Chapter 14
CHAPTER
Sabine
Sabine had practiced the grip she now used on Lord Vaelros’s arm in her mirror, testing angles and weight distribution until her reflection no longer betrayed desperation.
The Bridge Market sprawled before them, merchant stalls arching over the canal in tiers of sun-bleached canvas and honey-colored wood, their wares spilling into the morning light.
Silk scarves danced in the breeze, their jewel tones catching the sun.
The scent of yeast and sugar filled the air.
Below the bridge, gondolas glided through water, their pilots calling out greetings to one another.
A violinist had claimed the eastern landing, melody drifting through the stall smoke and chatter in light, looping phrases.
It was, objectively, a beautiful morning.
Sabine was entirely unmoved by it. Her mind was busy cycling through her own tasks: smile when approached, laugh at Lord Vaelros’s words, lean into his space when others watched. Maintain the fiction. Protect Liora.
She had prepared for this, mentally rehearsed all the variables. Who might see them. Who might report back. Which matrons held the loosest tongues, which merchants circulated among the finishing schools, which corner of this long, arched promenade offered the most visible vantage for an audience.
“Try not to look like you’re being marched to execution,” Lord Vaelros whispered in her ear.
She turned her face toward his, arranging her features into something approximating affection. “Rich,” she replied through a smile that showed teeth, “from the Emperor’s own executioner.”
“I’ve never executed anyone who hadn’t been convicted first.”
“How reassuring. I shall endeavor to remain deserving of life.”
His jaw tightened—barely, but she caught it. Small victories. She composed her smile and turned it toward the oncoming party with the ease of a woman who had spent a decade making difficult things look effortless.
They passed with the requisite pleasantries; a greeting exchanged, a comment on the unusually fine Bloomtide weather, a remark about the silk merchant at the far end who was rumored to carry stock from Keshira this season.
Sabine answered in soft, pleasant tones.
Lord Vaelros inclined his head with measured courtesy.
The group moved on, satisfied, already murmuring to one another.
They moved deeper into the market’s embrace, the crowd thickening around them.
His hand settled briefly at the small of her back to steer her around a cluster of shoppers gathered before a flower stall, their argument about a bouquet of white oleander generating more heat than strictly warranted.
The gesture appeared protective, even tender.
A suitor steering his beloved through the press of bodies.
But Sabine felt it as direction, control.
She resisted the urge to shake him off. This was the game. This was the price.
“You’re stiff as wood,” he said, quiet enough that only she could hear over the market’s din.
“Perhaps if you’d warn me before manhandling—”
“It’s called guiding. Partners do it.”
“We’re not partners. We’re actors.”
“Then perform better.”
Her cheeks flamed. Fine. If he wanted a performance, she would deliver one that left him scrambling to keep pace. She shifted her weight, allowing her body to soften against his side. Her laugh emerged musical, crystalline, nothing like the dry humor she reserved for actual amusement.
A sugar vendor’s cart appeared on the right, and she gave herself to the performance, turning toward the display with something she hoped resembled genuine interest, reaching for a tray of dusted pastry shells without actually intending to buy anything.
It was the kind of small, soft gesture that would read, from a distance, as a woman enjoying herself.
The merchant—an older woman with flour dusting her apron and wrinkles marring her expression—beamed at them. “A lovely couple! The cakes are fresh, my lord, my lady. I made them at dawn.”
Lord Vaelros selected a pastry, passing coins across the wooden counter with the easy grace of someone accustomed to such transactions. When he turned back to Sabine, holding the pastry, his expression had softened, almost gentle.
It unsettled her more than his severity ever had.
“You didn’t have to,” she said.
“You were already reaching for one.”
“I was performing reaching for one.”
He said nothing, only held the cake out to her.
After a moment, she took it. His fingers grazed hers in the exchange, warm in the cool morning air.
Sugar dusted the top of the cake, catching light like powdered diamonds, and when she bit into it, the sweetness flooded her tongue, cut through with honey and the faint brightness of lemon zest.
“Good?” Lord Vaelros asked.
She swallowed, nodded, suddenly uncertain of her script. “Very.”
She took another bite, unreasonably annoyed by how much she liked it.
Then, she passed the pastry to him, expecting him to snap a piece free from the edge.
