The heir nodded, turned, and strode away from her, swirling the contents of his goblet in a pretentious way. Over his shoulder, on his way to the door, he called, “I’ll have the midwives inspect you to ensure you’re fertile. When food is brought to you, eat it. If you refuse it, or try to dispose of it, the slaves will inform me of the fact. Cassius will bring me daily reports.”
He slammed the door in his wake.
Amelia decided to utilize an old trick of her father’s, one he’d confided to her in secret with a wink:the way I deal with your mother when she’s on one of her tears. She would count slowly to ten, taking deep breaths, until she could respond in a rational way. She made it to three before all the air left her lungs in a rush and she collapsed back into a chair. Her skirt fluffed up around her hips, and she felt certain she was now wedged in between the chair arms.
It didn’t matter. She leaned forward and put her face in her hands; breathed through her gapped fingers until the black spots faded from the edges of her vision.
She forgot she wasn’t alone until she lifted her head and saw a cup of water waiting under her nose. She nearly slapped it away, but then remembered that the pale hand holding it belonged to Cassius, and not the emperor’s son.
Cassius, who couldn’t be trusted, and had delivered her straight to the hands of the enemy.
Cassius, who had waded out into the dark water, and reached for her, panic writ large on his face as he clasped her hand.
Her throat was dry, so she accepted the cup, and drank its contents down in a few long swallows.
Cassius took the chair opposite hers, and knitted his fingers together, hands flexing in a nervous tell she’d not yet seen from him. With each interaction, he seemed looser, more alive. More human. It was a reassurance she didn’t seek nor want, but which comforted all the same.
Without prompt, he said, “That was Marcellus. Emperor Romanus’s elder son.”
“I gathered that,” she croaked, and debated whether or not she had the strength to haul herself from the chair and fetch more water.
As if sensing her dilemma, Cassius stood and took the cup from her. “Would you like another?”
She nodded.
When he’d fetched it, he settled on the end of the sofa nearest her, close enough he had to brush her trailing skirts aside with the side of his foot to keep from trodding on them. His expression was morose when he met her gaze.
“Please allow me to apologize, my lady.”
The formal phrasing, paired with his sad eyes, the quiet fidgeting of his hands, struck a nerve. She gritted her teeth. “Allowyou to apologize? You’ve brought me here, to your master, to bebred—” Her voice cracked, and she took a sip of water in a futile attempt to cover its wobbling. Her hands shook. “And you’re asking mypermissionto apologize?”
He glanced down at his lap, pale lashes low on his cheeks. “I’m sorry, Amelia,” he said, and all the formal stiffness was gonefrom his voice. Hesoundedsorry. He sounded scraped-raw, as if he’d been screaming, or if he wanted to.
For her own part, Amelia wanted to cry, and that enraged her.
She drained off the water, wishing it was wine, and hurled the cup across the room. It was wood, so it didn’t break when it hit a bedpost, bounced to the rug, and rolled toward the wall, but the violent act offered a marginal satisfaction.
Cassius sat forward, elbows on his knees, a decidedly un-slavish posture. His hair slipped off his shoulders to frame his face, and he tucked it back behind his ears with one hand, an impatient gesture that heightened the earnest gleam of his eyes. “Amelia.” Only the second time he’d ever said her name without “lady” in front of it. It was…startling. “You had every reason to take my head, but you let me live. You let me walk of my own volition, in the daylight. Youlistenedto me. You burned the mark that bound me to a man who sees others as either slaves or a means to an end. What reason would I have to bring you to him? To betray you in that way?”
“Because you were ordered to from the first, and all of this has been a ruse.”
His lips compressed, and he sat back, clearly frustrated. “Do you really believe that? Or are you being stubborn?”
“I suppose there’s no way to know, is there?”
The groove from before reappeared between his brows, and he frowned—truly frowned, for the first time that she’d seen. “I want to leave this place as badly as you do.”
She arched a single, accusatory brow.
“Well. No one wants tobreed me, so notasbadly. But I want to leave, and I won’t do so without you.”
It was a trap, a tempting one, and she knew it was a trap. Still…
“You saw Marcellus just now,” he continued. “If I’d brought you here purposefully, for his benefit, don’t you think I’d tell you how wonderful he was? That you should submit to him to spare yourself harm?”
“Well. You could say it now.”
His jaw tightened. “I won’t, because he’s vile, and I loathe him.”
