Chapter Sixty Two: A Most Agreeable Match of Most Disagreeable Terms

Charlotte tried her best to tamper her expectations, as she prepared herself for her second wedding of the day with an entirely new groom. She was feeling beyond anxious over Aya, and for her father, both of them locked up in the cells beneath this castle; her friend for the false allegation of a king’s murder and her father for entirely true accusations of sanctioned poisonings and deceit.

Charlotte could not make sick herself with worries over their soon to be decided fates however. She could not waste her time puzzling over who had truly killed Yuri Gristhm, whether it was one of her father’s other agents she could expose to prove Aya’s innocence, and how that might only worsen her father’s sentence… Such puzzling left her brow most unpleasantly furrowed and her eyes damp with frustrated tears, so she had to breathe deep and compose herself for now, because she had a duty to perform.

Queen Clara and Marquis Razier had stood side by side with their armies of Arakeshi and northmen to address the disgruntled populace of their city. Charlotte had stood silently at their backs with Kareem while they orated and tried to keep raised her chin and steady her quivering lip. It helped that Kareem was right there at her side, holding tight to her hand and beaming with such confidence and pride. He was genuinely thrilled to have her for his bride, and they would wed this very day. The citizens would all be happy with it, because Yuri Gristhm was gone and a monarch of pure Marseir blood would stay sitting the throne and ruling them justly.

Still, after being led on, and shot at, and threatened at gunpoint during her last attempted wedding, Charlotte was not about to walk into this event with any similar dewy-eyed ignorance. Her trust in her aunt, Clara, had been shaken, and she needed to assure herself first that her new groom would help her in freeing Aya and securing leniency for her father. If he was not a man of such character, then she would run away from here this very day, break Aya free of prison herself, or maybe lead some sort of revolt among the people? Or… “Specific plans can be decided on post-conversation with this Kareem,” she assured herself firmly to calm the racing scramble of her thoughts.

She thanked the lady in waiting at her side for fixing up her hair and outfitting her with what were honestly, far too heavy new adornments of dangling gold earnings and an exotic looking head-dress studded with rubies. She was still wearing Clara’s freshly cleaned wedding dress, but all these added embellishments of wealthy gifts from her new father in law were making her look even more regal than before. She smothered her discomfort with that image and waited impatiently for the last gold necklace to be clipped into place. Her maids assured her finally that she was ready for the ceremony. “Almost ready. I have… something to do first,” she apologized, lifting her skirts and rushing off to confront her dressing groom.

The guards at the doors of Kareem’s provided rooms made her wait outside most anxiously tapping her foot while they went to request permission from their lord to allow her in. Both men then stood in the room right with them to chaperon, as Kareem welcomed his bride with a glowing smile. “My Charlotte, my love, I was missing you so sorely as well, missing the sight of that most gentle, angelic face.” She blushed. “You look more radiant than ever, done up as a proper goddess should appear before her people.” There was such warmth within his eyes as they drifted entranced over every detail of her outfit, and her blush grew all the hotter. She fiddled with her skirts in self-conscious unease. “I myself have not yet finished my preparations for our wedding,” he excused, fixing on a most elegant sash of royal purple overtop his silken jacket. “But you are a proper maiden of pure intent, so I know you intended nothing wicked by coming to my dressing rooms this day.”

“You don’t know I… I mean, ‘pure’ is a kind of a… well, not a misleading descriptor, but...” She fumbled for words, but those smoldering dark eyes had just as crippling of an effect as Carnen’s piercing stare. “You know nothing about me!” she blurted out finally. “And I know nothing of you, so you cannot love me, and I cannot love you. Not yet anyway.” She swallowed. “I… I thought I loved someone else, but I didn’t really. I just liked his… face.”

Kareem’s eyes lowered in thought, and he muttered, “Your Aya said the precise same thing this past hour; that my love is not true, simply because I know little about you…”

“Aya? You spoke with Aya? How?”

“I went down to the dungeons to assure her that I would not rest until I had cleared her name and freed her of that horrid place. She had broken out herself though, as it turns out. Still, I most dutifully attempted to hide her and save her re-imprisonment. I even offered to wash the filth from her body.”

Charlotte’s cheeks turned burning hot. “You… What?!”

“Yes, that was most improper, I know,” Kareem sighed. “Because she has not yet been purified, and we are not yet formally wed. I find it a struggle with you as well, my angel, to not lay hands on you while having you stood here before me, right here by this most comfortable bed.” He gestured to the mattress behind him, and Charlotte felt her knees buckle. “But it is easier to refrain with those men glaring on at your back, I will say, and the knowledge that I will bed you tonight with the approval of my father and the gods in unison does keep me from going mad with impatience…. Charlotte?”

Charlotte’s senses had already blackened with the sudden spike in her panicking heart rate, but Kareem most valiantly caught her again, before she could crack her head on the floor.

Her eyes fluttered open, and she shuffled instantly away from him with the somber whisper, “Don’t… touch me. Please. You’re just like him. You want to marry Aya and not me.”

