The Winter King by C. L. Wilson Page B

who’d been his wife’s beloved nurse, then caretaker of his wild, unmanageable youngest child. “You’ve had the better part of three days.”
    “And I’ve spent all of that just trying to undo the worst of the injuries you dealt her!” Tildavera snapped. “I’ve done everything in my power to speed her healing. Ointments, herbal baths, I even ordered the servants to bring up all the growing lamps we’ve been using to keep some measure of fresh fruit and vegetable on your table. The best I’ve been able to do is help her breathe without pain and grow a thin layer of new skin over most of the lacerations you inflicted.” She put her hands on her hips. “There’s no possible way she can stand before the priest or sit for hours at the wedding feast in her current condition.”
    “Unacceptable. I’ve already told the Winter King the wedding will take place tonight, and he’s already agreed to it. You’re supposed to be a master herbalist. I let you go to her only on the condition that you could get her fit for tonight. Now can you do it or not?”
    The old woman got an affronted, self-righteous look on her face. “I am indeed a master herbalist, but no amount of herbal remedy or even full summer sun could possibly erase what you did to her—not in the short time you’ve given me. It will be a week at the earliest before she’s fully healed. If you wanted her capable of wedding, you should have restrained yourself rather than beating her within an inch of her life!”
    “Watch your tongue, woman.” Lifelong retainer she might be, but Tildavera Greenleaf had long ago forgotten her place.
    “Or what? You’ll beat me, too?”
    “Don’t tempt me.” He paced the office floor, thinking rapidly. Yes, he’d been harsh, but the damnable girl had refused to bend, and he’d been forced to break her. He’d been counting on the nursemaid’s skill with herbs and the girl’s own cursedly efficient self-healing abilities to mitigate the worst of the wounds he’d inflicted. “If you can’t have her ready for the wedding, Tildavera, you can at least have her ready for the wedding night.”
    “Surely you’re joking.”
    “Do I look like I’m joking? Aren’t you the one who said consummation was the only way to ensure the White King wouldn’t demand the marriage be annulled once he realizes he’s wed to that . . . abomination instead of the Season he’s expecting? Have him wed her and bed her and whisk her out of the city before he realizes he’s been duped, you said.”
    “That was before I knew you’d beaten her near to death!”
    “She’ll survive. She always does. But the reasons for insisting on consummation haven’t changed just because the hour grows late, and you’ve discovered that your skills aren’t quite what you’ve always touted them to be.”
    He kicked at the small scorch mark on his office carpet left by the burning ash of Rosalind’s picture and diary. Many potentially lethal accidents had befallen the girl in the years following Rosalind’s death, most of them natural, a few less so, but she had survived each one unscathed. Contagion never touched her, deadly blows turned away at the last moment, even the few grievous wounds she’d suffered over the years healed swiftly, without infection or scarring. It was as if the gods themselves sat on her shoulder, protecting her from sickness and peril.
    Well, now he had an opportunity to rid himself of her once and for all, and he wasn’t about to suffer her presence a moment longer than necessary.
    “There will be a wedding. By proxy if necessary.” He stopped pacing and looked up. “Come to think of it, that’s probably the best solution all around.” The idea hadn’t occurred to him until now, but it had great potential. “One of the Seasons can stand in for her . . . Autumn, I think. He showed interest in her.”
    His mind churned through all the possible ways the plan could go wrong and all the ways to keep that from