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My eyes close in a slow blink. The next thing I know, we’re alone inside our suites with the weight of our new reality settling between us.
“Are you seriously injured?” Remy asks in a flat tone.
He knows I was hurt in the dungeons, but he doesn’t know the extent. And he doesn’t know about the shoes.
I consider the wounds on my feet that he can do nothing about—comparing them to actual life-threatening damage I’ve sustained in the past—and decide on something close to the truth.
“No.”
He glances down to assess my features, likely looking for signs that I’m lying.
“Would you tell me if you were?” he presses.
I attempt to shrug, but it’s impossible with his arms wrapped around me. “Well, I wouldn’t let you wake up to a corpse, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Good to know the romance in our relationship isn’t dead just yet,” he mutters, dumping me unceremoniously—albeit gently—onto the bed.
Rose petals shift around me, and a charming fire crackles in the hearth. The space is cozy, romantic. Suffocating.
It’s on the tip of my tongue to ask why he married me if he’s this irritated about it, but I’m not sure I actually want the answer tonight. So I say nothing, and hope he won’t either.
Of course, that would be asking too much.
“Why did your stepmother leave before she could enjoy the wedding she orchestrated?”
My heart drops into my stomach, but I tell myself it’s a valid question, one that has nothing to do with Madame on the surface. Lady Delmarahadplayed a hand in arranging for Remy to be matched with me.
“She’s been ill,” I remind him, giving the same excuse that Mother has used to evade the court since Einar’s arrival.
“She seemed quite spirited when I saw her,” he comments drily.
“Well, I’m sure she found some strength under the circumstances, considering that her daughter was locked in the dungeons only hours before and about to be sent to the gallows,” I say. Then, because his lack of response feels utterly unconvinced, I tack on, “The argument with your mother probably didn’t help either.”
It’s a guess, but why else would Mother have been stalking furiously out of the castle just as the ball began?
He nods, and I resist the urge to let out a sigh of relief. His eyes stay on me as he walks to a chest of drawers and pulls out two shirts and one set of pants, tossing one of the shirts in my direction.
“Your things will be here in the morning,” he informs me in a distant voice.
I nod as I catch it, not sure what to say. Even if I could wrestle out of this dress on my own, I would lose the concealment the skirts have to offer. I’m stuck with these clothes until Zaina gets me the solution I need for my shoes.
I bite back a sigh.
All in all, I suppose sleeping in a whalebone corset isn’t the worst torture I’ve ever had to endure.
Remy turns away from me and busies himself pouring a drink. Several times he sucks in a breath to speak, then lets it back out before settling on silence once again.
The hesitation is out of character for him, but I tell myself it’s only because nothing about this situation is normal.
There’s a pervasive feeling in the air, like I’ve walked to the gallows after all. The noose is around my neck, and I am waiting for the floor to drop from underneath me.
But when he finally turns and speaks, it’s even worse than that.
“Were you ever going to tell me that you worked for the woman who had my brother murdered?”
CHAPTERFOUR
REMY
