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The usual irritation he felt when Elsbeth became all tongue-tied refused to form. He couldn’t even summon irritation that she’d proven herself a liar, and about something as petty as coffee no less. Instead there was a weird compulsion to palm her scarlet cheeks and swear on his life that no harm would ever come to her.
Shaking the strange compulsion off, now aware that a tension had formed, that it wasn’t only Elsbeth holding her breath but also his brother and sister-in-law, who likely had no idea why they were holding their breaths or any notion of where the tension had come from.
Placing his elbow on the table, he propped his chin on his hand and murmured in French, ‘You know, Elsbeth, confession is good for the soul?’
Her stare remained stark on him.
‘Is there something you wish to confess?’ he continued. ‘Something, say, about marrying into a family of coffee fiends, in a country of coffee connoisseurs, and feeling obliged to hide your aversion to the glorious black stuff so as not to be drowned in a vat of it? Because, let me assure you, we haven’t drowned non-coffee-drinkers here for at least two hundred years.’
A few beats later, having had to wait for the punchline while Marcelo translated for her, Clara gave a bark of laughter. The sound of it seemed to snap Elsbeth out of her panic. In an instant, her features were transformed. Her lips curved into a smile that tugged at her eyes, her whole face lighting up into something so beautiful that Amadeo’s heart skipped a beat. A giggle flew out of her mouth, sounding like music to his ears—hehadn’timagined her earlier one—and then her hand flew to cover it.
Her shoulders shook a few times before she removed her hand and looked him squarely in the eye. ‘Okay. I confess. I hate coffee.’
‘And coffee profiteroles?’
Her cheeks caught fire again but she nodded. ‘Coffee in all its forms.’
It was on the tip of his tongue to tell her she should have spoken up before, that approving items she disliked on her own wedding menu was masochistic, but he held it back. She would take it as criticism and slip back into her vacuous shell.
How he could be so certain of this, he didn’t know, and nor did he know what it was about criticism that affected her so much, but he did know this was not something he could draw out of her with an audience.
In his mind flashed an unbidden image of stripping Elsbeth of all the shields and masks she hid behind. It was an image that sent a short but potent stab of lust burning through him.
CHAPTER SIX
AMADEOSHIFTEDHISweight off Elsbeth and rolled onto his back. It was a struggle to catch his breath.
Doing his duty was incrementally feeling less like duty. Less like a chore.
As she always did after they’d come together, Elsbeth lay silently beside him. He knew she’d climaxed, was becoming attuned to the signs, the shortening breaths, the barely perceptible mewing, was learning the motions that tipped her over the edge and made her thicken around him and her fingers press into his back. Afterwards, she would lay her hands neatly by her sides, the only sign that she’d enjoyed what they’d just shared the rapid beats of her heart pounding through their joined chests until he rolled off her and she folded her hands neatly over her abdomen and lay in silence until he wished her a goodnight.
Her hands were neatly folded over her abdomen now.
What was she thinking? Her mind wasn’t the blank canvas he’d believed. The wind-up doll persona was only a persona. So what was she thinking as she lay silently beside him, waiting for him to leave? Was she imagining how she would spend the next day? Thinking of her family? Formulating maths equations that had the potential to change the world?
Or was she thinking of him, as he was thinking of her? Was she silently encouraging him to go and leave her in peace so she could sleep? Was she wondering why he hadn’t left already? She wouldn’t ask him to leave. His wife might be an enigma to him but he knew that much.
‘How did you suffer under Dominic?’ he asked. The question had swirled in his mind since their earlier conversation at dinner.
She took a long time to answer. ‘I didn’t say I’d suffered. I said women suffer under him. I spoke out of turn.’
‘So you didn’t suffer under him?’
‘It depends on your definition of suffering.’
‘Why are you prevaricating?’
She fell silent again.
Trying to keep the frustration from his voice, he said, ‘Elsbeth, I am trying to understand you. Iwantto understand you. But you don’t make it easy. Stories have circulated about the House of Fernandez for a long time.’
‘What kind of stories?’
‘That Dominic rules with an iron fist—not his people but those within his sphere: his family and the courtiers and staff who work for him. That his sister Catalina fled Monte Cleure and refuses to return while he is alive because he used to beat her. That he’s paid off a number of lovers to gag them from sharing tales of his depravity. I’ve known the man all my life and none of the stories about him come as a surprise. His reputation alone was enough for me and my parents to refuse talks of him marrying my sister, and that was before he kidnapped Clara.’
‘You refused permission for Alessia to marry him?’
‘I wouldn’t marry my worst enemy to him. Clara calls him King Pig which is, I think, far too generous a title. He would have forced her to marry him and forced himself on her if Marcelo hadn’t rescued her. And now I have told you what I think, I would like to hear your thoughts about him.’
