The General Wanted To Take A Second Wife

I was a princess ennobled by my father, the late king. Marrying the general of the northern frontier, Griffin Quenell was already a great show of royal favor.

On my wedding day, just as my royal carriage arrived at the Quenell family’s courtyard, a woman dressed in grey wool knelt before the castle gate. She held a swaddled infant in her arms.

Griffin, as the groom of the day, dressed in his wedding tunic, blocked my path with a troubled expression.

“Your Grace, Joan is someone I met in the borderlands. She bore me a son and now has no place to go. Please let her move in with me on this special occasion. You’ll be my first wife, and she’ll be my second wife. It’s all for the sake of the Quenell bloodline.”

The guests at the gate erupted into commotion.

His grandmother, Wilma Quenell, spoke firmly. “Your Grace, you were born into royalty. You certainly do not lack a title. However, Griffin is the only son the Quenell family has had in three generations. This child bears the Quenell name. We surely can’t make him an illegitimate child.”

The border soldiers knelt and said in unison, “Your Grace, have mercy!”

I looked down at the child in the swaddle, then at Griffin’s pleading gaze.

I smiled, removed my coronet from my head, and placed it on the wedding table.

Then, I turned and boarded my carriage.

“General Quenell, I will not stop you from wanting an heir, but my late father’s decree said I am to be married, not given away as a gift. If your family cannot abide by his words, then I shall take the decree back with me.”

###CONTENT

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My groom, General Griffin Quenell, stepped forward and said, “Your Grace, do you really have to make such an ugly scene on our wedding day?”

His hands, calloused from years of gripping a sword, clamped down on the carriage’s carved door frame. His grip was so fierce that the veins bulged across the backs of his hands. He nearly crushed its ebony wood.

I firmly sat inside the carriage and stared coldly at him.

He was the man the people of Cathor called the unshakable general of the northern frontier. Though he was the groom, there was no trace of joy on his face. All I saw was the seething fury of a man humiliated in public.

“Ugly?” I said indifferently as I toyed with my ruby ring. “General Quenell, would you really call letting your mistress block the door and confront your bride on your wedding day a dignified deed?”

Griffin’s expression stiffened as embarrassment flashed in his eyes, but he quickly replaced it with a look of pained righteousness.

“Your Grace, you were pampered in the palace since childhood. How could you possibly understand the bitter cold of the frontier? That night, when the enemy launched a surprise attack, had Joan not taken an arrow for me, I’d be nothing but bones by now. She’s just a frail woman. She nearly died for me, had my child out of wedlock, and suffered nothing but scorn for it. If I abandoned her now, what kind of man would I be?” he added with conviction, as if he were the greatest lover the world had ever known.

The common folks gathered around were all whispering and pointing.

Hearing this, the tide of opinion turned in an instant.

Pitying and moved glances fell upon Joan, who knelt on the ground, and the woman was sharp enough to sense the change in the atmosphere around her.

Her body shuddered vulnerably as tears started streaming down her face.

“General Quenell, please... don’t say any more...” She bit her pale lips hard and spoke in a pitiful, sorrowful voice. “It’s all my fault. I’m not worthy of you. I came here today only to let my baby be acknowledged by his father’s family. I never meant to compete with Her Grace for anything.

“Your Grace, you are of noble birth and possess boundless worth. Even if I were made no more than a lowly maid to wash your feet, I would serve you willingly and with all my heart.”

As she spoke, she collapsed on the ground with the baby in her hands, giving her a fragile demeanor. Her tears fell on the ground.

Griffin’s heart ached so much that tears welled up in his eyes.

He turned to help her, but with me still present, he forced himself to stop. He could only stand there, glaring at me with a look of bitter, burning hatred.

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