‘Let’s speak no more of court,’ Raleigh whispered.
He was distracting me.Whatever it was he didn’t want to tell me was worse to him than whatever this was.His hands were tangled in the sheets on either side of my head, knee pressed into the mattress.No parts of us were touching, but I felt like he had swallowed me whole.I pushed down the desire to arch into him, to taste him, to claim him and let myself be claimed.But I couldn’t relax.This wasn’t right.Hewasn’t right.Every warm feeling I held for himfelt clammy.I scanned his face, looking for some sign, any sign, that this was affecting him like it was affecting me, but all that I found were glassy eyes, staring into another era.
‘Raleigh …’
‘Yes, my love?’Every empty syllable ghosted against my lips.My breath hitched.Part of me wanted to close the distance, to take this chance while I had it, knowing it wouldn’t come again.
I couldn’t do it to him.
‘Get off me.’
Raleigh froze, and I saw the feeling part of him he had tried to push down return to the surface.He stared down at me, as though suddenly realising what he was doing, then jerked away.‘I’m sorry.’The words rushed out.He scrambled to distance himself from me, backing away as far as he could until he hit the edge of a settee crammed into the curve of the wall.He dropped onto it and I realised he was shaking.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said again.
‘Stop apologising.’
‘Sor—’ He bit his lip and lapsed into silence.
I let the quiet ring out around us while I steadied my breathing and tried to convince the aching throb within me that I had done the right thing.I couldn’t make sense of his reaction.If I’d said the same to Yann he would have tried to coax me to continue, or eventually peel off in a sulk.Raleigh was acting like I was the one who’d pushed him down.Like I was the one who’d scorned his affection.Like he was the victim in my abduction.
It unsettled me.Had this happened six months ago I would have been the one trembling on the other side of the room, and I had no intention of being the one to comfort him when he was the one who’d pinned me down.But I’d glimpsed this part of him before.The shaking, the panic, the disproportionate apology.The trace ofloathing in his expression as he stared at the ground.He reacted the same way on the day I blindfolded him.
Where did he go, when his eyes glazed over?
‘I should leave,’ he said.
‘Don’t.’I wished he would, but there were worse things than a night of awkwardness.‘The castle’s enchantment is tuned to protect you.I feel safer with you here.’
‘Even now?’
I met his eye.‘I didn’t push you away for my sake.I wasn’t the one who didn’t want it.’
And from the shock on Raleigh’s face, I knew the conversation was over.
I rolled onto my knees and began heaving armfuls of pillows off the bed until there was space to lie down properly, glad for the excuse to hide the crimson seeping into my cheeks at my boldness.The blankets were another issue altogether.There were so many layered, one on top of the other, that I thought I might suffocate if I somehow found myself submerged in them.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Going to sleep.’I peeled away the topmost layers and folded them neatly on the settee beside Raleigh.He tracked my every movement, like a deer about to run.‘The sun will be up soon, and I’d like at least some sleep tonight.’
‘Just like that?’
‘I wouldn’t want you to have to keep up the pretence any longer,’ I said, not bothering to keep the venom out of my voice.
Raleigh clutched the blanket and said nothing.
‘Goodnight, Raleigh.’
I slipped between his sheets, nestled against his pillow and fell to darkness so quickly I never heard his reply.
I jerked awake some hours later, my pulse racing as though I’d had a nightmare, but the dream faded into obscurity the moment consciousness drifted back.Under the stifling heat of Raleigh’s blankets I let the events of last night wash over me, the clarity of morning making me feel sticky with regret.
I should never have tried to tell Raleigh how I felt.He was three hundred years old; if he was capable of love, how could I be deluded enough to think the brief time we’d known each other was long enough for him to feel anything?
Raleigh hadn’t moved from the settee, but he had fallen asleep.His left arm draped down, fingers skimming the floor.It looked wrong.There was no peace painted across his sleeping face, nor the slight frown of a man beset by troubling dreams of recent regrets.His expression was blank, lifeless, and his chest lay still.He wasn’t breathing.
Suddenly, I was sixteen years old again, waking in my aunt’s cold bed.
