Unintended

Chapter Three

Small council meetings had become torture for Rhaenyra. How, exactly, was one supposed to focus on anything related to politics or issues of the realm when someone was sitting across from them behaving in suggestive manners?

Ser Harwin sat across from Rhaenyra, his long fingers playing with the colored marble in the holder in front of him, alternating between rolling the ball slowly with his middle finger and gripping it with his entire hand. And if he was not messing with the marble, he was toying with the rings on his fingers, twirling them slowly with his thumb. How did anyone else not notice it? It was entirely inappropriate.

Rhaenyra had admitted to herself, rather begrudgingly, that her interest in Ser Harwin had exceeded duty. What had started out as a simple curiosity had developed into what could only be described as intense attraction. It was nothing more. Rhaenyra's method of dealing with those feelings was to pretend they did not exist.

No, her heart did not race when she and Ser Harwin caught each other's gazes. She did not think of him constantly when he was not around and she was not still carefully planning several opportunities to cross paths with him every day. Rhaenyra was in a firm state of denial even in the confines of her own mind.

It would be easier, perhaps, to manage her feelings if Ser Harwin gave her any indication of his. He was stoic, as always, never revealing anything. For several months, she had tried to get his attention, but he was always carefully polite, always quiet. He hardly ever spoke to her and still, even when given more than enough opportunities, did not ask her to spend time with him.

She supposed she should speak to him, should tell him that, maybe, her wishes had changed. But the thought made her stomach turn, made her nervous beyond anything she had felt before. She had been the one to tell him she only wanted a husband in name, a man who would do his duty to the realm but leave her be. She had afforded him the freedom to do as he pleased, but she had realized a bit too late what exactly that might entail for a man. If she were to attempt to go back on their agreement, but he wished to keep those freedoms, she would not be able to stomach it.

Thoughts of Ser Harwin with his gaggle of smitten kitchen maids crossed her mind. He spent far too much time with them, late nights and early mornings. She wondered – briefly, because she could not dwell on it for long without making herself ill– if he had one that he kept as a lover. Or he could have someone in town that she would not have any knowledge of. How could she bear to do her duty, to make an heir with him, knowing he might prefer to spend his nights with another?

Not that she ever thought about making an heir with him. She never thought, as she watched his hands, of what it would feel like for him to touch her, to run his hands over her bare skin. She never thought about what it would be like for him to hold her in his absurdly strong arms. And she certainly never wondered, as she approached her eighteenth name day and the inevitably of their union, what their wedding night might be like. Those thoughts were firmly repressed, as much as she could manage.

Her father was going on and on about the plans for celebrations for her eighteenth name day over the next several days, but she could not hear anything he was saying. She was plagued with indecent visions of Ser Harwin standing abruptly, taking her from her chair, and whisking her away to his chambers to have his way with her. It was a recurring fantasy over the past several months, and there was not much she could do to deter her mind from thinking of it almost daily.