I am so unappealing that I must hire a man for the job. Please be assured that I would not expect any... intimate... services from you, nor even your company outside of a few select... scenes, I suppose you could call them."
He quirked a tiny grin at that, revealing— good heavens— dimples. How did women retain their senses around him? Or did they just... not?
"All that hard work, and not even a little bonus?" he murmured, the low, honeyed tone of his voice setting something alight in her belly. Oh, dear. This might not be such a good idea, after all.
"I have no illusions about my appearance and my appeal," she made herself say, incapable of being dishonest, at least with herself. "I'd like to have a husband and children, one day."
The tiny grin became a smirk, as if he just knew he was irresistible and wouldn't mind providing her with a little charity, and it turned the warm glow he'd lit within her to a hard little burning coal of anger. His self-satisfied confidence threw into worse relief how very discomposed she felt.
"But if I were actually looking for a husband, it certainly wouldn't be an aging gunslinger with no reliable means of support and the beginnings of a paunch."
At her last words, he straightened from his slouch in the doorway and visibly sucked in his (flat, absolutely not-paunchy) stomach. She felt a moment's chagrin at her fib, but he was infuriating.
"I see," he said, all the honey gone from his voice. "Not that you've any room to talk— your face could crack every mirror in town— but would you mind explaining what you need an aging, paunchy gunslinger for, then, if not to sling his gun... either of them?"
Brienne felt her face color. "I'm not sure what to explain first. I... I was told you were the handsomest man in Dorne, possibly all of Westeros, by a landslide."
He relaxed a fraction and shot her a smile of false modesty. "People talk a lot," he said with an air of gracious humility.
"Personally, I don't see it." Renly Baratheon was at least his match, if not his superior, in looks, and the various Tyrells were extremely attractive, too, as were Sansa's brothers. No, Jaime Lannister had plenty of competition for the title of 'best-looking man in Westeros'. Though, she had to admit, none of them had quite set her a-quiver the way he was doing at that moment.
The smile fell off his face. His hand froze, cheroot paused in mid-air.
"That so?" he asked flatly.
"Too much sun is turning your skin leathery, and you're clearly getting up there in age, though I'll admit the silver in your beard and at your temples makes you seem distinguished in a way you likely don't deserve."
She'd said it to make sure he understood she was immune to his blandishments, and perhaps to convince herself, as well, because despite his arrogance he was entirely too appealing for her peace of mind.
But when he stared at her a long, fraught moment, she realized her error. This was the face a hundred men had seen just before breathing their last and she regretted her hasty words. There was something about this Jaime Lannister that made her usual good temper and the strict lessons of her septa fall by the wayside.
Fortunately, he'd left his gun belt off, and she was confident that if it came to a grapple, she could take him. She was strong enough.
Then he threw back his (silvering, distinguished-seeming) head and laughed, the rich sound ringing off the walls.
"Well, Miss Duncan, no one can accuse you of flattery." He'd seemed to decide her unkind opinions weren't worth fretting over. Brienne was unsure if that were good or bad. "You going to explain to me this need for a temporary husband?"
They'd reached the unavoidable moment she'd hoped never to reveal to anyone, but if this were going to work... Brienne heaved a sigh and began.
.
.
"I have a very dear and close friend who is... well, if you're the handsomest man in Westeros— " here, she ran a skeptical, and very blue, eye over Jaime from head to toe with a dubious expression "—then she is the most beautiful woman. Auburn hair, hourglass figure, perfect features. She has every possible appeal the gods could grant." She paused. "Just as I do not."
He wasn't quite sure what to make of that. "You want me to kill her?" he asked, mostly joking, but it soured when she sucked in a shocked breath.
"No! She is my dearest, oldest, kindest friend!" Here, the homely woman wrung her hands in dismay, gazing down at the worn carpet. She looked so miserable he almost felt the urge to comfort her. Though he was sure any attempts to soothe her would be met with a hard right hook, and Jaime had no desire to make his nose as bent and crooked as hers.
"So what do you want me to do?" he asked gruffly. "How can marrying you possibly help you with this perfect friend?"
She took a deep breath. In no way did it cause a bosom to thrust out against the restraining shield of a corset in that way Jaime particularly liked; in fact, he was rather sure she wasn't even wearing a corset. And for a moment the fact that she was too flat to need one meant nothing when compared to the idea that, under the cotton of her garments, she was bare, unrestricted... that he could slide his fingers between the buttons of her shirt and find nothing but warm, probably freckled, skin and tight nipples...
He hurried to sit on the lumpy chesterfield squatting nearby, the better to hide the truly alarming development in his trousers. It's just because my visit to the saloon has been delayed by this insane meeting, he told himself. Once I have an hour with Ros, I'll be fine.
