Childish, but I never claimed virtue.
“Yes, I’ll have to agree with him there,” I offer upon seeing the lethal side-eye he’s giving me. This man reads minds; I’m certain of it. “Sadly, I don’t know much about her.”
There’s a smug glint in his eyes, and he no doubt files that piece of information away for later use. “Imagine my surprise when I’m explicitly warned against this supposedly sweet girl. He tells me she’ll be forced to flirt with me as part of her grandmother’s grand plan.”
Honestly, I’m not the least bit surprised Grandfather has warned him about her schemes. At one point, shortly after Gabriel proposed to me, Thalia persuaded herself that she was in love with him. Given how frequently she ended up at his family’s golf estate, I’m still not sure if those feelings became real, but it doesn’t matter anymore.
That love triangle ended the second the letter opener split Gabriel’s chest.
Still fearing that Eric can read my thoughts, I instantly visualise him and Thalia dancing together, hands on her waist while she smiles up at him. “Then you have my good luck. Thalia’s flirtations include nervous fainting and dabbing plump pink lips with lace handkerchiefs.”
As Gran’s voice rises in a complaint from the drawing room, a footman thunders by, muttering about buttercream stains on silk.
Eric barely gives the commotion a glance. “And you, duchess? What do your flirtations include?”
“Thinly veiled death threats, apparently. I’m afraid the only thing Thalia Fortescue and I have in common is that we’re both allergic to strawberries.”
Without looking at me, he mutters, “I’ll have to change my chapstick, it seems.”
I go still as a mouse, entirely too aware of my tail caught beneath a perfectly polished boot. I glance up at him, desperate to decode his expression, but the ass is perfectly composed. He can’t possibly mean—me? Thalia? I go with the latter to save myself any more embarrassment.
“I’m sure Thalia would appreciate the effort, my prince.”
“Hm,” he leans closer, so subtly, I almost don’t notice. “That would assume I was talking about her.”
Breath freezes in my lungs whilst his gaze remains stubbornly fixed on the locket adorning Gran’s neck in the portrait. The same one pulsing against my chest. I’m not taking air in properly; I forgot how.
With zero warning, his hand sweeps higher until he’s got an arm coiled around my back, drawing me closer. He blocks half the corridor from my vision with his height, and the world beyond this moment dissolves into muffled chatter and clinking silverware.
“I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but your grandmother has an unimpeded view of this corridor through that doorway.” His tone drops to a murmur of conspiracy. I’m unable to confirm that statement through his chest, however. “Francesca darling, give me some credit; I’m not stupid. If she wants a compliant prince orbiting her granddaughter, I’m only all too willing to oblige.”
That refined‘darling’drags a velvet touch down the length of my throat. I tilt my chin up and give him the driest look I canmuster, pretending his presence isn’t triggering every nerve in my body.
“I warned Gran about underestimating you.”
So much for her waiting to step into the ring; he’s already turned the castle into one.
He lowers his chin just enough for his breath to dance across my cheeks. It smells of the lemon-scented sweets Grandfather keeps in his office. “Again, I’m perfectly willing to be underestimated; that’s my point.” The devastating casualness of his tone has me floundering for what to say.
I settle for surrender, albeit not in quite so many words. No use in pretending the reins are still wrapped around my trembling hands. “And you’re so eager to be her obedient lapdog, aren’t you?” I manage, voice hushed and shaky as I raise my left palm to land on his bicep.
Awareness burns through me of how we must look; me half-pinned against Prince Problematic.
“Indeed,” he says softly. I don’t even remember when we started whispering. “Anything to ensure my continued presence here in Sheffolk.”
“You’ll doanything,” I repeat slowly, trying not to blink like a startled deer, “to remain here in Sheffolk. And what exactly do you gain by being here, Eric? Good standing with Sheffolk’s matriarch and heir?”
He draws me in even closer. “My reasoning isn’t nearly so diplomatic. I’m thinking more…Connie Francis blaring in the woods.” Thethunkof my heart falling out of my ass is almost audible. “I’m thinking of your terrified expression that morning. And I’m thinking that I’m insolently, grotesquely intrigued by you, Francesca Sheffolk.”
My nerves are overrun with perverse, dark pride.‘Insolently, grotesquely intrigued’crawls beneath my skin and digs another grave there. He’s peering through the glass like so manybefore him, watching this tragically well-behaved duchess still pretending she hasn’t drowned, but he stands his ground as the gawkers thin out. He stands until he sees the bubbles in the water, and heknowsI’m only pretending to be dead. I’m revolted by the revelation, flattered by the sincerity of it, and I feel so disgustingly seen.
The glass is all that separates us, and I fight the urge to ask him to break it. It’s vile, truly, the way he won’t look away, and God do I desperately want to move. To see what he’d do with the information that something still beats within me.But fear keeps me anchored. Gran says I must be careful, that trust will eat me to the marrow. I know she’d build shelter from her ribs if it kept me safe—so would Percy, Uncle, Grandfather and even Edmund—but they don’t know what it’s like within that shelter. That cage. I feel the bruises forming before I even move, because Eric isn’t offering me safety. No, that would be too simple.
By offering to document my pulse, he’s binding me to the reality that I’m still part of the living.
And suddenly my grave has six feet of stairs.
I press him, this potential ally. This anomaly. “You’re intrigued enough by me to become a lapdog?” Another tear goes through my pride at hearing the breathlessness of that question. Percy would poke fun at the way these knees threaten to fold.
