Halverton turned to her, his anger changing into possessiveness. “You see now,” he said. “You are mine.”
Her chest felt tight. She couldn’t draw a full breath. When he reached to touch her face, she flinched before she could stop herself. His eyes darkened.
She forced her lungs to expand to suck in a breath. “There’s no one but you.” The words shuddered out of her on an exhale. Would he believe them?
His expression eased.
She wanted to yell, to rage at him. How could there be someone else when you’ve trapped me here? Instead she smiled, her cheeks fighting her the whole time.
“Good,” he said at last and turned away from her. She let the smile fall.
Servants scattered as they entered, pretending to be busy. Halverton didn’t notice them, but Aoife did.
Clara stood by the doorway, eyes downcast.
Alton watched her. His face was the perfect servant’s mask, but there was something different about him all the same.
Halverton’s hand closed gently around her elbow, guiding her down the corridor as if nothing at all had happened in the courtyard.
They passed through the servants’ door, down more corridors until he stopped in front of the sitting room. He opened the door for her, his touch light and possessive at the small of her back.
“A moment interrupted,” he murmured.
Aoife stepped inside. The room was smaller than before, airless. Her book lay open on her chair. Halverton retrieved it, his fingers brushing the page.
“An excellent choice,” he said, pleased. “Continue.”
He placed it in her hands with a fondness that made her stomach clench.
Then he crossed to the sideboard, uncorked a bottle of wine, and poured himself a generous glass. The splash of liquid hitting crystal was too loud in the quiet. He selected a leather-bound volume from the shelf without even looking at the title and settled into the opposite chair.
As if they were simply two people enjoying an afternoon’s peace.
Aoife sat. The book trembled slightly in her grip. She forced her hands still and tried to read, tried to let her eyes track the lines, but the words slid apart like water. Every time she blinked, the same image played out behind her eyelids: Cormac’s arm twisted behind his back, his face contorted in pain. She pressed her nails into her palm, anchoring herself, willing her expression to remain smooth.
Halverton turned a page with a soft rustle.
Aoife stared at the same sentence until it blurred.
She would never reach Cormac from this chair.
When Halverton finally rose, sighing softly, marking his page, kissing her forehead in a gesture that made her flinch inside, she waited only until his footsteps vanished down the hall. She snapped her book shut, stood, and dashed to the servants’ door at a dead run.
She ran down the back stairs in search of Clara, finding her in the boot room with Alton.
“Do you know where the cells are?” Aoife asked.
Clara and Alton exchanged a look. Clara hesitated, then nodded.
Aoife pressed, “Can you help me reach them?”
Clara shook her head. “Not if you mean to break him out. It’s too dangerous. Cormac seems like a good man, but we’d all be punished, and he’d hang if we were caught.”
“I only want to talk to him.”
Alton studied her for a long moment, then sighed. “All right. I know who’s on watch tonight, both Morran. They’ll let you through, but that’s all we can do.”
Relief flooded her so quickly that she swayed. “Thank you,” she whispered. She meant it more than either of them could know.
