Chapter Text
“Isn’t she even going to join us?” Tywin Lannister’s voice was tight. Jaime didn’t remember his father being this nervous before. “For God’s sake, Selwyn, it’s her future we’re discussing.”
The gentlemen’s club had granted them use of one of their meeting rooms, and Tywin paced the length of a long walnut table, down and back. Beyond a polished door were the muffled sounds of gaming tables and laughter. While an outcast in “polite” society, Sewlyn Tarth’s only living child was rumored to be the one woman allowed inside, as she was friends with the jockeys and placed the most outrageous bets.
“Brienne has her own schedule.” The big man sitting across from Jaime steepled his fingers, not showing any sign of cracking under Tywin’s withering stare. “She’ll show up when it suits her.”
“It had better damn well suit her,” Tywin grumbled, still walking, down and back. “She knows the predicament we’re in.”
“Just to clarify, I’m in the predicament,” Jaime interjected, drawing his father’s frustrated glance. “It’s not as if either of you are a pariah in civilized circles.” He took a long drag off a cigarette, then leaned back in his chair. Smoke curled against the ornate tin ceiling.
“Exactly whose fault is that?” Tywin snatched the cigarette from Jaime’s fingers, snuffed it in the dregs of whiskey in his glass. “A gentleman knows how to control his urges.”
“Is that what you do, control your urges?” Jaime rose, stopping his father’s restless movement. He was a half-foot taller, but Tywin still managed to make him feel small. “There’s been a string of pretty young things since mother died–”
“Since she died,” Tywin put a hand on Jaime’s shoulder, squeezing. “And none of those women are my cousin, and they sure as hell aren’t married to the Governor.”
“A position he practically inherited from his father.” Jaime jerked out of Tywin’s grasp, voice rising. “Baratheon is a brutish, barbaric drunk. Any pretense of dignity Robert owns was bought and paid for–”
“And yet, Cersei chose to marry him.” His father’s whisper echoed in the large room.
“Don’t talk about her,” Jaime snarled. Tywin was speaking the truth, and it raked at his still-raw wound. “She didn’t have a choice.”
“There’s always a choice,” Tywin shook a cigarette from the pack on the table, lit it, and sat.
Jaime met his father’s pale eyes; they reflected his own worried desperation. Their livelihood hinged on maintaining favor in the elite circles of society, those with money to spare on frivolous purchases. Jaime’s indiscretion had jeopardized it.
With a sigh he slouched into a chair, and lit another cigarette. Jaime was damned if he did, and damned if he didn’t, and he wasn’t sure he could go through with this.
“You love her.” The words came from the giant across from him.
Jaime raised his head. Selwyn Tarth’s questioning expression held no judgment, and the absence of it left him speechless. He nodded.
“I’m sorry for you.” Selwyn took a sip from his tumbler, turning it in his massive hands. “It’s hard to let go of love, even when it’s hopeless.”
Jaime opened his mouth to ask how he knew, then the door banged open.
“Sorry I’m late.” Words gusted in front of her, like the first rustle of leaves before a tornado. She filled the doorframe, made larger by a sweeping coat and a wide-brimmed felt hat. “There’s a three-month foal with a tantalizing lineage on a nearby farm, and I just had to see her for myself.”
Plopping into a chair, she dropped her hat on the table; a puff of dust and horse-scent shot across the slick surface.
Jaime exhaled smoke, and the movement of it caught her eye; she followed its trail to his mouth.
“I-I’m sorry.” She looked away, flustered. Her cheeks pinkened and her lashes fluttered, and Jaime was transfixed by the play of delicate emotions on her strong face. “Hullo, um, I’m Brienne.” Bolting to her feet she extended a hand.
“This is Miss Brienne Tarth,” his father announced, also rising. Jaime hesitated a second, looking from his father to the woman looming over him, then he stood. “Selwyn’s daughter, and heir to Evenstar Farms.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you.” He took her hand; it was as large as his and more callused, but warm and strong. “Jaime Lannister.”
Her lips twitched, and he could almost feel her amusement. It was a silly game they were playing; both of them knew exactly who the other one was, and why they were here.
Jaime stared at Brienne as she again took a seat next to her father. She wasn’t what he’d expected. Whispers in society called Selwyn’s daughter ugly, uncivilized and unmatchable, but for the life of him, he didn’t understand why.
