Alexander rode for a couple of hours before returning to the castle. He didn’t act as if anything had happened—at least not in front of his parents. Once Madelina had Letice down for her nap, she asked if she could speak with him.

He nodded, following her up to the room they were sharing. His parents hadn’t noticed anything odd between them because they were in the process of getting all their personal belongings ready to move to the dower house. The furniture would stay in the castle, but all of their clothes and special items had to be moved. They had lived in the castle for more than thirty years, so the process was tedious.

Once they were in their room, Madelina looked at Alex with tears in her eyes. “I am so sorry I used my powers against you. I have no excuse. I wanted to show you I could defend myself against an attacker, but that wasn’t the right way to do it. Can you forgive me?”

Alex sighed, wrapping his arms around her. “We were both very angry with each other this morning. If you need to talk to your aunt about something, I want you to tell me, and I will take you to the location where you can reach her. I think that’s a fair compromise.”

She nodded. “I will let you know.”

“Thank you.” He kept his arms around her, his hands moving up and down her sides. They hadn’t been able to make love since they’d left her home, and he missed having the special time with his wife.

He scooped her up in his arms and laid her on the bed, ready to rectify their situation.

“Alex! It’s still daytime.”

He grinned. “At the moment, that’s the furthest thing from my mind.”

This time there was no need for an apology. Her pleasure was as great as his, and she understood why he’d apologized before. She fell asleep in his arms, thankful they were back on good terms with each other. They’d been married less than a week. They couldn’t possibly already have a troubled marriage.

* * *

While Madelina slept, Alex went to his father, hoping to find a good way to ask him about how to properly train a wife in obedience. He should never have married a lady who was so independent. Her independence made her hard to control.

“Father? May I have a word?” His parents were together, going through their things in their bedchamber. They would leave soon, and he wanted to take advantage of his father’s greater experience before he left.

“Yes, of course.” His father looked at his mother. “We’ll talk in the sitting room below stairs. I’ll be back up to help when I can.”

His mother frowned. “You’re just trying to get out of helping, Ralph. This is not women’s work, you know.”

“I know. I’ll be back soon!” His father closed the door and grinned at him. “Thanks for the rescue, son.”

Alex shook his head. “Just tell her to have one of the servants help her.”

“Are you joking? I need to be able to live with her for the rest of my life.”

“I guess that’s what I want to speak to you about. I need to know how to make my wife obedient. Is there something I can do to train her to follow my lead?”

His father sat down in a comfortable chair in the sitting room, and he laughed. He covered his face with his hands and calmed himself down, then he looked at his son, and he laughed some more. “Seriously?” he finally was able to choke out.

Alex frowned at his father, taking the seat across from him. “Obviously Mother is the model wife. She obeys you in everything. How did you train her to be that way?”

His father took calming breaths and wiped the tears from his eyes. “There is no training a wife to be obedient. If a woman is treated with the utmost respect and made to feel like you value her and her opinions, she is more likely to want to follow your lead, but you married a woman of power, son. She has the ability to change the weather. You can’t expect her to be someone who easily follows you.”

“She rode out this morning, knowing I would want her to have an escort. She wanted to make sure her family didn’t worry about her because she could no longer communicate with them in her mind.” Alex sighed. “I found her riding back to the stable, planning to hide the fact she’d left.”

His father nodded. “I know right now it all seems insurmountable, but I will tell you that you don’t want a weak woman. If you married a woman who backed away from you every time you raised your voice, she would drive you crazy. Instead you have a strong, self-reliant woman. There is nothing wrong with that.”

“But sometimes she needs to listen to me and worry about her safety.”

“Maybe she does. Maybe she doesn’t. What did she plan to do if something happened to her?”

Alex frowned. “She had a bow and arrow that she uses with great skill. She also has the ability to call up her powers, and she gave me a dose of those this morning when I confronted her about it all. She knocked me over with her wind, and I landed on my backside.”

Ralph threw back his head and laughed. “Welcome to the world of marriage, son. She is not one who will be controlled. The only thing I can tell you is if you are a good, strong leader who makes it clear you value her more than anything else in your life, she will eventually be easier to make suggestions to, and she might follow those suggestions.”

“Are you saying that instead of telling her not to go and talk to her aunt without me again, I should suggest that she might want to take me along next time?” Alex couldn’t believe his own father was suggesting such gibberish.

His father shrugged. “Take my advice or leave it. You wanted someone more experienced than you.” He got to his feet. “Now I’m going to go back upstairs and help your mother pack up our bedchamber, so I can keep the peace in my marriage.”

Alex watched his father leave the room, feeling more than a little surprise. His parents’ marriage seemed perfect to him, and his mother always seemed to do what his father said. How could his father not have better advice for him than that?

He went out to the courtyard, where the men were training, and picked up a sword. He had a need to do some real fighting to get out some of his aggression. Making love with his wife had helped but not nearly enough.

* * *

Madelina was talking to the servants about what they planned to make for supper, trying to be the kind of good wife her husband was looking for, when she heard her name shouted from another part of the castle. She ran, following the voice. Alex was being helped into a chair, a great cut on his shoulder. “What did you do?” she asked, immediately tearing away his sleeve to get a good look at the injury.

