‘Moira!I hoped you might do me a favour.’
Moira didn’t hide how she felt about doing him a favour, but Raleigh reacted as he would if her scowl had been a simpering giggle.I wondered if he was always wilfully ignorant to human emotions or if he had been cursed so long he truly could not read them.
‘No,’ Moira said.
‘I haven’t asked anything yet.’
‘I’m busy.’She readjusted her basket.‘Do it yourself.’
‘It won’t take but a moment.’
‘And maybe when you hire someone else to cook for your prisoner I’ll have one to spare, but since you’re apparently too impoverished to hire anyone else, I have to do the work of an entire household.’
‘I’m not impoverished.’
‘Hire a cook, then.Clara will thank you, I’m sure.’
I tucked my chin into my chest to avoid the way their attention suddenly turned to me.‘Your cooking is delicious,’ I lied.
Raleigh, as usual, continued with his train of thought regardless of Moira’s refusal.‘I hoped you might show Clara where the library is today.’
Moira glared at him.I couldn’t tell whether her reluctance was at having to tow me around or simply having to work at all.‘Get your feet off the table.’
To my surprise Raleigh obeyed.He swung his feet down, then propped his elbows on the table instead.‘So you’ll take her, then?’
I could feel Moira’s glare on me this time, but I sipped my tea, trying to pretend I hadn’t noticed.
‘Can she read?’
‘I’m right here and, yes, I can read,’ I said with a scowl.‘My mother taught me before Raleigh murdered her.’
For several very long seconds no one said a thing.Raleigh took a long drink from his goblet, which by now I’m sure must have been empty.Finally he set it down, taking great care to ensure that the cup was angled in precisely the right manner, presumably to give his eyes something to do other than look at me.‘I didn’t murder her.’
‘How can you claim that?’I clenched my hands in my lap to try to stop them shaking.‘Father showed me your letter.’
He’d found it on my mother’s nightstand the day she died.I didn’t know about it at the time, though the rumours of a threat from the prince had reached me before her pyre was lit.Father only revealed it to me several years later, when I’d challenged him again on his incessant need to hush me whenever the subject of Raleigh came up.The letter only contained three words, followed by a looping, single lettered signature.
Rebuild the dam.
–R
The message was clear.There was only one thing Father cherished more than Mother, and the threat was enough for him to doom his town to stop him taking her, too.
Raleigh stared at me for so long, I wondered if he would reply at all.‘What letter?’
My anger burnt so brightly I forgot I was supposed to be scared of him.‘How dareyou.You don’t remember it?’I’d had enough.Abandoning my breakfast, I stood up and stormed out of the room.
The sounds of bickering followed me out as I trudged back up the stairs.I didn’t know where I was going.Maybe I could find a room full of expensive artefacts to destroy.I probably would have had there been any doors in the corridor when I entered, but there wasn’t a decaying portrait or crumbling sculpture in sight.The walls were eerily blank.
‘Clara, wait.’Raleigh appeared in front of me so suddenly I cried out in shock.‘Listen, please.I’m sorry for what happened to your mother.You have my deepest apologies.’
My blood was so close to boiling it was a wonder that steam wasn’t rising through my skin.‘This isn’t something you can apologise for.’
‘No.It isn’t.’
‘Then leave me alone.’Fury burning through me, I tried to trudge away from him down the unending corridor.I should have been able to put distance between us, but when Raleigh next spoke he was as close to me as when I started.
‘Do you want to marry me?’
