Chapter Text
~
“Rise and shine, m’lord,” a voice shouted, far too loud, and far too close to his aching head. “Don’t you got family that’ll be lookin’ fer ya, before long, if’n ya don’t get a move along, aye?”
God’s ruptured eardrum, he needed this fellow to stop shouting. And it would also be helpful if he knew where he was. Because this hard surface was surely not his bed. And these smells suggested that this was not his well-kept chamber within Aldera Castle.
Nay—he blinked, eyes blurring most unhelpfully until slow focus came to him—it was a horse stable. He vaguely recognized the wooden rafters above him, and he certainly knew the sweet smell of hay and the less-sweet smell of horse shit. And it wasn’t the royal stable, either.
No, he was flat on his back in the hayloft of the tavern stable, covered with his wool cloak. Little surprise that he hadn’t made it back to the castle last night. He’d drank deep of the tavern keep’s supply of whiskey, good stuff, better than one would expect in such a shabby but bustling place. From Corellia, he’d said. The finest Corellian whiskey.
What his own father had preferred, decades ago, according to his mother’s lore.
“M’lord, will ye be wantin’ a bit of herb tea for yer head and a sweet roll?” the stable hand shouted, continuing his assault on the Duke of Naboo’s sensitive ears.
He grunted. “Nay. Not of the moment. But thank you.”
“Happy Christmas, then!”
Christmas. Christmas morning.
Ben rolled onto his side and slowly forced himself into a seated position, and it was a minor miracle, one for which he’d light a candle at mass, that he was able of doing so after imbibing so much wine. And small ale. And cider. And whiskey. It would be a fair guess that there was more alcohol in him than blood at this point.
But he had to go. There was Christmas mass, and his mother would rend the flesh from his bones if he missed the service, and he needed absolutely no reason for one more voice to shout at him when he was fair certain his head would shatter in a hundred jagged pieces. No, he would not give her the satisfaction. Not at all.
~
“So what’s the problem, then?” Hux had asked amicably as they mounted their horses. “Why are we riding in freezing weather to some dodgy tavern like the devil herself is on our heels? I have a lovely fire burning in my chamber and a beautiful wife to keep me warm—”
Ben had convinced him, once they’d escorted their wives safely back to their respective rooms, to come out with him for a drink in town, away from the other courtiers, away from etiquette and watchful eyes, to join the raucous fray he knew his knights would be enjoying.
“I’ve simply had enough of court for the moment.” His voice had been terse, and then he sighed. It was hardly Hux’s fault he was in such a mood.
But at least it was not a lie, however. He truly needed to be away, even for a few hours. He needed to turn his thoughts over in his head clearly, then less clearly, as whiskey dulled the more uncomfortable edges of his memory of the evening.
Namely, the memory of Aldreda, achingly young and lovely, in the red gown his mother had chosen for her.
She’d not been the rumpled little girl in the convent smock or the wild hellion in her breeches and tunic or even the modest young lady with her hopeful eyes and tentative, shy smiles—when she wasn’t full of the devil and giving him the sharp side of her tongue.
Nay, in the new style of gown that so flattered her slender waist and the neckline of which that had dipped below her delicate collar bones, showing the elegant line of her neck, she was a vision in crimson silk and golden embroidery. A suggestion of what she would be when she was grown. Which she was not. Not for years yet. And his stomach had twisted painfully with the vehemence of his self-reproach.
Lovely she might be, but she was too young, no matter what some men of his rank would say. And as always, he’d grown brusque with her, when it was not her fault.
He truly was a deuced dunderhead.
It was his duty to safeguard her and to see her honored and cared for. That’s what he had sworn in his vows to her. It was why he’d killed the men who’d hurt her. Why he’d sent her to live with his mother. Why he trained her in self-defense. Why he’d danced with her when she’d been sitting alone with no partner, looking wistful. Why he’d tried teasing her, to make her smile, only for her to misunderstand him—his own fault, really. He was so damnably bad at this. No art in his words at all.
At least he could console himself with the heartfelt knowledge that whatever he did, he meant to keep her safe. And that meant from himself, too.
