She took the tray and put it on the bed with them, lifting a grape and biting it in half so she could pull the seeds out before offering him the rest. “You prefer the purple ones,” she said, absurdly, because of course he knew that.
She held it out to him, finally forcing herself to behold his face, easy and half-lidded, watching her with a drowsy little curve to his lips as she held out the halved fruit to him. He opened his mouth and let her drop it inside, and then caught her wrist so she could not pull away again as he chewed and swallowed, those inky blue eyes locked on her, darting back and forth across her face.
“There is water,” she said again, not wanting to wrench free, despite the oddest impulse telling her she ought to. “I can pour a glass.”
“Vix,” he said, licking his lips with the tint of grape juice. “I am in love with you.”
She opened her mouth, impulse again screaming within her.
“Do not argue with me,” he said, chuckling before she could utter a sound. “I am.”
She stared at him, pinpricks racing up and down her spine, heat and cold clashing in her chest. She watched him lie there, so at ease, pulling an arm up and behind his head as he leaned back on the pillows, so certain, somehow.
She took another grape, twisting it between her fingers. “How do you know?”
His eyes seemed to soften, focusing on her face with a wry curve of his lips. He was still holding her hand, twisting his fingers through hers while he looked at her. “The same way I know I prefer the purple grapes, I suppose,” he answered, reaching out for her, calling her back to him. “The same way I know to wake in the morning and sleep at night and breathe through it all. I do not know. I just do.”
She frowned. Something in her chest cracked, sorrowful and heavy. “I have to tell myself to sleep and to wake,” she said. “I have to remind myself to breathe.”
“I know,” he told her, and pulled on her hand. “Come here. I did not tell you because I require payment in kind.”
“The water,” she said absently, already collapsing forward again, already curling back around him. She held him with her arms and with her legs, her ankles twining around one of his, her cheek falling back into that dip of his shoulder. “I didn’t give you the water.”
He pressed his lips into the top of her head, lingering there, inhaling the scent of her hair. “You gave me an entire tub full. I bet it’s still warm.”
She breathed out, shaking her head. “It probably is.”
“I don’t want to wash you from my skin,” he told her. “In fact, you ought to cancel anything you meant to do tomorrow. You won’t be leaving this room.”
She felt amusement crack through the weight in her chest, indignant and sharp. “You cannot imprison me here,” she said without feeling.
“I can and I intend to,” he replied easily, his fingers tripping down the curve of her back, cupping around the round swell of her backside. “You’re not going anywhere and neither am I. Consider yourself lucky I’m claiming only a day rather than a week.”
“Hm,” she said, letting herself smile, letting it happen against the warmth of his skin. “Perhaps if you finished the whole of your tasks today …”
He chuckled, giving her a squeeze. “I think I just completed the most important one.”
“Presumptuous,” she observed, feigning a yawn. Then, after a moment, she looked up at him sidelong and asked, “Did you complete the list, though?”
“I did,” he told her with a brisk nod. “And do not think I didn’t notice your careful avoidance of using your name on the invitations.”
She gave him a smile, uncertain if it was sheepish or cunning, for it felt a little of both, then turned her face back down to watch her own fingers, rolling the grape she’d been holding against the lines of his abdomen.
“You know,” she said, guiding it toward his navel, then back up again, “for the longest time, I was not allowed to answer toVix. Not at school. Certainly not at the Tolliver house. Even my mail would be edited to sayVictoriaif Matthew or Teddy putVixon the envelope.”
She sighed, remembering it. “When I first returned to London, I kept correcting Teddy and everyone else for using my old name. Every time someone said it, a little jolt of panic would flash through my stomach, like it would be overheard. I constantly felt like I was in trouble and awaiting rebuke. I still feel like that sometimes. Like I’m in trouble.”
“For your name?” he asked, and she could hear the frown on his voice. “You will never be in trouble again, Vix. You don’t answer to anyone anymore. You never will again.”
“Says the man who just forced me to recite my prayers,” she quipped, stopping the grape just below his heart with a press of her finger and smirking up at him. “My own husband, who made me ask before he gave me the simple charity of relief.”
“Ah, well,” he said, leaning down and flicking the grape out from under her finger, sending it flying across the room and then laughing at how she gasped in outrage. “I might break a rule now and then. But,but, it will never be to fill you with dread, Vix. I promise you that.”
“Every time we make promises to each other, they end up turning perverse,” she told him, her leg creeping up and over his waist. “‘Be unpredictable.’ ‘Be patient.’ Look where it’s gotten us.”
His hand came down, clamping her thigh into place against his hip as he ducked his head to capture a kiss. “Yes,” he said softly. “Look at where it’s gotten us.”
She blinked up at him, savoring that little kiss, memorizing the way he held her leg in place. “So you saw my invitations,” she said, bracing her forearms against his chest and lifting up a little to loom over him. “Did you post them?”