She was certainly no beauty. Her face was too wide, her features plain. Hair like straw hung in a thin braid over her shoulder. But there was something wonderful about the way she rolled into a space and filled it.
He searched his mind for a proper description, and came up with sturdy. She had square shoulders and thick arms and a knowing expression that Jaime imagined could take on anything.
Brienne was a challenge, and most men were likely too put-off by her brash presence to see beyond it.
Nothing about her reminded him of Cersei. The realization made him momentarily dizzy, and he couldn’t pin down whether it was excitement or fear that filled his chest at the idea of tying himself to something–someone so completely different than anything he’d known.
“Let’s get on with it then,” Selwyn slid the papers in front of him toward Jaime and Tywin. “Evenstar Farms offers two dozen of their finest breeding stock, the selection of which to be agreed upon by both parties, in exchange for a hundred-acre parcel of land adjacent to the Casterly Rock Ranch,” he read aloud, summarizing. “In addition, Evenstar Farms and Casterly Rock Ranch hereby enter into a joint venture with the even distribution of future profit and acquisitions. Henceforth, the joint entity shall be known as Lannister-Evenstar Farms.” He looked up, pausing.
Everyone in the room had practically memorized the contract already, and both sides’ lawyers had spent long, expensive hours wrangling the details. It made perfect business sense, even though Tywin hated it and thought Tarth was getting too much. Selwyn was no fool.
Evenstar Farms had generations of experience and a sterling reputation, but their growth was limited by geography–there was only so much land on an island. Casterly Rock Ranch was up-and-coming in the business, and had land and backing to spare.
Tywin read through it once more, nodding resignedly. Then he signed his name and slid it to Selwyn, who did the same.
The silence after was thick with tension. It was Brienne who finally huffed and walked to the sideboard, filling a tumbler with ice and whiskey.
After a large sip, she sighed. “I believe we have additional matters of breeding to discuss, gentlemen. Best get on with it.”
Jaime was halfway through his own swallow; he choked until it burned.
“Brienne!” Selwyn was red-faced. “That’s no way to start–”
“Come on, Father. We’re all adults here.” She turned to Jaime, and for the first time he noticed her eyes. They were endless blue, the color of sunny, summer skies. He was held in their still certainty. “Mr. Jaime Lannister was caught by the housekeeper in bed with his married cousin, so his reputation is in shambles.” She had the gall to follow that statement with a gentle smile. “And while I might be the least coveted filly in this trade, I can offer him an out.”
She didn’t look away, she didn’t blink…staring, gauging his reaction. Jaime tried to slow his heart and match her distanced calm. Eventually, he was able to ask, “What do you get from this arrangement?”
“Look at me.” Brienne gave a quick snort and jerk of her head, and it reminded him of a spirited horse put in blinders. She reached across the table for his open pack of cigarettes. “Gentlemen suitors are not lining up.”
Jaime struck a match and stood, and her brows lifted as she bent forward for a light, then took a puff. “Pardon my bluntness, Miss Tarth, but your family has enough money. You’re not obliged to marry.” He lit his own cigarette and sat.
Brienne turned toward Selwyn, and her smile warmed. “My father has let me be the woman I want to be, without limits or chastisement. But he’s getting older, and he worries about my future. He thinks I’ll die a lonely spinster, with only horses for company.”
“Daughter,” Selwyn hummed the word, it brimmed with love. “Don’t do this for me.”
“I’m not,” she turned back to Jaime, and for a moment he was granted the same soft affection she’d given her father. It felt precious. “Life is easier with a partner to share it with.” There was something so girlish and wistful in her words that he found himself leaning forward, entranced. “I think Jaime and I can come to an understanding and build a good life together.”
“Maybe you overestimate me,” the words slipped out without thought. He was so used to disappointing.
Leaning back in her chair, she shrugged. “I’ve placed more than my share of questionable bets, what’s one more?” Hypnotic blue eyes caught and held his, searching. Then with an unladylike grunt and flare of her nostrils, she swallowed a chuckle. “Besides, I’m a very good judge of stallions, and I think you’ll do.”
For the second time since they’d met, Jaime choked on whiskey. He sputtered, exclaiming, “Fucking hell, woman. The mouth on you.” His lips curled into a grin. “Are you going to check my teeth next?”
Their eyes met, hers twinkling. She bit her lip.
A future with this strange creature passed in front of his eyes; he’d imagined marriage to be different than this, and he still doubted what his broken, used-up heart could offer, but it seemed a better fate than life alone, indebted to his father and disgraced.