And after what his brain helpfully categorized as the happenstance under the mistletoe, the little miss was red-faced and unable to meet his eyes at all. She’d fumbled in her haste to retreat into his mother’s chamber, without saying a word, breathless and awkward as the first days of their meeting.
It was his fault, a thought that sunk like a rock in his stomach.
He had not taken command of the courtiers’ teasing. He had let himself be swayed by the shouting, and by the imploring look in her eyes and the desperate pitch in her voice and the daunting insecurity and hurt in her expression that he suspected was borne of witnessing him with the viper-tongued Bazine on his arm.
He didn’t even want to contemplate why Aldreda was so seemingly flustered at the sight of him with the other woman—she simply hadn’t understood that etiquette was etiquette, especially at his Aunt Mara’s fete and that he’d been honor-bound to escort the conniving creature.
It helped not at all that Aldreda still did not yet know the shape of his character. Of course, she’d have no way of knowing. Hux was right. He hadn’t befriended her. Not properly.
What he did know was that he owed her more than a kiss with a loud, drunk audience.
He’d tried to be gentle about it. Tried to be tender with her. She deserved that at least, bright, young, innocent thing that she was. She deserved a bit of delicacy in a sharp-edged world. And so, he had touched her carefully. Brushed his lips against hers gently as he felt her tremble, but bravely doing what she thought she must to save face in front of the court.
And now she couldn’t look at him.
Just as well.
It was not a thing to be repeated.
He’d do better by her in the future. Far better.
“One drink, Organa, and then I’m going back to my wife and my child,” Hux said, interrupting his thoughts. “I’m putting a diamond the size of a goose egg around her neck in the morning, and I mean to remember the look on her face without the haze of a hangover.”
“Why not an ostrich egg?” Ben quipped wryly. “Lady Rose is deserving, is she not?”
“She needs to hold her neck up, man. And I rather like her head. Full of excellent advice. They don’t tell you that when you marry—that your wife becomes the other half of your brain. Or is it your soul? At any rate, she’s my other half.”
Ben was quite certain no one had dared to suggest to him that Aldreda was his missing half.
“Your wife is an excellent personage, to be sure. I think of her as more than a half, however.”
Armitage smirked slightly. “Fair point. And one I think Rose would agree upon. A woman is not just half a thing waiting to be completed, after all. And she’ll certainly remind you of that.”
Apparently, the Exegolese rhetoric and religion promoted by old Palpatine hadn’t rotted through Hux’s brain, despite the best efforts of men like Tarkin.
“Well, after one drink, if you must return to the warmth of marriage and family, I cannot fault you. I might need two or three yet. I’m sure my knights will be full of revelry.”
If Armitage Hux found any humor in that, he did not demonstrate beyond a sardonic eyebrow.
“You know, you could try to know her. Talk to her. Be her friend. Rose and I were an arrangement, and not a happy one at first. And I am seven years her senior, and she but eighteen when we wed. It was difficult to find commonalities. And then we tried talking.”
Ben grunted and gave a prolonged glare to his friend.
Hux acknowledged the glare with a wry smile. A fifteen-year difference, when one’s bride was but fifteen was a different matter altogether.
And so.
Corellian whiskey it was.
~
As Ben climbed down the hayloft ladder, he heard an unmistakable little mew pierce the cool, still, morning air, followed by a bit of rustling. And upon his pause, a pair of big blue eyes in a little, fuzzy orange face with long, delicate whiskers and perfectly triangular ears emerged abruptly from the hay.
It meowed again and struggled forward through the straw toward him, tiny tail pointing straight up in the air. Alert. Curious. Purposeful.
Ben looked across the hayloft for others, but there was no movement besides that of the little orange fellow currently wobbling toward him. No siblings. No mother cat running to collect the errant kitten. It was probably the new stable cat for catching mice and such. If a little undersized for the task. And telling from the shaky little legs, far too young for mousing. He was fair certain half the rats in Aldera were larger than this tiny creature.
But he had places to be. And dismissing the kitten from his thoughts, he continued the climb down, until the little fellow peeked over the edge and meowed again. Rather loudly.
Hopefully.
Damn it.
