Castles in Their Bones (Castles in Their Bones #1)

Beatriz

isn’t sure what wakes her up first—the pounding in her head or the voices murmuring outside her bedroom door. Their bedroom door, she remembers a second later, slitting her eyes open to find Prince Pasquale, blinking awake on the sofa, a gray silk quilt pulled up to his chin.

“There are people,” she says, her voice coming out raw and groggy. “What do they want?”

She realizes after she says it that they still haven’t spoken much more than a dozen words to each other, she and her new husband. The day before still feels like a hazy dream, not quite real, not quite her life. She half expected to wake up back in her childhood bed in Bessemia, to Sophronia’s laugh or Daphne’s off-key singing.

But here she is, a new bride in a cold bed with a husband who seems perplexed by her very existence.

Prince Pasquale looks at her that way now, like she’s some sort of puzzle and he can’t quite understand her question. When he does, though, he sits up straight and lets out a string of Cellarian words under his breath. She’s not sure what they mean, exactly, but she’d imagine they’re curses—not language her tutor thought to instruct her in.

He’s on his feet in an instant, pacing the room and searching for something.

Outside, a male voice calls out. “Your Highness, have you risen yet?”

“Hopefully he has several times,” another voice adds, followed by snickers.

“What do they want?” she asks him again, keeping her voice low even as her stomach is tying itself into knots.

“Proof,” he whispers back. He crosses to a basket of fruit on the table near the door, picking up a bunch of red grapes, a pear, a banana, before putting them all back.

“Proof of?” she presses.

The prince’s cheeks go red as he looks at her again. “Proof that we…” He trails off, glancing away. “Proof that the marriage was consummated.”

stares at him, agog. “I didn’t think anyone participated in that antiquated tradition anymore.”

Pasquale grimaces. “They didn’t, not until a few months ago when my father decided to reinstate it,” he says, holding up a strawberry. “Do you think this will work?”

She shakes her head. “Too pink,” she tells him, getting out of the bed and pulling the comforter back. The sheets beneath are a pristine white. She turns toward the door, where more voices are joining in on the din. “Just a moment,” she calls out, keeping her voice breathy and sleep-lined. “We aren’t quite decent.”

“I should hope not!” a man calls back.

rolls her eyes at Pasquale, making him smile fleetingly before going back to the bowl of fruit. “Have you seen it before?” she asks him. “What these bedsheets should look like?”

He nods. “A couple of times. …” He pauses, seeming to realize he’s never said her name before. It sounds strange in his mouth, unsure and a bit frightened. “My father will be out there. If he realizes we didn’t…”

He trails off, but he doesn’t need to finish. ’s mind is already a whirl of possibilities. Everyone will know that she’s failed, that she couldn’t manage to entice her husband. Her mother will find out, she’s sure, and cringes as she imagines her reaction. All that training, she’ll say. All that time spent around courtesans, learning the art of seduction, and couldn’t even manage to seduce an awkward boy prince. Worse still, if the king knows the marriage hasn’t been consummated, he’ll have grounds to annul it, to send her back to Bessemia. It wouldn’t be logical, but King Cesare rarely is. ’s mother would never let her forget her failure then.

She shakes the thought from her mind and crosses to the mahogany desk in the corner, snatching a bejeweled letter opener and holding it up to her palm.

“If they want blood, we’ll give them blood,” she says to Prince Pasquale. “How much is there usually?”

He takes the letter opener from her before she can make the cut. “Not too much,” he says. “It’s a good idea, but if it’s from your hand they’ll notice.”

She nods. “What do you propose, then?”

The prince props his left leg on the bed and holds the letter opener to the back of his calf with his other hand. “Rip a scrap of cotton from one of my tunics, would you? And find a pair of trousers?”

nods, hurrying to the wardrobe; she finds a plain black tunic at the back and rips a strip of fabric from the hem. After a second of thought, she rips a second strip as well and grabs the first pair of trousers she sees.