"Sansa will be visiting me at my home very soon," explained Miss Duncan. "And she'll be bringing with her a man she wants to convince me to marry."
He tilted his head to the side, trying to figure her out. "But I thought you said you wanted to marry, that you wanted children."
"I do!" she exclaimed, sounding frustrated. "But I want to marry a man I choose, not one I'm talked into, or who is talked into marrying me. And she could, Mr. Lannister. Sansa could easily talk a man into marrying me. She can talk a man into doing anything, and thinking it was his idea in the first place."
He took a deep drag from his cigar, relishing the dry heat of the smoke in his mouth and lungs before exhaling.
"She sounds awful," he said flatly. He'd had his fill of manipulative women who used their looks to get their way. It was one of the reasons he preferred whores. They didn't play games, didn't toy with his mind. He knew what they wanted, they knew what he wanted, and there was no pretense between them. Good, clear honesty— that was all he wanted out of life. He'd given up hoping to find it in a woman.
...except this hideous giantess seemed to have at least her share of it, if not more than. Hm. Just figured he'd finally found a woman who didn't prevaricate to wring what she wanted from him, and she had to have a face that could stop every clock in the territory all at the same time.
"She's not," contradicted the hideous giantess, hotly defending her friend. "She's wonderful. She only wants me to be as happy as she has become, now that she's married to the love of her life. They're expecting their first child, and I think she's feeling broody. Wants everything, and everyone, settled into their own fluffy little nest."
Her face was exasperated but fond. Rarely had he seen someone so transparent with their emotions, easily admitting their affection for another. In his experience, revealing a fondness for anything or anyone just gave your enemies– or your family– something to target.
"How can being your husband for a few weeks help you with this goddess?" he asked, so fascinated by her that he forgot trying to remember to smoke. A keg of dynamite couldn't have moved him from that room.
"Not only will I already be wed, but she'll be so impressed with my husband that she'll leave off trying to matchmake for me, even after I reveal, in a year, that we have sadly parted. I'll have been so desperately heartbroken by the end of the marriage that she won't push me to remarry. I'll be free to make my own way and find someone who, unlike you, will be better-suited to be my husband."
There was an insult in there somewhere, Jaime just knew it. "And how am I ill-suited to be your husband?" he drawled, but inside felt a touch of pique; what else could be wrong with him? "If I'll impress her, there must be something I do well."
"She'll find you very handsome," Miss Duncan said promptly, "and your occupation as a bounty hunter will be very exciting to her. You also appear to have some level of charm, and she is very receptive to a lively conversation. In all, you will be exactly what she wants for me."
"And what do you want for you?"
"Me?" She looked surprised at the question, as if taken aback that he'd be interested enough to even ask. "I want a man who would be a good partner, a caring father. Reliable. Someone who could..." She paused, visibly drawing herself up for something unpleasant. "Someone who would, if not come to care for me, at least treat me with respect, in spite of my looks."
Well, hell. Standing there, big fists clenched, ugly face resigned and ashamed, she had Jaime feeling a very unwelcome tug at his heart. It wasn't her fault she wasn't attractive, any more than it was his fault that he was. Just the luck, good or bad, of the draw. He was developing a deeply conflicted opinion of her, half dislike and half... not. Puzzlingly, worryingly not.
"So you want me to be married to you for a few weeks, in an effort to impress your beautiful friend so much she leaves you alone?"
"Yes, exactly!" Her face lit up in pleasure that he fully understood her intentions. It was bizarrely appealing.
Jaime frowned. "But why go through with the marriage at all?" he asked. "Why not just hire any man who might suit your needs to pretend? An actor... from King's Landing, or Braavos if you want to make sure she never learns who he really is?"
Her eyes flew wide in shock. "But then it would be a lie!" she protested. "Not only about being my husband, but about his occupation!"
He stared at her for a full ten seconds in silence. "Are you really telling me that you're willing to go through with this crack-brained lunacy but you refuse to lie about it?"
"Not any more than absolutely necessary," she replied hotly, leaping up from her chair, quivering in indignation. "Bad enough to lie about being in l-love in the first place." She stumbled over the word, blushing furiously, as if the very idea she could care for someone— or, perhaps, that someone could care for her— were deeply humiliating. "And I plan on never actually stating that, just letting the fact that we were married speak for itself."
He said nothing, too stupefied to utter a word. It was the most ridiculous scheme he'd ever heard. She was a complete innocent, possibly the most naive woman he'd ever met. Traveling to Dorne to find a man one step up from being an outlaw for a husband, trusting he'd not harm her!
Did she not realize that, after marrying, she became her husband's property? That the second half of the five thousand dragons would be his anyway, in addition to everything else? If she had a home, possessions, valuables... it would all be his, and he knew whichever unscrupulous bounder agreed to the mad plan would take her for all she had, then leave her destitute.
