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“Not quite,” he said.
He reached into his pocket and withdrew the small, velvet pouch he’d slipped in there earlier, despite his valet’s protestations that itmurdered the lineof his suit. He pretended he did not notice the way she watched him, or the way she stood there before him, stiffly, as if she didn’t know how to anticipate what he might do next.
Orion sensed he had the advantage, and he knew he should seize it, utilize it—
But first he had to do this. It was tradition, no matter the circumstances of their betrothal, and he was nothing if not a slave to tradition.
He upended the pouch and shook out the ring inside it. And he knew he didn’t imagine the quick indrawn breath he heard from Calista when it landed on his palm.
“This is the foremost crown jewel of Idylla,” he told her, though he expected she already knew it. He held the ring there where it had landed, gleaming in the lamplight and seeming to take on a life of its own—as if all the legends that had ever been told about it were there in its stones and shimmer. “It is always worn by the Queen of Idylla whether she is ruler or consort. So it has been for generations.”
“I—” For the first time since he’d met her, Calista Skyros actually looked...rattled. “I can’t wear that.”
“You must,” he said, simply enough. “It is a symbol. It is meaningful to our people. And it matters to me that it grace the left hand of my bride, as custom and tradition requires.”
He watched her swallow, as if her throat hurt. “I think you should save it,” she said in a low voice, after a moment. “For someone more appropriate.”
“We are far past the point of debating what isappropriate.” He held the ring in his hand, admiring, as he always did, the ancient workmanship. The pile of diamonds and sapphires, seemingly haphazard, yet all together a monument to sea and sky that captured the essence of his island kingdom. “I do not plan to have a selection of queens, Calista. Only the one.”
Her gaze had dropped to the ring he held while he spoke, but she jerked it up to his face then.
“Of course you don’t think...” She blinked, and for the first time since they’d met, looked...uncertain. Off balance. “This can’t be...”
His head tipped to one side. “Do you know something about my marriage that I do not, Lady Calista?”
And he watched as she took a deep, shaky breath. Then another.
“You are being bullied into this whole thing by my father,” she said after a moment. “I assumed the moment you found yourself free of whatever he held over you, you would divorce me or annul this, or whatever it is kings do to rearrange reality to suit themselves.”
“Henry VIII preferred execution. Is that what you mean?”
“Surely you don’t think this is anything but temporary. You can’t.”
Orion should rejoice in that, surely. He should have felt relief pouring through him, because their first interaction had been so fraught and this, at last, was some sense. Some acknowledgment of what was happening and even the faintest hint that they might share a bit in this thing that they must do.
But instead, he was caught somewhere between her clever mouth and that odd, arrested expression in her gaze.
And when he shook himself out of that, he reminded himself sternly that it didn’t matter if Calista had a modern sensibility about the situation they found themselves in. It couldn’t. It changed nothing.
“There will be no divorce,” he told her. “No annulment. My father’s reign was too tumultuous. Too humiliating and upsetting, for this family and the country. There will be no scandal if I can help it.”
If anything, that seemed to agitate her more.
“Your Majesty. Really.” She moistened her lip and he found himself drawn to that, too. What was the matter with him? “You can’t possibly think that we would suit for anything more than a temporary arrangement to appease my father’s worst impulses.”
He had been horrified by her earlier. And now he wanted to argue with her about their suitability?
“I need to marry, Lady Calista. I need to produce heirs, and quickly, to prove to my people the kingdom is at last in safe hands. There will be no divorce.” He smiled more than he should have, perhaps, when she looked stricken. “We are stuck. In each other’s pockets, it seems.”
She blanched at that, but he had no pity for her. Or nothing so simple as pity, anyway.
He moved toward her, taking stock of the way she lifted her head too quickly—very much as if she was beating back the urge to leap backward. To scramble away from him, as if he was some kind of predator.
The truth was, something in him roared its approval at that notion. He, who had always prided himself on how civilized he was, did not dislike the idea that here, with her, he was as much a man as any other.
Surely that had to be a good sign for their marriage.
Whether it was or wasn’t, he stopped when he reached her. Then he stood before her and took her hand in his.
