“Oh.”
“I will see you tonight.”
“Yes. See you tonight.”
She didn’t really like the still sadness of this. The formality. It was almost worse than anger.
It was. It was worse than anger.
Because at least anger had something to it. This just felt…
Don’t think about it. Just think about the moment.
Except, in the moment, she was surrounded by all of these things that made her feel so…wrong.
So she decided to change her clothes and go down to the kitchen. Because at least there she felt comfortable.
Chapter Nine
In the threedays since his marriage he had barely exchanged a handful of words with his wife. He made sure that he was busy with work while they ate dinner. And she sat in stony silence as she ate her own meal.
It reminded him very much of his previous marriage, and in that case, it was easy for him to slip into the rhythm of it.
“You’re going to have to take a honeymoon,” Emerald said, bursting into his office without preamble.
“Excuse me?”
“There are rumors. A lot of them. And I just feel that if you don’t pause and take some time off, they’re going to persist.”
“And what rumors are those?”
“There are rumors about everything. Of course, there is already talk that she’s pregnant. And within that, there are people that are saying she was a surrogate for you and Circe, and the baby isn’t even hers. That you’re trying to cover that up. There are people that are saying she’s your mistress. And, of course, there are people who have it right. That you got her pregnant, and had to marry her, and that’s why you’ve done it so quickly, but that you don’t know her or love her. Evidenced by the fact that you didn’t even bother to have a reception.”
“Neither she nor I are actors. It would have been a foolish thing to attempt.”
“Still. You maybe should have. Because now you’re left with a whole lot of speculation about the irregularity of everything.”
“Maybe I don’t care about the irregularity.”
“That’s a lie. You do. I think at the very least you need people to believe that you love her. Or at least you can stand to be in the same room as each other. And I know that Lady Tremaine might have signed a nondisclosure agreement that you sent over, but the staff doesn’t work on nondisclosure. They spread rumors. That’s why we act with a certain amount of discretion. But within this house, people are talking. And eventually some of that is going to get out.”
“No one ever said anything about Circe or myself.”
“Yours was a diplomatic union. Everyone knew it. This isn’t. You’ve married a commoner. I did the same, while pregnant. You and I are beginning to look like…well, like we can’t really control ourselves.”
“I fail to see how your failings should reflect on me.”
“Failings. I mean, really I am only human. And Andrei is…”
“Thank you. I don’t want to hear about your sex life with my best friend. I’m happy you’re happy.”
He wasn’t entirely sure he meant it. He wasn’t sure if anything made him happy at this point. He was going to be a father in only three and a half short months, and all of this was insult to injury. He had to figure out how to manage the rumor mill. And his sister was right. It was better if people thought that it was a love match. A diplomatic match that was cordial rather than passionate was at least expected.
But this…
Well, it was beginning to look irregular.
“All right. I’ll take her to a private island where nobody can take photographs of her. But we are going to have to seed the rumor that we’d gone somewhere without saying where. Because we can’t have photographs released, because she will be visibly pregnant in anything other than a billowing gown.”