And with a sigh, Ben climbed up the ladder and retrieved the tiny thing, stroking its soft little head before he tucked it inside his doublet for warmth. It really was far too cold to leave it behind. And the kitten was likely hungry and certainly too young to fend for itself.
“Come on, then. Can’t leave you here, can I?”
It mewed in agreement.
~
God was merciful, and Benjamin Organa, Duke of Naboo, thanked the Almighty, for his mother did not comment on his tardy arrival to the Christmas morning mass, merely gave him a warning glance.
He had crept back into the castle, stowed the kitten in a large box for safekeeping with a bit of water and asked a servant to bring a bit of roasted chicken. He’d bathed, dressed, combed his hair, and found his aunt and uncle and mother and wife in the front pew, kneeling piously during the service. And after joining them, after the conclusion, and a burst of joyful singing from the choir, they had exited for the family luncheon among the sea of courtiers.
Where the Christmas Eve revelry was for all, Christmas Day was traditionally observed with the morning mass, then a day of quiet amongst family. And good thing, too, for more than one courtier looked red-eyed and sallow as they went through the motions of religious observance.
Aldreda was pensive, her jaw tensing and face coloring pink as she pointedly refused to look his way, even as she took his offered arm when leaving mass. Still mortified, he imagined. Poor thing. He was surer of her when she was spitting fire and pert in her speech.
“Ah, Ben! Well met and Merry Christmas,” Aunt Mara called to him as they left the mass, all smiles as she looked between him and Aldreda, green eyes lively with amusement. “Glad you could join us.”
“Happy day, aunt.” He smiled and bowed deeply. “Luncheon will not come a moment too soon. I’m famished and can only think of pheasant and plum sauce.”
“Aye, that mass is longer every year,” Luke bemoaned. “Or mayhap my knees just aren’t up to all the kneeling any longer.”
“That’s because you’re a doddering old man,” Ben’s mother quipped tartly, rapping him on the back of his head with her prayer book. “Maybe no lunch for you, just herbed broth for the rheumatism.”
Luke huffed and rolled his eyes. “You’re older than me by five minutes, so who are you calling old?”
Mara snorted with mirth. “We’re all old, save for our sweet Duchess.”
“Mara!” Leia gasped with absolutely no horror or lack of amusement. “Such betrayal and cruelty! And on the birthday of our Savior!”
“Well, she’s not wrong, mother,” Ben said with a wry laugh, winking at his wife, hoping to see the little flare of temper rise on her face. “I’ve found my first gray hairs, coincidentally, since I married this one here.”
But Aldreda didn’t laugh or grumble or roll her eyes--just glanced at him, then looked away, red to the tips of her ears. Clearly embarrassed.
God’s withered gallbladder.
~
Gift-giving within the royal family tended to be a simple affair.
He received a gold cloak pin with the Naboo insignia upon it from his aunt and uncle. A new cloak from his mother. And leather gloves from Aldreda, with his initials carefully stitched into the lining. Strangely, she’d only flushed pink when he’d thanked her, looking at her shoes.
It was no small wonder that his mother had silently admonished him over luncheon, needing to say nothing but flashing her expressive brown eyes at him in between bites of pheasant, eloquent between mouthfuls of buttered rolls, and pointed between forkfuls of roasted, spiced turnips. He could see the worry on her face, and on Luke and Mara’s faces, as well, particularly as Aldreda ate little, though that might well be due to the overconsumption of small pies the night before, and said little, though that was more than definitely his fault.
No, it would not do. He had to do something. Before his mother came up with another grand idea. And preferably before Aldreda decided that she should remove his head from his shoulders with her fighting staff during their next lesson.
And after watching his mother drape a pretty string of amber beads around Aldreda’s neck and Luke and Mara gift her with a volume of Alderaanian fables, Ben made show of patting his doublet, wrinkling his brow.
“My apologies, but I seem to have left your gift in my chamber.”
He had not. The small gift sat safe in his pocket. Though his mother and aunt did frown at him, passing quiet judgement that he would not be ready for this day. Well. He was not that much a disaster of a husband. They could think what they wished, however.
