He undid the buckle on his belt, worked it through the loops, and then cast it onto the floor. Then he took his pants off, which left him standing there in his black undergarments. And he could sense her eyes on him.
He looked at her again; her face was bright red, but she wasn’t backing down, and certainly wasn’t making a move to leave.
Well. It turned out he was not above a little manipulation himself. Not that he was trying to get her to do anything. It was only that he was proving to himself that she wanted him. And that it wasn’t simply a tactic on her part. The look on her face made it clear.
“There are three different styles,” the tailor said. “A more traditional tuxedo, a suit and then a slightly more modern choice.”
“Traditional,” he said.
“That is shocking,” Fern said.
“Is that a commentary on how predictable you find me, my queen?”
“Perhaps,” she said. “But you should know that I’m not shy about making commentary. I said exactly what I meant.”
“Of this I am aware.”
“I think you should do the suit,” she said. “I think it will feel more natural to you. More black. Less cummerbund.”
He lifted a brow. “I’m not even sure what cummerbund is.”
The tailor took a strip of shiny fabric off the rack.
“It’s this.”
“No,” he said, the rejection easy.
“I thought I might have guessed correctly.”
Which was how he found himself being dressed, and his wife watching all the while.
His wife. She wasn’t truly his wife.
She was…a complication.
He had been turning over their conversation in the library for days now.
The way that she had spoken about him not liking to be manipulated… Who did?
She spoke to him as if he had some sort of hidden trauma—well, he did. He knew well that he did.
His brain protected him from whatever it was that had befallen him the day of the coup, and beyond that, it had protected him by not allowing him to remember the happier times of his family. Which would have only been painful. He could only miss the idea of them. But not them.
He didn’t bemoan the missing memories.
But she made him wonder… No. There would be no wondering.
The suit was fitted expertly to his body, then removed from him. And before he could dress again, the tailor left to see to his work, and left him, wearing nothing, standing there with Fern.
“Obviously, I couldn’t act as if your body was a shock to me. We’re meant to be married.” She turned away from him.
“Is that why you were staring so intently?”
“No. I was staring intently because you have a nice body.”
She looked over her shoulder. “You must know that’s true.”
“I’ve never thought about it one way or the other.”
