They have a week before Garth prevails in forcing his company on them for dinner, and Sansa seems nervous.
"You were not so apprehensive of dining with Baelor or Grandfather," Willas notes, settling into his wheelchair and reaching for his boots. "Have I truly scared you away from the Gross so thoroughly?"
She hesitates and then shakes her head, letting a single curl spring loose from the braid she's been pinning in place on the back of her head for the past twenty minutes.
"Oh, bother," she grumps, and he catches her hand before she can pin the errant lock of hair back in place.
"Leave it down," he tells her softly, pressing a kiss to the thin skin and fluttering pulse on the inside of her wrist. "Be content with the knowledge that it will drive me half mad all through dinner, and let that amuse you when Garth turns into a boring drunk."
She rolls her eyes and turns to face him fully on the dressing table chair, twisting her fingers through his.
"Marian told me that he… That she…"
"That she's Garse's mother? Yes, she is. Did she tell you the whole story?"
Aldwin's wife Marian bore the elder of Garth's bastards when she was barely older than Sansa, and he had cast her aside without so much as a second glance when he discovered she was with child. He claimed Garse, of course – not that he had much choice, when even as a babe it would have been impossible to deny his son – but Marian had never forgiven him, and had grown to despise him all the more when he fathered Garett, the younger of his sons, on her younger sister. Garth has a taste for younger women – women Sansa's age or a little more, but only a little – and Willas is wary of how his great-uncle has behaved towards Sansa so far. He has not been overtly presumptuous, but his gaze lingers too long on the swell of her hips, her bosom, her mouth, and more than once Willas has had to fight back an impulse to hit the Gross.
Having Marian serve as Sansa's lady's maid is peace of mind for Willas if nothing else – he trusts the woman, who served as his wet nurse when his mother's milk dried up, as much as he trusts her husband, and she is motherly and sensible enough to tend Sansa without trying to turn her into yet another pretty Highgarden airhead. She's also sensible enough not to be jealous of Sansa's beauty (and Willas is perfectly aware that he is, perhaps, biased in Sansa's favour, but he cannot wait for her to grow into her loveliness, because then she will be stunning).
"She did – is he truly such a wretch as all that?"
"And more, I don't doubt – but if he so much as attempts to lay a finger on you, I'll cut his heart out with a butter knife."
She laughs at the absurdity of the threat, but he knows that his being willing to defend her honour – even if only in jest – is a talisman to her, one more foundation block to their relationship.
"Come here," he says with a smile, tugging on her wrist until she climbs into his lap. Her skirts gather at her knees when she kneels over him, cumbersome and awkward had he any lewd intentions, but he merely takes her face in his hands and looks at her for a long moment.
"My lord?"
"Do you know, Sansa, I think I might actually cut Garth's heart out with a butter knife is he lays a finger on you," he sighs, brushing his thumb across her lower lip. "A kiss for good luck from the fair lady?"
She blushes, but she still leans in and kisses him with her hands twisted into his hair and her body as close to his as she can get it with her skirts in the way.
"Mmm," he sighs happily when at last she pulls away. "I suppose we had better face the Gross now, hadn't we?"
His happiness fades with every passing minute during dinner, and Sansa's shoulders straighten harder and tighter with every word coming from Garth's greasy mouth.
Willas keeps as close to Sansa as he can in his wheelchair, and Garth is on the opposite side of the table from her, but still it seems as if he's too close, as if Sansa is within reach of his grasping fingers, and Willas temper is uncharacteristically short as a result.
Garth is in the middle of a longwinded explanation of why Dornishwomen are so attractive when Sansa's hand lands on Willas' thigh, her fingers digging hard into his skin through his breeches, and he decides that enough is enough.
"Pardon me, uncle, but I find myself fatigued – between my leg and the long hours spent organising the defences these past days… Well, I am sure you understand. You must excuse us-"
"Oh, Lady Sansa could stay for another few cups, I'm sure," the Gross laughs, waving a decanter of Arbor gold about in what Willas assumes is supposed to be a tantalising manner. "What do you say, niece? Care to listen to more of your old uncle's tales?"
Sansa's cheeks are flaming red, crimson almost, and Willas can feel the sickening urge to find a sword just so he can bury it in Garth's fat belly rising.
Rather than do anything so stupid and rash as that, he pushes himself back from the table and looks to Sansa with what he hopes are convincingly pleading eyes.
"I am afraid I must beg my lady's company," he sighs. "My leg, uncle – it has pained me most terribly since I returned from Oldtown, and my lady's gentle hands are a balm to old hurts."
Garth's eyebrow rises musingly and Willas curses his choice of words.
"I'm sure they are," he says, his words laced with so much innuendo and meaning that Willas' stomach turns. He can see his disgust mirrored in Sansa's face, although there's a sheen of fear in her wide eyes, too, and Willas wishes he could guard her from anyone who might dare to hurt her or take her or even touch her, almost, but he knows that all he can do is hold her and hope the nightmares aren't too bad.
"Goodnight, uncle," he says firmly, motioning for Sansa to follow him as he wheels himself towards the door of the dining room. "Pleasant dreams."
Sansa thumps down onto her chair at the dressing table with a huff, and Willas laughs bitterly.
"I am sorry, my love," he says, bringing himself as close to her as he can and touching her still-flushed cheek. "But he is difficult even while sober."
She smiles wanly and covers his hand with her own.
