‘Sleep …’ I trailed off.He meant in his bed.Between his sheets.
I scolded myself.It was just a normal bed, albeit one laden with more blankets and furs than any one person could possibly need.Still, I couldn’t make myself move.After all that had happened, how could I possibly sleep?
‘Is something wrong?’
‘Can they hear us from here?’
Raleigh considered the question.A simple lie could have ended the conversation he so clearly wanted to avoid.‘No,’ he said instead.
‘Then tell me about your deal with the Queen.’I wasn’t asking this time.
His whole body went taut.‘You don’t need to know about that.’
But I did need to know.Lukas could have killed me – still could.How could I plan to protect myself if I didn’t know what I was protecting myself from?One way or another I was tangled in this bargain, and every question Raleigh refused to answer felt like another nail in my coffin.
‘Did it involve me?’
He looked away.‘No.’
‘Does it involve me now?’
The silence dragged out for so long that my fatigue beckoned me ever closer to the bed.I sat on the edge of it, trying not to think about how strangely intimate it felt to brush my hands over furs Raleigh had slept under.Sheets that had cocooned his body.When he still didn’t reply, I thought our conversation was over, that he was waiting for me to give in and fall asleep so he could be free of me.
But then he said, ‘Yes.’
I swallowed.‘Tell me,’ I said.
‘I can’t.’
‘If it involves me, I have a right to know.’
He didn’t reply.His expression was distant, as though he had stepped out of his body entirely.
‘What happened at court, Raleigh?’
‘You don’t need to know that.’
‘Do I not?’I asked.‘You’ll force me to marry you, but you won’t tell me why?’I couldn’t stop my voice from shaking anymore.‘I thought we were through with secrets.After everything, I thought that we—’ I couldn’t make myself say it.My feelings for Raleigh had grown into a complex vortex of emotions.Of grief, of frustration, often irritation, but underscoring them all was something softer.I wanted to protect him, and for him to protect me.I wanted to be able to walk arm in arm without wondering where it fitted into his strategy.I wanted to hold him, to be held, to be able to sit on the edge of his bed without feeling like an intruder.
And I hoped, after everything, that perhaps the smallest part of him felt the same.
‘You thought what?’Raleigh asked, and his tone told me all I needed to know.This was no gentle coaxing of a confession.No invitation for sweet nothings.His tone was clipped, icy.
He’s trying to prove a point,Lukas had said.We were all liars in this castle, one way or another.Perhaps Lukas was the only one telling the truth.
‘I thought we were growing closer,’ I said.
Raleigh moved so he was standing over me, and suddenly my every nerve was on high alert.He looked down at me with the cool detachment of the Prince of Rostenburg.‘Do I need to pretend to be in love with you when we’re alone too?’
Pretend.The echo lodged in my mind, the implication sickening.
He bent over me.His knee pushed its way between mine.My mind scrambled to make sense of what was happening.‘What are you doing?’
‘Is this not what you wanted?’
My retort lodged in my throat.This was wrong.This wasn’t him.I couldn’t understand where this was coming from, what point in the conversation had made him think this was remotely what I was angling for.
My palms turned hot, but when his fingers found my shoulder I found myself falling back without him needing to push me.There was no heady scent of glamour; my body was moving to its own impulses, fighting against the rational part of me begging to stop.A single memory kept rushing back to the surface from months ago, when I’d first come to Castle Rostenburg: a fleeting chaste kiss at my neck.Suddenly the enormity of that moment came crashing in.I couldn’t tear my eyes away from his lips, even as he bent over me and they swam out of focus, hovering a breath away from mine.
