And he wanted none of it.
He pulled out her chair at the high table. She sat with the stiffness of a blade.
When he took his place beside her, his voice was low and sharp. “You’ll explain, Princess. Nothing but the truth—now.”
She didn’t meet his gaze. Her hands were clenched in her lap, knuckles pale.
“I have never spoken anything but the truth, my lord,” she said, her voice strained.
“Your father sent a painting. Our ambassadors delivered it. In it, you were flawless.”
She blinked, visibly startled. “A painting? Of me?”
Alexander’s mouth twisted. “Indeed. Cunningly posed. It showed only the right side of your face. The left remained hidden.”
Her shoulders drooped, as if the fight had left her. She turned her face away.
He didn’t let up. “Why didn’t you mention your birthmark?”
She hesitated. Then, in a voice barely audible, she said, “It is not something I speak of, my lord.”
“And your leg? You let me believe your limp was from the ambush.”
“I said no such thing,” she replied, more firmly now. “When you remarked on my leg, I said it troubled me before. I only meant I’ve lived with the pain for years.”
His jaw ticked. The betrayal wasn’t just in what she’d hidden. It was in how easily she’d let him believe what he wanted—how deftly she’d played into his need for hope.
The music swelled as platters were passed. Laughter flitted from the lower tables. In the center of it all, he sat beside the bride he’d imagined to be a balm to his House’s disgrace, and realized she’d draw stares for all the wrong reasons. She’d never dazzle a court into silence. Never be the vision he had promised himself.
And that, more than the mark itself, burned.
Once, not long ago, he’d imagined a celebration for her. A night of dancing, of joy. Of light.
The thought sickened him.
CHAPTER 17
JINGYI
Any calm scattered like leaves in the wind. A dull ache throbbed where his grip had tightened on her wrist in the temple, a bracelet of impending bruise. He had loosened it when he noticed, his eyes flashing with what looked like remorse, yet he hadn’t touched her since they sat down.
The hall glowed with candlelight. Tapestries stirred in the hearth’s warmth, platters gleaming with roasted game and sugared fruit. She wanted none of it. Her senses narrowed to the man beside her, to the distance gaping between them.
From his questions earlier, she understood: he had knownnothing. Not of her birthmark, nor her permanent leg injury. A painting, he’d said. She couldn’t recall sitting for one. If there was indeed such a portrait, it must’ve been drawn from memory—or fantasy.
Whichever it was, one truth was undeniable: Her father had deceived him.
And now, Lord Wulfbane believed she had, too.
Her fists curled in her lap. The blemish on her cheek seemed to burn hotter under the weight of the stares.
A whisper flitted past from a nearby table: “Did you see . . .?”
Another came from a table at the front, barely audible. “A shame. Such a shame.”
She lifted her chin and shaped her mouth into a smile.
A platter appeared before her: slices of beef fragrant with rosemary and thyme, golden potatoes, crusty bread soaked in drippings. Alexander’s voice followed, low and rough.