“Oh, that’s alright,” Aldreda replied calmly, unperturbed, looking at the cover of her new book with interest, running her fingers over the pebbled leather cover, clearly anticipating a cozy evening with new stories. “Mayhap later, my lord?”
That she would take it as a matter of course that he’d forget her gift told him what he needed to know. And the cold knot in his stomach grew. And damn it, he needed her to stop calling him that. Had she ever even said his name? He thought not, now that he considered it.
Hux, damn his eyes, was right. He could be her friend. Not just the looming grump who scolded her whenever his mood was foul or he felt uncomfortable. Lucky Aldreda, to be stuck with such an ogre.
“Actually, why don’t you come fetch it with me, my lady wife?”
His mother, his aunt, and his uncle all looked at him, eyes widening, and Aldreda’s head jerked upward in surprise. After a moment, Mara and Leia exchanged a rather significant look, then smiled. As if they could guess what was in his head. For once, he was smugly content with the knowledge that they could not.
“What? Right now?”
“Come with me. I crave a moment of privacy with you. Indulge me?”
Not that he deserved indulgence, and the sudden flash of reproach in Aldreda’s eyes let him know that she agreed. But good little egg that she was, she nodded and rose from her chair. Probably as curious as a cat at what he might want from her.
~
Now the difficulty of what to say, when Aldreda wasn’t the one venturing forth with her usual dizzying round of questions and when there was no bustle to distract either of them as they traveled the long, winding corridors.
Every family was clustered around their own private luncheon currently, quietly celebrating before the evening’s entertainments and light refreshments. It was a far, far simpler day than the eve. And he liked it much better.
He thought Aldreda did, too. Quiet as she was, awkward in her manner, all stiff shoulders and neck as she walked at his side, she looked more herself, if lacking her usual animation. She was dressed in one of her older gowns, her hair bound in a single, hair braided over her shoulder. Altogether, she was more recognizable in the fine, blue wool gown, and far more at peace, less concerned about what the day would bring.
“Here we are,” he said, filling the silence as best he could, as they stepped through the doorway into the warm, firelit room, so cozy with its wall hangings and plush carpets. The truth was, there was so much he should be telling her. She deserved explanations. She deserved apologies. “Sit. Make yourself comfortable.”
“You didn’t have to bring me here for this, my lord. I could have waited. Truly.” Spoken warily, if not sharply, as she sat on a plush chair near the fire, looking about his sitting room. Well, her room. He imagined she’d like it back. “I’m not a little girl to cry for want of a gift.”
Ah. And not so much a complaint, as her trying to convince him. And he felt bad at once.
“That’s not what I thought at all.” Hardly. She wasn’t a brat. “It occurred to me that we haven’t spent much time together alone, aside from the training. Thank you again for the gloves. They’ll get much use.”
Ben determined that he could sit by her, looming at her side, but instead he chose a low, cushioned stool and set it before her, quite putting him at her knee as he sat, bringing his head level with hers for once. And she flushed as her eyes met his before looking away, the color high on her cheeks.
“Oh, you’re welcome. I thought—you ride so much, in all weather, and now mayhap they’ll be even more useful, with the war coming—” she shrugged slightly then quite visibly chewed the inside of her lip, out of words for once. He trusted it would not last long.
Ben could not help but smile, his cheeks twitching. “They’re quite perfect. And I appreciate the stitching you did. It was very well done, Aldreda.”
Such faint praise, and she smiled in return, sneaking a glance at him. God above, had one kiss done that much damage to the tenuous peace between them? She’d not been this shy in some time. Just in the few days prior, she’d tried walloping him with a staff, then shouted her many grievances at him. So many grievances.
The anger was a little easier to manage than this silence.
“Then you are welcome.”
Ben fumbled in the small side pocket of his doublet, thick fingers awkward over the tiny object, but he managed to pull it out and offer it up to her with a rueful smile. Quite obviously, it had been on his person all along, though Aldreda chose not to comment. She merely looked at him, surprised.
“This is for you,” he said quietly.
An obvious statement, that. He waited for her to extend her right hand, dainty compared to his own paw, and he slid the pearl ring upon her third finger. It was a dainty gold band, with a single, perfect pearl setting that glowed rather than sparkled. Something lovely but not ostentatious. Simple enough to wear every day if she chose. A pretty ring for his pretty wife.
