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Instead of taking hertoward the guest suite where she’d been put up the night before,he headed in a completely different direction. And paying attention to him was too disconcerting, so instead, she paid attention to the direction they moved in. A long walk, then left. Down a set of stairs, then out into a courtyard. There was a fountain making noise, and she could hear the sound of the water bounce back from the walls.
Then she remembered.Prince Griffin did not live in a wing of the palace, the way his brother did. He maintained his own residence on the far side of the palace grounds.
She could feel the pressof the December night,chillyforIdylla,though mitigatedby blasts of heat at equal intervals as they walked.Heaters, no doubt.Because royal personages could not be expected to suffer the travails ofweather.
Melody wanted to laugh at that. But didn’t, because it occurred to herthat she was now one of those royal personages. Like it or not.
Then they were inside again.His home, she understood. Hers, now. There was the scent of him, or something that reminded her of him. A certain richness, a hint of intensity. She could sense walls around her, suggesting an entry hall, and then a room.He led herto a couch, placing her hand on the arm and encouraging her to sit.She ran her fingers over the wide arm of the couch,done up in a deep, sumptuous leather. Then she sank down on the seat, tossing the skirt of her enormous dress out as she settled into place, and getting a sense of the width of the couch as she did.
And then she listened.
Her husband moved almost silently. So silently, in fact, that it once again made her shiver in the grip of too much awareness.She had the sense of him prowling,and he was...
Not the same, here.
Away from the crowds,something in her whispered.
Was this where Prince Griffin was truly himself? Whatever that meant?
That electric charge deep inside her connected again,lighting her up. Sending heat and flame and something else shivering through all parts of her body, making her want to leap to her feet to do something to dispel it—
But instead, she reminded herself to be meek.This was not whereshecould be herself. She could only play her prescribed part, as ordered.Melody bowed her head.
And listened as her surprisinglyformidable Prince—her husband, God help her—fixed himself a drink. Then one for hertoo,she corrected herself, as she heard ice hit heavy crystal for a second time.
Sure enough,he was soon beside her again, pressinga cool tumbler into her palm.
“I thought we could both use a bit of whiskey,”he said, in a low sort of growl that bore almost no resemblance at all to the cultured, charming,carefree tone he’d used in the ballroom as all those women had vied for his attention.
It was fascinating.Hewas.
Melody felt herself flush.
“I want you to be comfortable here,” Prince Griffin told her, still sounding growly, but with a more formal note mixed in. “And you have nothing to fear from me. I do not intend to...insist upon any marital rights.”
Her flush deepened. She told herself it was outrage that he would even mentionmarital rightsin the twenty-first century. But she knew better.
If she was outraged at anything, it was that he’d apparently decided his own wife didn’t merit the same sexual attention he was literally famous for flinging about like it was confetti. Without even asking if, perhaps, she might like to partake of the one thing he was widely held to be any good at.
“Why not?” Melody demanded. Then remembered herself. She tried to exude innocence and fragility, and only hoped she didn’t look constipated in the process. “Forgive me if I’m misunderstanding the situation we find ourselves in here. But I thought the entire purpose of these royal weddings with all the protocol and the carrying on about bloodlines and history was the sex?”
CHAPTER TWO
HISROYALHIGHNESS, Prince Griffin of Idylla, could not possibly have heard his frail and fragile new bride correctly.
He stared down at her, trying to make sense of the question that was, as far as he could tell, still hanging in the air between them. Filling up his private study, stealing all the air out of the room, and most disconcertingly by far, centering itself between his legs.
Where, it appeared, his body had already decided that he was attracted to his wife.
Wildly attracted.
Griffin was appalled.
At himself for proving, as ever, he was more monster than man.
Lady Melody Skyros was not only a gently reared noblewoman, deserving of his respect and care. She was not merely one of Idylla’s sweet young things whose mothers plotted exquisite marriages like something out of a period film while their fathers vied for power and influence. She was also blind. His choosing to marry her was, as he was well aware, an act of largesse that palace insiders believed would redeem him in one fell swoop in the eyes of the populace.
She was his redemption, in other words.
