Page 128 of The Thief and the Traitor Bride

“I am more than my work,” Nore said, her voice steely.

“But you’re not who I married.”

Nore laughed, the sound hard even to her own ears. “I was a girl then, Cas. What had I ever done? What had I ever known? I was easy to love then because I was formless—and now, of course I’m harder. Of course I—you tried to kill me. I could say the same for you.”

“I was not speaking of love,” Caspian said, rubbing the palm of his left hand with the fingers on his right.

“So perhaps my intentions are not pure,” Nore said. “Maybe I want you to take the distraction away. Maybe I, too, can’t forget what it feels like to be with you, and I can’t stand to be here and not have that. Maybe this is a terrible decision, but it’s my decision, and maybe that means something, too. Maybe I want you to trust me because I think I’ve earned it, and because I think you owe me the benefit of the doubt. And maybe I want you to make me forget every bad thing that happened between us because I—”

She broke off, breathing hard. Her hand had found one of the dresser pulls, and she gripped it as if that would center her, keep her in the room.

And Caspian was looking at her. He was looking with a new glint in his eye, one she could not understand.

“What was real?” she asked, and in that moment, there was nothing she needed to know more. “Our vows? Our promises?”

He did not flinch, did not look away, did not close his eyes. “Everything,” Caspian said. “For me, all of it was real.”

Every touch. Every kiss. Every misstep. Every lie. And gods—he was right. She was going to die alone, but she didn’t want to do it now.

He regarded her as if he read every flicker of it on her face, every memory, and still he moved no closer. “And this?” he asked. “Is this real, Finch?”

Is this just another distraction? Is this a manipulation? Is this just you using me again to get what you want?

Nore didn’t know the answer. She didn’t think there was one—maybe it had all twisted and tangled into one; maybe she no longer knew what she wanted and what the duchess needed of her; maybe familiarity and longing and proximity had made it all a question in her head she could never reach the bottom of: What is real?

The heat in her belly. The thrum of her heart. The steady way he was looking at her. Every time they were in a crowded room and her eyes caught his and the ice water shock of being known ran through her veins.

Of course it was real. There was not a single moment in which she could touch him, look at him, be with him, and not feel every one of her vulnerabilities on display. And she could not tell him that, let him know that he held all her weaknesses in the palm of his hand.

“Cas,” Nore said. She lowered herself to her knees in front of him, her dress pooling around her. She reached up, fingertips touching the edge of his jaw, feeling the soft shadow of his beard. He caught her hand, but he did not push it away.

“Yes?” he said, and she thought she could detect the note of surrender there.

Not until you beg, he had promised.

She pushed up straighter, tangling her other hand in his hair, their noses bumping. His eyes slipped closed as she tilted her head, only just brushing her lips against his. “If you want it to be real, demand it. Make me feel something,” she begged—her voice hitched in the middle, and she could barely find it in herself to be embarrassed by the vulnerability. Perhaps, Nore thought, this was the first honest thing she’d allowed herself to want this entire mission—perhaps in years. “If you want me to care about something else, to think about something else… then make me.”

I miss him, desperately, whenever my work calls me away. I suppose that’s exactly why such relationships cease to function: there is so much I want to tell him every time we’re reunited, things I can never say, that I can never admit. The biggest terror is this: I think I love him more than I could ever love my work.

Letter from Nore Gordon to Golda Barber, 1627 UCE

twenty-five

CASPIAN FROZE UNDER HER hands, going to stone. Nore leaned into the ache of vulnerability, accepting how much power she was granting him—if he pulled away, she did not know how she would recover.

It was good, then, that he did not pull away. Caspian threaded his fingers through her hair, gripping Nore by the nape of her neck as he pulled her against him. She’d always loved this: his certainty, his strength. His mouth crashed against hers and her thoughts were an explosion of yes, this.

Caspian dragged her up bodily from the floor, into his lap. She tipped her head back as his mouth traced down her neck, his hands moving to her hips. He held her as if there were some hidden way to get even closer.

“Come here,” Caspian whispered—an impossible demand, considering how here she already was—but then he lifted her to stand and led her across the room, his hands never leaving her hips.

He spun her around, bringing her back hard against his chest. There was the full-length mirror on the wall, which she used to dress. He gripped her chin, forcing her to look straight ahead: she took in the wild set of her hair, still curled from its complicated earlier style; the high color on her cheeks; the wildness in her eyes. She saw the grip of his hand, how his fingers dug into her waist, claiming her softness; how his other hand was demanding in its grip yet gentle, his coarse fingers tender against her chin. The corset of her gown pushed her breasts up and the bare skin of her upper chest was flushed, her breathing erratic. Nore’s gaze flicked up to Caspian’s face: where her eyes were wild, his held a secret, a conclusion, as if all of this had been inevitable.

The hand on her face slipped, fingers tracing down her throat, but Nore did not turn her face. He leaned forward, his lips skimming the shell of her ear, and she shivered.

“I want you to watch, Nore,” he said in a hushed whisper. She bit her lip, leaning her head back to get closer to him. One of his hands teased up her back to the lacing of her corset, pulling at the ribbon. “See how beautiful you are. Watch yourself asking for more.” He leaned in, his mouth slipping lower to her neck. “I want you to be selfish with me.”

She sucked in a breath. His fingers were clever, quick as he undid her corset—he had a trickster’s hands; he always had. With shaking hands, she undid the small buttons on her sleeves. Caspian’s hands pulled loose the sides of her dress, exposing the small of her back. He pressed his thumbs into the divots on either side of her spine. She knew her scars were exposed, like this, and wholly his—but he did not make her feel like they were worth his notice. His hands wound around, just above her hips, resting on the skin under her dress. He dropped his head, nose skimming over her shoulders.