Jaime slid a hand across the table, and Brienne gripped his fingers. It wasn’t exactly a handshake, but she caught his meaning.
Tywin stood and extended a hand to Sewlyn. “I believe we have a deal.”
✮✮✮
Brienne stared in the vanity mirror, adjusting the drape of her wedding gown. It wasn’t tragic. The top wrapped across her bust and made it look larger, and the cinching at the waist implied a shape she otherwise lacked. White would have been appropriate, but she’d insisted on the champagne silk because she liked how it looked against her pale, freckled skin.
The wedding was being hosted at Casterly Rock. Jaime’s massive family estate overlooked the sea, and backed-up to a thousand acres of fenced-in, rolling grassland dotted with woods.
Tywin had sent a long, chauffeured car to carry her and her father to the ceremony. She’d packed her clothes in two small bags and loaded them in the boot, with the rest of her things to follow. Until that moment it hadn’t seemed real.
“You’re in it now, old girl,” she spoke to her reflection, re-applying and blotting her lipstick for the third time.
She wasn’t sure why she was nervous, she’d survived worse situations–although usually from the comfortable grip of a saddle while wearing boots instead of pumps. Jaime Lannister was marrying her for the skills that she brought to his barn and the horses in her father’s pasture. Neither her face nor what was between her legs was likely to make much difference to the man.
If she was being honest, which she usually was, her current discomfiture stemmed from the bloody pretense of it all.
Her intended was, by far, the most handsome man she’d ever seen. Brienne had spent the first ten minutes of their introduction purposely not staring at his high cheekbones and full lips, trying to slow the fevered thumping of her heart. Just looking at him had made her sweat.
Even worse, she liked Jaime–his cocksure attitude, his easy, secretive smile. He had a spirit to match her own, and was exactly who she would have imagined falling for, if she still imagined such a thing.
There was no way in hell a man like him had willingly picked her for a bride, and everyone at this farce of a wedding knew it.
There was a knock at her door, and then it opened a few inches. “Are you decent?” Jaime asked, quietly playful, of course. And her stupid heart, so easily primed for his joking, twinged in excitement.
“You’re breaking the rules,” she grinned at him through the cracked door. “It’s bad luck for you to see me in my dress.”
“I don’t know what you consider bad luck,” he eased in, closing the door behind him. “But I think I’ve already experienced my share.”
“I think, in your particular case, it was more bad judgment–”
“Touché.” His grin widened, unoffended by her honesty. He took a seat on the ottoman beside her, nudging her shoulder with his. “Either way, it’s worth the risk.”
Jaime Lannister was dangerous. Just that small touch and the flirty sway of his words made her feel giddy, and Brienne knew he was only being kind.
He’d been kind earlier that week too, showing her to a lovely suite of rooms, recently redone in brilliant shades of blue. “To remind you of home,” he’d said, not meeting her eyes. Then, almost timidly, he’d assured her that his cousin wouldn’t be attending their wedding, “Just in case you were worried about that,” and he’d left her alone.
“I have a wedding gift for you,” Jaime interrupted her thoughts, placing a black velvet box on the vanity.
“You didn’t have to buy me anythi…” Her voice trailed off as she lifted the lid. Inside was a huge, dark sapphire in an ornate gold setting on a delicate chain. “Jaime, it’s breathtaking.”
“It was my mother’s.”
The necklace was obviously not a gift, it was too precious. Brienne rushed to speak before Jaime did, so he wouldn’t think that she’d jumped to the wrong conclusion. “Something borrowed and blue, it’s perfect.”
He was frowning. “If it’s not to your taste, I can pick out something different.”
“Not to my taste,” she almost laughed at the irony in that statement. “Jaime, it’s magnificent–”
“Then why don’t you want it?” He looked like a child, disappointed and confused.
It was the first time she’d seen the hurt looming behind his practiced mask. Brienne was accustomed to soothing animals, to stroking their sides and murmuring comfort. She wanted to take Jaime’s face in both hands, to rub his cheeks with her thumbs and tell him that everything was all right.
“Because this is the kind of thing that-that…” She swallowed and shook her head, frustrated by her hesitant voice and lack of poise. He was the one who ran with the polished, pretty people, he should know better. “Save this for someone else, for a marriage that has a better chance of lasting more than a year or two.”
‘Save it for someone you love,’ was on her tongue, but she held it in check.