“I wasn’t paying enough attention during training, I guess.” Alex felt like a fool admitting it, but his mind had been on her, not on his training.

“Let me get my herbs,” she said softly. “I’m going to clean this properly and stitch it closed. It’s not going to be comfortable, but it will keep out infection.”

He sighed. “All right. Get what you need.”

She was back a moment later with her bag of herbs and a needle and thread. His mother was right behind her. “Will you go and get a bowl of water as hot as you can stand it from the kitchen please?” Madelina asked. She didn’t watch to see if his mother had done what she asked. Instead she took a glass of water she had been drinking from earlier and added a pinch of herbs to it. “Drink this down. It will help lessen the pain of what I’m about to do.”

Alex frowned at her, but he did as she told him. It was only a moment before he started to feel woozy. “What was in the glass?”

“Something to make you tired and feel less pain. You’re going to need to sit back as I work on this.” She saw her mother-in-law approaching with the bowl of water and a clean cloth. She immediately dipped the cloth into the water and began to carefully clean the wound. She knew from past experience that if she left even a tiny piece of dirt in the wound, it could become infected, and he could die from it.

She worked and made sure the wound was meticulously cleaned. Her mother-in-law stood beside her, wringing her hands together. “What else can I do?”

“Go check on Letice, would you?” Madelina asked.

“Yes, of course!”

Madelina was relatively sure the child would still be sleeping because she took long naps, but she needed her mother-in-law out of the way. She didn’t need to feel her son’s pain as Madelina worked to heal him.

Thirty minutes later, she had the wound stitched closed. “You’re going to have to spend the rest of the day in bed, I’m afraid. Quite probably longer than that.” She nodded to the two men who had helped him inside. “Can you get him up the stairs?”

She cleaned her mess up, and carefully put her herbs away, mentally thanking her mother for getting all of the herbs ready to travel with her. Then she climbed the stairs and walked into her room, sitting on the bed beside her husband, who was sleeping peacefully.

She wished she could get her mother to come and finish healing him, but unless an infection set in, she would not risk angering her new husband by riding to contact her aunt. She’d been relying on her mother for many years to back her up with her healing, but now it was time for her to stand on her own two feet.

His mother knocked on the door, carrying Letice inside with her. “How is he?”

Madelina smiled. “I have cleaned the wound and given him some medicine for the pain that will also help him sleep. As long as infection doesn’t set in, he’ll be fine in a week or so.”

“And if infection does set in?”

“We could lose him.” Madelina had learned at her mother’s knee that you should never lie to the family of an injured person. It was her job to set clear expectations, and she wouldn’t make things easier just because she could. Truth was always the best.

“Can you send for your mother to heal him properly?”

“I can, but I promised him I wouldn’t go south to contact my aunt without him with me. If I believed it was life or death for him, I’d contact her without hesitation, but I think he’s going to be fine without her.”

“Would she have time to get here before he died if infection did set in?” his mother asked, the fear in her eyes heartwarming. Madelina could tell she truly loved her son.

“She likely could. I would do everything I knew to do to keep him alive until she arrived.” Madelina smiled at her, putting her hand on her mother-in-law’s arm. “I’ve done what I could do. There shouldn’t be any problems. I cleaned it well, and I will be very surprised if there’s an infection.”

“Thank you.” Handing Letice to Madelina, her mother-in-law left the room. “I’m going to the chapel to pray.”

“That’s the best course of action now.” Madelina watched her go and then turned her attention to the child. “Did you have a good nap?”

Letice nodded. “I woke up, and I didn’t get scared.”

“I’m really glad. I’m here for you now, remember?” Madelina was glad the child was adjusting so well to her new surroundings.

“I ’member. Papa sick?” Letice asked.

“He got cut with a sword during practice today, so I had to sew his shoulder closed. See?” Madelina carefully showed her daughter where the stitches were. “Someday, I’m going to teach you to heal people as well.”

“Like your mama?”

“Just like my mama taught me. Now I’m your mama, so you get to learn.” Madelina was thrilled the child understood what she was telling her. “Would you like to learn to make people better when they’re sick or injured?”

“Aye. I don’t want people to die anymore.”

Madelina knew the child was thinking about her own parents, and she hugged her close. “People will always die, but they don’t have to die too soon. Disease and injuries made them die sooner than they should.”

“Papa die?” Letice asked.

“No, he’s not going to die because I did what I needed to do to heal him.” Madelina felt confident that he would be fine. She hoped the people around her felt confident in her, too.

* * *

Three days later, Alex was fighting her constantly. “I want to be able to train with my men. Staying in bed this long is ridiculous.”

Madelina stood over him, her arms folded. “If you go out there now, you’re going to ruin my good work and rip those stitches open, but I’m willing to compromise. You may walk down to the sitting room downstairs and sit up and not lie down constantly.” She could see on his face that he was ready to fight for the right to train, but she wasn’t about to back down. In matters of healing, he needed to obey her.

“Fine.” He didn’t like it, but he didn’t want to be unwell for any longer than necessary either. He allowed her to help him to his feet, and then she had to help him dress. “I feel like a babe.”

