Chapter Three
Lord Stefan didn’t say a word to me. He released my arm the moment he had me in the carriage, letting me slump into the far corner of the seat while he took his own place beside me.
There would’ve been a few inches between us if the luxurious folds of his coat hadn’t filled them, and all that rich silk taffeta brushing against my horrid plain clothing underlined the dreadful inequity of my situation.
Sweat would certainly be visible under my arms and behind my knees at this point.
It might even be seeping through along my spine and dampening the plush violet velvet upholstery.
My cheeks burned, my fingers twitched, and my breath rasped.
Little stinging barbs of magic flickered up and down my limbs. The curse would have me soon.
And then my husband would.
My husband.
Who still hadn’t so much as looked at me, gazing straight ahead at his own family crest painted in gilt on the front wall of the carriage as if he’d never seen it before and needed to commit it to memory.
My husband, who could’ve sat for a series of illustrations of the perfect courtier, from the lace spilling out of the cuffs of his coat all the way to the mirror gloss on his heeled shoes, from the sharp strength of his profile to the arrogant set of his shoulders.
The air between us grew hot, oppressively heavy…
although that might have been my own magic gathering around me, and nothing to do with him.
But my consciousness of his presence only loomed the larger, and I felt smaller and smaller by contrast, shrinking down into a body that couldn’t hold up against the weight of my own magic and its response to this stranger beside me.
The coachman called out to the horses and the carriage rolled to a smooth stop.
Lord Stefan opened the door without waiting for his footman to do it and climbed out as if he couldn’t stand to be next to me for an instant longer than necessary.
For a moment I stared at the open door, weighing my options.
No, I had nothing to gain from making a terrific scene and forcing him to drag me from the carriage.
With poor grace, both physically and metaphorically, I followed him out.
I glimpsed the impressively decorated facade of a tall, narrow townhouse, set in an elegant row of similarly expensive houses, before Lord Stefan took the same firm grip on my upper arm he’d had at the palace and pulled me inexorably up the marble stairs.
Two footmen bowed as we passed, hiding whatever surprise might’ve otherwise shown on their faces.
The hall of the house might not have equaled the magnificence of the palace, or possibly met the Lord Chancellor’s standards for his son, but it certainly had its share of painted porcelain vases and mirrors in gilt frames and elaborately inlaid flooring.
Lord Ettori had shown his talent for overstatement when he referred to my “rooms” in the palace, but Lord Stefan obviously preferred understatement. These were not mere “lodgings.”
The rustling of taffeta and click of heels increased as Lord Stefan picked up the pace, pulling me through the hall and immediately up a polished flight of stairs, more inlaid stone in red and blue and yellow.
My teeth clenched tightly, grinding together with a sound that would’ve set them on edge if it’d had an external source.
We emerged on the third floor, going down a corridor rather plainer than the opulent downstairs.
But Lord Stefan opened a door into a gracious, airy, high-ceilinged bedchamber, one fit for a lord’s noble consort—and then released me so abruptly that I stumbled, catching myself on a post of the beautiful silk-draped bed.
I turned, breathing hard, glancing around at doors offering glimpses of a balcony, a tiled bathing chamber, and a luxuriously furnished sitting room.
A carved fireplace with an embroidered screen.
A large gilt mirror. Comfortable chairs.
If Lord Stefan meant to leave me here to die, at least I’d do so in a style befitting my station. I could writhe in pain on brocade upholstery like a bloody gentleman.
He stood in the middle of the room, every line of his body stiff with tension, turned almost entirely away from me and showing me only the line of his jaw.
He reached up and passed a hand over the expression I couldn’t see, and then turned, face as blank as if he’d cleaned any trace of emotion away.
Or no…not quite all traces.
His lip curled faintly at the corner as he raked me up and down with a harsh, glittering gaze.
“You don’t seem as eager to fulfill your marital duties as I was assured you would be,” he said after a moment, voice rough and clipped, making me jump. “Do I not meet with your approval?”
My approval? Did he really imagine that anyone had sought it at any point?
