“She’s never really been the best at asking for help,” he explains.
“You’re a concerned cousin,” I echo his meaning, and he nods his head quickly in emphasis. However, he goes dead-still once I continue. “And yet you were standing between her legs.”
Irritation curdles in my belly when he feigns confusion. He has that same look that Francesca does when their brows dip a little in the middle. Where hers comes across as endearing, his makes me want to rip those caterpillars from his fucking forehead. The thin smile comes next with a calculated tremble and head tilt. I’ve known men who hide darker thoughts behind charm.
I was raised by one.
“Your Highness, I’m afraid you’re reading too deeply. You misunderstand what you saw.”
“No, you misunderstand who you’re standing in front of.”
His breath hitches, but he argues his point anyway. “She was upset. Touch grounds her.”
“But your hand, of all things, happened to land on the inside of her thigh.” He has no response to that. I scoff, trying to scrub the image from my brain before I lose my shit.
Shower, I told her, thencome to me.She took too long, and I thought perhaps this morning’s gallivanting tired her, but no. I would’ve preferred finding her snoring on her little couch. It would’ve been better than finding her goddamn cousin groping her.
“Lady Francesca is occupied today,” I add when it’s clear he’s waiting for me to say something else.
His smile jumps at the corner, and a sheen of genuine bewilderment slides into place on his features.
“She didn’t say that.” He reins himself in as soon as we both detect how cutting his response is. Another throat clear. “She said she’d see me later. For reading.”
“She was being polite.”
A scoff. “I’ve known Chess since the day she was born. You met her, what, like three weeks ago?” And there it is. The claim. Though his point is fair, it’s utterly irrelevant. “Whatever you’re misunderstanding, Chess knows the truth of it.”
“And what truth is that?”
“I’d never hurt her.”
“Even so, her entire body relaxed as soon as I entered the room. That, to me, speaks louder than childhood memories.” He flinches, a movement too raw for him to even attempt to hide.
A flush burns its way from his neck and towards his ears. “She trusts me.”
I don’t bother asking whether he’s convincing me or himself.
The answer is obvious.
I dip my head in agreement. “She does. But that’s not enough to warrant the look you gave her when her robe slipped.”
My hand flexes in the pocket of my slacks, itching to punch him in the nose. Turning away from the violence that landed me here in the first place, I nod towards the castle.
“Go.”
“But Chess?—”
“You’redismissed, Cousin Edmund.” The fucker hesitates, and my tone hardens. “Leave while I still pretend to believe you were only confused.”
He grasps at the out I give him like a dying man. I see the panic. The need. He latches onto the word ‘confused’ as though it’s his salvation. Like if we say it enough, it’ll change what I saw. What he did.
It won’t.
But I let him pretend anyway as he stalks off.
Leftover adrenaline urges me to do something instead of stewing in my irritation. I should be satisfied that I’ve chased off that rodent, but my gaze keeps shooting back to Francesca’sshut door, bouncing between that and the drawn curtains. The song from the woods prickles in my throat, and I take two steps forward. Instincts maybe, or perhaps the need to see the evidence of her safety for myself.
But then I’m reining myself in.No, not like this.If I walk through that door, I’ll be asking her to soothe the noise in my head instead of offering her comfort. Interrogation burns like a torch in my gut, and I fuckingknowthat as soon as the first question leaves my mouth, I’ll be burning this cottage down. This safe haven.