When he makes a small cut on the side of his calf, about an inch long, she watches, both horrified and entranced. The prince lets out a low hiss of pain before passing her the clean handle of the bloodied letter opener and gathering the blossoming beads of blood on his fingers. He smears the blood on the middle of the bed, staining the white sheets crimson.

He does it twice more, until he’s satisfied with the size of the stain, then takes the scrap of fabric holds out and ties it around the cut, pulling on the trousers she passes him to hide it. She wraps the letter opener in the second strip of fabric and hides it in a desk drawer.

He starts toward the door, ready to let the crowd in. But something isn’t right. She remembers her visits to the brothels, how the people who visited would look when they came in, pulled together and neat, and how they looked when they left.

“Wait,” she hisses.

He pauses and looks back at her with a furrowed brow.

She steps toward him, hastily unbuttoning his tunic and rebuttoning it so a few buttons are askew. Reaching up, she runs her hands through his black hair, rumpling it.

“If we’re going to do this,” she tells him, releasing her own hair from its braid and mussing it up, “we have to be convincing.”

He nods and considers her for a moment before tugging the sleeve of her nightgown down so her right shoulder is bare.

“Good,” she says, pinching her cheeks so they flush. She climbs back into the bed, careful not to touch the bloody spot before nodding to Pasquale to open the door.

Noblemen flood in—at least twenty, would guess, led by the king himself. King Cesare is dressed in a red silk doublet, his dark brown hair oiled and slicked back, eyes bright and growing brighter when they land on , who has pulled the covers up again, covering her bare legs and the bloodstain, though she’s sure both will be revealed in a moment. She’s not shy about her body, but she feels like she’s supposed to be, so she plays the part.

“I hope you two had a happy wedding night,” the king says, turning his gaze from her to his son.

Prince Pasquale withers a bit under his father’s gaze but manages a nod. “We did, Father. Thank you.”

The king looks him over, taking in his tousled hair, his misbuttoned shirt. He purses his lips. “Well then. Let’s seeit.”

Pasquale nods, hurrying to ’s side of the bed to help her up. When she takes hold of his arm, she feels it shake beneath her touch. She gives him what she hopes is a reassuring squeeze. As soon as she gets up, standing before the crowd of men clad in only her nightgown, a round of cheers and whistles goes up.

has never been modest—Daphne has even called her shameless plenty of times—but this is different. Now she is on display, a thing to be consumed, and suddenly she doesn’t feel shameless at all. Shame burns through her, hot and painful, and she has to fight the urge to cover herself.

Prince Pasquale must see this, because he steps in front of her, shielding her as best he can from the looks. He pulls back the duvet, baring the bloodstain for all to see. For a moment, no one speaks, and holds her breath, waiting for someone to call it a fake, to realize their marriage is unconsummated, unverified.

After what feels like an eternity, though, the king claps his son on the shoulder and beams.

“Well done, my boy,” he tells him. “I didn’t think you had it in you. Of course, with a bride as lovely as this, how could you resist?”

Prince Pasquale manages a smile. “Thank you, Father.”

“We’ll leave you to it, then,” the king says, looking at again. His gaze makes her skin crawl. “I remember what it was to be young and newly wed.”

—

When the king and his men have gone and it is only and Pasquale alone in the room again, sits down on the edge of the bed with a sigh of relief.

“It worked,” Prince Pasquale says, mostly to himself, sounding like he doesn’t quite believe it.

“It worked,” she echoes, looking at her new husband. “But I don’t understand why you wanted it to. You clearly have no desire to be married to me—now you’re stuck,” she adds.

He looks down at the floor, unable to meet her eyes.

“It’s not that,” he says slowly. “We just…we don’t know each other, do we?”

“No,” she agrees. “Though I never expected we would get that luxury. Pasquale—is it all right if I call you that?”

“You can call me Pas, if you like,” he says. “Most peopledo.”

