She did—she recalled the day as clear as if it were cut from crystal. The small church, the handful of people there to celebrate a marriage she had never asked for, and a husband standing in all his finery, swearing to love her, comfort her, honour and keep her.
She, in turn, had agreed to obey, serve, honour and keep him. And when she had looked into his eyes, she had seen only sincerity.
It had terrified her.
“We agreed to forsake all other,” she said.
“Yes.”
And yet they were here, with each other but not, pretending to live a lie because it was easier than admitting the truth.
She rested her hand lightly on his shoulder. “It seems we are both liars,” she whispered.
His arm slid further around her waist, pressing her against him. Not flush, but enough that her breasts brushed his chest. At the contact, her nipples hardened. Her face heated, and she prayed he couldn’t feel or see, even if the sensitivity fluttered through her body like lazy butterflies.
She was a flower slowly coming awake, and he was the sun.
Tonight, she would allow herself to feel.
Slowly, he brought their clasped hands to his mouth and kissed her knuckles. His mouth was hot against her skin. When he spoke, his voice had lowered. “Dance with me.”
Chapter Seven
It did not feel like dancing at all, the way they moved and came back together. Percy wondered if it was the most united they had been since the day in that tiny, stifling church, sunlight spiralling through the air. When he urged her closer, she obeyed, head tilting back to bare her elegant neck. Her eyes locked on his, unmoving, hot and heavy in the candlelight.
Time and reality parted to give way to this moment, the music swelling and his hands on her body the way she had never allowed when they were not pretending.
Tomorrow—but he could not think of tomorrow. There was only tonight.
Her lips tempted him, lush and full beneath the white feathers of her mask. Her hair, tightly coiled and pinned to the back of her head, gleamed like sunlit autumn leaves. Coming here had been a spur-of-the-moment decision, one made before he had even known what he was doing. After she had accepted his judgement of William, he’d given himself leave to hope,and when he had seen her rejection of William’s advances, he couldn’t have stayed away even if he’d wanted to.
And he had not, in that moment, wanted to.
Now, he could not bring himself to regret it; he felt the arousal in her body as surely as he did in his. Here, playing at being strangers, there was no need to hide behind the mask of familiarity and the way things had been between them.
They ate, they drank, and they danced. The night deepened and eventually sunrise harkened the onset of morning. The candles guttered, replaced by servants carrying new ones. Guests napped on sofas, or withdrew to nooks and corners, or perhaps unoccupied rooms, unwilling for the night to end. The ballroom emptied, fellow dancers leaving with each new set.
Still they moved together, hands clasping, bodies twisting and moving, parting always to come back together again. Each reunion, as brief as it was, sent relief coursing through his body. Though he’d deliberately not had anything to drink that evening, he felt intoxicated. Inebriated. Out of his senses.
“Odysseus,” she said, breaking the silence between them. “Epic hero. Is that not an audacious claim?”
Percy twisted her into a darkened corner, not missing a step even as his thumb smoothed over the bare skin of her hand. They turned, and a shudder ran through her. She pressed up against him, trapping him against the wall, and he wondered if the act were consciously done. He doubted it.
“He was perhaps a bad hero to choose, in retrospect,” he said.
“Why? Because he went on many adventures?” she teased him, leaning in, her eyes hypnotic. “Or perhaps because he was daring and bold.”
“Because he did not love his wife as much as he claimed to.”
“You don’t think he loved her? Legend says he did.”
“Legend has a habit of distorting the truth.”
“Well, heclaimedto love her, then. I think he believed he did.”
He placed his hand on her waist, knowing no one was watching, and not particularly caring if they did. His thumb pressed against her ribcage, inches from the underside of her breast. She was such a slight thing, so easily breakable. Yet, for all that, she had broken him more times than he ever could, and with a far lighter touch. “Is that the same?” he murmured.
“For some men, it is.”