"I have heard worse," she says, something flashing deep in her eyes, and the urge to kill every Lannister that ever walked the Seven Kingdoms to avenge Sansa's pain rises stronger even than the urge to kill the Gross. She has shared some of her travails with him, Joffrey's cruel words and crueller orders, and even just her sparse retelling was enough to set his blood boiling. Even now, the hatred that burns in his gut is enough to make him want to take her in his arms and never let go, as if that might protect her.
"Would you like me to comb out your hair?" he asks, changing the subject as thoroughly as he can and slipping his hand back into the soft hair behind her ear. He is grateful that his wheelchair is so high, higher than the plans Oberyn sent so long ago, modelled on his brother's wheelchair. Willas' needs are not and hopefully never will be the same as Doran Martell's. "It will be wild tomorrow if we don't."
She smiles gratefully and turns, pulling pins from high up on her head as he pulls the ribbon at the bottom of her braid and begins to untwist the long rope of her hair.
"I don't understand how you're so kind," she says softly, pulling her hair loose on top of her head and shaking it out around her shoulders. Even now, when they're in the middle of such serious conversations, his breath catches at how beautiful her hair is, fire brought down from the North just to warm him, just for him. The thought of anyone else (any man) touching Sansa's hair makes him absurdly angry. He's embarrassed at the notion of her ever discovering just how enamoured with her hair he is, has been since the moment he first saw it loose. "You must be so unhappy here at Highgarden, but you don't let yourself become bitter or sad. How do you manage it?"
"I did not realise that I was managing anything," he says honestly, startled by her question. Or perhaps startled out of his musings on her and her hair and how violently protective he apparently is of his lovely little wife. "I may have been happier in Oldtown, but do not think that I am actually unhappy here at Highgarden. It is a singularly beautiful place, and I have Mother, had Garlan – I have you, don't I? And besides," he adds, "Highgarden is mine in a way Oldtown will never be, and I intend to make sure my father does not destroy it before you and I return it to what it was before the Conquest."
"What do you mean?"
"A haven of learning surpassing everywhere but the Citadel," he breathes, separating her hair and starting to comb it out. "A city to rival King's Landing or Lannisport in size and grandeur. The most beautiful place in the Seven Kingdoms – it's lovely now, true, but it can be more. It will be more. We will make it so, you and I." He presses a kiss to the back of her neck, just above her gown. "You and I, Sansa."
He is back on his feet the next day, the ache in his leg eased to a manageable (bearable) level, and it is with his mobility restored that he encourages Sansa to break her fast in the gardens with him.
She curls her arm through his and insists on carrying the basket out behind Aldwin, folding chairs balanced on his shoulder and matching table under his other arm. She still watches everything as they pass with those wide, astonished eyes, and he loves her innocence.
"I still don't understand how we can make it more beautiful," she confides once they're settled in the arboretum, sunshine splintering through the thick veil of leaves above their heads. "Everything here is just so… I can't see how we could improve it."
Boys with your eyes and girls with your hair, he thinks idly before catching himself. He can only hope that he didn't say that aloud. It strikes him though, after that, how very beautiful their children will be.
"I think we could start with the keep," he suggests, spreading thick strawberry preserve on a slice of bread and passing it over to her. "I would love to see it alive, Sansa – for all how big the family is, so few of them stay here with us, and we rarely have visitors. When I was growing up, the High Tower was always so busy – I want that here, too. I want to always have something to do, someone to talk with. The only people who ever seem to visit us are either Margaery's little friends or on their way further south, to Dorne or Oldtown. I want people to travel the roseroad for Highgarden."
She smiles, lips red from the preserve and the raspberries she's been picking at all morning, because Cook packed them on the very top of the basket, and it seems the most natural thing in the world for him to lean over and kiss her, chasing the taste of the sweet, sweet fruit deep into her sweet, sweet mouth. He often kisses her in public, unable to stop himself from kissing her deeper than perhaps is appropriate for any company save their own, but he's never gone this far, never kissed her with the same ardour and intent as he expresses during their morning and nightly explorations.
"Willas!" she gasps when he urges her off her chair and into his with him, urges her into his lap. Her skirts are split for riding – the thought alone is enough to drive him half mad – and she settles easily into place atop him. "Willas, someone might see!"
She's blushing, somewhere between the pearlescent pink he's pinpointed as the hallmark of her arousal and the cerise which announces her embarrassment, and he wonders if she herself knows which she is feeling more strongly.
"Let them," he says firmly, burying his hands in her hair and pulling her mouth to his again. "Let them see, Sansa, let the whole world see that I love you, little wolf."
She nips at his lower lip then, surprising them both if the fresh blush that spreads down her neck is anything to go on, and he's dizzy with the feel of her and the taste of her by the time she finally begins to pull away from him properly.
"You're a wicked man, Willas Tyrell," she laughs, cerise in the cheeks now but smiling wide enough to light up the whole of the Reach. "A terrible, wicked man."
It is another month of avoiding Garth, organising the defences of the western coast and wandering the gardens while plotting the changes they will make when Highgarden becomes theirs before the raven arrives from King's Landing.
Sansa's nightmares terrify Willas that night, never mind her, because she screams and screams and thrashes wildly in their bed, but another week and they're riding north along the roseroad. She huddles deep into the hood of her cloak, riding as close to him as she can force Whisper, and he spends more time with his hand in hers than with both hands on the reins.
He may not like Margaery, but he does love her, and she has never needed him more than she does now.
