Page 39 of King's Heir of Hate

“Tadeo. You have to—”

“I don’t have to do anything,” he told her, and there was a terrible note of finality in his voice.

She remembered that, too.

But he was still talking. And it kept getting worse. “It was a terrible idea to bring you into the palace. I will be removing you immediately. You can go back to the manor house, and you will stay there. You will only emerge to perform your official duties.”

“Are you putting me in jail, Tadeo?” she asked him, though her throat felt tight. “Again?”

If he heard her, he gave no sign. “When the child is born, he will stay there and make it his primary residence until he’s old enough to have his own room in the palace. We will never divorce. You can wander the palace grounds, flinging yourself into lakes and violating the walls of the historic buildings youencounter to your heart’s content. You can scream into the wind. You can dance in the rain. I don’t care. But Esme.” And his blue eyes seemed to tear into her. “You will not do it with me.”

“Tadeo,” Esme whispered, her heart pounding, something like a headache starting at her temples.

But he was already moving. Across the room and to the door, flinging it open to bark orders down the hall.

And he was the king. What he said happened, immediately.

It was Arturo who collected Esme, apologizing profusely and politely while he herded her back out the family entrance she’d used the day she’d come here to live, and into a waiting car.

“Her Majesty’s belongings will follow later today,” he assured her.

Esme paused, half in and half out of the car, and caught the loyal old retainer’s gaze.

“I hope you take care of him,” she said quietly. Intently. “Because you know no one else will.”

Arturo inclined his head. “Madam,” he said in the same tone, “that is my raison d’etre. You may depend upon it.”

Then he closed the car door behind her and tapped on the roof to let the driver know she was ready.

Esme wanted to cry out—scream, maybe—that she was anything but ready. Instead, she let herself sit back. She stared out the window, though she saw nothing but that look on Tadeo’s face.

The drive back to the manor house was painful.

But not as painful as when they dropped her off in the drive in front of the house, and she found herself staring at the facade of the building. First because she didn’t see it. Then because she did.

“What did you expect?” she asked herself fiercely, her voice a rough scrape that the breeze stole away.

She didn’t know what she expected. That it would be left as a monument? That they would simply leave her paints be?

It shouldn’t feel like a slap that they hadn’t. That the manor house now looked precisely the way she’d first seen it. Elegant, austere.

A jail. The same jail she’d been sent to on her wedding night. This was like being caught in a time loop. Would it be another seven years before he touched her again?

Could she bear it?

She walked inside, and saw that they had redone the interior, too. It even smelled like fresh paint.

Everything was muted again. All her bright colors were gone, covered up, erased. She felt her pulse begin to get rapid, a lot like she was having a panic attack, and so she forced herself to take deep breaths as she walked down the long, main hall toward the back of the house. So she could see what they’d done to the gardens.

That wasn’t a surprise either. But she found herself sobbing all the same, because they’d cut down all her flowers. They’d mulched up her wildflower beds. They hadn’t let spring do with this private, unseen, unvisited garden what it would.

Because it didn’t send the rightmessage.

Esme stood on the terrace and she let the tears come. She held her belly tight, and as she bowed her head, she cried.

It was as if she could see it all spool out, how the years would pass.

He would keep her here. Over time, she would stop…being herself, because there would be no point. He would take her child and call itduty.Responsibility.He was very unlikely to have another one with her, even though it was something they had promised each other when they’d signed their wedding documents. Not because a winter masquerading as a man reallywanted children, but because of the dynastic implications and thrones in play.