“Pas, then. We might have tricked your father today, might have kept court gossip at bay for a few months. But we are young and healthy, and they will expect children to come soon,” she says slowly. It’s a bluff—Cellaria will fall and she will be back in Bessemia long before a child takes root in her womb; there are vials of herbs hidden away in her jewelry box to ensure just that; but she, too, needs the marriage to be consummated. Her mother was clear on that front. No one can ever doubt that this marriage is legitimate.

Pasquale doesn’t respond for a moment, but his skin goes a shade paler.

“Pas,” she says again, making him look at her. She holds his gaze the way the courtesans taught her, boldly and conspiratorially, like they are sharing a secret. He looks away almost immediately. “You don’t want to bed me, do you?” she asks him.

“We barely know each other,” he says again, cheeks going red.

“That doesn’t matter. You want someone or you don’t. And you don’t want me,” she says.

He doesn’t respond for a moment, looking everywhere but at her. “You’re awfully blunt,” he says finally. “Has anyone ever told you it’s a bit off-putting?”

“Constantly,” she says, shrugging a shoulder.

He doesn’t say anything for a moment, but finally he sits down on the chaise, slumped over with his elbows on his knees, his head in his hands.

“It isn’t you,” he tells her. “Believe me, you are possibly the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen, and everyone— everyone —has been telling me how lucky I am.”

“What is it, then?” she asks him. “You prefer blondes? I’ve heard of girls using lemon juice to lighten their hair—”

“No, it isn’t that,” he says. He looks like he wants to say something but quickly thinks better of it and closes his mouth, biting his bottom lip so hard she’s surprised he doesn’t draw blood. He straightens up again, getting back to his feet. “You’re right,” he tells her. “We can’t keep a charade like this up forever. We’ll try soon. I just need time.”

She nods. “It might help if you didn’t discuss it like you’re preparing to march into battle,” she tells him with what she hopes is an encouraging smile. “From what I’ve heard, most people find it rather enjoyable.”

He tries to smile back at her, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. All of his smiles are like that, she realizes, fleeting things that are gone too quick to really see.

“I’ll see you at breakfast, then, .”

“Triz,” she tells him, making him stop short.

He turns to look at her, brow furrowed. “Pardon?”

“If I’m to call you Pas, you can call me Triz. My sisters arethe only ones who do, but you are family now, I suppose.”

He considers this for a moment before nodding. “I’ll see you at breakfast, Triz.”

—

Once she’s dressed in a new gown of sapphire and gold brocade, makes her way to the banquet hall for breakfast, trailed by her group of attendants. Her thoughts are a muddle of Pasquale’s words and her mother’s crushing expectations. If gossip about her cold marriage bed makes its way back to Bessemia, as she knows it will sooner or later if it’s not taken care of, her mother will be irate.

Seduction is the thing is supposed to excel at, more than either of her sisters. How can it be her downfall?

Pasquale said he would try, she reminds herself, but from what she’s been made to understand, it isn’t the sort of thing a person should have to try at. And the way he looked at her—like she was a frightful creature, or a goblet of poisoned wine…like a friend, maybe, once or twice. But never like a lover.

She wonders if her attendants can see it, the failure that crawls over her skin—if there is something in her eyes that gives away the fact that her virginity still clings to her, no longer an attribute that secured her value as a bride, but a sign that she is lacking as a wife.

Just outside the entrance to the banquet hall, catches sight of Pasquale, standing with a young nobleman she vaguely recognizes, a boy with light brown hair and quick blue eyes that brighten as he laughs at something Pasquale says. But her gaze only lingers on the boy for a moment.

Pasquale, though, she can’t take her eyes off. He is smiling—truly smiling, not giving the fleeting ghost of a smile she’s always seen him wear.

And the way he looks at the boy…she knows that look. It is the way she hoped he would look at her when they first met on the steps of the palace, or during their wedding ceremony, or even this morning when she asked him plainly if he wanted her.

The pieces fall into place in her mind and she understands.