If he had time to reflect after the rushed events of the preceding week, he'd admitted he was in an awkward situation, kneeled on a bed made with soft furs and fresh sheets, embroidered with L and S initials, candles glowing on the budoir, to set the mood for a first wedding night.
His own.
With belly full with food, thanks to the excellent dishes prepared by the cooks hired by the bride's family, with throat pleased by the dusted wine bottles stored in the cellar since the birth of his young wife, he was ready for.
His bride.
Her white wedding dress, her long hair braided with flowers, a cascade of white that maybe wasn't the proper colour for the bride, according to the way she was found two months before, his Lord father had said. But the Countess was irremovable, her daughter would wear white, the old lion had to accept.
His father.
Who summoned him to explain about the betrothal, telling him the girl was wild and in need to be tamed, so that her lady mother had offered the wedding as a solution for both their Houses, after the girl run away with the blacksmith.
His competitor.
Maybe not her true lover, the girl refused to be inspected by a doctor to test her virtue, she trashed and screamed and kicked that her mother decided to keep her locked in the castle for the time twice her monthly blood could assure she was not pregnant, at least, and ready for…
His child.
He wasn't sterile, he had three proofs, but he'd preferred to be so, when his father had threatened him to reveal the truth about his liason with his twin sister.
His lover.
Who had betrayed him while he was away at war, fighting against the Frenchs, then returning home without a hand. Discharged from the army with a shining gold medal, he had no money, no land, no house, no power to oppose his father's will, so he bent his head and said the wows with…
His mouth.
Now buried between his wife's legs, working to offer her pleasure and to make his body react the right way. One thing he was sure, he was not a rapist, like his sister in law's former husband sure was. A now dead husband, with the active help of the body squirming and moving under his. If they had no way to escape the inevitable, he wanted his girl to enjoy the act and he hoped to get hard enough to enter her, because may she be a maiden or not - and frankly it was not his worry - he felt like a maiden himself, having coupled with his sister only. Having admired her only, not caring the times he had to pretend he noticed other girls before he joined the Horse Dragons. How comfortable the uniform had been, to hide their secret and to prevent him from looks he felt unable to give. But now all the love he could imagine was for this girl, all his body was for her in the bed covered with furs.
His pleasure.
Now he was looking at his little wife, the way she was accepting him and his hands and his mouth and her sounds and maybe it could work, because she was vibrant and challenging and he had find a dagger tied to her thigh when he clumsy disrobed her, earlier. She was young but not young as he feared, scars and bruises and the hands of a woman, no remaining traces of a girl's body. Still she was a girl in his eyes, because he was twice her age, although he was discovering this young woman who mastered a sword and entered the army pretending she was a boy. He was sure they could have fun time sparring with steel, she was left handed, she could teach him to use the only good hand he had. Who cared about duty and honour and family name once they did what was supposed to seal the marriage pact; after tonight, they would be free.
His sword.
Former Colonel's one, placed on the couch beside the bed, he could see it shining, lighted up by the candles, he remembered when he used it to kill the mad king, thinking to give freedom to the kingdom, just to place another fat unworthy king on the throne. So he run away from the new madness, only to find himself in the freezing North, under silk sheets over a young delectable body, in a huge castle.
His house.
A condition of the marriage contract, because the girl refused to go West and he decided it was better the everlasting cold than his father's cold glaze of disappointment and his sister's silence in his presence, that caused salty tears in his eyes.
His eyes.
Emerald green like the North sea, uncommon up there, in the middle of grey and blue, only the blacksmith's were half brown and half black in rage, ready to cut a dark hole inside him, to force him to erase the memory of the bull boy in his wife's mind, added to the fear to hear a name not his on her lips, like his sister had to bear on her wedding night. He could not continue thinking the girl wanted another man, it would be his last fault, the one he could not accept, the one to send him to wear a black cloak, cover his face and sail away, to hide his shame.
The girl was silent, except for her unintelligible moans, so he insisted, continued, touched her in the most tender way he could imagine, to bring her over the edge, to make her fall into him, desiring to be her one and only, because that way they may have a chance, find a way, build a home and not just live in a cold house in the middle of the North.
He prayed all the Gods, the new, the old, the Gods from every God to have mercy of him, of the sins he did for love, of his wrong choices and his acts of heroism, just to find peace in the arms of this brave and strong girl.
He had a woman only, before, never dared to look at another for near forty years and now he had this wild flower with thorns and he wanted to bleed touched by her, he did not care if she had already bled or if the life in the army marred her in every possible way.
She was moving faster, enjoying him, he was sure for the telltale signs of her pleasure and then came his biggest fear, she was murmuring something, he hoped she was asking for more, more from him, from her husband, from the man that could learn to love again, in a good and proper way.
He focused to listen, because whatever way, he had to witness his joy or his despair, had to know it there was a possibility to become a new man, unbroken.
She tensed and then stilled and he stopped, too, and closed his eyes and he heard her, and the single word, the right word, the one he hoped for. His name, simply.
"Jaime!"