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“We had good reasons for lying,” Lancelot insisted.
“And for sleeping with me?”
Lancelot winced as if she’d reached out and slapped him.
“That was…” He stopped himself from finishing the sentence, but she knew what he’d meant to add.
“A mistake.” Her voice broke on the words, and she hated herself for the tears suddenly clouding her vision. She blinked rapidly to stem the tears, wiping them away with the back of her good hand. “It was a mistake.”
Hugo shook his head. “No. It wasn’t.”
She and Lancelot both looked at the Frenchman. Hugo’s features had hardened, his voice strong and sure. “It wasn’t a mistake. Lying to you was, but nothing that happened between the three of us in your bedroom, in that living room, was a lie. Not one second of it. It was the most real thing I’ve ever experienced in my life.”
“He’s right,” Lancelot said, drawing her attention back to his face. There was guilt in his expression, deep lines around his eyes and mouth drawn there by regret. “We were wrong to lie to you about why we were really in Charleston, Sylvia, wrong to take you to bed without telling you the truth first, but what we did, the things we shared…I can’t regret that, and I can’t pretend it was a mistake. It was…fook.” Lancelot ran his hand through his auburn hair. “It was perfect.”
She closed her eyes, cursing her foolish heart for beating faster, for allowing their words to touch her, warm her. Sylvia fought hard to batten down the shutters. “This Masters’ Admiralty…it’s real?”
Hugo nodded. “It is.”
“What did Alicia tell you about it?” Lancelot asked.
Sylvia shook her head. “I’d rather you tell me about it.”
Both men were sitting in chairs they’d pulled next to the bed, but at her request, they shifted, each moving to sit on the edge of the mattress. She should have told them to keep their distance, but the truth was…she was still cold, even with the pile of blankets on top of her. The chill of the ocean, the fear of almost dying, had gone bone-deep, turning everything inside her to ice. With Hugo and Lancelot closer, she could almost feel the heat they radiated. It was all fanciful imaginings on her part, but real or not, she needed their warmth and longed for some sort of closeness that might drive out the terror of seeing the sun vanish as the dark, cold water of the ocean swallowed her. She needed someone here, near, to remind her she was alive, she was breathing, and she wasn’t alone. Even if she had to take that comfort from these two men who’d lied to her.
Hugo cleared his throat. “You understand what we’re about to tell you is a secret. One that you can’t share with anyone. Not your brother or your parents. No one. If the fleet admiral finds out…”
“I understand.” That wasn’t a promise to keep it a secret, it was an acknowledgment of his request. They’d lied to her, so she would wait to hear what they had to say before agreeing to keep any secrets.
Hugo glanced at Lancelot as if seeking validation that what he was doing was okay. Lancelot gave one short nod.
“The fleet admiral?” she asked. Despite her determination to force them to tell her what was going on, the phrase had struck her as odd. “Is it military?”
“No,” Hugo said. “Perhaps it would be best to start at the beginning, to give you some background knowledge first. The Masters’ Admiralty was founded in 1347 in Venice, during the height of the Black Plague.”
For the next half hour or so, Hugo, ever the lecturer, told her the history of the secret society, explaining the hierarchy and the territories. His voice was calm and gentle as he drew a picture for her of a world she’d never known existed. Unlike Alicia, who’d painted the organization in black, condemning the members as greedy elitists, Hugo’s descriptions revealed a better society, one that existed for the sole purpose of improving the world. Alicia spoke of the Galactic Empire, while Hugo saw Jedi Knights.
She grinned as she considered her comparison, the look causing Hugo to stop talking.
“Is something funny?”
She shook her head, not wanting to confess to her nerd girl love of all things Star Wars. Sylvia figured she was entitled to keep that secret considering they’d hidden the fact they were members of a super-elite, centuries’ old society.
Hugo looked like he might press her, but then he picked up his explanations and she felt as if he was telling her a fantastical bedtime story. One that included knights and admirals and even an Italian princess.
“Part of the cost of membership is that we agree to arranged marriages.”
Sylvia had been waiting to see if that part of Alicia’s story had been true. “She said women were forced into marriage.”
Hugo frowned. “No one—male or female—has the right to choose their partners.”
“Partners?”
“She didn’t…tell you…” Hugo blew out a long breath. “The arranged marriages are not between two people. The marriages of the Masters’ Admiralty are trinity marriages.”
Sylvia blinked. “You mean…”
“Arranged ménage marriages,” Hugo confirmed.
