With a forefinger, I moved an insubordinate curl from her face and tucked it behind her ear, but the curl sprang back into place. The very embodiment of Elowyn. Rebellious. Unpredictable. Fucking stubborn. Just like those breathtaking curls. Like the day I was tasked with transporting her to my brother’s island and she cursed like a sailor at the thought of being locked behind a door.
A stupid smile tugged on my lips. Guardians above, I fell for her then. Wanted to keep her there, locked forever. To be behind that door with her. To get lost in her curls, her hips, her legs. To be burned by the blaze that emitted from her amber eyes, her scalding temper and ferocious wit.
But I’d loved a woman before with that same fire in her soul. Mymotherhad killed her for it. And loving another woman was something I had resolved to never do again after Cat.
“Lady’s maids changed her into something more suitable,” he said, pulling me from my thoughts. “What she wore before was unbecoming,” he added, knowing the jealous bitter thoughts that circled my mind. Jealous of my brother. Because I knew just how deeply the man loved. Once you were in his heart, you were never free.
“Good.” I met his green-eyed stare laden with his own envy. Because Elowyn hated him and cared for me. Just one more thing I’d taken from my brother.
My whole life, I’d fallen under that green gaze that resented my freedom, my ability to evade Jessal’s clutches and resist falling into her schemes. Yet it was he who shielded me, he who allowed me that freedom, protecting me from Jessal’s schemes by taking them on himself.
He who helped me marry Cat when we were still baby-faced. He who gave me my ship and allowed me to flee when Jessal had Cat killed before my eyes. He who cared for the daughter I could not bear to look at because she looked too much like the woman I loved and lost.
And it would be he who let me have Elowyn, all while loving us both endlessly and resenting us in the same heartbeat.
“Tell me everything you know,” Cedric said tightly.
“I’ve told you all I know. It’s your turn to talk, you fucking bastard.” Because that’s what we truly were. Children Jessal found to keep her husband at bay. Babes of whores who looked enough like the man. Possibly his own bastards even.
That’s what we suspected Cedric was, at least, when we were boys and realized the truth of our parentage. But I knew my father. He was theluthier, Giuseppe. He told me once, when I asked about his wife, that she had died in childbirth and had eyes like the sun.
The way he had looked at me as he paused in fixing the duke’s virginals that the duke never even looked at, let alone played, told me all I needed to know. That she was my mother, he my father, and that they loved me very much.
“Fine, what are your questions? Speak plainly,” Ced asked.
“Why my ship?”
“You know why your ship,” he said, emotionless.
Because he wanted Elowyn safe from Jessal and my ship was a secret. My routes a secret. To protect her. Because he wanted to use her. Because he loved her.
“Why did you not tell me who she was?” I asked.
“It wasn’t important.”
I scoffed, tonguing the inside of my cheek.
“And why not warn me of the sirens?”
“They do not concern you,” Cedric answered, shaking his head like it was the most ridiculous thing I could ever ask.
“They held me and the king’s fucking daughter captive for weeks. That was a littleconcerning, Cedric.”
Elowyn stirred, and for a moment I hoped my yelling would wake her. That she would say something annoyingly clever in that languid voice, like, “Could you please keep it down, I’m trying to get my beauty rest.”
But she didn’t.
I kneeled beside her. Three days. Asleep for three whole days. What happened when she jumped into the ocean?
“You will marry her in a few months,” Cedric said.
Shock surged through me as I meet his envious eyes.
“What?”
“The king has agreed. Well, if she awakes, I suppose,” Cedric said callously as he watched me watch her. Like he didn’t even care. Like he wasn’t holding his breath, hoping the same as I, that she would awake.
“I have a wife.” The words came out thick. For so long, I didn’t have a wife. Or at least, so I thought.
