Chapter Four
MRS. LYME'S HANDS DON'T stop moving.
She's arranging flowers in the hallway—white roses, perfect and unblemished—and she's been answering my questions for the past five minutes without actually telling me anything.
It's impressive, really. An art form. Every response is warm and polite and completely empty, like biting into a beautifully decorated cake and finding nothing but air inside.
"And Mr. Chaleur?" I try.
“You mean the king?”
The gentle emphasis has me hastily correcting myself. “Um, yes, the king.” When in Rome, do as the Romans do, right? Or in this case, address as the otherworlders do...even if you’re being forced to marry your own...crush captor.
“What is, um, he like?”
"A very private man." Another stem adjusted. Another door gently closed. "As you will surely come to realize in your own time, once you become his proper wife.”
My mouth opens and closes. Mrs. Lyme obviously thinks it’s my honor to marry their king, and so...maybe someone else in his staff thinks otherwise?
Thirty minutes later, and I have my answer.
Zero.
I've already tried the groundskeeper (ten minutes about the roses, nothing useful), the young maid who brought towels (three deflected questions while somehow making me feel rude for asking), and no one has given me anything.
Honestly, I’m not sure what I’m looking for either. A clue maybe, to the kind of paradise imprisonment—either in marriage or in the dungeons—that awaits me?
Hmm.
Maybe I’m going about this the wrong way.
So I go back to Mrs. Lyme and ask—
"What about Abigail?"
Mrs. Lyme is arranging another set of flowers, but this time the question makes her hands stop.
Just for a heartbeat. Just long enough for me to catch the fracture in her composure—something that looks a lot like fear flickering behind her eyes before the pleasant mask slides back into place.
"I wouldn't know anything about that." Her voice is steady, but her hands have resumed their work with just a little too much focus. "Will there be anything else?"
She's already stepping back as she says it. Creating distance.
I let her go. Because pushing won't help, and because I recognize that fear. Whatever happened to Abigail, the staff knows. And whatever they know, they're too afraid to talk about.
Which means I need to find answers somewhere else. Somewhere that doesn't have a pulse and can't be trained to keep secrets.
I'm studying a painting that might be a Monet—the brushwork is right but the color temperature seems warmer than his usual palette—when I become aware that my shadow count has changed.
Two guards behind me, same as all morning.
And one very tall, very silent presence that has materialized approximately three feet to my left.
I don't jump. I'm proud of that.
"Does appearing out of nowhere run in your family," I ask without turning around, keeping my eyes fixed on the painting like it's the most fascinating thing I've ever seen, "or is it a skill you had to practice?"
"You haven't eaten."
That's so far from what I expected him to say that I do turn then, startled out of my careful composure.
Devyn is in another one of his perfectly tailored suits, this one a deep charcoal that makes his eyes look almost amber in the light from the windows.
Liquid gold with depths I can't read. His dark hair is pushed back from his face, and there's a tension in his jaw that suggests he's been awake for a while, dealing with things I'm not privy to, carrying weights I can't see.
He looks like a man with too much on his mind, and somehow that only makes him more unfairly attractive.
Which is honestly just rude.
Not my problem, I remind myself firmly. He's the one who kidnapped me. Proposed to me. Whatever this is.
"I'm not hungry," I say. "I'm investigating."
"You're eating."
He says it like the matter is already decided, like my input on the subject of my own stomach is an irrelevance he doesn't have time to consider. And then, without waiting for a response, he turns and starts walking, clearly expecting me to follow like a well-trained pet.
I don't follow.
For about three seconds.
Then he pauses, glances back over his shoulder, and raises one eyebrow in a way that manages to communicate both impatience and inevitability at the same time. A look that says we both know how this ends, so why are you making it difficult?
My feet start moving.
Traitors. My feet are absolute traitors, and I'm going to have a serious conversation with them later about loyalty and self-respect and not just doing whatever the intimidating mafia king wants.
"This is ridiculous," I inform him as I catch up, slightly breathless from the pace he's setting with his stupidly long legs. "You can't just decide when I eat. I'm not a child. I'm a grown woman with autonomy and—"
"You skipped breakfast."
"I wasn't hungry at breakfast, and that's not the point—"
"And dinner last night."