“Do you think I’d give you my name, only to take it back?” There was distress verging on anger in his voice, like it was a great insult for her to admit that their union might fail, however poorly thought out it was. “This isn’t a joke to me, Brienne. I plan on honoring my vows.”
“I didn’t mean it that way, it’s just…” Brienne closed her eyes, feeling uncomfortably vulnerable. She wasn’t used to minding her words, or worrying so much about another person’s feelings. “It’s easy for you, Jaime. Flash them a blinding smile and they’ll forget all your sins. But I bear mine on the outside, and when I walk in wearing this, everyone will think, ‘How sad, he’s wasted such a beautiful necklace on that hack.”
“Brienne, that’s preposterous–”
“You know damn well it’s true.” Brienne stared, daring him to deny it; she was one breath from pointing out that, given his preferred company, he hadn’t had the pleasure of facing down society with a homely woman on his arm. “Our guests will already be looking at me–and then you–tutting at how poorly matched we are. They’ll pity you–”
“Then they’re fools,” he growled. “Mindless sheep, not worthy of your consideration. Worry about my opinion, if you must worry about one, and the rest of them can fuck off.”
It was such a ridiculously pompous statement that she threw back her head and snorted. “Is that so?”
“Yes. And your husband-to-be wants to see his mother’s necklace on that singular neck of yours.” Jaime’s frown twisted into a biting smile. “Let those nosy parkers stare all they bloody well care to, none of them can do what you do. They’re half the woman you are.”
“Obviously,” she gestured at her wide shoulders, her too-long legs.
“In every way.” Jaime lifted it out of the box, and hung it around her neck. Brienne held her hair so that he could work the clasp. “For luck,” he whispered.
She itched to make a joke of it, to cover up her own feelings of inadequacy by laughing at his misplaced chivalry and his loyalty that she hadn’t earned. But Jaime’s eyes were so earnest, kind in ways that Brienne didn’t understand but wanted to keep, so she covered the pendant with her hand, and pressed it to her chest.
Brienne was usually underwhelmed by strangers, not the opposite. Jaime Lannister was the strangest combination of vain and compassionate that she’d ever met, and she wondered if she’d ever understand how to take him.
She dropped her hand and held her head defiantly high, while in the mirror her husband-to-be’s reflection glanced from her neck to her face with delight. As the door was closing, she said, “For luck,” and he grinned in reply.
The service went off almost without a hitch. Right before their vows, Jaime whispered in her ear–in front of the septon, and a room full of guests–and asked whether she wanted to call it off. The line of his mouth was teasing, and she silently elbowed him in the ribs.
Their kiss was short and chaste, only a rubbing together of dry lips that was disappointingly dull after all her nervous anticipation. Jaime took her hand and walked her back down the aisle, and she could hear the whispers hidden behind covered mouths.
“Don’t you dare pay any attention to them.” He squeezed her hand, and she turned to him. Green eyes sparkled in the late-afternoon light. “Trust me, those same hens will be kissing the new Mrs. Lannister’s ass by dessert.”
“It won’t be real respect,” she scoffed.
“And this isn’t real scorn. Most of them don’t even know you, Brienne.” At the end of the aisle, he lifted her knuckles to his lips, making sure that everyone saw. “Give them the importance that they deserve.” They exited together into the sea-salt air.
The reception was held beneath a pavilion on the sloping lawn of her new home. So many people like her–the jockeys and trainers who felt more at home in a barn than a ballroom–they’d cleaned up and traveled for days, just to see her get married. Men she’d known since childhood, and who’d joyfully taught her their trade, lined up to clap her father on the back and congratulate him on the fine match he’d made for his daughter.
And he seemed proud, legitimately so, smiling and laughing as the band started to play.
A few glasses in, and she decided to take Jaime’s advice, pointedly ignoring the judging busybodies lingering at the dimly lit edges of the crowd. Her unladylike demeanor and habits were already fodder for their dinner parties and after-church picnics, what harm was a little more ammunition.
So she didn’t care about the sight she made, dancing with man after man, all at least two feet shorter than her. Brienne sipped bourbon on ice, and smoked thick cigars, and found herself, unexpectedly, the life of the party.
“May I have this dance?” Jaime cut in, and she was breathless at being close to him while so tipsy. He really was stunning.
“I’ve had a few drinks, and I can’t guarantee that I won’t step on your feet.”
