Chapter 8

“Rescuing you, you mean.” She tossed down her spoon. “What right do they have to hold you here, anyway? Seems to me like they gave up on you a long time ago. Why take you back now, when you don’t want to be here?”

Wiley sighed heavily. “It’s worse. Jayems…. He claims he’s my husband.”

“What?” The table rattled as Jasmine shot to her feet. “For crying out loud, why?”

Wiley’s lip began to tremble. “He claims we were ‘joined in a betrothal ceremony’ when we were kids.”

Jasmine shoved her chair away, her robe flapping against her legs as she stood up and paced, the better to rant. “That’s barbaric!” An awful thought occurred to her and she paled. “He hasn’t tried to…”

Wiley’s eyes widened, reading her mind with the ease of long acquaintance. “No! No, nothing like that,” she hastily reassured her friend. “I don’t think he’d...I think he’d rather…” She cleared her throat and blushed. “Anyway, it’s the whole idea.”

“I should say so,” Jasmine agreed indignantly, pacing again. She spotted the male servant watching her. No doubt he was sent to spy on them. Well, two could play that game. “What’s your name?” she demanded.

“Knightin, my lady,” he said with a respectful inclination of his head.

She puzzled for a second over the lady (he made it sound like a title) but let it pass, assuming it was a substitute for ma’am in this neck of the woods. She studied his face for a moment, noting that his long rusty hair was tied back. Long hair appeared to be in fashion on this world. “How do you get a divorce here?”

A gasp came from her right, and she whipped her head around in time to see the maid fumbling for her dropped feather duster. Score one for the home team.

Good, she thought with fierce satisfaction.

Knightin’s expression turned wary. “It is not done, my lady.”

“It’s not done, or it can’t be done?”

He shifted a fraction and took a slight breath. “If a woman can prove she has no desire for her husband, then she may be released from her bond, however...”

Jasmine smiled triumphantly at Wiley and watched her shoulders begin to relax. “There, you see? Nothing to...”

“However,” Knightin interrupted, “in the Lady Rihlia’s case, it would be almost impossible to obtain.” He seemed almost angry, and Jasmine wanted to find out why.

She pretended to be distracted by the view for a moment, letting him stew. She needed to keep her temper down. When she was calmer, she said, “Okay, please explain why Wiley would have trouble divorcing this Jayems.”

He looked like she’d forced a bite of Chinese bitter melon on him. “Lord Jayems,” he emphasized the title like a nanny prompting diction, “Is the successor to Lord Rohmeis, but only through his bond with Lady Rihlia.”

Jasmine winced a little at all the foreign terms and then looked at Wiley significantly. “So without Wiley, the leadership, or whatever it is, goes poof, huh? But would Wiley really be forced to stay with him if she didn’t want to?”

Knightin relaxed and answered with a touch of male arrogance, “Considering the type of bond they share, it’s unlikely that ‘wanting’ could even be an issue.” When they just stared at him, he clarified with satisfaction, “Their marriage was determined by casting lots.”

Jasmine’s temper began to get the better of her again. “Are you telling me…” she paused to control her tone, “that my best friend’s future husband was determined by essentially drawing straws?”

Taken aback, he tried to explain, unconsciously speaking with his hands in his agitation, as well as his voice, “The lots are holy, reliable instruments of...”

“I don’t care about your holy mumbo jumbo!” she shouted. “How could her family do that to her? Where were her parents? Don’t answer that,” she cut him off, raising a hand in warning. “I might get sick.” She glanced at Wiley, who looked worried again, and made herself calm down. Wiley didn’t need her losing her temper. She had it rough enough already.

But it wasn’t fair. Wiley had already been through too much. Growing up an orphan was tough enough. Suddenly finding an entire family and being snatched by an alien world was more than enough to deal with without watching her friend throw temper tantrums on top of it. What they needed was a plan, and she had just the thing.

She touched Wiley’s hand gently. “Don’t worry about it, Wile E. Coyote,” she teased. “We’ll just treat him like a wart: a little liquid nitrogen, a little discomfort, and poof, he’s gone.” Wiley laughed, as she’d intended.

Knightin turned an unhealthy shade of bing cherry.

She eyed him speculatively. “So, what exactly are your orders? Besides reporting every word we say, that is?” She watched in satisfaction as his jaw clenched, but he didn’t rise to the bait. “Do you have to follow her everywhere she goes, or only when she’s with me?”

Annoyance simmered in his manner, but his answer was straight forward enough. “Only when she’s with you.”

She smirked at Wiley, and said just to see her smile, “I guess you’d better step out while I get dressed. There’s only so much I’d care to have reported about me.”

Wiley chuckled and waved her hand, more like her old self. “Go use the dressing room, brat. I promise not to let anyone follow you.”

Jasmine entered the dressing room and closed the door behind her. She wasn’t nearly as calm as she pretended, but she didn’t want the panic she

felt to show. They had to get home!

Well, she’d feel better once she was properly dressed. She took a breath and examined the bundle of clothing Wiley had brought. There was a pair of black leather boots with breathable canvas panels in just her size and several pairs of socks. Comfortable black pants in a material similar to extremely thick silk with a button fly closure and a belt had been included. She set them aside while she searched for underwear.

That was when she hit the first snag.