"I was tired, but you're not listening—"
"And lunch yesterday."
I open my mouth. Close it. Open it again.
Nothing comes out.
Because he's right, and I don't have an excuse for that one, and he knows it. The truth is that my stomach has been a tight knot of anxiety since I woke up in that chapel, and food has been the last thing on my mind.
But how does he know that? Why is a mafia king tracking the eating habits of his captive bride-to-be?
"Fine." I try to say it with dignity, try to make it sound like a choice rather than a surrender. "I'll eat. But only because—"
I don't finish the sentence. What's the point? We both know I'm going to do what he wants. We both know I already am.
Something changes at the corner of his mouth. Not quite a smile, but close. That almost-smile that I'm learning to recognize, the one that makes me feel like I've surprised him in a way that pleases him.
I look away before I can examine why that pleases me too.
HE LEADS ME TO A SMALL dining room I haven't seen before, flooded with natural light from a bay window that overlooks the gardens. A vase of white roses sits at the center of the table, and there's only one place setting laid out on the crisp white tablecloth.
One setting. He's not staying.
I don't know why that thought brings something that feels almost like disappointment. That's ridiculous. I should be relieved.
I am relieved.
Definitely. Absolutely. One hundred percent relieved.
Devyn pulls out the chair and looks at me expectantly.
"You're kidding."
The look he gives me suggests he has never kidded about anything in his entire life. That the very concept of kidding is beneath him, an inefficiency he eliminated from his existence years ago.
I sit down. With dignity. Making it very clear through my posture that this is my choice and I am choosing it freely.
He pushes my chair in, and his hands brush my shoulders as he does. Just for a second, just the barest whisper of contact through the fabric of my blouse.
My breath catches.
Then he steps back, and I'm left staring at the empty place setting and trying to remember how breathing works.
A staff member appears with a covered plate, and when they lift the silver dome I'm expecting something elaborate. Foie gras, maybe. Something architectural.
Instead, it's a grilled cheese sandwich.
Golden brown, perfectly toasted, with tomato soup on the side. The kind of meal you eat when you're sick, or sad, or overwhelmed. The meal I used to make for myself in my tiny Providence apartment after particularly brutal days at work.
I stare at it.
"How did you—"
I look up, but Devyn is already at the door, one hand on the frame, his back to me.
"Eat," he says. "Then you can continue your investigation."
And then he's gone.
I sit there for a long moment, turning the question over in my mind. How did he know? Why did he care?
Then I pick up the sandwich and take a bite.
Oh.
It's perfect. Crispy bread, buttery and golden. Cheese that stretches when I pull it apart. The kind of grilled cheese that takes patience to make, low heat and careful attention.
I hate that it's perfect.
I eat every bite anyway.
I'M ALMOST STARTING to feel like I have actual freedom when I turn a corner and nearly collide with a wall of charcoal suit and warm skin.
Oh no. Not again.
Devyn's hand shoots out before I can stumble backward, his fingers wrapping around my elbow with a grip that's firm but not painful. The contact sends a jolt through me. Like the air before a thunderstorm. Like something waiting to happen.
"You need to watch where you're going." His voice is low. Close. Close enough that I can smell cedar and smoke and something underneath that's just him.
I look up.
He's right there. Inches away. Close enough that I can see the individual striations of gold and amber in his eyes, the faint shadow of stubble along his jaw, the way his pupils have gone just slightly wider than they should be.
Close enough that I can count his eyelashes if I wanted to.
Which I absolutely do not want to do.
That would be completely inappropriate.
I'm counting his eyelashes.
Stop it, Bailey.
"Maybe you need to stop appearing around corners," I manage, and I'm proud of how steady my voice comes out.
He doesn't smile. But something changes around his eyes. That barely-there crinkling at the corners. The almost-smile that hits so hard precisely because of its rarity.
"It's my house," he says. "I can appear wherever I like."
"How convenient for you."
He's still holding my elbow. Neither of us moves.
One second.
Two.
His gaze starts to drop. I see it happening, see the way his eyes begin their familiar journey toward my mouth. And then he catches himself. Stops. Holds my gaze with something that looks almost like effort.
He wanted to look.
He didn't look.
I notice the absence like I notice the presence. I'm keeping track of both now.
What is wrong with me?