“Yes.”
“You were never actually interested in me.”
“I’ll remind you, you rebuffed me. My ego never recovered.”
“Your ego seems just fine.”
I look away from him back to the fire, which is properly roaring now. The heat seeps into my bones.
“I knew Faith,” he says. “I liked Faith. Faith’s father said she must marry this season, though the whole of that story is hers to tell. She asked me to be the one to do it, and I refused. Once I dodged the crystal goblet she threw at my head, I agreed to help her marry Bram instead.”
“Why didn’t you want to marry her?”
Emmett considers his words carefully. “Because I did not love her. Not like that.”
“So you agreed to help her marry your brother instead.”
“You make it sound so ugly.”
“Isn’t it? Manipulating your ex-lover and your brother like that?”
Emmett’s mouth is turned down in a frown as he feeds another log to the fire, which goes up in a shower of sparks.
“I never claimed to be good. It’s why Bram should be king. He’s so much better than me.”
“So you promised you’d help Faith win.”
“I did.”
“And now it has to be me.”
“It does.”
You could be queen.“All right, then. Help me.”
Emmett nods, all business now. “Bram loves strawberries, all fruit really, says it’s different from what grows in the Otherworld. His favorite color is green. He loves his horse, Mab, adores any type of competition. I think his ideal match will be someone who challenges him.”
“Did you tell Faith what bargain to make?”
Emmett shakes his head. “Even I have my moral limits. I couldn’t ask her to do that, not when I don’t believe in the system myself. And besides, what could she have asked for? She’s already the most beautiful girl in London.”
He’s right, but it stings to hear him say it.
“Did she make a bargain?” he asks.
“I’m not sure. She refused to tell us.”
Emmett laughs. “That sounds like Faith.”
“One more question.”
Emmett looks at me expectantly.
“Why are you and Bram so close? I imagine you’d have every reason to hate him. You hate his mother.”
Emmett’s eyes narrow, still looking at the fire. “I did hate him, at first. I was an absolute terror when he first arrived. We were both fourteen. I refused to acknowledge his existence, even as he tried to speak with me or join me for horseback rides or lessons. I know now how lonely he was back then, how scared, but at the time I could see him only as an extension of his mother. She doted on him, which only made my hatred stronger. Then one day, about a month after he arrived, a few of the other sons of noblemen and I were taking shooting lessons on the grounds. Some of the bigger boys liked to push me around, call me a bastard, nothing terribly creative. I’d never been much of a fighter, but I’d grown three inches that year and thought maybe it was time I stood up for myself. I ended up with three broken ribs and a black eye. They pummeled me. A footman had to carry me kicking and screaming back to my rooms before I let them knock me unconscious. Bram walked in a few minutes later, with torn clothes, a bloody knee, and a matching shiner. ‘I got the ones you missed’—that’s what he said to me. We were the same age, but he was so much bigger than me back then. I looked like a scrawny kid still, but Bram was nearly a man. I asked him why, and he said, ‘I won’t let them call my brother a bastard.’ I just laughed, even with the broken ribs. I couldn’t help it. And from that day on, we were inseparable.”
I can imagine it so clearly. “He’s a good person, then? As good as you say?”