Her eyes brightened with girlish pleasure at the sight of it, but he withheld his smile.
“I considered more weaponry for you. A Mustafarian battle axe. An Ithorian trident. But this caught my eye instead, and I decided to take a chance.”
Aldreda’s smile tugged at the corners of her mouth and her dimple deepened as she ran her fingertips over the smooth pearl, then turned her hand this way and that then looked back at him, finally offering him a slight smile, something guarded but hopeful in her pretty, hazel eyes.
“It’s beautiful. Thank you, my lord. I like it very much.”
“I hoped you would like it. If you do not, I can—”
“But I do like it,” she said quickly, interrupting him, and holding her hand closer to herself, as if worried he’d take it back, then smiled, this time more widely, and glanced down at it again as a happy flush warmed her cheeks. “Truly.”
“Alright then. I’m glad to hear it.” He sat forward, resting his forearms on his knees. And a new thought occurred to him, and he smiled, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “I wonder, however, if I could possibly ask for another gift from you?”
Her brows knit curiously. “I suppose you might ask.”
Ben acceded her point with a nod of his head. “That’s fair. I was wondering--would you call me by my given name? Benjamin? Or Ben? Benji, if you must. I don’t think you’ve ever spoken it aloud, and we’ve been wed more than six months now. It’s your right, you know. You are my wife.”
Her eyebrows rocketed upward, and she gulped. There was that peculiar shyness again when she was usually kitten-bold. “But you’re so—and we aren’t precisely—and—I’m just--”
He groaned and took her hand, holding fast so she would not draw away and sandwiching it between his two for emphasis. “I’m full aware that I’ve done a hundred things to offend you as a husband, so I thought perhaps we’d do better by one another if we were simply Benjamin and Aldreda, aye? I think we could be proper friends if we were Benjamin and Aldreda. I would very much like to be your friend.”
And he realized, with a start, that it was the truth. A strange truth, but there it was. He liked her well.
“Friends,” she said slowly, mulling the word with a gravity that belied her tender years, hazel eyes searching for a sign, for something in his brow, in his eyes. Then she made a wry face, her mouth twisting slightly, perhaps even sadly, and she sighed. “Will you keep scolding me?”
He did have a habit of bringing misery into her happy days. He groaned inwardly.
“I tire of that as much as you, I think.” And after seeing her eyebrow quirk eloquently, Ben exhaled a chagrined laugh. “Alright, perhaps not. But nay. Unless you’re about to do something dangerous and foolhardy that is like to cause injury, I won’t scold you.”
She lifted her chin. “Likewise, then.” And, a bit more shyly, with a hint of nervousness that made him feel strangely guilty for not encouraging this familiarity before, “Benjamin.”
It was pretty in her voice. He smiled at her broadly and squeezed her hand before releasing it. He didn’t know why it was easier when it was the two of them, but it was always so. Without prying eyes and others butting with their opinions and agendas, they did not get on so badly together.
“Friends, then. I’m glad.”
“Friends.” Her nose scrunched with a shred of humor. “Rose said a marriage should include friendship. She said she and Lord Hux fought like rabid badgers before they became friends.”
And so they had. And so would Ben and his young wife. That’s all there could be for now. Until she was old enough to know her mind and make her own choices.
“You know, Armitage has said the same to me--and Luke, too--that a man should make a friend of his wife.” Friendship. And there was the fresh guilt from the evening before and the startled, stricken look on her face when he had leaned in for that terribly public kiss. “And… If we’re to carry on as friends, ‘dreda, I want you to know how sorry I am for last night. I should never have kissed you, simply because we were being goaded by the courtiers. It wasn’t fair to you, and it was poorly done of me.”
Her lips parted in surprise, and just as before, she looked away from him as if she could not stand to look upon his face. He’d thought for a split-second last night that there was some girlish jealousy—but that was obviously impossible. It had merely been some quarrel with Bazine.
And to be sure, it was a relief.
If Aldreda had convinced herself that she perhaps had a fondness… no, it didn’t serve any good to even think of it. She still had that fresh, otherworldly air about her, the vestiges of her convent girlhood clinging to her no matter the fine trappings of her new wardrobe.
