Chapter Five #3
Moira lifted the cloches before me one by one to reveal that evening’s assortment of inexpertly prepared meals.
None looked remotely appetising. For months I hadn’t been able to escape the perpetual pang of hunger.
Now, looking at the sheer quantity spread out on the table, I no longer felt I could eat a thing. Not with him beside me.
‘Eat,’ Raleigh commanded. ‘It’s all for you.’
I couldn’t. His aura hung over me like a cloak, smothering what little appetite I had. I couldn’t risk letting my guard down long enough to chew. ‘I’ve changed my mind,’ I said to Moira. ‘I want to eat in my room.’
Her eyes travelled over my head, and I knew she was sharing a private look with her employer.
‘Moira, why don’t you go downstairs,’ Raleigh said.
‘You should eat before your own dinner gets cold.’ This was far from the proper way of things.
Moira might have been the only servant, but Johanna had been, too, and she’d always stood by at home, ready to offer a willing hand should we need anything while eating.
‘Please stay,’ I whispered.
I could tell she was torn, and for that much I was thankful, but she had been with Raleigh for thirteen years, and I’d known her for an afternoon. Her loyalty did not lie with me.
‘You’ll be all right,’ she said, and a new wave of cold cycled through my blood. As she stepped away, she jabbed a finger in Raleigh’s direction. ‘We are having a serious talk when you’re done.’
‘I don’t like the sound of that,’ he said.
‘No, you don’t.’ With a cursory glance at me, which I assume was supposed to be reassuring, Moira took her leave.
It had been nice to think I had an ally, however briefly.
‘Do your staff speak to you that way?’ Raleigh asked.
Ignoring the creature to my left, I forced myself to lift a fork and began to pick at the dubious whitish dish in front of me. I’d never had the privilege to be a fussy eater, but today’s supper gave me hesitation.
‘Clara?’
With some apprehension I took a mouthful and discovered it was some sort of fish covered in a sauce that tasted like the Dead Sea. I pushed it to one side. The weakest in Orlfen couldn’t have eaten it.
‘I notice you haven’t tried to kill me yet this evening. That’s an improvement, I must say.’
I took a sip of wine, then continued to eat. The vegetable side dish was far more palatable, though still over seasoned. At least the wine was good. I suspected I would need it.
‘Clara, unless you suffered a serious injury since last night I know you can hear me. Could you not at least make an effort in conversation? We cannot spend our lives in silence.’
I threw my cutlery down with a clatter. ‘What is there to talk about? What common ground could there possibly be between us?’
‘We both have household staff,’ he suggested, quite unhelpfully.
‘Johanna is more like family.’
‘Ah, see, common ground already.’ Raleigh leant back in his chair, clearly satisfied. ‘Moira is like a sister to me.’
‘A sister you’d banish to the basement?’
‘Well, perhaps more like an aunt. I confess she does frighten me at times. Maybe in time she’ll feel like an aunt to you too.’
‘I don’t have much experience with aunts. Mine passed away years ago.’
‘See! We have that in common too.’
‘Did you kill yours?’ I sneered. ‘Because that might be something else we have in common.’
‘You killed your aunt?’
‘You killed my aunt.’
Raleigh rubbed his eyes. ‘This isn’t going quite how I hoped.’
‘What do you want from me?’ I asked. ‘Really. What’s the purpose of forcing all this?’ I gestured to the table.
He took a long sip from his goblet. ‘I don’t want you to think of me as a captor. I thought this could persuade you to start thinking of me as your husband.’
Persuade me? How dare he think he could persuade me.
‘What are you drinking?’ I asked.
‘Sorry?’
‘What are you drinking?’ I nodded to the goblet in his hand. ‘In there.’
He spun it slowly in his fingers. ‘I think you know very well what it is.’
‘You’re right.’ I stood, the chair screeching against the floor.
‘So there’s the answer to your question.
You, Your Serene Highness, are a monster.
You captured me, and now you sit here wondering why I won’t treat you as a husband while you sip the blood of another human.
If you can’t see my issue, there is nothing you can ever do to persuade me to think of you that way. ’
I turned on my heels and started back the way I’d come. Raleigh called out in protest, and then he was at my side. Barely a second had passed, not long enough for any mortal to cross the distance between us. I tried not to react, but I knew I was shivering.
‘Please wait.’
‘I’m going to my room.’
‘I can see that,’ he said coldly, ‘but you need an escort. You can’t navigate the corridor in this state.’
