Driven by Duty by Mia West

Author:Mia West
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Mia West

When Gwen met Morien at the stables, she was fairly bouncing.

Today would be her first visit to Lord Ban of her own volition, and it made her feel expansive. She was directing her own destiny, and though it had come about as a happy result of delivering Rhys’s message, she could return to Ban—be useful to him—thanks to her own skills in reading and writing.

She supposed this was what life must be like for someone who practiced a trade. It felt good to have a useful skill and even better when someone wanted to employ it. Life as a warlord’s daughter had had its benefits, no doubt, but this was something else altogether.

This was freedom.

If she hadn’t shared with Elain precisely how she was occupying herself… Well, that was something she felt too good to examine just now. Even her nausea had abated somewhat. She plucked a peppermint leaf from her belt to head it off.

“You’re very cheerful,” Morien said as he helped her mount her horse.

“Life is wonderful, Morien.”

“Life is cold.” He gestured to the snow that had fallen overnight and the slushy churn in the stable yard. To the leaden clouds threatening more.

She supposed it could seem bleak, if one didn’t have so many good things happening to them. For them. By them. “We’ll just have to pick up our pace, then, and warm up a bit.”

Morien resisted her every attempt to provoke him into racing, citing treacherous conditions that were really only muddy, at worst. His punishment for reining in her enthusiasm was getting his ears talked off for the several miles of their journey. By the time they were dismounting in the yard before Lord Ban’s hall, though, she had him chuckling in his deep, sweet way, and he’d admitted one couldn’t fully appreciate the warmest months without enduring the coldest.

Lord Ban’s chambers were plenty warm. Downright stuffy, and she slyly looked for a way to bring some fresh air into them. The best she could do was to prop open the curtains in the doorway.

“It’s drafty,” he said loudly and grumpily.

“It’s refreshing,” she replied and waited for him to counter her.

But he only waved her closer. “I know,” he murmured. “I prefer them open. My steward is a pain in the arse about keeping them shut.”

She grinned. “Our secret, eh?”

He shrugged. “’Til he comes back to make our lives miserable.”

Misery did indeed return in the form of the steward. Carrying two crates himself and trailed by two household boys with one box apiece, he left the chamber heaped with scrolls of vellum and parchment…and closed the curtains.

Gwen stepped lightly to them and listened. As soon as she heard his voice receding, she opened them again.

“Ha!” Lord Ban said, cackling. “An accomplice.”

She crossed to the crates. “All of this is unread?”

“And unanswered.”

“I’m surprised that steward hasn’t insisted on reading them to you.”

“He deals in trade markings only, and figures—just enough to keep the household supplied. Latin would confound the poor fellow.”

“Well, then, let’s begin, shall we?”

Ban sighed.

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