“I beg your pardon,” he cut in, leaning forward, eyes blazing, “but what exactly are you thinking I mean to do tonight?”
“What you do every night!” I shoved up on my elbows, too annoyed to keep still and too incensed to euphemize. “Don’t pretend to be indignant at the accusation of spending a night whoring and drinking, Stefan, when you flaunt your degenerate behavior at every opportunity!”
Silence fell for a long, long moment.
“I could make a number of replies to that,” he said at last, in that overly controlled tone I’d already learned he used when he wanted nothing of his real feelings to show. “But I won’t. As it happens, I have my own sources of information, and I’d like to see if there’s anything to learn about what happened tonight beyond what we’ve already guessed and Benedict will discover. But I assure you, I have no intention of leaving you without adequate assistance, or of staying away for long. Like it or not, you’re my bloody responsibility now. So if you’ll excuse me, I’ll go.”
That odd, quivering ache in my chest could only be…yet another thing I didn’t want to acknowledge. It would be so much easier to continue detesting Stefan without any moderation. And I could have, if he’d only made some pretense, some false show of having become better or softer, or of liking me at all.
But that rough, annoyed admission that he meant to take care of me meant more than any honeyed words would have.
If nothing else, his rudeness convinced me that he’d told me the truth.
He had his hand on the doorknob, his face turned away, and in a moment he’d be gone. Something tugged beneath my breastbone, stealing my breath and making my fingers twitch as if they wanted to reach out to him. Something…my magic.
That was my magic, curling out of me like mischievous smoke, stretching delicate pale tendrils toward the man who’d set it free.
I couldseeit. And if it hadn’t had a mind of its own, I might have been left speechless with wonder.
But instead, it commandeered my mouth in a desperate, transparent attempt to keep him in the room where it could feel his presence.
“I thought he believed us the other night, at dinner,” I said. “That we’d already—consummated.”
Stefan kept his hand on the door, but he turned to look over his shoulder. “I thought he did too, actually. But I’m also not surprised that in the end, he chose to leave nothing to chance.” The corner of his mouth curled up almost imperceptibly. “It wouldn’t be the first time he’d hedged his bets based on my lack of reliability. The two of you agree on almost nothing, but I imagine you can sympathize with that, anyway.”
“Except that I doubt you fool him any more than you do me.”
Stefan went very still. Finally he let go of the door, turned, and leaned against it again, hands in his trouser pockets.
The slump to his posture made him look far too tired to be contemplating going out into the night again.
As Stefan gazed at me contemplatively, I grew more and more conscious of my naked body under the coverlet, as if he could see straight through it and trace my contours—as if he hadn’t seen everything already. When I couldn’t stand it anymore and gave it another tug, trying to hide as much of my skin as I could, the rustle of the sheets sounded obscenely suggestive in the silence.
Stefan’s eyes flickered down for a moment, and he shifted his posture against the door. “Did I ever deceive you?” His wry tone had a tinge of bitterness to it. “Or did you see me for what I am the moment we met?”
For a fleeting second, I wondered again—for perhaps the hundredth time since marrying this man, and certainly not for the last—what it might be like to be in this situation with the education, training, and experience to handle him properly. A man with more poise and sophistication…well, such a man wouldn’t be clutching the blankets to his naked chest, either. But he’d know what to say here: a laughing insult, something that would put Stefan entirely in his place.
Instead, I told the truth, because anything else tasted unfamiliar and unpleasant on my abbey-trained tongue. “You dropped your fop pretense quickly enough when we were alone, so I knew that wasn’t the truth. And I also knew you didn’t care about my opinion, since you weren’t bothering to keep up the front. But I still don’t understand why you keep up a front at all, or what you’re trying to hide. And I still don’t know what you are. So I don’t think I can really answer your question.”
He smiled, but it didn’t reach his shadowed eyes. “I think you have some very unflattering thoughts about what Iam. You’re merely too worn out to tell me. Or maybe I’m not worth the trouble. For the record, your opinion does matter to me. More than I expected,” he added almost under his breath. “Anyway, you’re right that he’s one of the few people who knows I’m not entirely a drunken, lecherous idiot who cares for nothing but the cut of my coats. And I didn’t see the point in pretending to be one for the benefit of someone reporting to him. Most people see what I want them to see. It’s helpful when you’re a diplomat, and close to the throne, to have people underestimate you.”
It took me a moment to digest that. When I had, the sound that came out of me rather horrifyingly resembled one of Abbot Junius’s dreaded huffing scoffs.
“The way you behaved toward me while being entirely yourself is much more responsible for any unflattering opinions I have than any of your playacting! I couldn’t possibly have underestimated your character any more than I did!” He couldn’t quite meet my eyes, and his jaw had set tight. “I’d have been honest with you if I’d thought I could trust you not to tell him I hadn’t done what he wanted from me,” I went on, when he didn’t speak. “He told me that if I didn’t please you, or contradicted what he’d told you about me, my sister would pay the price. I have been as honest with you as I could, anyway.”
“Yes, and look who raised me and how I’ve spent my life,” he retorted. “Nothing could possibly seem less likely to me than the possibility of honesty. Remi, you have my—gods, truly. My. Fuck. Most sincere, ah—” He stopped, clearly unable to quite spit it out, his face turning a fascinating shade of pink as he tried.
“If you can’t even say the wordapologies, Stefan, then you can’t possibly expect me to accept them.” To my disgust, the little flutter in my chest at—what? Honestly, at what, exactly?—made my tone a bit less severe than it should’ve been.
“I don’t imagine that you would,” he said flatly, simply stating a fact. I blinked at him, taken aback by that hint of bleak unhappiness. More than a hint came through as he went on with, “Especially after tonight. There aren’t many lines I won’t cross when necessary. Forcing myself on you has to be—”
“Oh, stop feeling so sorry for yourself,” I snapped, pushed beyond a line I hadn’t known I had, myself. “Lord Benedict was right when he called it self-flagellation.”
He shoved off the door. “I beg your—feeling sorry for myself? You’re the one who’s in need of pity—”
“No, I’m bloody well not! Don’t insult me by thinking it. I’m uncomfortable. And I want a bath!” How much I wanted a bath hadn’t quite dawned on me, but as I said it, the sensation of open squishiness between my legs came to the forefront of my mind and made me want to cry from sheer embarrassment. I’d never even imagined a sensation of open squishiness between my legs. “But I’m not really hurt, like I told you already, and I’m not dead, which I would be if you hadn’t done—that. Anyway, that’s one of the few things I’m not angry about. And you’re not worried about that, anyway, you’re worried about howyoufeel about it, and dwelling on whetheryou’rein the wrong or not, which is obnoxious in the extreme!”
I subsided, breathing hard, and he stood there frozen, not seeming to breathe at all.
