Chapter Eight #2
Any decent husband would’ve presented me with a set as a wedding gift. I tried valiantly to convince myself that I ought to be grateful to be spared the additional attention-getting gaudiness of jewels hung all around my head and neck.
Indecent and neglectful as he might be, I found Lord Stefan awaiting me in the hall as promised as I turned the corner of the last landing, although he was frowning down at a paper in his hand and paying no attention at all to my approach.
His own valet had decked him out in dark red silk with gold trim.
At least everyone would gape as much at him as at me, because no one that tall and that broad-shouldered had any business covering himself in that quantity of shiny lace—he risked blinding anyone who looked at him directly.
Even though it half blinded me, I couldn’t stop staring at him as I paused at the foot of the stairs, my hand not obeying my command to release its death grip on the baluster.
A couple of whispers behind me suggested that Aldrich had company under the stairs.
Great Ennolu, the whole household would be talking about this.
My cheeks went hot and my knuckles went white. I couldn’t move.
Lord Stefan muttered something that sounded like a curse and crumpled the paper in his hand.
And then he looked up—and went very still, except for the muscle jumping in the angle of his jaw. The air between us vibrated with the intensity of his dark eyes fixed on me, boring into mine.
“You look,” he said. And then went silent again. I waited, heart pounding in my throat. He cleared his own, as if he had a similar problem. “You look ridiculous.”
From behind the stairs came a pfft kind of noise, abruptly cut off with a quiet smack as if someone had slapped a hand over Aldrich’s mouth.
I’d thought having an audience for Lord Stefan’s disdain would’ve made it worse, that the stab of hurt under my breastbone would’ve bloomed and grown with the added humiliation.
Instead, knowing I was being watched gave me the strength to lift my chin another fraction—in this corset, my spine already had no choice but to be ruler-straight—and take that final step down into the hall with steady determination.
How would that imaginary Remi who’d been raised and trained for moments like this, and who’d been sauntering about Nevaia’s parties in revealing corsets for years, react to such rudeness?
I forced my voice to lightness. “It’s this or the cassock.
You may choose which you’d prefer all of your friends to think I wear while we disport ourselves.
Or I could put on the cassock as an outer garment instead of the jacket, and tell them you like me to wear both together, and honestly, I’m not worldly enough to know what that would suggest about you except that you have a terrible sense of fashion, but it’s probably not all that flatter—”
“Enough! Fucking merciful Ennolu, enough!” He bowed to me with a satirical flourish that I chose to ignore, and held out his hand. “You’ll need my help getting into the carriage. I don’t even know how you can walk in those breeches.”
“Your mother sent me the tailor who made these breeches, I didn’t choose them for myself. What’s your excuse?”
Lord Stefan raised one supercilious eyebrow, and said, with perfect composure, “I look good in these clothes. That’s my excuse.”
He did, the bastard. And he still had his hand out, waiting for me to lay mine in it and let him help me out to the carriage.
My last potion dose had been late last night; my next wouldn’t be due until the morning of the day after tomorrow.
I shouldn’t have been feeling any trace of either my magic or the curse’s symptoms. But as I reached out, I could sense the heat of his skin before we touched, a tingle of awareness traveling up my arm. What would happen when I touched him?
“What do you think I’m going to do to you? I told you that you didn’t need to be afraid of me.” Underneath his irritation, could that possibly be a thread of genuine hurt? Surely not.
Because I couldn’t admit that my hesitation came from fear of my own body’s response to his, rather than of anything he might do to me, I laid my fingers across his.
He closed his hand over mine, his thumb brushing softly over my knuckles.
I tore my eyes away from my slim hand resting in his—looking at it made it feel like an intimate gesture, not simply the type of contact anyone might have in a ballroom.
But when I lifted my gaze, I found that he’d been watching my face. Our eyes met, his dark and glittering. My breath came so quickly that my ribs strained against the corset’s grip, even though it hadn’t been laced too tightly.
Oh, gods, I had to break whatever strange spell had me in its grasp.
I didn’t want to identify this feeling, something I’d never experienced before—before meeting Lord Stefan.
It couldn’t possibly be desire. Wanting this man would be too shameful for words.
My unwanted, unasked-for husband, who despised me, even though he couldn’t tear his eyes away from me as he touched me…
“We’ll be late,” I whispered, what little voice I could find stretched thinner by the shallowness of my breath.
“If this were a real marriage, we’d be even later,” he said, and his hand tightened on mine.
“You could arrive to the ball with—” He cut off abruptly.
“You’ll arrive to the ball with one of the most fashionable men in Calatria,” he went on after a pause, “and you’re fresh meat for the society sharks.
We’ll draw a great deal of attention, and your clothing won’t help. Be ready for it, if you please.”
He turned at last, leading me toward the door, and Jan the footman bowed us through. He had a completely blank expression tonight, but as I passed him, I imagined that he gave me the faintest encouraging nod.
The cool evening air caressed my burning face, which felt incredible, and brushed over my exposed chest, which felt bizarre.
Lord Stefan didn’t even falter when I leaned on his hand, his forearm able to take most of my weight. And I had to distract myself from the strange little flutter that gave my constricted chest.
So as Lord Stefan handed me up into the carriage, I asked, “I thought you said I looked ridiculous. Is that why I’ll draw attention?”
I took my seat—slowly, because I hadn’t tried sitting down in these breeches yet. They rose to the challenge with surprising grace, but I still kept my legs at a forgiving angle.
Lord Stefan climbed in beside me, dropped down far more casually than I’d been able to, and rapped on the roof as Jan shut the carriage door.
We rolled smoothly away, and Lord Stefan still hadn’t answered me.
At last, he said, “You look ridiculous to me. But I’m not a universal arbiter of taste. Try not to embroil me in any duels tonight. And hold your tongue, if you would. I have more important matters on my mind.”
Perhaps he ought to spend some of his oh-so-important quiet time thinking about how not to be so incredibly rude.
I opened my mouth to tell him so, or to demand to know how he thought I could possibly involve him, or myself, in any kind of duel, but the heavy, brooding quality of his silence smothered the impulse.
A duel, though? Really? Did he think I’d say something thoughtlessly offensive enough to demand that kind of satisfaction? Or…did he think I’d flirt? I didn’t even know how.
Although it might be fun to find out, particularly if it annoyed Lord Stefan.
No one could possibly want to duel over me.
I might, possibly, have had one or two fleeting adolescent fantasies to that effect, but I’d put those out of my mind long, long ago.
I shifted on the carriage seat, biting my lip, as a particularly vivid scene from one of those reveries intruded; the man who’d won the duel bore more than a passing resemblance to Lord Stefan, although of course he hadn’t been a sneering, discourteous ass who cared more for his wardrobe than for common decency.
Maybe he’d sneered a little bit, but in a far more seductive way. Not like Lord Stefan, with his gleaming eyes and his quizzing glass and his stupid handsome face.
I closed my eyes, leaned back as far as my corset would allow, and forced my breath to slow. I’d need every particle of whatever poise and equanimity I could muster to survive being thrown, in a silk corset, to Lord Stefan’s society sharks.