She could not do this. It would be her ruin, in more ways than one.
"This is a terrible idea, ma'am," he said in his most persuasive tone, getting back to his feet. "You're putting yourself in danger. You should go back home and tell your friend to just leave you be, and then find your own man. It shouldn't be all that hard. You're ridiculously honest— don't underestimate the appeal of that. Honesty's hard to come by, in this world. And you're no looker, it's true, but your eyes..."
He gazed at them, into them, feeling like he'd tripped over something and was falling. Silence fell, too, and they stared at each other for a long, fraught moment. Jaime felt on the precipice of something rash, like pulling her against him and kissing her senseless. Her eyes seemed to grow bigger and bigger, and he marveled at that until he realized it was because they were drifting closer and closer to each other, that she was only a few inches away by the time he finished speaking.
He was just about to do it, to reach for her and cover her mouth with his, when she blinked rapidly and shied back, looking like she'd just woken from a dream.
"Will you do it?" she asked, finally, her voice quiet. "I will pay you five thousand dragons— half up front, and the rest after Sansa is gone and the marriage is annulled."
The way she was looking at him... Jaime felt that ache in his chest, again, at her clear vulnerability, her hopefulness. She needed protecting, and wasn't that a hoot? A bruiser like her could probably set him on his back with one blow, and he was no slouch at brawling. Physically, she was big and strong and likely tough as nails, but inside, in her heart she was as tender as a rose petal.
The last time he'd been swayed by the plea of an attractive woman, when his desire to do her bidding had overridden his instincts to protect himself, disaster had resulted. Alarm stirred in his gut and trampled down any urges he might have felt to help this Miss Duncan. There was something dangerous about her. He had the prescient conviction that if he got involved with her in any way, he wouldn't make it out alive. Or at least not with sanity intact.
Alarm spiked to panic. He hadn't felt the urge to do anything for a woman besides fuck her in over a decade. He'd kept his heart far distant from women since leaving home and it had worked just fine for him ever since; he hadn't had a single instance of that deprived ache in his chest to be separated from his beloved, that all-encompassing need to be with her; hadn't been dependent upon anyone's approval and affection for his happiness.
He felt as if he'd had a dread disease, and been cured, and now stood at the threshold of a sickroom riddled with the same illness. One false step and he'd catch another case of it, and that way lay confusion and loss and pain, pain, pain.
This Miss Duncan had no right to stir up his memories, to muddle his feelings, to make him think about things he'd sworn off forever. No right at all. She'd up-ended his entire day with her preposterous request. He wanted her to feel as wrong-footed as he did, as unsure and awkward and exposed, and knew just how to do it.
"I'll do it," he drawled in his most obnoxious tone, and dragged a slow, insulting leer over her from head to toe and back again. "If you reconsider the ban on those intimate services you said you wouldn't expect of me. "
Her head jerked back in shock, as if he'd slapped her, and he exulted in her expression of dismay. Then, as if she didn't realize he was mocking her, Miss Duncan replied, very calmly, "No, thank you, ser. I may not have much to bring to a marriage, but when I do meet a man who I want to make my genuine, permanent husband, I want to at least bring him that."
That presumably meaning her virginity, and Jaime marveled for a moment at the knowledge of her purity. His libido, only ever marginally curbed by the oddness of their conversation, perked up again; the salacious hint of her untouched state was all it needed to roar back to life. She'd never had a man; he'd be her first, her tight little cunt strangling the life out of his cock in the best way there was—
He bit back a groan and forced some semblance of normalcy to his voice when he replied, "Well, then, it seems we've hit an impasse, ma'am."
Miss Duncan watched him, unblinking, for a few moments and then offered a brisk nod, digging in the breast pocket of her mannish jacket and extracting a dragon note she extended toward him. "For your time."
The panic of earlier, only ever ebbed, not banished entirely, melted into a wonderful safe rush of anger. Did she think him a two-dragon whore, charging others for every interaction? How dare she? Furious at her for every word she'd said to him, every insult, he chewed on the side of his tongue and fought his temper back.
"No, ma'am," he replied tersely. "I don't sell my time. And if I did, it would be worth a damned sight more than a single dragon."
She flushed, seeming to realize she'd pushed him too far, and nodded quickly. "I wish you the best of luck at continuing to dodge bullets for many years to come, then. Thank you for your time."
She gave him no pause to formulate a reply; she left the room, shutting the door carefully behind her, and Jaime sat back down and contemplatively smoked the rest of his cigar as the anger slowly drained away. He'd insulted her, mocked her, propositioned her; he should be feeling satisfied at that moment, to the point of smugness.
Why, then, was he feeling like the worst shit in the seven kingdoms?