Instead, Lord Vaelros gripped her wrist, gentle but inescapable, and brought her fingers to his mouth.
He bit into the pastry, powdered sugar dusting his lips, then lingered there, his breath warm against her skin.
His lips brushed the pads of her fingers, and for one suspended heartbeat, neither of them moved.
He did not release her. Instead, his tongue darted to swipe at the powdered sugar left on his mouth, a breath away from her imprisoned fingers. The humiliating heat of it rose through her arm, up her neck, and into her scalp.
All the while, his gaze never left hers.
There was no arch amusement, no invitation to share the joke.
Just an unwavering, predatory focus that made Sabine’s pulse leap and her knees threaten mutiny.
She wanted to wrench her hand free, to scold him for overplaying their charade, but her voice refused to surface.
When he finally released her, she could only stare, half in outrage and half in a sensation she refused to name.
The crowd around them had stilled. Three matrons gawked openly, fans waving.
Two young men in matching blue frock coats whispered furiously, barely containing their glee at the scandal.
Even the vendor seemed paralyzed by the spectacle.
Sabine willed herself to resume breathing. “You are insufferable.” Her fingers still tingled where his lips had brushed them.
Lord Vaelros only smiled, the barest curl at the corner of his mouth. “I thought it was paramount that we appear deeply in love.” He wiped a wayward fleck of sugar from his lower lip with an elegant thumb. “Is that not the entire foundation of your plan for your sister’s candidacy?”
She hated that he was right. “A simple thank you would have sufficed,” she managed.
He leaned closer. “If you wish to try again, I am at your disposal.”
Sabine squared her shoulders and fixed her gaze on the far end of the bridge.
“When,” she said, once she’d recovered herself, “did you learn to do that?”
He glanced at her sidelong. “Do what?”
She gestured, vaguely, at the space between them. “Look like you genuinely enjoy yourself. I thought enjoyment was not a factor in your assignment. You feign it quite well.”
Something shifted in his expression, too subtle to name. “I told you. Imperial service requires mastery of many skills.”
“And this too ranks among the least lethal, I suppose.”
He huffed a breath. “Considerably.”
They continued walking. Sabine found herself hyper-aware of the space between them, how it contracted and expanded with the crowd’s flow, how his hand would return to her back or arm whenever the press grew too thick, how he angled his body to shield her from a passing cart loaded with wine barrels.
Small gestures. Automatic, perhaps. Or calculated. She couldn’t tell, and the uncertainty gnawed at her.
A goldsmith’s stall, more ornate than the rest, snagged Sabine’s attention by virtue of the noise: a trio of Gilt girls mobbed the velvet-draped counter, their volume rising and falling in shrieks as the merchant’s apprentice modeled a hair comb studded with tiny pearls.
Sabine steered toward it, if only to escape the lingering charge in the air between herself and Lord Vaelros.
He followed, the crowd parting for him as it might for a sudden storm.
The merchant recognized Lord Vaelros immediately. “My lord,” he said, dipping his head, “an honor. My lady,” he added for Sabine.
She let her gaze wander over the array: signet rings, hairpins, cufflinks, brooches in the shape of animals or plants.
The pieces were garish, but she supposed that was the point.
She reached for a hairpin, a long cluster of delicate flowers made of pearls and brilliant diamonds.
Undoubtedly beautiful, it was nevertheless the kind of bauble that would cost a dockworker’s year of wages and sit, largely unworn, in the bottom of some Gilt debutante’s drawer.
She balanced the pin between her fingers, then reached up and pressed it to Lord Vaelros’s lapel, atop the Hand badge.
“It suits you,” she said, pinning it in place with more force than strictly necessary.
“Brings out the color in your eyes.” But more than that, it obscured the pin beneath—a calculated insult, if anyone cared to notice.
He looked down at the pin, then back at her. “Does it?” he said, flat.
She expected him to brush her off, to return the pin to the tray, and move on.
Instead, he took it from her, turned her gently by the shoulder, and with careful, deliberate fingers, tucked the pin into her hair just above her ear.
The pin was cold at first, then hot as his fingers lingered, thumb pressed against her scalp.
“You’re mistaken,” he said. “It suits you much better.” His hand fell away, but the sensation of it clung.