“Oh no, my gem.” He seemed genuinely distressed by her statement. “I want to marry you both.”

“Both?!”

“That is the natural way of things in Arakesh,” he patiently explained. “My father himself has six wives, and he cares for them all most tenderly. Though my mother, Mira, is his clear favorite.”

“And I will never be your favorite,” Charlotte knew with soul-crushing depression. “Aya is the exciting one, the first one you fell in love with, and you like me only because,” She swallowed, eyes brimming with tears. “Because I look like her, yes?”

“No, no, you misunderstand. I love to look at you, yes, and it was love at first sight with the both of you, but I like you much better, Charlotte, because Aya’s behavior is not at all pleasing. She is coarse and offensive, like an unpolished stone, whereas you are already a shining gem. You are gentle and demur as a woman should be, and you will undoubtedly remain my favorite. I do wish in fact…” He gave a little grin. “Can you teach Aya to act as you do? We will all of us be happier then.”

Charlotte bounded to her feet with hands balled into fists. “How dare you! Aya need change nothing about herself! She is perfect! Fierce yet empathetic, and patient, and talented, and witty, and if you cannot see that, then you are the one who does not deserve her affections!”

Kareem blinked, completely taken aback by her sudden change in tone and demeanor. “Maybe I was mistaken, and I could not read your soul in an instant as I thought. Do you…?” He faltered, appearing most suddenly insecure. “Do you not savor the sight of me, your true groom? Or do you wish in truth for that tank of a man you thought you were in love with?” he most resentfully muttered.

“I wanted Carnen to like me, yes,” Charlotte sighed, sinking down in the chair at the side of these rooms. “Because he was so charming and handsome… He was also so very frightening though. And he kept lying. Over and over he lied.”

“I have not lied to you, my gem,” Kareem latched on with sudden hope. “Not about any of my feelings.”

“I know.” She exhaled. Despite all the strange customs of his country making her so sad and confused these past minutes… She looked into his eyes and she knew he was as unabashedly honest of a person as anyone she’d ever met. He felt no shame for his most dramatic feelings of love at first sight, and his presence was rather comforting, the complete opposite of Carnen, who could frighten her to death with every abrupt shift in his mood. “I do… I like you. I like you a lot, but I don’t know you yet.”

He took hold of her hands, staring into her eyes with passionate conviction. “Whatever it is you wish to know of me, my love, I will share it with you gladly.”

She drew a complete blank for a moment, then she blurted out, “Cheese. Do you like cheese?”

“Not at all. It upsets my stomach.”

Charlotte smiled, and the conversation quickly relaxed and grew less of an awkward exchange. He had so very many stories to tell of his travels and studies, yet he seemed far more interested in learning about her own interests and pursuits. He was beyond impressed with her love of science and with her poems.

“How elegant your words when you lay aside your nervousness, my love,” he breathed. “I will have our bards compose you epics of your own: the gentle lady of the brilliant works...” She blushed. “And I will give you gardens as broad as you wish and watch happily each one of these experiments of yours,” he promised her. “They seem like they would be of great benefit to our country.”

They talked for over an hour, until the call came that they must be off to chapel, and Kareem announced, “I say again, my Charlotte, that I do indeed love you with every fiber of my being.” He kissed her hand, and her cheeks turned burning red. “I love you more with every detail I discover.”

“I… I think I love you too,” she admitted. “You are so very… so agreeable. Though I do not wish…” She swallowed. “A harem sounds not at all agreeable. I think it would make me most sad and disheartened to be competing with other women for your attention all the time.”

“I would never wish you sadness. I could not bear your sadness.” His eyes lowered in thought, and he cocked his head. “I suppose... I suppose there is no rule that states a marquis must have many wives. I think… I think having you and Aya would be more than enough.”

Charlotte flushed. “But you do not even like Aya. You just want her to act like me.”

“Exactly. Like having two of you, and there are things in bed that simply cannot be accomplished with just…”

His words were so utterly shocking that Charlotte blacked right out again. She came to and Kareem was carrying her up to their carriage. “We are running a bit late now. I apologize,” he informed her somberly. “I can see you are indeed a touch naive, but I rather love that about you, my Charlotte.” She blushed. “Perhaps I might commit to you alone. Still, we must see to freeing our Aya of that dreadful prison nonetheless.”

“Yes, of course,” she murmured. “And you will help in securing leniency for my father as well?”

“Of course.”

Charlotte settled happily against his chest, and soon felt all her anxiety turn to eager jitters. She felt herself floating in a dream once again as she walked back up the aisle, took her vows with Kareem, and felt the press of those lips consuming her own in breathless joy.

This is love, her brain screamed, even louder than it had with Carnen. She would be cared for and happy in Arakesh, just as her father had said. She was happy all that day, and all that evening, when she was finally gifted her promised ball. The lords were all cheering when she performed the first waltz with Kareem. She learned exciting new line dances from Arakesh as well, and her face soon hurt from smiling so long and so broadly. She forgot all about Aya for a time, so swept up in that day, and she was happy all the way until that night, when an assassin drove her needle into the neck of Charlotte’s new husband.