Someone as eager to spread his legs for wealth and prominent position in society as he’d been assured I would be wouldn’t care what he looked like.
Was he really so vain that he had to believe I found him irresistible? Oh, how revolting.
Besides, it hardly mattered. Without my potions, I’d be begging for him within an hour, if the heat flickering through my limbs was any indication.
My hands crept behind me to seek the support of the bedpost, and I wrapped them around it until my knuckles ached.
For the twentieth time since leaving the Lord Chancellor’s office, I tried very hard not to imagine the conversation in which he’d assured his son of my eagerness, discussing me like a piece of meat.
But my disgust didn’t matter any more than my approval did. You will say nothing to Stefan to contradict what I’ve told him, or your sister will face the consequences of my displeasure.
“Of course you do, my lord. You are, are very handsome. I am eager to do as you wish.” My voice quavered and almost broke. Please, gods, that he would tell me what he wished before false eagerness became real desperation. My fingers twitched around the post. “I will obey you, my lord.”
His eyes widened, fists clenching at his sides. “Don’t look like that,” he snarled suddenly. “I’m not going to be the slightest bit affected by any attempt at pathos. I know what you are.”
For a moment I stood utterly frozen, unable to form a word or even a thought, lost in confusion and misery.
I stared at him: his compressed lips and flashing dark eyes, the perfection of his face and body and clothing, not a hair out of place nor a thread awry.
Though I couldn’t see myself in the mirror set by the wardrobe from this angle, I knew how I looked to him.
He couldn’t even take the trouble to try to hide his contempt for my plainness and insignificance.
But it wasn’t just that.
I know what you are.
Abbeys for dawn mages existed because of the revulsion and fear we aroused in some other men: the one at our vulnerability and desperate need, the other of our god-given powers.
Worse, those things truly did arouse them, in the more physical sense of the word.
Lust, violence, their worst possible selves.
I still didn’t know if Lord Stefan would turn out to be one of those, but if he despised me not only for being a dull scion of a disgraced family, and for being undesirable in my person, but for my very nature? There was no chance that we’d ever find common ground.
My spine stiffened.
No. I might be ashamed of sweating through this hideous jacket and having unruly red hair, but I’d be damned if I’d be ashamed of the one thing about me that made me interesting. Perhaps Ennolu, the highest of the gods, had the right to curse me for my magic, to punish me on a whim.
But this man didn’t, no matter how married we were. I’d bow to a god’s will. And, with my back to a wall, to the Lord Chancellor’s. But not to this fop’s peevish dislike—no matter how he punished me for it. As long as he enjoyed punishing me, and did so while taking me, I’d still be pleasing him.
“If you know what I am, then perhaps you ought to show a little bit of respect for Dromos’s gift to me, even if it is cursed,” I said, finding my voice at last. It shook slightly, but I could forgive myself for that sign of weakness under the circumstances.
Tainted magic skittered up and down my limbs, twinging in every muscle and joint.
“You can degrade me as much as you like while you relieve my curse, but my magic will only grow stronger every time.”
And then I got to see something that no one else probably ever had: the elegant, composed Lord Stefan’s mouth falling open, his eyebrows raised.
He gaped at me, hand flying up to open and close in front of his chest as if he’d reflexively reached for that stupid quizzing glass but hadn’t quite made it there.
It only took a second or two for him to recover, snapping his mouth shut and narrowing his eyes at me, but I’d seen enough to believe him when he said, “Are you mad? I have no intention of spending more effort than necessary doing what we must. I believe degrading you would be rather time-consuming, what? And once that’s over, you won’t have the opportunity to use your magic, because following the consummation of this farce you’ll take your potions like a good fellow on whatever schedule you’re accustomed to.
Unless, of course, you prefer to die from that foul curse of yours, in which case you may do so with my compliments.
It would certainly make my life easier in many ways. ”
Lord Stefan shrugged, as if the thought of his consort’s painful death really did rouse nothing more than a vaguely approving indifference in him.
“I don’t have any potions,” I gritted out. “Your father took them from me yesterday.”