“Oh,” she exhaled, some tension lingering yet in her narrow shoulders. “We… well, they were rather insistent. I… I asked you, anyway, so I suppose I should be the one to apologize. It was my fault. If I had been better behaved, we would not have ended up under the mistletoe, and… well, I am sorry. I know you did not wish to kiss me. If I had not interrupted you and Lady Bazine—"
Aldreda frowned, her expression melancholy, far more than one would expect from a girl as doted-upon as she on Christmas Day.
He froze in astonishment at the very notion, then snorted at the impossibility. “No. She’s not to my liking in that way.”
Or any way at all.
“But she’s the most beautiful woman at court,” Aldreda protested, as if shocked, nay, incensed—as if it were impossible for a man not to yearn for Lady Bazine Netal’s companionship. Like it upset her understanding of how the court operated, limited as her knowledge was.
Bazine was beautiful. There was no use in denying it. And he did not want her. Never had.
He sighed, then shook his head wryly as he replied, “But it so happens that beauty is not the only element to dictate attraction. There are other factors that compel a man’s attention. Character. Intelligence. Wit. Loyalty. Ability to knock a man over the head with a fighting staff.”
Aldreda snorted and ducked her head to avoid his gaze, her voice growing smaller. “Oh. Well… I’m still sorry that I asked you to you kiss me. You did not wish to, even if you didn’t want to kiss her, either.”
“Look at me,” he said and reached to touch her hand.
And when she raised her eyes to his, wary, he smiled faintly. Nay, this matter sat squarely on his shoulders, he thought with a sigh of self-reproach. She was the innocent. He was the furthest thing from. The least he could do was reassure her that the blame was all his.
“It’s for me to apologize. You were mortified the moment the courtiers started yelling, and I did not protect you from it. I should have told them, unequivocally, that we were not there for their entertainment. It’ll never happen again; I promise you that. And I promise I won’t touch you again. You have nothing to fear from me,” he said, gently.
She looked very much as if there were some words fighting their way through her head, clashing and sparring for dominance, but ultimately, Aldreda nodded, the color high on her face as she looked away from him briefly.
“I don’t fear you,” she said softly, then smiled as she glanced back at him. “You didn’t hurt me. You were… kind enough about it.”
She was gracious to say so, when the hurt was in her eyes. The embarrassment of being so exposed in what should have been a sweet moment between two who loved one another. Aldreda was always brave. She had been from the very beginning, facing him down the day they met with fire in her eyes.
“I’m glad you don’t fear me. That’s not what I want. It’s a tricky thing, the two of us being wed, but if we can get a handle on this friendship business—” he started, lightening his voice into something teasing, as he stood and extended his hand to her, “I think we’ll manage. Come with me—I’ve another present for you.”
“Really?” she asked, baffled, taking his hand as she rose to her feet lightly. “But I thought there would be just the one, for tradition. Aunt Mara said—”
He laughed. “Well, this was a bit of a surprise for me, as well.”
~
“Close your eyes,” Benjamin commanded, putting his hands on her shoulders as he guided her into his personal chamber and over to the large, canopied bed. He gently turned her and let her take a seat before going to the box at the foot of the bed where the tiny kitten was curled up on a warm blanket, sleeping the morning away.
“What are you hiding? Does Mother Leia know?” Aldreda demanded, though her voice was filled with humor.
“She does not know, in fact,” Ben mused. “Sometimes even a dunderhead can manage a secret or two.”
The little body was warm, and the kitten blinked its big, blue eyes open the moment Benjamin scooped it out of the box and yawned, as if its day had already been extraordinarily strenuous. He could not withhold his grin as he brought the tiny creature over to her.
“Hands out,” he said briskly.
Aldreda held out her hands, keeping her eyes closed, even as she tilted her chin upward as she spoke to where she assumed his face would be.
“Is it a snake? Are you trying to get even for the business with the frog? I told you I was sorry for that. Mostly. And anyway, I have no fear of snakes, so—” she started, her pretty face full of concern mingled liberally with defiance.
