I opened the door and stepped inside. Stefan had taken over my chair, slouching into it in much the same position I’d adopted, only he’d replaced the wine glass with a tumbler of liquor.
“I said to go the fuck—Remi!” The way he sprang out of the chair might’ve either flattered me or made me laugh if I’d been in the mood to appreciate it.
Instead, it simply made my heart sink further. It’d been difficult enough to overcome my pathetic infatuation with my husband’s handsome face and tall, muscular body and wicked dark eyes and strong, skilled hands when he hated me. Now that he meant to be kind, and had added charm and laughter and thoughtful courtesy to his arsenal of attractions, it’d be nearly impossible.
“I need to send for Benedict again,” he said, with a frown that only made him handsomer. Fuck. “You don’t look well.”
Kind, perhaps. Tactful, no. Ugh. “I’m perfectly well, except that—except that I tried to take my potion. It made me sick again.”
Stefan went very still. “You tried to take—all right. You were really ill?” I nodded. “Then that’s it, he’s coming now.” He knocked back what was left in his glass and strode to his desk, trading the glass for a pen and a sheet of paper.
“I don’t need him, and he said himself that I’d have to have patience. There’s no need—will you stop writing and look at me!”
The clatter of the pen on the desk made me jump as Stefan flung it down and turned, hands on his hips. “I’m looking at you, and you look ill,” he growled. “Convince me. You were poisoned last night. Yes?”
“Yes, but—”
“And since your potion’s made you sick again and you’ve, ah. You haven’t been yourself. Clearly you’re still poisoned, which means you need further attention. From someone who’s not me. That’s all there is to it.”
You haven’t been yourself. I’d had a similar thought when I’d tried to take my potion, and the irony wasn’t lost on me. No, my previous self hadn’t been a hopeless slut. Nice of him to notice.
And damn him all over again for painting me into this bloody awful corner, where I could only get out by either allowing him to summon the duke’s consort away from his duties as the commander of Calatria’s armies—not to mention away from the duke—for no reason, or by admitting that I’d spent most of the day demanding as much of Stefan’s cock as I could get because I wanted it, not because of any damned poison.
I swallowed hard, tasting a remnant of the potion and bile, or perhaps just my own humiliation.
“The poison’s gone. I’m not in any pain or need, Stefan. And Lord Benedict said the difficulty with the potion might be a lingering effect! We already talked about this. I know you remember.”
Had I imagined that minute flinch as I told him the poison had gone? I certainly wasn’t imagining the heavy silence that had fallen. Oh, gods, now he knew. The sharp twisting in mybelly had nothing to do with my curse. I didn’t fear his cruelty or his mockery. Not anymore. But his contempt, expressed openly or not? I didn’t know if I could bear it. I’d been so insistent that I wanted nothing to do with him, that I’d been forced into this marriage, that nothing could be more repellent to me than the necessity of being used by him, and that I despised his hedonistic behavior. And now he’d know what a pitiful hypocrite I’d been.
The corner of his mouth quirked up. “Now that you mention it, I think I can pinpoint the moment the poison wore off fully, what? Pushing me off of you and running away would’ve been a clue even for someone stupider than I am.” His tone almost hit that note of drawling indifference he liked to strike in public. Almost. The underlying bitterness sounded as if it tasted exactly like my potion. And he was wrong, completely wrong. But before I could decide whether fairness demanded that I correct him, he went on with, “But that’s no matter. All right, you’ve convinced me. What now, if not Benedict’s help?”
Precisely what I’d asked myself an hour ago. If I hadn’t known better, I’d have begun to believe our thoughts tended to follow similar patterns.
“Now,” I said, and had to clear my dry throat. “Excuse me. Now we wait until the time I’d need my potion. And if it sickens me again, then I’ll need to ask you for—”
“You don’t have to say it, I know what you’ll ask me for,” he said, tone harsh, and turned back to his desk. “I will, of course, be entirely at your disposal. Until then I’ll be busy with other matters. I may need to be out of the house most of the time.”
The dismissal couldn’t have been clearer, and I couldn’t even resent it after the way I’d behaved today. No, I couldn’t resent it.
I could, however, go weak in the knees with the desire to fling myself at him and pretend I didn’t know he wanted me to get the hell out and leave him alone.
“If my curse behaves predictably at all, that will be two days from now at around this time, if you wish to plan to be home then.” Oh, gods, that sounded so terribly, stiffly formal. I didn’t want formality and manners. Whatever the opposite might be, like being taken on the floor of the study. “Speaking of which. Forgive me, I forgot to tell you earlier. Lord Ettori’s been having the house watched, I’m quite certain. He knew you weren’t spending time with me after we were married. And this morning, I think he waited for you to be gone before he came to the house.”
Stefan sighed, cursed, and took up his pen again. “I had someone watching the house too, mostly to see if anyone else had been watching. His spy was better, apparently. I’m sorry he was able to ambush you. And I’ll be taking care of it.” He kept his gaze straight down on his desk, not so much as glancing back at me…although maybe he couldn’t even turn his head with that much tension in his neck and shoulders. “It won’t happen again. I need to write a letter, Remi. And go out. Send for me if you need anything. Jan will know who to contact to find me.”
I stood corrected; this dismissal was far clearer than the last. Overt to the point of rudeness, in fact.
“I won’t want anything you can do for me until the day after tomorrow,” I lied, and turned tail and ran like a coward for the second time that afternoon.
At least this time I wasn’t crying.
It took only a quarter of an hour for Stefan to leave the house. I knew, because I lurked by my bedroom door and listened for his movements, first up the stairs and down thecorridor to his own room, and then back the same way and out, with a flurry of rapped-out orders to the footmen and a decisive bang of the front door.
Had he really gone out to pursue the business his father’s visit had interrupted or simply to escape from me?
What a shame that the Lord Chancellor had gone to so much trouble and expense to make me his son’s consort, trouble and expense that could’ve been minimized by choosing someone nearer and more amenable to the plan. There must have been hundreds of young men in Nevaia alone who’d have willingly done whatever Lord Ettori wanted for the chance to marry into the aristocracy.
There must have been at least dozens more who were already members of that elite group, possibly wealthy in their own right, who’d have been eager to increase their standing at court by forming a connection with the Ettori family.
