Tessa didn’t want to speak to him, but since he loathed this arrangement as much as she did, it might be wise to develop at least a passable rapport. If they could unite in their distaste for their circumstances, they might be able to avoid the future the emperor planned.
(A childish hope, she knew, but her only one at the moment.)
She took a deep breath and forced a cheerful tone. “I’ve always enjoyed gardens. For the longest time I’ve thought my mother’s were the most beautiful, but I always longed to see the gardens here at the capital. There areroomsto it.”
As she said this, one such room opened to their right. This one was a broad square of gravel arranged in perfect, smaller, alternating squares. It resembled a gaming table.
They walked past it.
Lucious offered a noncommittal humming sound, but nothing in the way of conversation.
She would have to be bolder. Damn him. “What are the gardens like in Seles?”
The toe of his slipper scuffed on his next stride, which meant he’d definitely understood the question, and definitely experienced a physical reaction. Hopefully a negative one. “They are…um. I don’t spend much time out of doors.”
She glanced over at him as they strolled, and saw him blushing; his pale, Selesee complexion meant the spots of pink high on his cheeks looked bright as cherries by contrast.
“No,” she said, “you don’t look as though you do. Your hands are very soft.”
His blush intensified, and his brow furrowed as he frowned.
“You remind me of my cousin, Oliver. Your nephew, I suppose.” That was never not going to sound strange enough to make her ill. “He, of course was sickly, the way he is now. He was forced to spend most of his afternoons indoors, reading. Do you enjoy reading? Do you have novels in Seles? Or is it only dull history tomes?”
He came to an abrupt halt, and slipped out of her grip; for her part, she didn’t try to hold on.
He pivoted around so he stood in front of her, heels clicking smartly together, spine ramrod straight. “My lady.” His face was set in firm lines, but his eyes were white-rimmed. Panicked. “Why are you asking me these sorts of questions?”
Encouraged, Tessa linked her hands together and pushed her shoulders back in a pose her mother had wielded like aweapon against men for all of Tessa’s life. “Prince Lucius, correct me if I’m overstepping”—another of her mother’s tricks—“but I believe that both of us would like to find a way to avoid our nuptials.”
His eyes widened another wild fraction. “You—” He stepped forward, suddenly, and Tessa tensed, blinked, anticipating a strike, but she refused to shrink away from him.
He didn’t strike her. Instead, he leaned in close to her face, until she could smell fresh sweat beneath the pomades and powders. Lips barely moving, he hissed, “You can’t say that out loud. Anyone might be listening.”
“Are they? Listening?”
He darted glances over each shoulder. “I don’t know. My father—” He bit his lip until it turned even whiter.
Tessa laid a hand on his arm, and he flinched, but then settled, as though, like her, he was making a concerted effort not to recoil. “Your father is very powerful,” she said, with genuine sympathy. “I don’t know anything about his magic, but surely you must.” She squeezed his arm, encouraging.
He shook his head. “I don’t—I havenomagic. None. That’s why he wants us to…” He couldn’t say it. Gulped and gestured between them.
“Why he wants us to have children?”
He stared at her, red-nosed and miserable.
“Come with me, Lucius.” He didn’t react to the lack of his title, and went easy as a lamb when she relinked their arms and towed him farther down the garden path.
Tessa didn’t know the layout of the gardens, but thought it unlikely they’d get truly lost. She turned around one hedge, and then turned them again, again, until they arrived at another fountain. This one was six ornate copper tears, stained blue where the water poured over its fluted edges, the pool at itsbase full of shifting lily pads, and, she noted with a glance, huge goldfish swimming in lazy arcs.
She took them to the stone lip of the pool, and sat, pulling Lucius down beside her when he frowned at her in puzzlement. She leaned in close and said, “Maybe the sound of the water will cover our voices.”
“Maybe,” he said, in a miserable voice. “But he can do all sorts of things. Things we can’t even imagine.”
“Yes, well.” An idea occurred. “Look at me. At my face.”Can you read my lips?she mouthed the last without sound.
His brows flew up.Yes, he mouthed back, and then smiled.
Good. Let’s formulate a plan.