He sighed. “’dreda, hold your tongue. It’s Christmas. Not a day for vengeance.”
And as gentle as ever, he placed the kitten into her hands, and he waited. Though as soon as the furry paws with their little claws and the heft of the round-bellied kitten was in her hands, her eyes flew open with delighted astonishment. And she smiled with radiant happiness.
“A kitten! Oh, look at its sweet face, my lord—Benjamin.” She colored pink, glancing at him quickly with her bright hazel eyes. “Where did it come from?”
Her attention returned rapidly to the kitten who was now mewing and wriggling in her hands, and she held him up so she could look at his tiny face and touch the tip of her nose to his nose, before clutching him to her chest gently, like she was cradling something profoundly delicate and not a wriggling, miniature beast who would only grow larger and fiercer with time.
“I found him in a tavern hay loft this morning. Or rather, he found me. I think it’s a he.” He’d checked under the kitten’s tail, a bit of rude business for a new acquaintance, and he was certain enough of the kitten’s sex. He a knew a bit about animals, after all.
Aldreda immediately turned the kitten ‘round, bright with curiosity. “No bollocks. Are you sure? Or do they come in later on lads?”
And then, of course, she turned that utterly guileless gaze upon him, her nose wrinkling slightly as she waited for an answer to her question.
Ben coughed, ruffling his hand through his hair in agitation. God’s undescended testicles, just five minutes without an awkward question from the girl would be a gift.
“The bollocks come later. For kittens, anyway. You see, under the tail—” He groaned, closing his eyes. He couldn’t have this conversation with her. “Just trust me. Or ask my mother. She’ll be glad to tell you all about feline bollocks.”
Aldreda mercifully turned her eyes from his face and back to the little orange kitten who was now trying to scale over her shoulder determinedly as if it were the highest mountain peak and not his young wife’s narrow shoulder. The creature would be climbing the tapestries in his mother’s rooms before day’s end, and Aldreda would soon know how he and his mother and Sir Finn felt on a daily basis, keeping pace with her antics.
“I love him,” the girl declared firmly, laughing as the kitten nipped at her fingers and wrapped his tiny paws and legs around her hand in playful attack. “Thank you.”
“You’ll have to feed him and give him water. Play with him. Clean up after him. Train him to not make messes, aye? You’re responsible for the beast.”
Aldreda nodded happily, and warmth bloomed in Benjamin’s chest watching her. She was so entirely enthralled with the kitten, cuddling him close and pressing happy kisses to the top of his fuzzy head. Uncomplicated happiness for her, for once. A little friend, a little someone all her own, that relied upon her. It’d do her some good.
The kitten would be a tyrant in no time with Aldreda doting upon him.
“I’ll take such good care of him. Thank you for bringing him to me. Oh! Now I have to think of a name.”
“Serious business, that,” Ben teased her, and she flushed.
“Maybe I’ll name him after you.” Spoken pertly, with a glint in her eyes.
“I’m not sure that’s a compliment to him or me,” Ben snorted. “Let’s go show my mother. I’ll have a servant bring the box later so he’ll have a cozy place to sleep.”
Aldreda rose to her feet, carrying the kitten in the crook of her arm. Her eyes only belonged to the newcomer, she was so flushed with excitement.
“He can sleep with me,” she said. “I’ll make a special pillow for him.”
And as they exited the suite of rooms, Aldreda paused and looked up at him, her expression oddly shy. It wasn’t much like her to hesitate on anything, this pink-cheeked, newly bashful girl. He wondered how long it would take before she was all flashing eyes and whirling staff again.
“What is it?” he asked lightly, holding his arm out for her.
“Did you really mean it—that you wanted to be my friend?”
His brow knit, and underneath the flushed happiness from the delight she held in her new kitten, there was that same nervous beat that had been in her voice last night, and the same insecurity. She was just a young girl, after all, who knew him not one whit, through no fault of her own, and was struggling to navigate a strange place with customs and intricacies that had to overwhelm her daily.
And the least he could do was be her friend.
“Aye, ‘dreda. Of course, I wish to be your friend.”
“Oh.” She flushed pink, the dimple on her face etching deep as she beamed. “I’m glad.”
~