“That’s not true.” He slid an arm around her waist, easing her close. “I’ve been watching you, and all of your partners have come away uninjured.”
She’d noticed his eyes following her around the room as he sat with his brother. He’d been smiling too, like he was enjoying her unhindered joy.
“I make no promises,” she quipped, leaning into his embrace.
Jaime was a gentle lead, and she enjoyed the light sway of their bodies together. It was easy, and one dance turned into several.
Too soon, the musicians were packing up their instruments and guests were shaking Jaime’s hand and congratulating them both, filing out toward the line of waiting cars.
Jaime took her elbow, and walked her to her room. “Thank you for a truly special evening.” He gave her shoulders a tight squeeze, then started back down the hallway.
“Mr. Lannister,” she called after him, still warm from bourbon and his embrace.
“Mrs. Lannister.” He swung around with that devastating grin. “Is there something amiss?”
“I just wanted to say…” She ran out of nerve, adrift half-way through the sentence.
“Yes?” he coaxed.
“I needed a friend today, and you were there.” She paused, struggling to choose the right words. Brienne didn’t share her feelings enough, but maybe with Jaime she could. “I found you to be wonderful company, and I think that I might not hate being married to you.”
It was too much, per her usual. But his face blossomed with a happy shade of pink, and he didn’t look bothered at all. Instead, he covered his heart with his hand and gave a small bow, then quietly entered his room.
✮✮✮
“Are you sure you can keep up?” Jaime shot her a wicked grin over his shoulder, enjoying the crinkle of his wife’s cheeks in reply. Brienne sat tall and straight on a feisty Dornish sand steed, barely trotting beside him.
They’d set out early to explore the acres that now belonged to Lannister-Evenstar Farms. The hours-long affair was mostly an excuse to escape the house-full of wedding guests who lingered days later. Jaime had suggested the outing, and Brienne had jumped at the invitation, both of them weary from feigning interest in dull conversation.
The first hour had passed in relative silence, with only the sounds of birdsong and the brush of grass against their mounts’ hooves. Brienne had seemed just as happy as Jaime was to breathe in the morning air, and work muscles that had been stagnant for too many hours cooped up in the manor.
“I’m fairly certain I’ll manage,” Brienne’s lips turned up at the corners in the smallest of smiles. Jaime already recognized it as amusement.
“You were probably born on a saddle,” he prodded, trying to make her laugh.
“That would have been particularly difficult for my mother as, shockingly, I was a large infant.”
Jaime snorted, and Brienne joined in with a low chuckle. It rumbled in her chest like the first trickle of water over a dry riverbed. There were so many rounded edges beneath Brienne’s hard exterior, and each one Jaime discovered felt like a prize.
He told himself again that it shouldn't be so natural to talk to her, that she was essentially a stranger. But with each day that had passed since their wedding, her companionship had become more comfortable.
“What happened to your mother?” He asked reflexively, then wished he could take it back as Brienne withdrew, reining her horse and steeling her expression.
“She died shortly after I was born.”
“I’m sorry,” he felt the protective urge to move closer to her. “I lost my mother as a child, and I know how it hurts.”
Jaime pictured a half-wild giant of a girl running through pastures, dirty and scraped, with no mother to scold her for ripping her clothes or tracking mud across the floors. The thought brought him joy. He was sorry for what Brienne had lost, but he couldn’t regret what she’d become in her mother’s absence. It would have been a sin to try to mold her into something more tame.
“It never gets easier,” she said, softness returning to her mouth; full lips relaxing into the almost-pout that he’d grown accustomed to.
There was a stream cutting through the patch of wooded land ahead, and Jaime led her to it. They stopped on the shallow bank and let their horses drink. Brienne passed him her flask.
His wife raised her face to the sky and closed her eyes. Her cheeks were already turning pink; she’d have a line at her collar by afternoon.
“This is a beautiful farm.” Brienne opened her eyes and looked back the way they’d come. “It’s rare to find this much grassland so close to the sea.”
“If you’d like, I’ll show you a shortcut down the cliffs tomorrow,” he offered. “Do you swim?” She broke into a grin, and he realized his mistake. “Of course you do, since you were–”
“Born on an island,” she finished for him, chuckling.
They settled into silence again, but he could see her gathering her nerve, an approaching storm in the way she bit her lip and her brows pulled together.
