In The Beginning, Gail Daley [red white royal blue .TXT] 📗

Andre sat beside her on the bench and put his hand over the clenched ones in her lap. "Long enough to tell something is bothering you."

"I need to tell you something I don’t think you will like hearing," she said, before she lost her nerve.

He let go her hands and put an arm around her. "Unless you plan to say you don’t want to marry me, it won’t matter."

She shook her head. "Did any part of your memory ever come back?"

"Is that what is worrying you? My past?"

"Andre, I won’t start a marriage with a lie between us, and we lied to you when we first met you."

"I see," he said, watching her face. He had been half hoping he could get her into marriage before she told him the truth. He should have known better, he reflected ruefully. His Rebecca was too honest to marry him with a lie between them.

"I don't like lying to you, and we lied to you about our engagement; the first time I saw you was when Blackfeather brought you into our camp and you fell off him. You were wounded. Grandpa had brought back the wanted flyer on us from the village the day before, and he was desperate to hide our trail. He told you we were engaged to make sure you would stick around long enough to get us through the next few villages. He said everyone would remember us as a party of five not four if someone made inquiries about us."

"Is that what this is about?"

She turned to look at him and found he was regarding her with a wry smile. "Why aren’t you angry? I expected you to be furious when I told you I—all of us had lied to you."

"It’s time for the truth from me too I guess. I don’t want to start off our life with a lie either. But I've deceived you as well; I’ve known the story Lewys told me about our engagement was a lie ever since my memory returned."

She stared at him. "When did your memory return?"

"I remembered who I was after the first three days," he admitted.

"If you knew our engagement was a lie why didn’t you say anything?" she demanded, dumbfounded.

His arm tightened about her. "Well if I admitted I knew the engagement was a lie, my dream woman would have stopped allowing me to kiss her."

She gaped at him. "What?"

"You don’t know, do you? The first time I saw you, I thought you were the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. I wanted our engagement to be real, so I pretended it was. At first, I told myself I was only pretending it was real to turn the tables on you, but the longer we went on pretending, the more I wanted you to belong to me."

"Oh," she said, softly.

"What made you tell me the truth today?"

"I didn't want us to get married with a lie between us. Are you sure you want to marry someone who lied to you?"

Instead of answering, he stood up and pulled her into his arms. His mouth closed fiercely on hers, demanding a response. Her arms slid up around his neck and she kissed him back just as passionately. The memory of Lazarus and his attack disappeared as if they had never been.

When he let her breathe, she was limp and boneless in his arms. "Does that answer your question?" he demanded.

"Yes," she whispered.

When he would have kissed her again, she put her fingers against his mouth. "There’s more you need to hear."

He sat back down on the bench, pulling her down with him. "Okay, tell me."

"Magi on the run have been disappearing around this area for years. That is why the Local Proctor grew suspicious of my cousin. Sooner or later the Kings Magi Procter will come here to investigate. We can't let him into Ironlyn, so we will probably have to fight the Magi Proctors to prevent it."

"That time might be coming sooner than you think. I was down at the Trade Station earlier today. They told me the Shahen had appointed a new Proctor, and he is making a tour of the provinces. It means he will probably come here."

She rose. "I need to tell Grandpa."

He pulled her back down. "I did that already. You and I need to find out all we can about how the War Room operates. There is something you should know about me too: your family isn’t the only one with a wanted flyer out on them. By this time, I probably have one out on me as well. Just before I met you, I got into a fight in a bar. I killed a man who had accused me of cheating at dice."

"They put a flyer on you for defending your honor?" Rebecca was indignant.

Andre hugged her in delight and gave her a smacking kiss. It was wonderful to have someone always think he was in the right. His girl never even considered he might have been cheating. He hadn’t been, but not everyone would have believed it without question. "It doesn’t matter much if the man who dies comes from a powerful family and the man who kills him doesn’t."

"I think that is terrible!"

"So when can we get married?"

"As soon as my wedding dress is ready," she promised. The seamstress from Land's End is coming for a fitting for all of us tomorrow, so please stay around the keep."

He looked taken aback. "All of us? Me too?"

"Yes, of course," she replied. "You need a proper wedding outfit too, and none of the family has had new clothes in several years."

"As far as I'm concerned, you don't need clothes," he retorted. "I would just as soon see you naked on our wedding night."

Rebecca laughed, "But there is the ceremony and the celebration afterwards," she reminded him. "Do you want everyone to see me naked?"

"No, I don't," he admitted.

Young Love

THE NEXT DAY WORD CAME from the Trade Station more refugees had arrived with the