Beatrice looked at him with emotion warring on her face. “I would rather not be mistress of Eldenwilde without you,” she said after a moment, “but hopefully it won’t come to that. I am still hopeful that we will discover a way to break your curse so you can tell me anything else you might know. Then we will find a way to prevent him from hurting you for already being married.”
She sighed. “But I didn’t want to talk about that tonight. I wanted to talk about other things and pretend for a moment that we are not a couple who married not out of necessity, but because we actually like each other.”
“Not that I don’t like you,” she added hastily, her eyes widening. “But perhaps we could pretend to be a normal couple for an evening.”
What was she doing? She was bungling this terribly.
“What does a normal couple do?” Alexander asked.
“I was hoping you would know,” Beatrice admitted. “My mother left when I was only a baby, and my father has been gone more often than not ever since. I had a good example of a mother in Dietrich’s mother, but his father died not long after I moved in with them. So I’ve never really had a model of what marriage should look like.”
Alexander thought for a moment before he shrugged. “I know something we could try,” he said, “if you’re willing.”
Beatrice glanced at him, narrowing her eyes. “What exactly do I have to be willing to try?”
“We could play the game I used to play.”
“What kind of game?” Beatrice asked. “Do married couples really play games?”
Alexander shrugged again. “We’ve already established that neither of us knows what we’re doing, so we might as well do something fun. And I don’t know about you, but I could certainly use the distraction right about now.”
Beatrice admitted that a distraction sounded like a good plan. “What sort of game is it?” she asked.
Alexander sprang out of bed and made his way to the wardrobe. He opened a drawer and rummaged for a moment before pulling a wooden box from the bottom.
“It’s about running your own estate,” he explained as he came back to the bed.
“That sounds…fun,” Beatrice said, wincing a little bit. “This is what you did in your free time growing up?”
Alexander laughed. “Yes. My version of free time is probably not much like yours, but I think it’s fun, and I think you might also. It seems like the sort of thing you would enjoy.”
“If that’s what you would like to do, I don’t have a problem with that. But you’ll have to teach me how to play.”
“I can do that,” Alexander said with a grin. It was the most excited Beatrice had ever seen him, like he had reverted to childhood again, and it was adorable to watch. He dumped out the game pieces and opened up a piece of fabric with a pattern stitched into it.
“How exactly do you play?” she asked.
“It’s simple,” he said, before launching into one of the most convoluted descriptions Beatrice had ever heard. She stared at him blankly as he began putting pieces in front of her. “It’s easier to play than it is to understand,” he admitted. “You’ll figure it out, and I’ll help you, although I might beat you.”
“I’m sure you will,” Beatrice said with a laugh. “In fact, if you don’t, I will be incredibly surprised and maybe a little disappointed in your skills as lord of the estate.”
“If you win, it will be luck,” Alexander said confidently as he continued to lay out pieces in front of her.
Beatrice leaned forward to inspect the pattern stitched into the fabric—it clearly had something to do with the game—and Rose squirmed out of her lap and settled on the bed in front of her instead. “I’m sorry,” Beatrice said, shaking her head at the dragon, “did you not like being squished?”
The dragon let out a disgruntled chirp and Beatrice chuckled. “Terribly sorry, I’ll pet you more when we’re done.”
The candles were beginning to burn low by the time they finished their game, and surprisingly, Beatrice was the winner.
“How did you do that?” Alexander asked, staring at the board incredulously. “I didn’t think you would beat me.”
“I didn’t either,” Beatrice admitted with a giddy laugh, “but it feels great.”
Alexander was a little put out, staring at the game with a grumpy expression. “I can’t believe you beat me,” he said. “Please don’t tell Jenkins. He will never let me hear the end of it. He had to play me more than once, and I always beat him.”
“Then I shall be sure to tell him first thing in the morning,” Beatrice teased.
Alexander groaned and pushed his extra pieces off his lap with a huff. “You must have cheated somehow,” he said. “I’m going to look at the rules again.”