“How did it happen…with your cousin?” Brienne spoke quickly then embarrassedly shook her head, like she couldn’t believe her own gall but hadn’t been able to stop herself. “I know that's a very personal thing for me to question you about, and I don’t want details,” she clarified, turning scarlet. “I just wondered how it could have started.”
His first instinct was to tell her to mind her own fucking business, but her honest stare killed his outrage.
The trust he felt in Brienne was startling. There was gentleness beneath her bravado that had flourished despite the insults and obstacles. He wanted to keep earning it, to grow the trust between them. On their wedding day, she’d let him see her insecurities, and he owed her the same forthrightness.
“I think we were both lost.” It was the first time he’d admitted it. “My mother was dead, and hers drank too much. Neither of our fathers knew how to talk to their children…”
“So you raised each other,” Brienne finished for him.
“We did.” It seemed an inadequate excuse for what he and Cersei had become. “Cersei was always challenging rules, questioning the limits of propriety. Taking me as a lover was a cosmic dare for her, one last rebellion against the laws of the universe.”
He waited for her revulsion. Instead, she tilted her head and peered into his soul. “What was it for you?”
“True love,” his voice faltered, and he covered it with a shrug. “Pathetic, isn’t it?”
“It’s not pathetic.” There was that softness again, as welcome and startling as the first warm spring day. “Don’t expect me to call it romantic, though. What you did together was wrong for so many reasons, but love can lead a person to do almost anything.”
It wasn’t absolution, and yet that tiny bit of understanding from Brienne’s lips felt like mercy. Jaime had the terrifying realization that, if they somehow managed to stay together, hers might be the one opinion that he actually valued.
“I enlisted to try and break away, to free myself of wanting her. After my time was up, I returned home to find her married to Robert and miserable…you know the rest.” His mind drifted, remembering Cersei’s tear streaked cheeks, how she’d easily convinced him to fall back into their affair. “Here I am at thirty-four, learning a new career.”
“It will take time, but you’re already adept with horses. I promise to make a real stable master out of you, eventually.” Brienne winked. It was charming.
“At least horses are generally pleasant. They’re nicer than most people.” Jaime pulled a cigarette from his pocket and lit it, then passed it to her.
Brienne enjoyed a lingering drag. “Probably shouldn’t let your wife smoke. You never know what other ideas she’ll get into her head.”
“Wearing trousers, gambling, drinking…” He took the cigarette back, smiling around it as he inhaled, adding, “Sound familiar?”
“Not in the slightest.” Brienne reached out long fingers and Jaime acquiesced. She breathed it down to ashes, then snuffed it on her boot sole.
Minutes filled with the sound of their horses’ contented huffs, and the bubbling of the stream. He almost didn’t hear her ask, “Will you ever get over her?”
It took him a moment for the words to sink in, then dread burned through his peace like a stray ash in hay. Of all the questions Brienne could ask, this was the one he’d hoped she wouldn’t.
Jaime wanted to forget Cersei, and most days he could. It was the nights when she haunted him, when he relived every memory of skin-on-skin and bodies moving together that he’d ever made, and she was in every one. All his dirty dreams, all his nights spent hot and achy, it had always been Cersei. His cousin had claimed they were one soul in two bodies, and he feared that she was right.
“I don’t think so.” He whispered it, his curse.
Brienne nodded and swallowed, some reckless emotion passing stormcloud-quick across the wide expanse of her face.
“That’s all right.” She sounded hollow.
“I’m sorry.” He’d failed her, and he fumbled for better words. “I won’t lie to you.”
Brienne scoffed. “Our deal never included true love, Jaime. I’ll survive.”
Tugging the reins, she turned her horse from the stream. Jaime watched the firm, controlled lines of her back as they flexed with each step, and he stewed in self-recrimination. He should have done better, he should have answered differently.
Jaime wanted more for Brienne than a life of surviving his companionship.
“We can still call this off.” He said it loudly enough for her to hear, and she pulled up. “I’ll ask for an annulment. The merger will stand either way.”
He despised the idea. Only days before, he’d told her that separation was unthinkable. But Jaime had grown soft for his new wife quickly, and her heart was more important than business, or his reputation.
Brienne deserved to have a family of her own, to tend her own lineage as well as she did that of the horses she loved so dearly. Jaime couldn’t give that to her, not when he was still bound to his cousin.
She didn’t turn around. For a moment her shoulders sagged, then she straightened and gave her horse a kick. They headed back toward the house, and his wife never mentioned the offer.