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But it stayed as it was. Innocent and yet...not.
And that ring on her hand like a harbinger.
Griffin was no doubt overwrought. He tossed back the healthy measure of the whiskey in his glass and ordered himself to stop looking for myth when there was nothing but a marriage. What did he expect? He had never been married before. It was not an institution he had ever intended to experience personally. Not after witnessing his parents’ ritual abuse of the sanctity of their own union.
Or, as he liked to call it, his fondest childhood memories. All of them lies of one sort or another.
And ifhewas finding forbearance hard to come by tonight, what must it be like for Melody? She might not have been chained in a basement, but she had been sheltered all the same. In the most literal sense.
He needed to think less about his own contradictory feelings and more about what she must be feeling, ripped out of the only home she knew. Even if that home had been with the vile Aristotle Skyros, change was always hard.
Griffin ordered himself to be benevolent.
Wasn’t that the point of all this?
“I know that wedding nights are more typically spent in baser pursuits,” he said, aware as he spoke that it was still as if he was...outside his skin somehow. He rubbed at his face, suddenly more relieved than he should have been that this new bride of his who was unsettling him so comprehensively couldn’t actuallyseeher handiwork. He knew he should have hated himself for that, but there was far too long a list already. “But that is not something that need concern us. I will not impose upon you, if you were worried. You can rest easy on that score.”
There was a pause.
Griffin heard a loud noise and it took him far too long to realize it was his own pulse, a racket in his ears.
As if he was the person panicked tonight. He, who was renowned for his calm under any and all pressures.
His bride curved her lips into something small and demure. “You are too good.”
He found himself studying her again, because he didn’t believe that smile. Not when she’d sounded so...dry. Or was he imbuing her with a personality that would better suit that heat in him that he was doing his best to keep tamped down?
You’re terrible at charity, Griffin growled at himself, which was not exactly news.The poor thing is no doubt petrified. Focus on that, not yourself, if you can.
“I’m aware I have a certain reputation,” he said, as gently as he could. Because perhaps it was best to address everything head-on. To have the sort of conversation most people—even people in arranged marriages like his—surely had before taking their vows, even if the topic was business or wealth and property consolidation in lieu of poetry or romance. Not that it mattered much when the end result would be the same. “I want to make sure you know that you will never have to bear the burden of it.”
“Is it burdensome?” Again, that dry tone when her face better resembled that of a distant saint carved into marble. Or, more likely, he was hallucinating that contradiction in her because he was self-serving to the core. If Griffin had any virtue at all, it was that he knew himself too well. “I was always under the impression that you enjoyed yourself. Thoroughly.”
“The burden was not mine, Melody.” Her name in his mouth...did not help. “It was my brother’s. He wished to promise the kingdom that the royal family was reformed. But it was not Orion who needed reforming.”
“You are very kind to reorder your life to please your brother. Even if he is the King.”
“I was under the impression you did much the same for your sister.”
“Didn’t you hear?” Melody’s voice was light. Yet ironic, he would have said—had she been anyone else. “She was doing me the favor.”
“The honor is mine,” he said, inclining his head slightly as if she could see his courtly gestures.
He knew she couldn’t. Yet the way she tilted her head slightly to one side almost made him wonder.
“You are too kind, Your Royal Highness.”
“We are wed.” His voice was starched straight through. “You must call me Griffin.”
“Griffin, then.”
And they both sat there a moment. She looked as remote as she did beautiful. He found himself wondering what on earth he’d gotten himself into.
He did not think about the way she’d said his name.
Melody turned her glass in her hand, but not as if she was fidgeting. It was more as if she was...considering it. That didn’t make sense. “If our marriage is in name only, does that mean that you will continue your... ah...exploits as before?”
For a moment, Griffin forgot who she was. For a moment, this was no more and no less than a dance he knew far better than the waltz they’d performed in front of the world.
