“What is all of this?” she asked.
“Preparation,” he replied. “I should be ready to play for the earth by tomorrow afternoon.”
“Good.” Adaira felt his fingers unwind from hers. He flexed his hand, and she wondered if he disliked touching her. Or maybe there was another reason he disengaged his hand. She watched as he walked to his bed, where Lorna’s music was scattered. He gathered up the loose sheets and attempted to straighten the wrinkled blanket, to offer her a place to sit.
“I prefer to stand,” she said when he turned to her. “But you should sit.”
Jack’s brows lowered with suspicion. “Why?”
“Trust me.”
To her surprise, he did. He sat on the edge of his bed and carefully set her mother’s composition beside his pillow. “Now then. Are you going to tell me why you’ve come to my room like a thief in the night?”
She smiled but delayed answering him while she meandered around his chamber, studying it. Jack was quiet, suffering through her examination of his things. She expected him to protest or rush her along—he was such an impatient man—but he was silent, and when she at last came to a stop before him, his eyes, inscrutable and deliciously dark, were fixed on hers. Almost as if he knew why she had come.
She shivered.
Her heart quickened as she knelt on one knee before him, a position she would take for no other man save her father.
Jack watched her intently. She didn’t know how exactly she had expected him to react—whether he would laugh, curse, frown, or scorn her. He did none of those things. As his eyes remained on her, she knew he realized the magnitude of her bending a knee to him.
Her hair flowed down her shoulders like a shield, and yet her courage wavered. He will never agree to this, she thought, but it was too late now. He must know her intentions, and she was too proud to alter her course.
“John Tamerlaine,” she began to say.
“Jack.”
Adaira blinked, astounded he had just interrupted her proposal. “Your given and legal name is John.”
“But I answer only to Jack.”
“Very well then,” Adaira said through her teeth, and she could feel the color rising in her face. “Jack Tamerlaine. Handfast yourself to me. Give me your vow and be my husband for a year and a day, and thereafter should we both desire it.”
Jack was silent, as if he expected her to say more. Adaira keenly felt the pain in her knee as she held her position. The prickling dread of waiting for his answer. When his silence dragged on, she let out a huff of air.
“What do you say, Jack? Give me an answer, so I may rise.”
He dragged his hand through his hair, leaving it more tousled than it had been before. His expression was solemn, conflicted, as he continued to regard her. “Why, Adaira? Why are you asking me? Is it because you need someone to go with you into the west?”
“Yes,” she said. She didn’t tell him the whole of it. She didn’t tell him that she was lonely, that she was overwhelmed some days with all the responsibilities that were set before her. That she sometimes wanted to be held and listened to and touched, that she wanted to be with someone who challenged her, sharpened her, made her laugh. Someone she could trust.
She looked at Jack and she saw that person. She didn’t love him, but maybe in time she would. If they decided to remain as one.
“You know what I am,” he said in a flat voice.
“A bard?”
“A bastard. I have no father, no proud lineage, no lands. I have nothing to offer you, Adaira.”
“There is much you can offer me,” she countered, heady from the mere thought of his music. Spirits below, he had no idea the power he wielded. “And those things you mention don’t matter to me.”
“But they matter to me,” Jack said, with a fist over his heart. He leaned closer to her, so that their breaths mingled. “People will be appalled when they realize you want to marry me. That you chose me. Out of all the men in the east, I am the most unworthy.”
“Let them,” Adaira said. “Let them be appalled, let them talk. Let them say whatever they want. It will soon fade, I promise you. And when it fades … it will be you and me and the truth. And that is all that matters in the end.”
She studied his face—the faint lines in his brow made from a stern countenance, the press of his lips, the brown hair dangling over his left eye—and realized he was still unconvinced. He was debating if he wanted to accept her or not, and Adaira didn’t know what she would do if he refused her. She didn’t need him; she could rule the east on her own. Likewise, she could ask another man to marry and accompany her into the west. But in some deep, hidden place she had found that she wanted her husband to be him.