She laughed. “You’re not a babe. You’re just injured, and I’m not about to let you make it worse by being stubborn.”

“Me stubborn?” he asked, shocked. “If I’m stubborn, I learned how to be from my wife!”

She grinned at that. “As true as that may be, you’re still injured, and I’m still helping you. I want you to lean on me as we go down the stairs. There’s no reason for you to try to do it on your own and fall.”

He listened to her, doing his best not to put too much weight on her slender shoulders as they went down the stairs together. When they’d reached the sitting room, he was out of breath and felt as if he’d just run for miles. “I’m so weak!”

“Yes, you are. You lost a lot of blood when you were first injured. You’ll feel weak for a while yet.”

He groaned. “I want to be able to return to my training.”

“I could make you ready to train in three days’ time,” she told him. She could tell she had his interest.

“How? I’ll do anything!”

“I could ride down to speak to my aunt and have her send my mother. She could heal you completely. I don’t have that ability.”

He frowned at her. “It’s not worth it to me for you to risk yourself. No, I’d rather heal slowly.”

“It’s the only thing I can offer.” She was relatively certain he was out of danger and wouldn’t be getting an infection, but he might just lose his mind from boredom. “We could play a dice game?”

He grinned. “Do you know any?”

She shook her head. “No, but I’d be happy to learn.” She hurried to get the dice she’d seen in a drawer, handing them to him upon her return.

Alex looked down at the dice and rolled them in his hands. “There are many different dice games, but I’ll teach you a simple one.”

“Because I’m a woman and my mind is simple?”

“No, because you’re going to lose no matter what game I teach you.”

Madelina frowned at him. “Why will I lose?”

“I’m the seventh son of a seventh son. My luck doesn’t allow me to lose games of chance. For it to be a fair game, we would need to play something like chess.” He was certain she’d never played, but it would be good to teach her. It would take time and give them both something to do.

“Do you have a chess set?”

He nodded. “In the same room with the dice. There’s a cabinet under the drawer, and if you open it, you’ll see the chess board and pieces.”

She rushed from the room to fetch it, excited to play. When she came back, he quickly and expertly set up all the pieces. “This was the only game my brothers would play with me,” he explained. “They all hated it when I beat them at every game of chance without even trying.”

“I can see that.” She sat down across from him and listened to his explanation on how to play. He explained things slowly and carefully as if he thought it would all be too much for her.

After he’d explained about how each piece moved and about winning the game, it took her five moves to have him in checkmate. He stared down at the board, his eyes narrowed in shock. “What did you just do?”

“I beat you. Maybe you should ask if someone has ever played a game before you work so hard to explain it in such simplistic terms.” She sat back and grinned at him, pleased with herself for beating him so handily. “I think Letice is waking up. I need to go check on her.”

He watched her go, a smile on his face. If there was anything that truly impressed him about his wife, it was the fact that she was accomplished at so many things. It was also what scared him the most about her because her accomplishments made her feel powerful.

* * *

Madelina took Alex’s stitches out after a week, but it was a full two weeks before she allowed him to set foot on the training ground again. “If you feel even a twinge, you need to rest more. I don’t want you being in a hurry to ruin the work I did healing you!”

He clearly didn’t care what she said as he hurried out to the practice yard, ready to work with his men.

Once he was gone, Madelina looked around for something to do. The servants saw to the cleaning and meals. They even helped with Letice. She needed something to do that would occupy her time. For a brief moment, she wished someone would hurt themselves so she could heal them, but then she realized just how selfish that was.

Finally, she decided to sit Letice down and work on teaching her to read. The girl was very bright, and there was no reason to wait. It wouldn’t be long before Madelina started having babies, from what Alex’s mother had told her, and she wanted her daughter to be reading competently as soon as she could.

Letice didn’t seem terribly interested in learning to read, but she truly enjoyed having Madelina’s undivided attention, so she worked to learn. She practiced writing her letters and repeated the sounds the letters made after her mama.

It took two weeks of concerted effort, but by the end of the second week, she could read a simple sentence. Madelina had decided not to tell Alex what she was doing because it would be a surprise to him.

When he came in at the end of a long training session, Madelina invited him to the sitting room. “I want to show you something.”

Alex grabbed her shoulders and kissed the side of her neck. “I’d love to see anything you want to show me . . .”

She pulled away from him. “There are children about!” She did her best to quiet her quickening heart as she led him into the sitting room.

When he got into the sitting room, Letice was sitting there waiting for him with a big smile on her face. “I’ve seen her before,” he whispered to Madelina, who sighed.

“Do you take anything seriously?”

“Not if I can help it, I don’t!”

“Sit down beside Letice.” Madelina waved to the spot on the window seat.

Letice took a page of words that Madelina had given her, and she pointed to each word, reading it aloud.

When she finished, Alex looked at Madelina with a shocked look on his face. “She learned fast.”

“She did. She’s a very smart girl.”

“What am I going to do with two smart women in my life? I think it’s time for us to start having sons, so I won’t be outnumbered!”

Madelina laughed. “We’ll always be your favorites, though, won’t we?”