I didn’t know what he meant. The castle may have been a maze, but I was confident I could retrace Moira’s path regardless of my mental state.
I decided that not knowing was better than asking and encouraging any further conversation.
He offered me an arm, which I didn’t take, but I couldn’t stop him from walking by my side.
The halls felt different again. On the way down I’d thought Moira had cleaned away the cobwebs, but now they choked the hall, thicker than ever. Malice seeped from the walls.
At the top of the stairs I turned the way Moira and I had come before, but Raleigh grabbed my arm and spun me back around. ‘Not that way.’
‘This is the way I came down.’
‘Your room is this way.’ Raleigh tried to pull me in the opposite direction until I twisted my arm out of his grip.
‘Don’t touch me,’ I hissed.
‘Do what you want, then,’ Raleigh said. ‘I’ll wait.’
I glowered at him and stormed up the corridor alone.
The light grew dim the moment I turned the corner, and I had to take the last lit candle with me to guide my way.
Had they gone out since I was here last?
Or had Moira carried light with her? I couldn’t remember.
Either option was far preferable to the third choice: that Raleigh might have been right.
In time I came to a winding staircase I didn’t recognise.
This wasn’t the way I’d come, but the only other option was to turn back and admit to being wrong, so I kept going.
As I climbed, the light grew stronger, and my candle became unnecessary.
The threshold came into view, and then a familiar pair of heeled boots, followed by an insolent, gloating grin.
‘Welcome back,’ Raleigh said.
I pushed past him without a word, in the direction he tried to guide me towards last time.
‘No, no,’ he said. ‘It’s back this way now.’
‘I just went that way,’ I snapped, whirling back to face him.
‘You’ll never find your way with that attitude,’ Raleigh said, beginning to walk in the direction I’d come. ‘Quite literally, mind you.’
To my immense annoyance, I found myself running to catch up to him. ‘What is that supposed to mean?’
Raleigh brightened. ‘The halls are loyal to their master. They don’t take kindly to strangers who would do me harm.’
I sniffed. ‘I couldn’t hurt you if I wanted to.’
‘But you do. Want to, I mean.’ He paused.
‘Though your scorn does wound me so. Ah, here we are.’ With a bow befitting a gentleman, not a devil in tailored finery, Raleigh pushed open a door to reveal my chambers beyond.
This was exactly the route I’d walked down, and yet nothing was the same. I was furious.
‘Now, I’ve helped you here because I couldn’t knowingly leave you to wander the corridors on your own. It might have been hours before you found your way. Will you at least return the favour and allow me one civil conversation with my bride-to-be?’
I seethed, hating that he was right, that he had wriggled me into his debt without me knowing. ‘Will you allow me a moment to tidy up first?’
‘I think I can allow that,’ Raleigh said gently.
Lowering my head in false deference, I sidled past him and into the room. Good to his word, Raleigh remained in the corridor.
‘Some advice, highness,’ I spat. ‘If you want a wife who will talk to you, maybe find one you don’t have to kidnap first.’ Then I slammed the door behind me and bolted the lock shut.
It wouldn’t keep him out for long if he was really determined, but it might at least buy me a few precious seconds of life. A few precious seconds I could use to prepare for the worst.
Or so I thought until I turned around to find Raleigh already leaning against the windowsill.
‘I wasn’t finished.’
I whirled back to the door, breath flying from my lungs, and fumbled for the lock, but suddenly Raleigh was by my side, catching my wrist before I could turn the key.
I was cornered, his hand around mine, my back flush against his chest. Death surrounded me on all sides, and there were no other escape routes.
‘What can I do to convince you to trust me?’ he murmured.
A good place to start would be to let go of me, I wanted to say, but the words got stuck. All that made it out were the words, ‘Let go of me,’ in a pathetic, choking whisper.
Raleigh lingered a moment, then obeyed, taking several steps back to put a respectable distance between the two of us.
‘My apologies.’ He almost looked like he meant it.
‘It’s been a great many years since I last tried to court someone, and I seem to be failing miserably.
I take no joy in forcing you to marry me, so if you’re to be my bride, then we ought to work through these teething problems we’re having. ’
‘I don’t want to be your bride.’
‘Yes, see, this is what I mean.’
‘I don’t. Want. To be. Your bride.’ I didn’t understand why he was being so obtuse.
‘Need I remind you that you agreed to our union?’
I flushed. ‘What would you have done in my situation? Watch your fiancé die?’ I was asking the wrong person for understanding. How could he understand my need to protect the man I loved, when he was the very person I was protecting him from?